I took one look at the Weapon Drills desc
What's it stopped the Tri-Tach plot? (Guns!)
What was it ol' Ludd forgot? (Guns!)
What've we got that they have not? (Big, big, guns!)
— drinking song of the Hegemony navy
and recited the Network Node completion voiceover from Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri in my head.
Also there's this fun roast in the Kallichore Archive quest (didn't encounter it myself, but saw it in rules.csv):
Spoiler
You enter the ID, hand hovering over a glowing 'confirm' sigil. Your comms officer nods, ready to respond to whatever surprises Gargoyle thinks would be amusing to send through the link this time.
The display resolves from a mesmerizing fractal battleground to a familiar face grinning impishly at you. "Oh $playerFirstName, are you having trouble finding Nova Maxios? Let me help, I'll send you a copy of Baby's First Star Chart."
Your TriPad chimes softly.
"Go on, read it. Find 'M is for Magec'. You can figure it out! I believe in you." Gargoyle turns away and waves you off as your comms seem to disconnect of its own accord.
Although I prefer the elegant simplicity of this one from a later Academy quest:
Spoiler
>"I believe the trade tariffs are too high. Especially for me."
"Take it to the complaints department," Daud pops a thumb at the Eagle-class cruiser behind him.
Spoiler
"Anyway," Gargoyle leans in, speaking with quiet drama, "Project Ziggurat scared them. If you read between the lines," the hacker makes a self satisfied expression, "The initial phase of the project utilized a handful of AI cores of various grades. Guess what? Self-deleted. Tri-Tachyon thinks they're not supposed to be able to do that, but," a wobbly hand gesture, "Eh. Negotiable. Amazing what seemingly innocuous hardware can be made to do when you think outside the box."
Spoiler
This one really intrigues me because it either implies that Omega and <whatever Project Ziggurat was tapping into> are two different entities, or that Omega is very different than what the average Remnant AI -- who are desperate to reconnect to Omega -- thinks it is.
I think Omega itself might simply be something left over from the Domain -- some kind of high-level AI that helped keep a leash on others, maybe. This would explain why the Tesseracts are found near old Domain superstructures and would give a plausible reason why Tri-Tachyon (which is heavily invested in controlling AI, possibly is a un-conventional AI itself through its self-modifying charter, but chafed under Domain control) would want them gone, and also why they struggled to keep control of the Remnant -- maybe they could fake being Omega for a while but eventually the Remnant figured it out.
Conversely, the description of the Ziggurat, the player's experiences at the Alpha Site (hearing that ghostly music...), and the player's meeting with Livewell Cotton (who hears it too, and claims even to have heard it speak to him, and seems to regard it as an object of worship even though he's not sure "whether it is a choir of angels or a host of demons") all point to the existence of something that is completely alien, bearing no relation to Domain technology, and which scares the ever-living *** out of AI.
Spoiler
This one really intrigues me because it either implies that Omega and <whatever Project Ziggurat was tapping into> are two different entities, or that Omega is very different than what the average Remnant AI -- who are desperate to reconnect to Omega -- thinks it is.
I think Omega itself might simply be something left over from the Domain -- some kind of high-level AI that helped keep a leash on others, maybe. This would explain why the Tesseracts are found near old Domain superstructures and would give a plausible reason why Try-Tachyon (which is heavily invested in controlling AI, possibly is a un-conventional AI itself through its self-modifying charter, but chafed under Domain control) would want them gone, and also why they struggled to keep control of the Remnant -- maybe they could fake being Omega for a while but eventually the Remnant figured it out.
Conversely, the description of the Ziggurat, the player's experiences at the Alpha Site (hearing that ghostly music...), and the player's meeting with Livewell Cotton (who hears it too, and claims even to have heard it speak to him, and seems to regard it as an object of worship even though he's not sure "whether it is a choir of angels or a host of demons") all point to the existence of something that is completely alien, bearing no relation to Domain technology, and which scares the ever-living *** out of AI.
Spoiler
Remember the rumors in the Onslaught's full description? That it was originally designed, back before shield generators even existed, to fight off an incursion by an alien race?
Spoiler
This one really intrigues me because it either implies that Omega and <whatever Project Ziggurat was tapping into> are two different entities, or that Omega is very different than what the average Remnant AI -- who are desperate to reconnect to Omega -- thinks it is.
I think Omega itself might simply be something left over from the Domain -- some kind of high-level AI that helped keep a leash on others, maybe. This would explain why the Tesseracts are found near old Domain superstructures and would give a plausible reason why Try-Tachyon (which is heavily invested in controlling AI, possibly is a un-conventional AI itself through its self-modifying charter, but chafed under Domain control) would want them gone, and also why they struggled to keep control of the Remnant -- maybe they could fake being Omega for a while but eventually the Remnant figured it out.
Conversely, the description of the Ziggurat, the player's experiences at the Alpha Site (hearing that ghostly music...), and the player's meeting with Livewell Cotton (who hears it too, and claims even to have heard it speak to him, and seems to regard it as an object of worship even though he's not sure "whether it is a choir of angels or a host of demons") all point to the existence of something that is completely alien, bearing no relation to Domain technology, and which scares the ever-living *** out of AI.
Spoiler
Remember the rumors in the Onslaught's full description? That it was originally designed, back before shield generators even existed, to fight off an incursion by an alien race?
Spoiler
thought that was a enders game reference but its pretty cool that it didnt use to have shields