Fractal Softworks Forum

Starsector => General Discussion => Blog Posts => Topic started by: David on August 16, 2017, 08:51:39 AM

Title: A True and Accurate History of the Persean Sector
Post by: David on August 16, 2017, 08:51:39 AM: Blog post here (http://fractalsoftworks.com/2017/08/16/a-true-and-accurate-history-of-the-persean-sector/).
Title: Re: A True and Accurate History of the Persean Sector
Post by: SafariJohn on August 16, 2017, 09:23:49 AM: Lots of fun stuff :D

Edit:
Out of all the things I could ask about, I'll pick one:

"In response to discovery of Tri-Tachyon backdoors installed in hyperspace relay hardware, the Hegemony orders its internal hyperwave network destroyed. Interstellar communications falls back to packet ships"

Does this mean we'll get courier missions in the next version? Maybe we'll even see courier ships going from place to place? Or have most factions gone back to (or kept) using hyperwave networks?
Title: Re: A True and Accurate History of the Persean Sector
Post by: David on August 16, 2017, 10:20:52 AM: Quote from: SafariJohn on August 16, 2017, 09:23:49 AM
"In response to discovery of Tri-Tachyon backdoors installed in hyperspace relay hardware, the Hegemony orders its internal hyperwave network destroyed. Interstellar communications falls back to packet ships"

Does this mean we'll get courier missions in the next version? Maybe we'll even see courier ships going from place to place? Or have most factions gone back to (or kept) using hyperwave networks?

Real answer: haven't really decided.

Speculative answer: I think the existence of hyperwave relays in Hegemony spaces implies that they got set back up again with, presumably, non-Tri-Tachyon hardware components. It's quite possible they still wouldn't entirely trust the hardware so it'd be entirely a matter of degrees-of-confidence. Packet runs would surely be a thing. As for the player handling them? Not sure! Depends on if they'd contribute something interesting to the game, and how that looks depends on Other Things. :-X
Title: Re: A True and Accurate History of the Persean Sector
Post by: ciago92 on August 16, 2017, 10:24:54 AM: Love all the backstory!

Couple possible minor spelling issues:
"The Teaching: In which Ludd starts spiritual “clubs” for those who “seek galactic redeption”. "
"Similarly, much of Tri-Tachyon’s infrastructure is devasted – or dismantled in the post-war settlement.
"TTS Invincle, Paragon-class battleship"
Title: Re: A True and Accurate History of the Persean Sector
Post by: Drokkath on August 16, 2017, 11:55:05 AM: Good grief.. read all of it and it just gave me even more reasons for my anti-hero sentient alien and/or anti-hero sentient machine characters to declare an all-out extermination on all of the factions in the game liberally! Peace to the sector, yay! :D

Spoiler
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tr89EG6cqPQ
[close]
Title: Re: A True and Accurate History of the Persean Sector
Post by: Midnight Kitsune on August 16, 2017, 12:59:13 PM: The ticker/ news alert links at the top of the forums are still showing the previous blog post
Title: Re: A True and Accurate History of the Persean Sector
Post by: Alex on August 16, 2017, 01:06:08 PM: (Whoops, updated. Thank you!)
Title: Re: A True and Accurate History of the Persean Sector
Post by: xenoargh on August 16, 2017, 01:19:33 PM: Some critique, kindly meant.

In general... the overall story is interesting, although there are parts that feel like they could use an editing pass. The early bits, especially, don't paint a coherent picture of "this is where you are now"- the very first bits about having to pay the Recovery Installment Plan, etc., set a nice tone of Dystopia.

If you could clone yourselves or your "brain tape" in the case of death, e.g., the classic Lord British / Chuckles game Autoduel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoduel)... that would be a cute nod, indeed.

Past that early bit, I feel like the story could use more editing. There just isn't quite enough meat on the bones. We change contexts and conversations a little too quickly, and there are too many different voices being used.

For example: how did we become Space Captains? Were we pilots before all this started? Are their automated ships full of cryosleeping people still arriving in the Sector? Are there large numbers of ancient cryopods floating around in various places? Or is the Player an ex-member of XIV?

None of this got touched, even though the story implies it could be interpreted in a lot of ways.

I like how the collapse of the Domain Gate Network is once again, left as a total mystery (Was it Ludd? Was it merely coincidence?).

A fun factoid you might want to put in there is something like, "a long-range fleet was constructed and is en-route to the nearest other Sector, but it will be 200 years before it arrives" to tie in with the Warlord Loke story (which echoes the XIV story, nice touch) with a believable explanation as to why, after all this time, there's been no word; the Gate Haulers might be on their way via slower FTL, rather than Gate jumps, but we'll never know.

However, I don't really like the idea that the Gates are inert objects throughout. Perhaps Gates need to be "tuned" to one another, and what happened wiped out the tuning data; that seems pretty unbelievable (it's the Future; we'd have backups for our backups' backups) but an "AI virus weapon" might be a good-enough bit of hand-waving (well, presuming the Ludd Story is true, rather than all the fun alternatives).

I feel like there wasn't quite enough centrality to the story, though. The thing about the Mechwarrior and Car Wars stories was that, while they could, at best, be described as, "thin excuses for the gameplay mechanics", they were at least that. The problem with the Starsector backstory is that, past, "the Gates crashed, everything's gone to hell" there just isn't quite enough Stuff there to indicate how a player might find a route to be an agent of change.

In Mechwarrior, you could be anything from a mercenary-company executive to one of the leaders of the Houses. The central story- the death of the Hegemony, the known galaxy disintegrates into warring feudal states after a horrific Civil War reduces the technological knowledge base by a huge amount, etc., provided props for the player to construct goals around, even though these weren't explicitly built into the game.

In Starsector, with the introduction of Outposts and all that implies, we have a sandbox where, potentially, we can write various stories, like "helped the Hegemony to finally control the Sector", "Killed all humanity that wasn't the Player Faction through cataclysmic use of PKs", "Served the Tri-Tachyon Corporation as it rebuilt its resource base to wage AI War III", etc., etc.

But, ultimately, we need a hook here and there. The story can't just just be self-built. There has to be some structural elements in place. The strongest part of the entire game right now is the Tutorial, where, hand-holding and all, we suddenly have a context to our actions that isn't merely, "kill stuff, get monies, use monies to buy more things to kill stuff".

SS needs more of that to achieve classic status.

The core gameplay mechanics are fine. I'm sure that once the Economy's straightened out and Outposts are a thing, it'll be in a good place, in terms of fundamental mechanics; sure, there are areas here and there that need cleanup (like, for example, tying the Intel UI intelligently to the Mission Board in Stations so that the game feels less like it's full of redundant UIs) but these are polish details, for the most part.

The important thing, once the fundamentals are built, is that there should be structural elements to introduce both causality and to provide reasons and moral imperatives (for example, taking a mission to peacefully re-integrate a colony that's rebelling might involve bringing said colony some resources and negotiating a compromise, or a choice to take advantage of the situation and take over leadership of the colony yourself). We need missions with more structure and moral context so that our actions feel more meaningful and our emotional attachment is greater. If there's any one issue I had with the Tutorial Mission, it was that there was no peaceful resolution of the Pirate Station's problems, by filching the data, avoiding fights, and then presenting them with the fait accompli of the Gate's re-activation and your temporary credentials as a Hegemony representative; that would have given the missions a greater coda, if you took a non-violent route (as it is, you're always going to want to fight, for the XP gains; it's the best situation of easy XP you get in the early game).

Little notes:

Colonel not Colonal, heh. It would also be nice if Kanta had a female first name; her sex is unclear in the text until suddenly: "spaces the Loke loyalists left on her station".

"PK" as a short-hand for "Planet-Killer" needs to be introduced a little earlier; it's suddenly stuck in there and we're supposed to puzzle it out. It'd be interesting to explore what a PK means, as well; probably, for low-tech colonies, it's merely a big chunk of something driven to near-c, but for major worlds, one presumes it's a massive AM warhead or something else that's seriously dangerous; one would presume that basic technology for protecting planets with serious Shields was pretty normal for this universe, frankly.
Title: Re: A True and Accurate History of the Persean Sector
Post by: SafariJohn on August 16, 2017, 01:20:10 PM: Love the wild speculation in the excerpt from Tri-Truth: The AI Plot Behind The Collapse. Because 90 years totally isn't enough time to build up huge AI death fleets.

I'm not saying there can't be some truth to it, but ::)
Title: Re: A True and Accurate History of the Persean Sector
Post by: xenoargh on August 16, 2017, 01:22:21 PM: I like how it's implied that there may be a few XIV vessels superior to what we know about still in Hegemony hands- the bit about "Much of the irreplaceable XIV Battlegroup matériel was destroyed in this war" implies there might be things out there we haven't seen yet.

I'm looking forward to fighting an ancient Boss Ship, heh.
Title: Re: A True and Accurate History of the Persean Sector
Post by: David on August 16, 2017, 01:50:56 PM: Quote from: ciago92 on August 16, 2017, 10:24:54 AM
Couple possible minor spelling issues:

(Spellings fixed, thanks!)

Quote from: xenoargh on August 16, 2017, 01:19:33 PM
Some critique, kindly meant.

I will say, structurally, the introduction is definitely just a framing device for what's really a dump of mission timeline notes. As for where the player comes from, that's very much up to you at this point in development and I can't comment on how/if that would change.

The extreme focus on detail around the Second AI War is a result of most of the missions being related to that period. I'd like to expand this (the internal document, that is) to include events hinted at in the descriptions of all the planets and in-game objects to make one master timeline so we'll have a canonical document to check settings stuff by, but that's a laborious and ongoing effort (too much for one blog post, for sure). It might be nice to revisit the idea of showing the setting timeline with greater detail when it gets fleshed out a bit more.

As for how the blog post contents apply to the game, I consider the game to be its own experience. We're not going to put this blog post in at the start as some kind of rolling Star Wars text, don't worry. Consider this a peek at our notes with a light framing device and some fun pictures which may perhaps hint at certain things in the current or future game experience.
Title: Re: A True and Accurate History of the Persean Sector
Post by: Drokkath on August 16, 2017, 02:36:42 PM: I prefer leaving player's options open also, too strict storyline and set-in-stone player's background can just ruin it all beyond repair in terms of background RPG storyline freedom, just take a good look at what happened with Starbound, hint: You always start out as a next-in-line new hero and a member of the Protectorate. Every - single - time. Same goes for games like Fallout 4 and other RPG games where you are essentially stuck with only one or two character choice basically and that just rips out too many possibilities and ways to be a different character with different starting point. I highly prefer the old-school way of making up your own story whenever creating a new character and not getting some strict storyline in-game shoved down one's throat.

As for this Persean League introduction for example, sorry but I'd rather not be in that human's body and shoes, I reject it 110% as I'd rather start out as an alien almost each time and tear through xenophobic and otherwise nasty humies only with will and wrath, rage and rampage, to rip and tear until silence of the massacre's aftermath hits.
Title: Re: A True and Accurate History of the Persean Sector
Post by: Dri on August 16, 2017, 02:45:36 PM: Damn, what a juicy lore dump!

I hope we'll be able to interact with some of the major characters in some way—CEO Artemisia Sun, Warlord Kanta, the High Hegemon.
Title: Re: A True and Accurate History of the Persean Sector
Post by: xenoargh on August 16, 2017, 02:55:38 PM: It's not a bad thing to have an established backstory for the character, in and of itself; it gives the game a bit of initial structure.

In the case of StarBound, it establishes Victory Conditions. That's different; that'd be like picking a Faction at the beginning and being required to solve that Faction's problems to achieve victory. That isn't terrible as an idea, btw; but it's probably out-of-scope for a project as small as SS, because that requires quite a lot of background coding to achieve.

In the case of Fallout IV, it's actually a great example of, "how not to do that", because the backstory, while lavishly explained, is then completely undercut by the gameplay itself.

In the case of Fallout I, it's done perfectly, for a sandbox game; you're the person who's supposed to save the Vault. How you do it, when you do it, and how many people you murder along the way is up to you.

In Mount and Blade, it's given to you as a series of choices, that weakly interact with the rest of the game. That's not terrible, although it leaves the game feeling a bit cold and incoherent at times. Some of the major mods for that game really improved upon that and made the sandbox parts connect with the whole better.

In the case of another space-opera classic, Freelancer, all of the sandbox parts are set within a structural mesh of a linear, story-driven series of missions. It's not bad either, even though it wasn't nearly as dynamic as people would've liked. But it didn't have a real point past the final storyline mission.

I think it's fair to say that just being dropped into, "kill stuff, get monies, kill again" is a recipe for a game that can only succeed if the "kill stuff" part is beyond reproach, frankly, and even then, it takes all the core gameplay that's been built thus far and puts it into a box of, "side-stuff you might want to do when not killing stuff", rather than giving it any sense of dimension.

This is one of the problems with the game that it's had since its inception; I wasn't kidding when I said the Tutorial Missions were the strongest part. They're the only part of 0.8 where I felt like I was acting as a moral agent, as opposed to the rest of the game, where I murder thousands in my quest to "get monies". There are plenty of ways to accomplish this within a framework that's essentially a sandbox in nature.
Title: Re: A True and Accurate History of the Persean Sector
Post by: Drokkath on August 16, 2017, 03:08:31 PM: Aye, Fallout 1 sure shined! Despite being probably the first Vault Dweller ever with potential to truly make one's bloody mark on the whole future of the wasteland, one was/is still able to replay it with a character that has different goals in mind. It's what I was thinking of in my mind more-or-less earlier but didn't manage to put it into words as good, thanks.
Title: Re: A True and Accurate History of the Persean Sector
Post by: xenoargh on August 16, 2017, 03:12:49 PM: No problem, sometimes we all mean similar things but language gets in the way :)

Honestly, I've always thought that Fallout I was one of the best examples ever of "how to do a sandbox right". The only bad part about was the timer before the Vault died, that prevented you from playing forever without completing the main quest line, imo.
Title: Re: A True and Accurate History of the Persean Sector
Post by: StarSchulz on August 16, 2017, 04:05:40 PM: You know, after reading all of that i think i might just go do a Luddic playthrough. they seem nice.
Title: Re: A True and Accurate History of the Persean Sector
Post by: Megas on August 16, 2017, 06:26:12 PM: None of the established polities look like anything I want to fight for, except to use them then dump them after I get through using them. I would like to build the biggest empire in the sector... or just destroy and raze everything to the ground if I do not care to run an empire.
Title: Re: A True and Accurate History of the Persean Sector
Post by: Protonus on August 17, 2017, 01:19:36 AM: Quote from: Megas on August 16, 2017, 06:26:12 PM
None of the established polities look like anything I want to fight for, except to use them then dump them after I get through using them. I would like to build the biggest empire in the sector... or just destroy and raze everything to the ground if I do not care to run an empire.

*Evil Overlord in the making*
Title: Re: A True and Accurate History of the Persean Sector
Post by: DatonKallandor on August 17, 2017, 04:42:26 AM: I really like that the Hegemony can't stop getting into civil wars and spawning warlords. They're a bunch of bigger backstabbers than the Megacorp!
Title: Re: A True and Accurate History of the Persean Sector
Post by: Gothars on August 17, 2017, 05:57:28 AM: Enjoyable read, thanks for that! The framing is inspired by Chasm City, isn't it? :)

I like the new character portraits (Kanta looks fearsome!), makes me hopeful that we'll start seeing real characters with the next version.

Are the Domain drones we see in the Sector all part of the third wave? I wonder how the others waves might have looked.

Quote
The Luddic faithful contemplate/perform a series of scenes which represent the life and death of the Prophet Ludd. This “spiritual road” is often a literal traversal of space past a number of shrines, dioramas, or live re-enactings, the scale of which may vary wildly depending on the intended scope of the ritual.

You know, this makes me wish the requirements for a commission would be more faction-specific. To go on a pilgrimage to join the Ludds sounds perfect.
Title: Re: A True and Accurate History of the Persean Sector
Post by: Histidine on August 17, 2017, 06:05:26 AM: 8/10 would include in Hegemony preschool curriculum

Are there plans to reveal just what happened to Earth (and why nobody bothered restoring it)? Asteroid impact, mass plague (biological or nanotech), "Final War", plain old environmental degradation, or something totally far out?
Title: Re: A True and Accurate History of the Persean Sector
Post by: Megas on August 17, 2017, 06:39:22 AM: @ Protonus: Well, like D&D, the point is to kill things, take their stuff, get stronger, repeat until the end.

As for factions, let's see. Domain are greedy imperialists. Hegemony is either lawful stupid heroes (for blindly following bad laws or tradition) at best or more greedy imperialists (Domain v2) at worst. Tri-Tachyon (and their Remnant minions) appears to be run by a sinister, possibly inhuman, entity. Persean League (and possibly Sindrian Diktat) appears to be a group of petty warlords united only by their opposition to the Hegemony. Luddic everything appears to be unholy cults started by a false prophet and are currently run by a coven of warlocks (while masquerading as something resembling Christianity to hide their true nature and attract the masses). Pirates are just inept amateurs whose have not the success of the major powers.

With the above two combined, it makes sense to breakout and become either emperor or destroyer.
Title: Re: A True and Accurate History of the Persean Sector
Post by: FooF on August 17, 2017, 07:32:47 AM: Strangely enough, this lore post makes the sector feel less dystopian than before. Perhaps that's the intent, I don't know.

What I don't see is the contrast between the Domain "Golden Age" and the current Sector in terms of culture, technology, etc. I have nothing to gauge how far the Sector "fell" from the Collapse. If the Persean Sector was a "backwater system," how mighty were the core sectors of the Domain? The current sector still has FTL, hyperspace, planet-killers, advanced AI, vast manufacturing capability and terraforming tech (as far as I can tell). Beyond the gates themselves, the Domain doesn't appear to be all that superior (again, perhaps that's the intent?)

I do enjoy the multiple choice answer for why the Collapse happened, especially the conspiracy theories. The Collapse was an inside job... ;)

I'm not envisioning Planet Killers being Death Stars or the like. There are two reports of their use in this blog and a few in-game (not sure if they're the same). There are also quite a named core planets that have been glassed but not destroyed. I'm curious if PK weaponry is prevalent enough that each side is abiding by mutually-assured-destruction cold wars or if they're hard enough to pull off that they're only used in desperate times. It would seem the destruction of Opis was completely by surprise. Surely only the major factions have access to PKs?

The wide-view history is necessary and welcome but so would a few smaller slice-of-life stories from the Sector. The Ship's Log of Salvage Dave was fantastic in this regard.

@ Megas

Influences I see:

Domain: Roman Empire under Trajan
Hegemony: Byzantium Empire
Tri-Tach: Weyland-Yutani
Sindrian Diktat: Colonel Kurtz taken to an extreme degree
Persean League: Mafia cabal
Luddic Church: Baha'i faith with monastic hierarchy. Really, more of a counter-culture movement and repudiation of Domain tech dressed in ritual.
- Knights of Ludd: Knights Templar
- Luddic Path: Zealots/Sicarii
Pirates: well...pirates :)

There are no "good guys," which is fitting but after this blog post, the Hegemony comes out looking a little cleaner, the Persean League is painted in a terrible light, Tri-Tach is still shrouded in mystery but are obviously misanthropic corporate overlords, and the Luddic Church are agrarian monks...with spaceships. The Diktat seems to be the result of the Hegemony being myopic in regards to Andrada and the admiral himself seems to have bought into his own own hype. That he's still around ruling the Diktat 50 years later (I presume he's still alive) is a testament to his charisma and loyalty.

By the way, due to tech, are average lifespans in the hundreds? Warlord Kanta was a colonel in C+160, so I'm assuming she was in her 40's at that point and if she's still kicking in current (C+206) time, that puts her over one hundred. Same with Admiral Andrada who is perhaps a bit younger.
Title: Re: A True and Accurate History of the Persean Sector
Post by: Althaea on August 17, 2017, 08:32:58 AM: Quote from: FooF on August 17, 2017, 07:32:47 AM
Persean League: Mafia cabal

Not sure I would go quite that far. More like NATO with a more unified military (though less internally stable).

Quote from: FooF on August 17, 2017, 07:32:47 AM
By the way, due to tech, are average lifespans in the hundreds? Warlord Kanta was a colonel in C+160, so I'm assuming she was in her 40's at that point and if she's still kicking in current (C+206) time, that puts her over one hundred. Same with Admiral Andrada who is perhaps a bit younger.

Life extension technology has been mentioned before, including, IIRC, in the case of Kanta, who was known to be centuries old.

Kanta does not look to have weathered the years terribly well, of course there's numerous possible explanations for that, such as a limitation with the life-extension technology/genetic engineering or simply due to her lifestyle.
Title: Re: A True and Accurate History of the Persean Sector
Post by: FooF on August 17, 2017, 09:53:39 AM: Quote from: alguLoD on August 17, 2017, 08:32:58 AM
Not sure I would go quite that far. More like NATO with a more unified military (though less internally stable).

Ha. I didn't read the source of the Persean League quote (Hegemony propaganda). ;D I thought it was a little too on the nose. Yeah, NATO is probably a fair analogy.
Title: Re: A True and Accurate History of the Persean Sector
Post by: David on August 17, 2017, 10:37:39 AM: Quote from: FooF on August 17, 2017, 09:53:39 AM
Quote from: alguLoD on August 17, 2017, 08:32:58 AM
Not sure I would go quite that far. More like NATO with a more unified military (though less internally stable).
Ha. I didn't read the source of the Persean League quote (Hegemony propaganda). ;D I thought it was a little too on the nose. Yeah, NATO is probably a fair analogy.

(Well! Technically the words of an Askonian rebel group being released by the Hegemony to help discredit the League. It can never be simple.)

Quote from: FooF on August 17, 2017, 07:32:47 AM
By the way, due to tech, are average lifespans in the hundreds? Warlord Kanta was a colonel in C+160, so I'm assuming she was in her 40's at that point and if she's still kicking in current (C+206) time, that puts her over one hundred. Same with Admiral Andrada who is perhaps a bit younger.

Various means of extending lifespans are indeed possible in the Sector- for the rich and well-connected, at least.

Quote from: FooF on August 17, 2017, 07:32:47 AM
What I don't see is the contrast between the Domain "Golden Age" and the current Sector in terms of culture, technology, etc. I have nothing to gauge how far the Sector "fell" from the Collapse. If the Persean Sector was a "backwater system," how mighty were the core sectors of the Domain? The current sector still has FTL, hyperspace, planet-killers, advanced AI, vast manufacturing capability and terraforming tech (as far as I can tell). Beyond the gates themselves, the Domain doesn't appear to be all that superior (again, perhaps that's the intent?)

(I'm thinking I should do a bit more to establish a baseline for the Domain that doesn't come from its critics. And even then, some less strident critics might end up a lot like "What have the Romans ever done for us!".)

Quote from: FooF on August 17, 2017, 07:32:47 AM
The wide-view history is necessary and welcome but so would a few smaller slice-of-life stories from the Sector. The Ship's Log of Salvage Dave was fantastic in this regard.

Oh I'd love to put more of a human touch into the game in various ways! And as ever, we're Up To Things. :-X

Quote from: FooF on August 17, 2017, 07:32:47 AM
Influences I see:

Domain: Roman Empire under Trajan
Hegemony: Byzantium Empire
Tri-Tach: Weyland-Yutani
Sindrian Diktat: Colonel Kurtz taken to an extreme degree
Persean League: Mafia cabal
Luddic Church: Baha'i faith with monastic hierarchy. Really, more of a counter-culture movement and repudiation of Domain tech dressed in ritual.
- Knights of Ludd: Knights Templar
- Luddic Path: Zealots/Sicarii

I think the Domain can't help but give off a Roman Empire vibe - totalizing empire collapses and everyone is left fighting or fighting-for its legacy.

Oh man, if the Hegemony somehow absorbed the Luddic Church then it'd totally be the Byzantine Empire. That's a neat idea :)

As for the Luddics, yeah, it's inevitable that some of the more recent sects of Christianity would slip in there, though I'm trying to look a bit further back to some degree to early Christianity and especially to all the English heretical movements from the medieval to early modern period, ie. Levellers, Lollards, though with the church itself much more embracing of ornate practices and hierarchy (because it's fun) while the Path is much stricter, militant, and aesthetic in its interpretations. The Luddite reference is obvious. The Pathers probably have a bit of that revolutionary peasant-Maoism from eg. the Shining Path (with an obvious name reference) via religion which at its worst ends up something like the Khmer Rouge, see: Mairaath.

(I'd like to work in more syncretism with eastern religions but I just know way more about the abrahamic religions, and the language around it all is so easily evocative in English.)
Title: Re: A True and Accurate History of the Persean Sector
Post by: Megas on August 17, 2017, 12:00:55 PM: Given the lore, the two factions I like the least (in terms of an angry or vain ingame character with an axe to grind) would be Tri-Tachyon for unleashing the Remnant menace and Luddic Church/Path for being wolves-in-sheeps' clothing. But, in the end, that will not matter if my character has evil ambitious of his own, and would like to use Tri-Tachyon as tools.
Title: Re: A True and Accurate History of the Persean Sector
Post by: John_A_Tallon on August 17, 2017, 01:34:56 PM: I really do love that portrait of Kanta. She looks every bit the multi-century old cyborg pirate queen, more a force of nature than a human being.
Title: Re: A True and Accurate History of the Persean Sector
Post by: DatonKallandor on August 17, 2017, 08:13:13 PM: I also agree that it makes the sector seem less dystopian and low-tech than I imagined. Hell, not only are Planetkillers a thing, they're still around even during the time we're flying around the sector.

Also, is the AI Wars happening after the gate shutdown and general galactic apocalypse a retcon? I was under the impression those were a Domain of Man thing long ago, but I could have just misunderstood (I don't mind it being a retcon if it is)
Title: Re: A True and Accurate History of the Persean Sector
Post by: SafariJohn on August 17, 2017, 08:19:29 PM: AI Wars have always been post-Collapse as far as I can remember
Title: Re: A True and Accurate History of the Persean Sector
Post by: Althaea on August 17, 2017, 09:46:26 PM: Safari is correct. Among other things, it should be noted that it is the High Hegemon who is quoted in regards to the AI battlestations all having been destroyed.
Title: Re: A True and Accurate History of the Persean Sector
Post by: CrashToDesktop on August 17, 2017, 11:24:07 PM: Quote from: DatonKallandor on August 17, 2017, 08:13:13 PM
Also, is the AI Wars happening after the gate shutdown and general galactic apocalypse a retcon? I was under the impression those were a Domain of Man thing long ago, but I could have just misunderstood (I don't mind it being a retcon if it is)
Advanced AI was banned in the Domain of Man (hence the Hegemony's enforcement of AI bans), though that didn't stop them from using swarms of low-level AI in the crushing of rebellions, what we now see as the rust buckets floating around near probes and other old Domain tech. Don't recall any lore about large-scale AI wars before the Collapse, the two we know of were afterwards.

In regards to the story that's coming about, still hoping for us to have to fight a rather pessimistic alpha-level AI blocking the gates in a massive battle with a massive battlestation with rotating bits blocking the heart of the AI system that you have to destroy worthy of a coalition (depending on who we side with, of course - the Tri-Tachyon might not appreciate us destroying their baby).
Title: Re: A True and Accurate History of the Persean Sector
Post by: King Alfonzo on August 18, 2017, 12:29:40 AM: This lore dump is pretty cool. I find the fact that the Luddic chruch may have occured due to Tri-Tachyon Shenanigans is both amazing and hilarious. But...

But there's something key missing from this lore dump.

One, glaring, forbidding and terrible absence that could spell doom to the sector.

What I think everyone wants to know is...

Spoiler
...when are you going to reveal the banana man aliens you teased a-ways back?
[close]
Title: Re: A True and Accurate History of the Persean Sector
Post by: DatonKallandor on August 18, 2017, 05:48:26 AM: The shocking lore reason there are so many Dickersons.
Title: Re: A True and Accurate History of the Persean Sector
Post by: Morrokain on August 25, 2017, 11:43:29 AM: I absolutely love lore posts!! ;D

Some good framework here!

So, Artemisia Sun is still alive, then, and leader of TriTachyon?

Also, I know Daud is Space Marshal, but who is the current High Hegemon?

Quote from: David on August 17, 2017, 10:37:39 AM

Various means of extending lifespans are indeed possible in the Sector- for the rich and well-connected, at least.

Ah good I am glad this was brought up!

One of my factions requires this kind of tech being present in the lore.. and some heavy gene manipulation to boot.
Title: Re: A True and Accurate History of the Persean Sector
Post by: Captain Draco on August 28, 2017, 03:40:43 AM: Some campaign like this added by tutorial would be nice; just gives us some options to progress in chosen direction like Space Wolves for example; or just say no to factions and play its as pure sandbox game which in my opinion would be optimal. Of course branching campaign is very time and resources intensive to write and then code for small developer team doubly so as Age of Decadence has proven.
Title: Re: A True and Accurate History of the Persean Sector
Post by: Drokkath on August 28, 2017, 06:11:13 PM: Quote from: Captain Draco on August 28, 2017, 03:40:43 AM
-snip- ..branching campaign is very time and resources intensive to write and then code for small developer team doubly so as Age of Decadence has proven.

Tell me about it. :-\ Bought and played that game myself, except I found it all rather too overwhelming. I like that old-school feel it has but at times I felt like I missed some hint or a detail and so had to reload the saved progress to look for something just to make sure, the problem wasn't really that because I enjoyed getting into combat again with my god-character in full high-end armor but rather the issue I kept running into were walls of text, one after another to a point I had to take a break to process and at times I felt like I was spending majority of the time reading than playing and every chance I got to break that boredom by getting a chance to solve something with my character's raw strength from a dialog option, using two-handed sword to add more to the bodycount, I took that chance.

It's pretty much why I prefer making up my own stories in my mind instead, rather than reading pages and pages of text and sometimes misreading or misunderstanding something as my eyes get scanlines of text burnt in. x_x
Title: Re: A True and Accurate History of the Persean Sector
Post by: Lorant on September 10, 2017, 03:38:51 AM: fun update! still for some reason, i always thought it was implied that the canonical ending for every mission was whichever side the player controlled was victorious. which meant the mayasuran fleet courageously batted the hegemony fleet back successfully for the memory of a world and the stolen futures of billions, but also a significant portion of the hegemony's newly rearmed fleet was shockingly routed by a fleet of prying researchers.

cool to hear more about orcus rao. am i understanding correctly that he became a hegemony officer after the events of "dire straits?" i've also always been really curious about what rao did during that battle that was a "complete inversion of his orders." i'm guessing nobody expected him to actually break the blockade in a proper battle instead of just escorting the freighters? also apparently, following the treaty of crom cruach, rao went back to mercenary work or at least the iss blackstar did? that's an interesting career trajectory, i suppose.
i'm also getting impression that warlord kanta's rise presaged pirates becoming a serious, organized threat to sector authorities, which might account for some of the weirdness of there being a pirate "faction," (kanta and her allies eventually hear about everything) but i realize that it's worth not thinking about it too much haha

and finally the fleshing out of the askonia crisis! imagine the mess of being involved in the internal combat of one of the mutinying ships. and oh dear god, the new tri-tach guard were attempting to use a planet-killer on chicomoztoc? yikes!

great post! it's totally put my mind off whatever alex could be doing.
Title: Re: A True and Accurate History of the Persean Sector
Post by: Igncom1 on November 30, 2017, 12:31:50 PM: Just makes me wish there were more faction skins for some of the ships so I could build more themed fleets.

Id totally play a Luddic Church run with lovely green battle fleets.