The Borg.
Any and all Borg-like entities could be considered cliched. This thought has occurred to me often as I ponder any future to the Sins universe. What could so handily defeat the bulk of the Vasari Empire fleet, such that it also remains mysterious and unidentified?
Let us assume this phenomena will make an appearance in a future Sins game.
The most playable option is to incarnate the phenomena as a faction.
The most science-fictiony explanation is some insidious abstract phenomena... perhaps a chaining reaction spawned by some high science laboratory of the Vasari themselves. This is the least playable option, but one with the most solid theatrical integrity.
I wonder if for the sake of the game you could combine the two in some amicable fashion. Make a faction the result of some intertwined lab experiment.
DEFINITELY NOT: Zerg or Aliens rip-off organic beasts, BuckCraft "young hero punk hungry for power gets corrupted by said power and turns on former allies" plotline (and I use the term in the very loosest of literary senses... Blizzard storytelling in my opinion sucks and has sucked for some time), the even Eviller Vasari Empire - The Black Vasari, any race that adopts & replicates technology it encounters.
I would love to see a new faction that is deliberately imbalanced for the sake of cooperative play. A faction that is twice as powerful, pound for pound, as any existing single faction. This would present a grand opportunity for cooperative play teamwork. To Hell with completely equal competitive play for this group, this single faction.
I would also love to see the avoidance of any aforementioned cliches. I know the introduction of another playable faction rather than an insidious effect could be considered a cliche in and of itself, but then again this is a game environment. A new faction is a practical and sensible thing to introduce.
Difficult issue to mull. Any thoughts?
I thought it was pretty obvious?
It's something from phase space that is eating everything. The phase inhibitors where used by some ancient race to stop it. If you read the manual about the phase inhibitors the Vasari didn't invent them, only duplicated them once they found em. The rest of the factions got them from stealing Vasari phase inhibitors.
If you watch the opening movie, the Vasari running started when they did something at some experimental phase research station.
Coupled with all that, it's probably some sort of...
Phase monster(s). That eat everything and grow.
Something like the Drej from Titan A.E.
Okay so i didnt read the thread (im that lazy)
To me it seems like the mystery threat is going to be related to the phase inhibitors b/c it says that the vas only found them and didn't even know how to build them. also a "transport" lab would deal with phase space.
My theory is that when the vas created/moved the inhibitors the released some phase race
This is not totally my idea, but putting it together was my idea.
In ManSh00ter's Last Stand MOD, he barely mentions a race called the Varish who were creating something called the "Quantum Reality Project" before succumbing to the Xin (the Organic race he's currently doing) I thought for a minute that mabey at some point in the past the Vasari got the info on this progest and moved it to their most equipped logistics lab (Kron anyone). before i go further, i got to mention another Mod race: the Atlantians.
The Atlantians are basically the oldest race in the cosmos. They created most other younger races, including Humanity. As such they were revered as Gods. Unfortunately they were not alone. Although they had allies, they came under the onslaugth by a trio of species called the TOC. The atlantains created the Vasari to fight in their place, but were betrayed by their creations. Read in Detail Here: http://www.sri-corp.com/mkportal/modules/mediawiki/index.php/Atlantian
When the Vasari finally activated the Quantum Reality project, they inadvertently ripped apart the very seams of Space Time allowing the Atlantains (and even the Borg/Federation/ all the other races in the mod) to pass through. The Atlantians wasted no time in FUBARing the Vasari Empire and to this day pursue a small fleet of ships that escaped.
thats incredibly weird........iv put atlanteans as elite fighters and mentioned the TOC in my story.......and i just saw this today...........very weird
where at?
Man . . . the rogue nanobots thing is so overdone in recent years (see Stargate: SG1).
And the "we opened a door to a place we didn't even dream of and found a crazily overpowered race bent on destruction" smells a lot like the Babylon 5: Third Space movie. Having said that, I think this is a better option. Rather than watching the movie- the third space aliens came from a place beyond "hyperspace" and the most powerful race in the galaxy had thought it would be a good idea, in their arrogance, to open a door to the place beyond "hyperspace." Well, sure enough, these guys are even more badass with even more badass weapons on more manueverable badass ships and every one of them is a badass telepath. Somehow the home team managed to close the door and then hide the "door device" in hyperspace. The story in the movie is that the local humans and friends find the door device and they all have to rally together and make extreme personal sacrifice to close the door again after opening.
Sound familiar?
If they're going to implement something in this vein the most balanced way to do it would be for the Evil (tm) to be more akin to a nonplayer pirate faction. Seriously, if I were playing TEC and the "pirates" were Vasari with RA, I'd soil myself a little. And, having the Evil (tm) in the game as someone you cannot ally with gives you all sorts of reasons to seek out some new and exciting Diplomacy (expansion) options with other players to help you hold back the Evil (tm) while you kill other players who are of no diplomatic use to you.
Sorry . . . I guess that was more of prediction than my daydream.
My daydream is something much more along the lines of the consciousness from Sphere. Some people look into and berserk. Some people just disappear. Sometimes you can figure out how to make it go away but no matter what you do it's gonna fook some scheet up hardcore. I'd imagine one or more of these things floating around to different gravity wells, causing different disturbances: conquered (not home) planet reverts to neutral, ships phase jump to wrong place, fleets disappear in phase space and show up at the destination later, ships in combat go nuts and each ship goes out on a free-for-all, the gravity well makes a gradient and suddenly there's an uphill and downhill, stuff like that. Something that you can't necessarily fight back against but makes you reconsider all of your moves. That's how I like my pie.
http://forums.impulsedriven.com/331326
i just read the story of the atlantians u posted, since i was too tired last night, and its not in any way similar to what iv wrote, the names just coincided as the same. the atlanteans are an elite core of the advent, and TOC stands for Trade Order Council. but i still think its kinda kool that we (or whoever wrote that story) came up with the same names, even if they end up being different.
i know alot of people are excited about this being made of energy...
not to bust anyones humps, but has anyone watched firefly? or seen serenity? that sci fi series/movie by joss weadon?
one of the bad guys were called Reavers... humans that went crazy and are now super aggressive and evil etc etc,
put it this way, they are pure evil, they have no concern for personal safety, and no limits, they will do whatever it takes
they go on raiding parties and kidnap people to rape and torture and murder and eat, just for shits and giggles
i mean, if you saw the movie serenity, you would see how they fight, they ram other ships, they use harpoons to snare other ships and pull them in to be boarded, hell, they pull parts off each others ships cause they want it
go look it up if you want a better explanation, im oo tired now, but seriously... Reavers would scare me more than any highly advanced technological civilisation, just because they are no longer civilised, but rather, they are crazy, and they are evil....
that would scare me...
I'm for the energy beings because degraded/non-civilized/savage/zombiefied humans and alien bio-hazards that absorb all organic matter have been overdone in games, pretty much forever. I know some say that's because they work as a 'bad guy'. This is true, and I agree that they do work. I think they've been used so much because they work.
I'm hoping for something different.
Sins, I think, stands a bit apart from other RTS and 4X games. True, the current races aren't terribly original, but the game play and the game balance are what make it great. I just think now that there is a great game established, any new race should break from stereotypical video game 'bad guy' races, hence and energy based race.
Besides, if the designers stick with the original story, this new race would be something the Vasari released/created/awoke. I don't think the Vasari mess around with the kind of biological experiments that would make a degraded/non-civilized/savage/zombiefied being or an alien bio-hazard.
um... they do? the technology to increase lifespans, make it easier to live on volcanic and ice worlds, faster healing, all could do it...
regardless, i wasnt talking so much about zombies as about something truly fear inspiring...
but im more than happy to go along with the energy based being, as long as its not petty and barbaric like the other 3 races... seriously, everyone thinks the existing races are so civilised, they're not.... i want a bad guy like Ba'al from Stargate SG 1, intelligent, funny, to an extent, and even 'not evil' in some ways... idn if thats possible outside of a campaign, but...
anyway, id like the new race to be intelligent and sophisticated... however, if they are driving the vasari out of their original empire... maybe sophisticated is too much too ask
i wasnt thinking of this energy beings as being sophisticated or intelligent at all. I was thinking more along the lines of ur other post about zombie/crazyish people. theyr completely bloodthirsty. for their inorganic material, so someone has to come up with a good synonym to bloodthirsty that...doesnt use....blood. anyway, theyr animalisticly (that a word?) insane. or something along those lines. havent given their personality much thought. definitely going to now, theres a lot of stuff we could make up about them. their personality. how they interact with each other. (something like the hive mind of the buggers in Ender's Game, but a lot cooler. at least thats wat i hav in mind. not giving away more details tho!) how they interact with TEC and Advent. iv only thought of them with the vasari and how theyd play in the game. definitely a good source of thought here. this will be fun.
YOU'VE READ ENDER'S GAME!?!?! messes with ur mind huh? thing about the buggers though was that they were peaceful (and not generally mindless and bloodthirsty...), but because they couldnt communicate with humanity, they saw them as vermin (i.e. how we see cockroaches) or at least lower animals... was very interesting
but interstellar psychic communication? not a bad idea, though, on the other hand, that detail is kinda irrelevant...
no way its Reavers or anything like that. the Vasar dark fleet would never have had any problems with a threat like that. just a minor nuissance, no worse than the pirate raiders in a normal game of Sins.
I think its pretty clear now that the vasari created cylons and were nuked by their own creations.
all of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again.
seriously though, stardock did a good job creating motivations for all of the races. none of them are blood thirsty maniacs who destroy for the fun of it. The pre-exodus vasari are the closest thing to being evil, being a conqueor all and enslave race. but now they're just on the run and met the tec and advent on the way through. the tec are on the defensive, they didnt do anything to instigate the vasari, but are now paying for exiling the advent 1000 years ago. and the advent want revenge for being exiled, but if you read the lore carefully, it says that all of the resources of their homeworld were exhausted, so really they needed to expand for survival, revenge is just their excuse.
all of the races have reasons for why theyre fighting eachother, but they're all also flawed. they're all sinners and are now paying for their sins.
whatever the vasari menace is, i have faith in stardock that they will make it as fleshed out and flawed (in a good way) as the other races, have good motivation, and not be mindless killers.
well im only taking psychic communication part from them, not the rest. and im gonna eventually add them into my story, so i do need to think up all the rest of those details
and iv read most of the ender series theres only a couple i havent read yet. speaker for the dead, and children of the mind, i think, r the only ones i still need to read. but too lazy to get down to the library...ha
so... you dident read about my FLYING WHALE
oh and guys... please stop branching out to other sci-fi universes(sp??) i mean really dosent that break some type of 4th wall??? and dont get me startrdon taking from mods...
Whatever the Vasari pursuers are, they must have been taking a nap for the past 15 years if Vasari survived to see entrenchment (which says "15 years later...").
They've been running 10,000 years.
And what? They suddenly decided they ain't afraid anymore? That defeating some more or less mentally unstable bunch of overgrown apes is more important than SURVIVING (not that there seems to be a good chance of winning anytime soon anyway) ?
That seriously doesn't make sense.
That's 0.15 %. That's not even a good stumble in a marathon.
Space is HUGE. It will probobly take generations for the menace to catch up.
According to the lore, the Vasari exodus occurs in stages: Th Vasari capture a region of the galaxy, get resources, take slaves etc. After the region has been used up, they move on.
It does make sense when you look at it like that.
Even if they are running for 10k years, they've been in TEC space for at least 25 years and they still don't seem to think about moving out.
On the other hand, this is what the official page says about the Vasari situation 15 YEARS AGO (before entrenchment).
Now, the Vasari are caught in a stalemate, and in some positions, on the verge of being pushed back. A state of panic ensues. Already too entrenched in this disastrous war, the Vasari are simply unable to withdraw without catastrophic losses. Even worse, the conflict is consuming resources faster than can be put into the reserve. They will not be able to fuel the next phase of their exodus and time is running out.
cast you mind back a few pages with the quazar(sp??) idea we came up with... that would eventualy stop expanding for all we know they may be completely out of harm way by now
what i meant by that quasar idea was not that it in itself was chasing the Vasari, but that was the natural space occurence (couldnt think of a better word) that formed the beings that are chasing them. from the experiment gone bad in the virtsurka experimental transort lab combined with the radiation from the quasar. not the quasar alone.
What if it was sort of enrgy from an alternate phase space? The vasari could have researching alternate phase spaces, and suddenly crap starts pouring out. It could act like a cross between phase inhibitors,and the solar storms. With the environment comes the inhabitants, who wouldn't even have to be all powerful, they would just harness the energy's benefits. Or they could be part energy too. I just think that an alternate dimension's environment pouring out could be interesting.
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