Let's brainstorm a Starcraft rip-off [Archive]

Mislagnissa

02-27-2018, 10:02 PM

Someone recently told me that if I was so annoyed with SC's awful story that I should write my own. I don't have any programming knowledge nor the money to fund game design. I can still write a story and hope that one day I could get it optioned. So I'm going to do that and ask if you guys were interested too. Let's brainstorm various ideas for a SC rip-off that has a story which doesn't suck.

Some ground rules, though. It has to be a SC rip-off. What does that mean? The three playable races must follow the three generic archetypes of human space marines, advanced oft-theocratic space elves and infection/bug aliens threatening the universe. https://godlesspaladin.wordpress.com/2010/08/03/new-sci-fi-games-same-old-motifs/

Other than that, we need some ground rules to prevent any writers from pulling stupid shit like sabotaging the plot over and over or introducing epic heroes like Raynor, Master Chief or Shepard. This is an RTS, not an RPG.

The premise needs to have a simple, reasonable justification for why they would show up and fight for as long as the franchise lasts. This overarching conflict cannot ever be allowed to be destroyed and replaced by stupid retcons. The determinant in the old SC lore is good, and since Blizz retconned that away we could recycle it without worrying about a copyright claim. Of course it is already very similar to Halo, too.

To keep the story from meandering or going nowhere or making stuff up as it goes, like how all the big franchises ran out of steam or sabotaged/replaced their premise, we should probably lay out a timeline of major events spanning over however long we could expect the story to last. A few centuries or millennia, maybe? Different writers would be able to follow that timeline and keep the themes consistent rather than going off into bizarre tangents.

The genre has to be military science fiction, grounded down to earth, dark and gritty, not epic space fantasy. The market is already oversaturated with bland world saving heroes journey clones. To avoid writers pulling stupid shit like focusing the story on epic heroes and romance at the expense of the wider universe, I would suggest making it an anthology series with an unimaginably large backdrop. Every campaign would have a different cast, none of them would ever be epic heroes with the fate of the universe in their hands, and they'd probably die at the end for good measure.

I had a few ideas already for names, aesthetics and backstories of the three playable races but I will need to do some refining. What ideas would you like to share? Any criticisms of the ground rules?

Visions of Khas

02-28-2018, 06:45 AM

Instead of being the standard, middle-of-the-road race as they/we often are, how about putting humanity in the role of Protoss or Zerg, a transhumanist society that is either all about technological superiority, or all about throwing numbers at their enemy. The cultural, religious and technological implications that led to those roles could be fascinating.

Mislagnissa

02-28-2018, 01:27 PM

I recently learned that there was a SC clone in 2001 called Atrox. That's pretty much what we're doing here, isn't it?

Instead of being the standard, middle-of-the-road race as they/we often are, how about putting humanity in the role of Protoss or Zerg, a transhumanist society that is either all about technological superiority, or all about throwing numbers at their enemy. The cultural, religious and technological implications that led to those roles could be fascinating.

I thought of something similar, but I am leery of moving too far away from what made SC attractive to me in the first place. Given how co-op and heptacraft have shown that factions within races can be fairly diverse, I think we should raincheck that. There are a number of concepts that existed in the early SC lore which were forgotten, and which are ripe to plundered by a clone.

My thoughts for the humans was that they live in a cyberpunk dystopia with mutants, cyborgs, robots, clones and similar. In SC the Protoss used robot drones, but in my clone it would be the humans doing that. Since they field all these different types of units, they would have a fairly eclectic feel unified only by their basic engineering aesthetics. The mutants concept would be inspired by the yuri faction in Red Alert 2: Yuri's Revenge, since I cannot think of any other way to represent it.

The bugs are pretty much identical to the original zerg or even the flood. Their leader is a sapient hive mind that speaks like a Shakespeare play, which leads a bunch of subsidiary hive minds with their own personalities and specializations. Their army includes engineered plants, animals, fungi and so forth. All of the units are essentially derived from one or more organisms that were assimilated in the past. The bugs crave that sort of diversity, so their units have an eclectic feel with dramatically different body plans all given the same coat of paint that makes them identifiable as bugs.

The space elves are probably the one with the biggest differences. I wanted them to be more distinct from the humans and bugs, so I imagined that they would be these weird sculpted biomechanical entities like a giger painting, or something like the Scrin in Tiberium Wars. They lack a distinction between biology and technology like the humans and bugs do. They could be explained as the technological equivalent to the bugs, but their machines are actually alive rather than constructed (to distinguish them from the humans). To tie into the hippy themes of elves (the old lore said the Protoss were nature lovers or something that disdained the greedy terrans, but didn't really show it), their civilization doesn't distinguish between forests and cities (the best comparable example I can think of would be the Olkari in Voltron, who have things like circuit boards in trees). Another thing I considered was that they would also field forces provided by client races, since in the oldest SC lore the Protoss were an empire with multiple client races.

All three of the sides initially appear to follow the stereotypes of human space marines, vicious infection bugs, and aloof space elves, but like the oldest SC lore they all have a twist on it. The humans live in a cyberpunk dystopia rather than a space opera, the bugs have distinct personalities rather than a soulless horde, and the space elves are in the middle of a renaissance rather than inexplicably declining because Tolkien did it first.

The mechanics are up for debate, I have not really gotten started on the excuse for why they fight, and I still need to elaborate on how I will explore the individuality versus collectivism theme, but that is basically what I think made the SC factions original from a fluff perspective. Since this is an original effort we could take inspiration for aesthetics and mechanics from other RTS games, like Command & Conquer, Battle for Dune, Rise of Legends, Supreme Commander, and so on. Or keep it genre neutral if we focus largely on utility as an IP.

sandwich_bird

02-28-2018, 04:49 PM

Visions of Khas

02-28-2018, 06:07 PM

So would this be a hard scifi in line with Heinlein and Asimov, or are we bending laws to allow FTL? There's a certain appeal to centuries- long conflicts, as with the Forever War and Warhammer.

Gradius

02-28-2018, 08:59 PM

FTL? I don't really care. I just don't want telepaths.

The bug monster race needs to rely on some harder sci fi. I don't like small creatures shrugging off hypersonic spikes and tank shots, so there's a couple things we can do:
1) These things number in the trillions. They truly are endless.
2) Instead of chitin, their carapace could be some iron mineral composite.
3) They're huge. There are no tiny zerglings. And multiple organ redundancies means that your bullets aren't going to necessarily kill the thing.

The space elf race has telekinetics, but it's entirely technology based. Their technology would be powered by these things:
http://stargate.wikia.com/wiki/Zero_Point_Module

What if we didn't have humans at all? Just a weaker alien race like the Beta from Grey Goo: http://grey-goo.wikia.com/wiki/Beta

Or what if we have the story set in the Andromeda galaxy and humans are the violent invaders from the Milky Way.

Visions of Khas

02-28-2018, 09:37 PM

I just don't want telepaths.
When you say "telepaths", do you mean psionics, or mind-to-mind communication? We already have technology that can turn thought into action (Les Baugh is an amazing example), so I don't see it being that far a leap for implants to scan the language centers of the brain and transmit conscious thoughts to somebody else.

The mutants concept would be inspired by the yuri faction in Red Alert 2: Yuri's Revenge, since I cannot think of any other way to represent it.
I never played that game, but I took a quick look at the wiki. Apparently they use "psychically dominated" soldiers? A SC campaign story I've been working on involves colonies entirely run and owned by corporations and used for nothing more than to produce "material assets" -- people to be resocialized and used as canon fodder or menial tasks. Kinda like human hives. Other hive colonies, or Resource Pools (hence the derogatory term "Pond Scum" applied to these colonists) would function solely as petree dishes; biological or technological experiments would be let loose "into the wild," the company would observe the results, and harvest interesting and useful deviations, often resulting in new cybernetic offshoots and physical mutations.

Resocking the greater part of your forces would easily lead to such philosophical conundrums as identity and self.

I've always been fond of the "Precursor" role given to humanity, but with a twist: in whatever way humanity aided in the "uplifting" of a species, humanity's intent didn't correspond with the result. That is, whatever we did to earn apotheosis in the eyes of another species, it was entirely unintentional. For example, maybe humanity scoured a world of almost all life in order to use it as a resource point, without the knowledge that some other form of life was being allowed to fill a niche and proliferate. Or perhaps humanity is going extinct and serves the role of "The Man Behind The Curtain," arranging for the various races to war against each other, simply so we can fill in the space left after. Something like Halo Prophets.

Nolanstar

03-01-2018, 03:22 AM

So, looking at this combined with watching b5 and playing ME again gave me an idea for humans. Rather then doing the usual sci-fi or super modern aesthetics go full uncanny valley desperate with the human. Something where they are human in name and basic biology only at this point. Think of the Collector Assault armor in ME2 - its literally styled after enemy carapace. Combine this with zombifying black/grey goo nanotech for the troops to resurrect them upon first death? Works well with humans as the invaders to the galaxy with no semblance of morals. Organic-armor clad grey-goo infested disposable troops utilizing modern-ish vehicles warped beyond recognition? Sounds fun, warp them with bioengineering different variations of the armor for different roles like insect-wings for air mobility - even better. Very little actual robotics, moreso bio-machines on a level similar to

Space elves are still somewhat doable, but perhaps style them tech and strategy wise more like the vanilla terrans but with DT attributes like stealthy, nomadic, peaceful-ish. Not socially suited to warfare and try to avoid it when possible. Relocatable stealthy/camoflauged buildings with lots of ECM, hacking, countermeasures and modern tactics. Perhaps lots of drones to set them apart from the humans. - Not my favorite sci-fi race usually and my like of protoss makes it hard to change something...

Agree with Gradius on the bugs, perhaps have them go to the zerg extreme more then the zerg do by having their units literally on an order of magnitude different then the other factions. Like 20-ish basic units required to compete, or literal "clouds" of insect-like units using particles. More organic and less directly insect-like or noticeably different then the disturbingly hive like humans. Maybe more elements of planets and fungi with elements of diversity for the units, literally cloning and modifying creatures in specialized buildings/by specialized queens rather then the single larva to any unit of the zerg. Being able to dynamically copy and modify local fauna for shock troopers/cannon fodder might also be neat, stuff that the colony has yet to optimize for production but is willing to use. Something more akin to an ant colony then a zerg nest.

Visions of Khas

03-01-2018, 03:53 AM

As a big fan of biopunk, those seem like some pretty good ideas! :D

Nolanstar

03-01-2018, 03:56 AM

Thanks, just don't know what to do with the space elves though...

Mislagnissa

03-01-2018, 07:45 AM

I will post a more in depth reply later, but I have to make it clear now that some ideas I see here are moving far and away from what I liked about the outdated Starcraft lore, which is my primary inspiration. I envisioned a simple clone which did something with that premise as opposed being a completely different thing.

That's not a bad thing, but I would prefer to... IDK, keep our options open? There's no rule that says we are limited to one universe. We could have a multiverse with different premises for those who prefer it. Right now I am limiting myself to a straight up clone, since game mechanics are not protected by copyright.

If I ever got a chance to make this as an indie game (and learn to code at the same time), I'd probably be limited to an open source 2D RTS engine like OpenRA or OpenBW.

Mislagnissa

03-01-2018, 08:34 AM

Don't have much critic to offer so far but I'd remove the determinant or at least completely redefine it. If your protoss are gonna be cyborgs, maybe the determinant is the ability of human to be able to interface with toss technology. It's not just a magic power like psi is. You need to figure out a way to make it realistic for all 3 races to be on semi-equal footing. If everyone gain access to the same level of tech, that's something. But then, that may affect the diversity...

Cyborgs are already humanity's shtick, so I was trying to make the elves distinct from them. IDK, think of the elves as sculpting their buildings and units into existence like wraithbone in Warhammer 40k.

The races are not on equal footing, at least in the story (i.e. gameplay and story segregation). The elves could easily squash the bugs and humans, but they fail due to a combination of arrogance, incompetence, and misplaced priorities. Meanwhile the bugs need to spend loads of time on research and development, fostering the potential determinant they found in humans, before they reach parity with the elves. The nature of the determinant would include various counters to the elves' military, including physical combat, electronic warfare, and so forth.

The determinant would not be technology, since the bugs do not have the same psychology when it comes to tool use and that would defeat the purpose of each race having a distinct shtick. Where humans would make tools, the bugs would engineer an organism which fulfills the same purpose. They need to consume new species because they cannot make whatever adaptations they need from scratch.

What is the determinant? Psychic powers are really the only thing that comes to mind. There are tons of way to explain it, like Mass Effect's biotics, but it is basically a plot device that justifies the narrative.

So would this be a hard scifi in line with Heinlein and Asimov, or are we bending laws to allow FTL? There's a certain appeal to centuries- long conflicts, as with the Forever War and Warhammer.I don't know enough about real science to write a hard scifi setting, but I know enough to avoid trying to use pseudoscience explanations for everything I don't understand. Without FTL, the action would be limited to a single star system, unless we add some kind of wormhole network which is just fancy FTL anyway.

FTL? I don't really care. I just don't want telepaths.

The bug monster race needs to rely on some harder sci fi. I don't like small creatures shrugging off hypersonic spikes and tank shots, so there's a couple things we can do:
1) These things number in the trillions. They truly are endless.
2) Instead of chitin, their carapace could be some iron mineral composite.
3) They're huge. There are no tiny zerglings. And multiple organ redundancies means that your bullets aren't going to necessarily kill the thing.

The space elf race has telekinetics, but it's entirely technology based. Their technology would be powered by these things:
http://stargate.wikia.com/wiki/Zero_Point_Module

What if we didn't have humans at all? Just a weaker alien race like the Beta from Grey Goo: http://grey-goo.wikia.com/wiki/Beta

Or what if we have the story set in the Andromeda galaxy and humans are the violent invaders from the Milky Way.The extent of these changes defeats the purpose of making a Starcraft clone. At that point you might as well make an entirely new game since 3-way conflict is a fairly common RTS premise. See Tiberium Wars, Battle for Dune, Rise of Legends, etc

When you say "telepaths", do you mean psionics, or mind-to-mind communication? We already have technology that can turn thought into action (Les Baugh is an amazing example), so I don't see it being that far a leap for implants to scan the language centers of the brain and transmit conscious thoughts to somebody else.

I never played that game, but I took a quick look at the wiki. Apparently they use "psychically dominated" soldiers? A SC campaign story I've been working on involves colonies entirely run and owned by corporations and used for nothing more than to produce "material assets" -- people to be resocialized and used as canon fodder or menial tasks. Kinda like human hives. Other hive colonies, or Resource Pools (hence the derogatory term "Pond Scum" applied to these colonists) would function solely as petree dishes; biological or technological experiments would be let loose "into the wild," the company would observe the results, and harvest interesting and useful deviations, often resulting in new cybernetic offshoots and physical mutations.

Resocking the greater part of your forces would easily lead to such philosophical conundrums as identity and self.

I've always been fond of the "Precursor" role given to humanity, but with a twist: in whatever way humanity aided in the "uplifting" of a species, humanity's intent didn't correspond with the result. That is, whatever we did to earn apotheosis in the eyes of another species, it was entirely unintentional. For example, maybe humanity scoured a world of almost all life in order to use it as a resource point, without the knowledge that some other form of life was being allowed to fill a niche and proliferate. Or perhaps humanity is going extinct and serves the role of "The Man Behind The Curtain," arranging for the various races to war against each other, simply so we can fill in the space left after. Something like Halo Prophets.

The super-science in Red Alert 2 is really inspirational for how I wanted to represent humans. The stuff they did with psychic powers feels a bit more psychic than what Starcraft did and it feels like something that would potentially provide parity against Protoss.

So, looking at this combined with watching b5 and playing ME again gave me an idea for humans. Rather then doing the usual sci-fi or super modern aesthetics go full uncanny valley desperate with the human. Something where they are human in name and basic biology only at this point. Think of the Collector Assault armor in ME2 - its literally styled after enemy carapace. Combine this with zombifying black/grey goo nanotech for the troops to resurrect them upon first death? Works well with humans as the invaders to the galaxy with no semblance of morals. Organic-armor clad grey-goo infested disposable troops utilizing modern-ish vehicles warped beyond recognition? Sounds fun, warp them with bioengineering different variations of the armor for different roles like insect-wings for air mobility - even better. Very little actual robotics, moreso bio-machines on a level similar to

Space elves are still somewhat doable, but perhaps style them tech and strategy wise more like the vanilla terrans but with DT attributes like stealthy, nomadic, peaceful-ish. Not socially suited to warfare and try to avoid it when possible. Relocatable stealthy/camoflauged buildings with lots of ECM, hacking, countermeasures and modern tactics. Perhaps lots of drones to set them apart from the humans. - Not my favorite sci-fi race usually and my like of protoss makes it hard to change something...

Agree with Gradius on the bugs, perhaps have them go to the zerg extreme more then the zerg do by having their units literally on an order of magnitude different then the other factions. Like 20-ish basic units required to compete, or literal "clouds" of insect-like units using particles. More organic and less directly insect-like or noticeably different then the disturbingly hive like humans. Maybe more elements of planets and fungi with elements of diversity for the units, literally cloning and modifying creatures in specialized buildings/by specialized queens rather then the single larva to any unit of the zerg. Being able to dynamically copy and modify local fauna for shock troopers/cannon fodder might also be neat, stuff that the colony has yet to optimize for production but is willing to use. Something more akin to an ant colony then a zerg nest.Again, this is drifting too far from a Starcraft clone to really call it one. At that point you are making an entirely new 3-way RTS.

Perhaps we could save these ideas for faction variants, or specific army detachments, rather than try to shoehorn everything that remotely appeals to us.

I will post the rudiments of a backstory later on.

Mislagnissa

03-01-2018, 12:38 PM

My initial thoughts on backstory:
At this early in the brainstorm I don't think it would be prudent to write up a whole detailed backstory. Right now I think it is sufficient to assume that the backstory is essentially the same as that of the SC1 manual, with a few key differences. These differences were added with the benefit of hindsight to prevent any potential tangents.
There is no mysterious precursor race like the xel’naga. Instead, their role is taken over by the space elf civilization prior to their dark age. Any technological innovations are wholly their own, albeit separated by many generations.
Rationale: keep the precursor race from showing up in a sequel and take over the plot as a fourth race or big bad or whatever. Prevent the space elves from being reduced to wimps in sequels piggybacking on space gods.
The human civilization is based out of Earth, not a lost colony separated by a vast gulf of time and space that will inevitably be retconned away in the sequel.
Rationale: there is no point to establishing the humans as a lost colony if Earth is just going to show up in the sequel. Prevent Earth from being brought in later as a deus ex machina or big bad.
The bugs’ hive mind is similar to the flood from Halo and the necromorphs from Dead Space. It is an integral part of them that cannot be removed or replaced. If broken by any means, it will instinctively reassemble.
Rationale: prevent the bugs from ever having their motivations changed to incongruous human motivations, because they're supposed to be the big bad of the setting. This does not prevent them from being effectively enslaved with drugs and tech, but they are still a devouring swarm even if they make an exception for their slaver.

In case it ever comes up:
I would like to make a few pronouncements to address things that bugged me in Starcraft when I argued about them in another thread.

The space elves are not autotrophic animals, not because it is impossible (photosynthetic animals exist on Earth (http://blogs.plos.org/retort/2010/12/20/why-animals-so-rarely-photosynthesize/)) but because justifying their evolution is a world building project in itself. They rely on an abstracted power/population mechanic as in typical RTS games.

The space elves have a clear distinction between their religion, their internet, and their power grid. They use their internet to communicate. They use their religion to inform their practices. They use their power grid to power their infrastructure and space magic. These things are not interchangeable. To keep people from confusing them in the future I will just call them by simple English words with unambiguous meaning rather than made up jargon.

Army composition and strategy:
tvtropes says (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FactionCalculus) that there are basically five kinds of armies in RTS games: powerhouse, subversive, balanced, cannons and horde. I see no reason why each race cannot have a different variant for each basic strategy, but in order to keep things interesting each side featured in the basic game mode needs to use a different one. If two sides have the same strategy, it makes matches between them the least interesting to play.

Furthermore, the campaign and skirmish armies cannot work dramatically differently otherwise it will make it difficult for people to move from campaign to skirmish because they will have to learn what amounts to a new army. (This badly afflicts the SC2 campaigns.) What that means in practice is that, say, the determinant created by the bugs to fight the elves must be balanced even if the bugs are already balanced without it (even if this means making a spin-off army to avoid disrupting the faction calculus). Game play trumps lore, so the lore needs to be adjusted to match game play for the most part (hence my handwave that the elves lost against the inferior races through incompetence, even though the armies are balanced against one another, because the lore says they have reality warping super weapons).

Gradius

03-01-2018, 01:20 PM

When you say "telepaths", do you mean psionics, or mind-to-mind communication? We already have technology that can turn thought into action (Les Baugh is an amazing example), so I don't see it being that far a leap for implants to scan the language centers of the brain and transmit conscious thoughts to somebody else.
Psionics. I guess as long as it's done with technology I'm happy. Didn't think that was possible to read surface thoughts though.

The extent of these changes defeats the purpose of making a Starcraft clone. At that point you might as well make an entirely new game since 3-way conflict is a fairly common RTS premise. See Tiberium Wars, Battle for Dune, Rise of Legends, etc
What are you talking about? At no point did I suggest removing 3 race conflict. Just possibly replacing the human faction with a different one.

Visions of Khas

03-01-2018, 01:36 PM

We could each just create our own interstellar empire and have them go to war, Risk or Diplomacy style.

sandwich_bird

03-01-2018, 01:59 PM

If I ever got a chance to make this as an indie game (and learn to code at the same time), I'd probably be limited to an open source 2D RTS engine like OpenRA or OpenBW.

If you don't already know how to code, you'll have to think very long term. I hope you're an artist too or have lots of $ to shell for assets. If I was to make a RTS alone, I'd use this as a base personally: https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/?stay#!/content/79732. OpenRA looks promising since modding is core to the devs. It's not impossible to do though. Warshift was made mostly by one guy. Very impressive stuff considering everything. But anyways, it doesn't have to be a stand alone game or a game at all.

We could each just create our own interstellar empire and have them go to war, Risk or Diplomacy style.

"My imaginary interstellar empire is stronger than yours!" :p

Nolanstar

03-01-2018, 02:08 PM

We could each just create our own interstellar empire and have them go to war, Risk or Diplomacy style.

Fun. First lets agree with a balance system. Yay.

Depends what your trying to go for in lore, do you want something that's kina a "ripoff" or takes a similar premise as a 3-way rts with different factions but a similar feel?

Mislagnissa

03-01-2018, 03:53 PM

Psionics. I guess as long as it's done with technology I'm happy. Didn't think that was possible to read surface thoughts though.If I used psychic powers (psionics is psychic electronics, IIRC), I would not spend too much time on explaining how they came into existence. All three races have done a lot of tinkering to themselves so it could be explained as a form of technology, biotechnology or whatever. Basically it is so advanced it appears to be space magic and we cannot easily explain it in modern terms, but I would do my utmost to avoid the trap of literal magic. (Even something like archons could be attributed to sufficiently advanced tech.)

I personally developed an internal understanding of psychic powers which operated upon things like radio waves and gravity/electromagnetic manipulation of some kind. In order to read minds, you would have to perceive the target's brain activity by sending waves at them, receiving what is reflected back at you, and then be able to translate the sensations into something comprehensible to you. In order to perform telekinesis/psychokinesis, you would essentially have to manipulate gravity and electromagnetism in order to affect changes at a distance. I have no idea how this would work, but the basic idea is that this would have the long range of gravity and the high strength of electromagnetism.

Something like mind control would require you to first alter the brain activity of the target so that they will obey the commands you send to them telepathically. An analogy would be to computer hacking: a victim computer will not obey you unless you first hack it and implant code telling it to obey you. For example, the bugs communicate using authentication signatures, so in order to enslave a swarm you would need to forge the authentication signature or else they would not respond. (Early in SC lore mentioned that Zerg would only respond to outside commands if drugged or lobotomized, but as the series when on this was replaced by anyone and their dog casually dominating feral zerg with little in the way of explanation.)

The nitty-gritty would be glossed over in the game itself. I still cannot explain this in terms of hard science, only by analogy to similar systems in reality like computer science. These have well understood rules which could applied to similar situations in fiction, even if they underlying science is very different.

What are you talking about? At no point did I suggest removing 3 race conflict. Just possibly replacing the human faction with a different one.That was what I was referring to. My point of reference is the original lore of SC and I wanted to write a clone because I was dissatisfied with the direction Metzen took. We have spent months arguing about how the SC franchise has no future because of the lore. The further we move away from what made the original SC appealing to me... the less excited I am for the whole idea.

I am trying to make the humans into a cyberpunk dystopia, which is actually based on statements in the SC1 manual to that effect. The space redneck stuff was added later in development, IIRC.

We could each just create our own interstellar empire and have them go to war, Risk or Diplomacy style.A risk-style map with non-linear missions could work, but it would generally preclude much in the way of a conventional linear narrative unless extra effort was devoted to a branching narrative or multiple endings like a visual novel. I remember playing Battle for Dune back in the early 2000s, and it only had like four or five linear story missions IIRC. But what was interesting about it was that it took the time to include alliances with minor factions as both a game mechanic and side stories with little impact on the overarching narrative.

If you don't already know how to code, you'll have to think very long term. I hope you're an artist too or have lots of $ to shell for assets. If I was to make a RTS alone, I'd use this as a base personally: https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/?stay#!/content/79732. OpenRA looks promising since modding is core to the devs. It's not impossible to do though. Warshift was made mostly by one guy. Very impressive stuff considering everything. But anyways, it doesn't have to be a stand alone game or a game at all.I would have to learn how to draw pixel art too, if that is what it takes. It's never to late to learn. People have suffered strokes and suddenly developed art skills, so I think I stand a chance.

There's also OpenBW. That or OpenRA is what I would be most familiar with, so this is definitely a retro game concept. I got a lot of inspiration from the Westwood games, such as the stuff I mentioned before. That inspiration could also help to make more diverse factions, such as some operating on BW-style and others on RA-style. For example, building dedicated walls, planting buildings without a builder unit, or having an infantry/vehicle/building division where vehicles can run over infantry and certain units can insta-kill infantry. Or something like how Tiberium Wars and Dawn of War have units consisting of squads rather than single units. It is a lot to think about.

Fun. First lets agree with a balance system. Yay.

Depends what your trying to go for in lore, do you want something that's kina a "ripoff" or takes a similar premise as a 3-way rts with different factions but a similar feel?My point of reference is a straight up clone. Making variant armies to fulfill every possible fantasy is not a primary goal at this point in time.

The basic army types are powerhouse, subversive, balanced, cannon and horde. Perhaps we should provide lore descriptions of how each race has a variant that implements each strategy. I will need more time to think on this myself so feel free to keep brainstorming. For reference, in SC the terrans are balanced, the protoss are powerhouse and the zerg are subversive.

Nissa

03-01-2018, 05:36 PM

Nolanstar

03-01-2018, 05:39 PM

Nissa

03-01-2018, 05:48 PM

Hey! We're sentient! You can't eat us! Besides, we have rat gangs, and you don't wanna mess with our rat gangs. They'll mess you up!

For the record, I imagine that my guys are in the 2-4 foot range.

Nolanstar

03-01-2018, 06:03 PM

Mislagnissa

03-01-2018, 09:26 PM

Hm...I'm not sure about this. Mislag, you seem to have a specific vision that you want us to contribute to, while most of the other dudes' ideas are more about creating our own thing. Tbh, I don't think we necessarily need to rip off Starcraft. Any space-based, science fiction, male demographic story with competing races is really enough of a "rip-off" for me. We don't really need to take too many ideas from Blizz.
Yes, I do have a specific vision. What was your first clue? I really like the original SC premise because it was just so elegant as far as excuse plots go. Blizz never went anywhere with it, so I really wanted to. That's why I made this thread. If you don't like it, then make a new thread for your completely original concept. Please don't steal my spotlight.

That said, I have quickly thought about twists on that premise which make one of the other two races the big bad. Basically, my premise is that one side is the big bad, fights another side, and the third is caught in the middle. With the bugs as the big bad, they are sieging the humans as a prerequisite to sieging the elves. With the humans as the big bad, they are trying to enslave the bugs and steal the elf tech. With the elves as the big bad, they are gardeners of the galaxy exterminating what they don't like: In this case, that would be the bugs and/or humans. And so on.

I have also rediscovered my appreciation for the Westwood games through perusal of OpenRA. I think it would be a great way to distinguish my SC plot rip-off from the BW engine. Once 2nd gen is supported, it will have stuff like psychic dominators and mirage tanks and chronospheres and tesla troopers (game mechanics cannot be copyrighted). Remember when the zerg were said to infest worlds? I thought a great way to represent that would be with dune2k sandworms, tiberium and tiberian sun wildlife. The idea is that the bugs use tiberium to xenoform worlds and gather resources; the other two races developed means to exploit this because the tiberium is so valuable despite its toxicity.

What do you think?

Mislagnissa

03-01-2018, 09:30 PM

Yes, because the humans that wear living insectoid/chitin armor and pump their guys full of grey goo to revive them on death are going to care about the morals of something sentient being food...

Note to self: Make disturbingly weird backstory where we actually get to this point...

I am open to the idea of more than three armies. While my basic idea is to follow the SC formula with minor adjustments, additional armies would make sense for expansions or alternate histories.

Try making a list of your envisioned armies. Mine are cyberpunk humans, infection bugs, and space elves, as a point of reference. What are yours? This question is aimed at everyone.

Turalyon

03-02-2018, 04:15 AM

That said, I have quickly thought about twists on that premise which make one of the other two races the big bad. Basically, my premise is that one side is the big bad, fights another side, and the third is caught in the middle. With the bugs as the big bad, they are sieging the humans as a prerequisite to sieging the elves. With the humans as the big bad, they are trying to enslave the bugs and steal the elf tech. With the elves as the big bad, they are gardeners of the galaxy exterminating what they don't like: In this case, that would be the bugs and/or humans. And so on.

Since we're just ripping off Sc, why not come up with a different premise for the "bugs as the big bad". The bugs needing to siege the humans before sieging the elves limits things by preventing the bugs from interacting with the elves earlier, whereas the "humans as big bad" and "elves as big bad" premises are not constrained with prerequisites for interaction. Why not make the "elves" the ones "caught in the middle" this time?

Also, I'm also curious as to who would be the "third race caught in the middle" in the "elves as big bad" scenario. It would be interesting to see how one would incorporate the "bugs" as being "caught in the middle".

Mislagnissa

03-02-2018, 07:48 AM

Since we're just ripping off Sc, why not come up with a different premise for the "bugs as the big bad". The bugs needing to siege the humans before sieging the elves limits things by preventing the bugs from interacting with the elves earlier, whereas the "humans as big bad" and "elves as big bad" premises are not constrained with prerequisites for interaction. Why not make the "elves" the ones "caught in the middle" this time?

Also, I'm also curious as to who would be the "third race caught in the middle" in the "elves as big bad" scenario. It would be interesting to see how one would incorporate the "bugs" as being "caught in the middle".

As in SC, The elves show up early to stop the bugs from eating the humans because they were monitoring the humans and discovered bug probes on the edge of their space. The extreme ends to which they go bring them in conflict with the humans. Also, this doesn't preclude the other two races from being villains of their own campaigns at the same time (e.g. the Enslavers and Insurrection arcs), but the overarching plot is that the bugs are the main villains. There isn't much you cannot tell against a wartime backdrop. And In alternate universe campaigns anything is possible.

Since I have settled on OpenRA to obfuscate the fact that this is a clone of SC, my options have been opened by the huge diversity of mechanics in the Westwood RTSes. Notably Spice/Tiberium, as I said before. That opens a lot of story potential even before the bugs show up. They seed worlds with it as a precursor to invasion, as opposed to the zerg's creep spores. Tiberium/spice slowly xenoforms the environment as it extracts resources from the crust. The humans and elves discovered and exploited it similar to C&C, long before they discovered its detrimental effects.

In contrast to SC, I haven't considered a khaydarin substitute. A minor plot I noticed in SC was that the manual stated Aiur knew the zerg were engineered by xel'naga because they were compatible with khaydarin, but most other species are not. Yet in the game itself they supposedly learn this from Zeratul's intel leak because the deep space probe plot point was seemingly forgotten. The bugs' xenoforming agent I suggested essentially fulfills a similar power source role without going into plot device territory. However, at this point I am open to writing differently, since harvesting space elf tech crystals for electronic warfare is a nice plot point.

On another note, I'm building up inspiration for the space elves to make them more. Biomechanoid aesthetic is the first thing, but another thing that occurred to me would be that their technobabble would draw from obsolete scientific theories like luminferous ether, universal solvent, orgones, magnetic fluid, alchemy and so forth.

The biomechanoid aesthetic is rather difficult to explain to those unfamiliar. Basically their tech appears to be biological, but incorporated impossible aspects of mechanical engineering like wheels and pistons. An example would be the upcoming video game Scorn, which has a whole world like this. This distinguishes them immediately from the fleshy bugs and the cybernetic humans.

Mislagnissa

03-02-2018, 09:16 AM

So I went back and compiled the ideas you guys suggested so far, as well a few of my own:

Miscellaneous

The “determinant” needs to be adequately explained, if not redefined
Hard scifi a la Heinlein or Asimov versus soft scifi with FTL travel?
Is the conflict a few years or a few centuries?
Alternate universes where one side is the aggressor against another with the third caught in the middle, adjusted for each combination
Neutral space rodents that excel fast production and repair; hired as mercenaries
my intended main theme is freedom versus control, based on SC and the works of Michael Moorcock, and represented by the races in various ways: e.g. human fascists versus independents and robot rights, elf theocrats versus heretics and pirates, bugs combine diversity and unity.

Human fluff and strategy

Humans as a transhumanist technocracy with either powerhouse or horde tactics
Replace humans with another weaker alien race (e.g. Beta from Grey Goo)
Humans are the violent invaders
Corporations run colonies where humans are used as raw materials for labor, experiments, etc
Humans accidentally aided in the uplifting of another species, making them objects of worship
Humans are declining, so they arrange wars in order to free space for themselves
Humans utilize horrifying levels of bioengineering, similar to Mass Effect’s Collectors or SOMA’s structure gel monsters
humans live in cyberpunk dystopia. units include brainwashed criminals, cyborgs, mutants, robots, piloted mechs, cyborg mutant criminals, etc.

Bug fluff and strategy

Bugs should rely on harder scifi, such as endless numbers, steel armor, huge monsters with spare organs, etc
Bugs rely on extreme horde tactics: e.g. orders of magnitude more units to compete, units are swarms of tiny insects, specialized structures produce specialized units, clone local fauna for cannon fodder, etc
bugs utilize a xenoforming agent similar to Dune's spice and C&C's tiberium

Elf fluff and strategy

Psychic powers should be technology based
Elf power sources should be glossed: tiny batteries produce limitless power
Elves utilize subversive tactics, a la Heptacraft’s Nerazim
elf aesthetics are biomechanoid (w/o clear distinction between biological and technological), contrasted against human cyborg/robot and bug biotech
elf tech terminology draws from obsolete scientific theories like alchemy, ether, orgones, protoplasm, etc

Visions of Khas

03-02-2018, 12:53 PM

This is slightly but not-really off-topic, given the transhumanist bent of the conversations; but I ran across this stuff below just today, reminding me of a comment Gradius made earlier in this thread.

Psionics. I guess as long as it's done with technology I'm happy. Didn't think that was possible to read surface thoughts though.

Les Baugh, a modern bionic man (http://www.jhuapl.edu/newscenter/pressreleases/2014/141216.asp).

The bionics industry is proliferating at an astounding rate; the company Open Bionics targets children and young adults specifically with their products (https://www.openbionics.com/). (Almost makes me want to lose an arm and become the Winter Soldier.)

Haptic feedback, bitches! This kind of system is even referred to in the short story The Fightin' SceeVees (http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/The_Fightin%27_SceeVees), where Pearly has modified his unit's SCVs with haptic feedback systems for improved performance.

Nolanstar

03-02-2018, 02:31 PM

Mislagnissa

03-02-2018, 03:52 PM

Well, we can do a semi-hard sci-fi using apparent ftl such as alcubierre or transversible-wormhole system. Something that we think may be theoretically possible but still beyond current tech. Theoretically could have both as methods and use them differently per different races. Say the Humans (would should be scary voiceless biopunk monsters full of organic and nanotech, totally not biased here) use an alcubierre drive, the space elves use a wormhole system, and the bugs start with none but end up stealing ships from the others to access it.

Not "semi." This is soft scifi pretending to be hard scifi. You might as well just copy the FTL mechanics from Stellaris: it has like four different kinds.

As far as FTL goes there are only ever going to be three basic types: warp drive (move FTL just because), jump drive (teleport from A to B), and hyperspace drive (enter another universe, re-emerge in our universe at your destination). Sometimes the drive is fitted into a ship, other times it is a gate ships travel through.

Your ideas sound cool and I would love to use them for army concepts. IDK, we can devise a half-dozen factions that can exist in any universe, but their precise interactions will vary by universe. Your universe about the biopunk humans being the main antagonists would be one, and mine would be the straight-up clone.

Speaking of which, I have spend some time on writing a preliminary timeline of events for my primary universe. Long story short, it is the Starcraft expanded universe made to fit the Enumerate timeline I adore so much. Details may vary, such as the bugs having Tiberium and being defeated by dark elf psychotropic drugs rather than dark elf space magic (which is also motivated by copyright protection), but that's the gist of it.

Visions of Khas

03-02-2018, 03:54 PM

(would should be scary voiceless biopunk monsters full of organic and nanotech, totally not biased here)
Ray Kurzweil visited my college and gave a presentation several years ago, at one point talking about one day replacing all the blood in your body with a more efficient artificial solution that housed nanites. And I don't believe that, if we should ever become an interstellar race, we'll be able to colonize other worlds without heavily modifying ourselves -- it would be much more efficient than terraforming an entire world wholesale. Moreover, we'd need protection against the hard radiation of deep space, and a means of maintaining life in places prone to low O2 levels (say, a thin atmosphere, or some sort of system that keeps you alive in emergency decompression scenarios).

Out interstellar offspring will look very little like us, paving the way to a whole new world of racism and political fighting.

I loved SOMA’s structure gel monsters. :D Look into Peter Watts, his books might also give you some inspiration.

Mislagnissa

03-02-2018, 07:26 PM

While I won't be using the biopunks (makes sense as an in-story nickname or slur) as a major faction in my primary universe, I have quickly thought of sources of inspiration:

mass effect collectors, collector gear, medigel
the world of scorn
subhouse tleilaxu from battle for dune
tyranid weapons from warhammer
structure gel from soma
zoanoids from guyver (and tagers/dhoanoids from cthulhutech)
biological mechs from evangelion and cthulhutech
bioships in genesis rising
species 8472 ships in star trek armada 2
umbrella corp in resident evil
gauna in knights of sidonia
parasites in parasyte
kagune and quinque in tokyo ghoul

I'm imagining a religious order which exalts flesh and considers technology impure or evil, possibly descended from the organic farming, anti-gmo, antivaxxer, raw water and similar luddite movements on modern Earth. Since they could not compete due to being wasteful and dying of plagues, they had to compromise their values and engineer resident evil-style bioweapons. they're hypocrites who claim technology is evil for being unnatural or whatever, while being unnatural biotech abominations themselves. they probably worship the bugs, if they don't consider them infidels.

Visions of Khas

03-02-2018, 09:16 PM

... Well, that's just the Yuuzhan Vong (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Yuuzhan_Vong) in a nutshell.

Nolanstar

03-03-2018, 01:06 AM

I was trying to avoid the Yuuzhan Vong as a direct reference while coming up with those ideas, hence the insectoid rather then reptilian appearances and the reliancy/exemption of mixing bio and technology on a scale where they are no loner separate, like the nanotech/grey goo rather then the vong's tropey styling of gear just done in an organic faction, like eels for swords and flying explosive bugs for grenades. I'm actually at this point considering doing a faction and tech write-up for fun.. Perhaps I should. Its all the traping of a futuristic army minus a few things that get caught up in the circumstances. IE infantry with assault rifles and armored vehicles with support systems.

KaiserStratosTygo

03-03-2018, 10:13 AM

We need Jump drives.

Nissa

03-03-2018, 10:14 AM

Yes, I do have a specific vision. What was your first clue? I really like the original SC premise because it was just so elegant as far as excuse plots go. Blizz never went anywhere with it, so I really wanted to. That's why I made this thread. If you don't like it, then make a new thread for your completely original concept. Please don't steal my spotlight.

...Mislag, not everything I say is an argument. I'm just commenting on the discrepancy between your view and the early comments of others. This is not in any way stealing the spotlight. Please stop being needlessly hostile.

Anyway, my only deal is basically this -- how much of a rip-off is this going to be, exactly? The more you guys talk about it, the less so it seems. It's not a big deal or anything, I'm just curious.

Mislagnissa

03-05-2018, 08:48 AM

...Mislag, not everything I say is an argument. I'm just commenting on the discrepancy between your view and the early comments of others. This is not in any way stealing the spotlight. Please stop being needlessly hostile.

Anyway, my only deal is basically this -- how much of a rip-off is this going to be, exactly? The more you guys talk about it, the less so it seems. It's not a big deal or anything, I'm just curious.

No prob. I took my meds today.

The rip-off part is much more obvious after you read the timeline synopsis I wrote. As far as the overarching timeline of the narrative goes, I would probably adopt the structure of Enumerate. The backdrop is all-out war anyway, so I cannot really think of anything better outside of alternate universes with different premises. The historical eras relevant to the overarching conflict would be the cold war, the first contact war, and the bug wars. Each of these conflicts is fairly complicated to explain, so I will try to be brief. I deliberately avoid mentioning scales at this point because I do not want to write myself into a corner and want to support any number of campaigns set during any period.

The cold war is when the three races first start interacting. The elves watched as the humans expand into their frontier. The humans intercepted elf transmissions and grew envious of the bountiful worlds claimed by the elves. Then the tiberium shows up on frontier worlds, humans exploit it, and discover the bug vanguard. The human governments try to keep it secret while they experiment. The elves try to contain the bugs after realizing they are invasive, but learn conventional tactics are useless.

Several key events emerge from this. The elves discover alien probes which respond freely to their interrogation, revealing that a swarm of alien locusts is plotting against the humans and prompting an inquisition/expedition. The humans study the bugs’ communication and realize they are sensitive to psychic emissions, prompting the production of beacons to lure them to specific locations. Unbeknownst to both of them but known to us, the bugs realize this and respond accordingly.

The first contact war actually refers to two related conflicts occurring in human and elven space.

The war begins when the humans summon the bugs in force at the same time the elf inquisition arrives to exterminate the bugs. When the awaiting garrison explains they cannot contain the bugs conventionally, they resort to bombarding inhabited planets and provoking the humans. This causes a schism in the expedition between those who support the genocide and those who wish to protect the humans, which eventually boils over into outright insurrection.

At the same time, numerous rebel groups come to the fore. You can explain this in a variety of ways, but long story short the colonies want independence from the authoritarian government of Earth/Mars/whoever because they feel they are not being treated with the respect they deserve and their rights are being trampled over. The flames are fanned by the democratic and corporate governments already in a tense relation with the authoritarian governments. While not as common, various fringe religious cults that worship the bugs come into power. Ultimately, using the psychic beacons originally developed by Earth’s scientists, a rebel group sacrifices Earth to the bugs and unifies the entire human race under a single government to deal with the invading aliens.

Meanwhile, the bugs are abducting countless test subjects and take them to remote hive planets for experimentation. The experiments produce massive psychic emissions, which draws a number of elven forces to them. These include the mysterious dark elves, which followed the probes in elven space back to human space. By complete accident, the dark elves discover that the bugs rely on psychic amplifiers to coordinate. By using a psychotropic attack (deviator gas?) on an amplifier, the entire swarm it coordinates is driven into a berserk frenzy. Unfortunately, this accident is made while trying to rescue high and dark elven prisoners from interrogation by the bugs. It is too late to stop the intel leak, but the bugs are distracted long enough that the dark elves are able to escape with the secret to stop them. In a strange twist of luck, the interrogees reveal that they learned the bugs’ ultimate goal: to conquer the universe, starting with the elves.

Meanwhile, groups of dark elves that want revenge on the high elves for exile see the humans and bugs as potential tools to this end. They form alliances with willing humans and enslave bugs to use as weapons. In extreme cases, some elves (including alienated high elves) actually join the human cults that exalt the bugs. This may cause recurring problems.

Using the intel they acquired, the bugs launch an invasion of the elven empire, high elf and dark elf alike. At this point in time the bugs deploy the new units they created by researching their human test subjects, which are engineered specifically to counter many of the tactics used by the elves. The bugs target sites where the elves manufacture the crystalline basis of their tech, intending to use it against the elves in electronic warfare. The bugs investigate ruins of the ancestral elven civilization, intending to either use their ancient weapons or prevent them from falling into enemy hands.

The high elf government declares a crusade against the heretic dark elves when they show up claiming to have a means of defeating the bugs. The high elves’ psychic warfare has not similarly shattered the swarms, so they have no reason to trust a psychotropic drug. This causes schisms among the high elves, as many begin to distrust the government or become alienated after seeing its questionable decisions during the war with the bugs. This ends up causing multiple simultaneous civil wars as many different ideologies come into conflict, ironically proving the government’s fear about heresy true. In one notable instance, a group of high elves defect to the bugs! Ironically, had this civil war not occurred the high elves might very well have repulsed the bugs; but even with the benefit of hindsight this outcome remains uncertain.

After a final civil war between the high elf orthodoxy and the dark elf alliance, the government finally comes to its senses when the dark elves display their trump card first hand. The elves make a last ditch assault on the bugs’ biggest communication hub. They are successful and the bugs attacking the core worlds of the empire are driven berserk and unable to coordinate. This causes the hordes farther away to become egotistical and starts the bug wars when they fight among themselves.

The bug wars are characterized by the bugs losing their empathy for one another and the swarms fighting for control. While the humans and elves had previously made attempts to enslave individual swarms, these attempts were never widespread because of the bugs’ unity making them difficult to control in the first place and alerting the other swarms’ of any successes. With that unity shattered, the humans and elves find it much easier to enslave swarms and without alerting the other swarms.

The new authoritarian governments, founded by the previous rebels, see the bugs as an opportunity to consolidate their own power (as they always do). At the same time, the corporate and democratic governments chafing under the rule of the authoritarian government deploy their enslaved bugs against the fascists. Despite their good intentions, the ethical problems made this fairly unpopular in the media even if the fascists planned on worse.

Obviously, the humans and elves fight a lot due to the latter committing genocide. While there are instances of compassionate high elves and dark elves allying with humans against bugs or genocidal high elves, the bad first impression means that humans tend to paint the elves with the same brush.

Eventually the bugs manage to reunify, but by that point any ideas for the future would probably just rehash what came before. I think I have explored most of the major plot points the backdrop has to offer. I threw a few curveballs, like the Tiberium or excuses for every combination of conflict (and I probably forgot a few), but otherwise the backdrop is highly derivative of Starcraft, Mass Effect, Halo, and Warhammer. Specific details are open to change (e.g. the psych drug plot device, which I am not entirely happy with and might consider changing to something similar to the Aliens comics' red/black alien war (http://avp.wikia.com/wiki/Red_Xenomorph) or the "hydra effect (http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Norn-Queen#The_Hydra_effect)" from Warhammer's tyranids), but that's the overall backdrop.

Mislagnissa

03-06-2018, 03:16 PM

My idea for the Earth governments was that they are descended directly from modern governments. The great powers would be United States of America, Russian Federation, People's Republic of China, Republic of India, Federative Republic of Brazil, and European Union. It is unrealistic to believe that humans would ever give up their sovereignty to the United Nations, particularly given the current climate of populism threatening democracy itself.

Then you bring in elements that redefine what it means to be human, like cyborgs and mutants and robots. Then you bring in the new nation-states that will inevitably develop when we colonize the seas of Earth and the surfaces of other planets.

For simplicity’s sake we can just project current political issues centuries into the future, as is the standard for scifi. To start with, humans have colonized at least roughly 20 light-years in a sphere around Earth (http://www.atlasoftheuniverse.com/20lys.html). Then we add the “war of earthly aggression (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheWarOfEarthlyAggression)” plot common in scifi where humans colonize other worlds. Inventing various new nation-states is a fun mini-game, though.

I can think of nation-states and other organizations like the Technocratic Union (literally: a labor union of technical experts), Martian Republic, Commonwealth of Venus, Jovian Federation, Principality of Pluto, Outer Planets Alliance, Tau Ceti Federation (http://eve.wikia.com/wiki/Tau_Ceti_Federation), Twelve Colonies of Alpha Centauri (http://alphacentauri2.info/wiki/Factions), etc. You could even have divided governments on single planets, like the Martian Free Republic versus the Martian Federation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jovian_Chronicles) or something.

For the Martians in particular, I imagine that their marines or mech pilots are called the Knights of Cydonia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knights_of_Sidonia) after Cydonia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cydonia_(region_of_Mars)) (aka the Face on Mars).

Nissa

03-06-2018, 05:02 PM

Mislagnissa

03-07-2018, 09:10 AM

Hm...I disagree with making the governments specifically reference Earth governments. One of the appeals of SC is that the people there have no connection to the past. I mean, your idea could certainly work, but imo it seems less appealing than making the references more abstract.
This is not entirely correct. SC's Terrans are based on the American South and the entire aesthetic of the frontier planets is taken from the colonization of the American West. Names like "New Angeles" suggest that there may even be a Hispanic and/or Latino population. It is fairly obvious that the population are descended from citizens of the USA.

All of the other scifi games already do what you suggest and more besides: they make their human societies into bland utopias where everyone is multiracial, LGBT and follows the values of 21st century American liberals. I would deliberately avoid that for two reasons: 1) to maintain a dark and gritty atmosphere, and 2) to stand out from the cookie cutter scifi mold.

Brazil, India and China are culturally very conservative. They all have a history of being oppressed by white colonialists. They are absolutely nothing like the Utopian future imagine by left-wing American video game developers.

I find it absurd that humans would suddenly abandon millennia of culture, especially given our massive psychological flaws (http://www.thebookoflife.org/why-humanity-destroyed-itself/). However, the fact that the other worlds developed their own cultures and nation-states turns this into a "have your cake and eat it too" situation. The Earth governments and their territories maintain their cultures, while others are new and may be projected on.

While my idea is for a game that follows the standard three faction archetypes (https://electriccartilage.wordpress.com/2011/11/25/the-celestial-terrestrial-and-the-diabolic-the-three-faction-archetype/) that repeatedly crop up (https://godlesspaladin.wordpress.com/2010/08/03/new-sci-fi-games-same-old-motifs/), I have said before that I like to overturn those assumptions in key ways.

Among other things, this means making the gung-ho human space marines distinctly inhuman and to simultaneously reflect the best/worst parts of humanity (rather than just 21st century American liberal utopia in space), making the space elves into a young race going through a renaissance (rather than declining after reaching their peak long ago), and giving the devouring swarm motivations that make rational sense (since too many bugs in fiction are evil/insane just because) and even come off as very loosely sympathetic (since in an RTS you can embrace your destructive side guilt-free).

I understand your concern and compromised by adopting both sides of our argument. I get the Earthling nation-states, you get the Tau Ceti, Alpha Centauri... you get everything else.

Mislagnissa

03-07-2018, 01:35 PM

Some ideas on elves

The elves are dramatically different in physiology from both humans and bugs. In their natural form, the elves are strange, plant-like organisms that alternate their lifecycle between sessile and motile forms. Elves are able to compress themselves into convenient carrying cases known as cores. Their units on the battlefield are suits of programmable matter, each of which is piloted by a core.

Human military forces are composed of various forms of human derivatives, strong AIs and weak AIs, which may be conscripted or engineered for their role. Bug military forces are composed of organisms engineered for specific roles, the vast majority being nearly mindless warrior beasts and a minority of synapse beasts to direct them. By contrast, elven military forces lack these distinctions. All cores have the same basic capabilities and capacity for growth, and may be transferred between different suits with ease. Although their psychology and culture still eludes human scientists, cores have been observed asexually dividing in order to reinforce their numbers. They do not appear to go through a larval stage like bugs or an adolescent stage like humans.

Alternate idea

Elven units appear to be remotely controlled drones generated by vats of an all-purpose programmable matter. If their commanding elf is killed, they will cease to function and begin decaying unless another elf takes control of them. Despite their relative immortality, many elves seemingly exhibit a bloodlust so powerful they will place their lives at risk simply to experience combat firsthand.

Nissa

03-08-2018, 04:51 PM

This is not entirely correct. SC's Terrans are based on the American South and the entire aesthetic of the frontier planets is taken from the colonization of the American West. Names like "New Angeles" suggest that there may even be a Hispanic and/or Latino population. It is fairly obvious that the population are descended from citizens of the USA.

That's not quite what I meant. Being based off certain things is cool, but it's not like the Confederacy is in any way really descended from the CSA. I was sort of under the impression that factions in the ripoff would be direct outputs of countries, like a Canada planet, or a European Union planet, stuff like that. It was the direct stuff I was objecting to, assuming that's what you really meant.

Mislagnissa

03-08-2018, 09:35 PM

That's not quite what I meant. Being based off certain things is cool, but it's not like the Confederacy is in any way really descended from the CSA. I was sort of under the impression that factions in the ripoff would be direct outputs of countries, like a Canada planet, or a European Union planet, stuff like that. It was the direct stuff I was objecting to, assuming that's what you really meant.

That's absurd. A planet colonized by the EU would be an EU colony, but not "Planet EU." It would be a new country or countries with a new ethnic identity. The sheer distance will force their cultures to diverge, and the great powers are hardly homogeneous to begin with. Planets colonized by the USA would be new states, for example.

Visions of Khas

03-09-2018, 08:18 PM

The sheer distance will force their cultures to diverge, and the great powers are hardly homogeneous to begin with.
Unlike primitive empires, the Khalai were able to keep their society homogeneous and unified because of their warp capabilities. In effect, distant colonies were little more than additional provinces of Aiur.

If you develop a society with strong warp capability, the cultural divergence would be slowed.

One of the things I found my fascinating about the WarHammer universe was the sheer diversity of factions within each of the races. The Legions of the Astartes were each inspired by Terran-bound cultures. Each chapter has a long history with the other chapters, where solid friendships and ancient blood feuds dictate their interactions. I would love for this richness of history to be present in the fluff of other games.

Mislagnissa

03-12-2018, 07:52 AM

Unlike primitive empires, the Khalai were able to keep their society homogeneous and unified because of their warp capabilities. In effect, distant colonies were little more than additional provinces of Aiur.

If you develop a society with strong warp capability, the cultural divergence would be slowed. We have globalization on Earth, but in many cases it actually spurs nationalism rather than making cultures more homogeneous. The internet is chock full of tribalism, and the internet has probably made tribalism even worse.

The Protoss had an empathic internet that indoctrinated them into certain beliefs since birth, to the point that the Sargas tribe actually spent a great deal of effort on counteracting this effect. At least back in SC1 when Protoss tribes had different skin colors and a lot of the world building was much different.

No surprise that my vision of space elves recycles these forgotten elements.

Mislagnissa

03-12-2018, 02:53 PM

As far as the FTL idea is concerned...

I was thinking that the humans would use good old fashioned warp, the elves would use a portal network, and the bugs utilize hyperspace lanes. Each has advantages and disadvantages.

KaiserStratosTygo

03-13-2018, 06:51 PM

as far as the ftl idea is concerned...

I was thinking that the humans would use good old fashioned warp, the elves would use a portal network, and the bugs utilize hyperspace lanes. Each has advantages and disadvantages.

s t e l l a r i s

Mislagnissa

03-14-2018, 08:56 AM

s t e l l a r i s
Didn't I mention that as an inspiration? I've been watching the streams on youtube. FTL was redesigned in 2.0, though. But really, I got the list from tvtropes. For a more detailed list: http://www.projectrho.com/stardrv.txt

As far as the three races are concerned, it is supposed to play into their history. The ancient elves developed stargates and jump drives, which the modern elves are still trying to reverse engineer. The bugs rely on entering a parallel reality where FTL is possible, but it has tides and currents which make free roaming very difficult. I considered the possibility they originated from this other reality (and were brought into ours by the ancient elves), as did tiberium, but I don't want to limit my options. I was thinking the dark elves might rely on this reality for personal teleportation, a la X-men's nightcrawler.

Speaking of which, I had an idea for different philosophies in reality warping powers between high elves and dark elves (and wood elves?). The high elves excel at affecting spiritual and living systems because their philosophy is based on presence (through the tele/empathy internet), but need bulky tech to affect spacetime and matter. The dark elves' philosophy is based on absence, so they find the opposite true. The twilight elves, who come into existence later, would meld these philosophies. (This originates from a discussion on spacebattles. Will find link later.) (EDIT: here it is (https://forums.spacebattles.com/posts/19725384/))

The bugs have a bizarre philosophy which is midway between presence and absence (since they are a hive mind) and individually much weaker. They excel at telepathy and biopathy, but need large numbers to boost their signal strength. They cannot easily affect spacetime (at least until they develop something like SW's dovin basals), but they can rip holes in it to enter/exist hyperspace. I think it's a matter of precision. Easier to damage something than to fix it, yes?

Right now it's all brainstorming about how to explain different game mechanics. I might change my mind later.

Mislagnissa

03-14-2018, 01:46 PM

I was a bit inspired by the Alien films. According to interviews, the alien was originally intended to be an intelligent, scholarly race. A cataclysm wiped out the adults, but the eggs survived. Originally the eggs were found in a pyramid by an alien pilot and later the humans, but budgeting forced the pyramid and the alien ship to be combined. So if the intelligent alien concept was revisited (ignoring the atrocious prequels and sequels), then it would probably be merged into whoever was responsible for the alien ship.

In the comic books, the aliens were given planet-spanning colonies and telepathy and stuff. If you try to reconcile that with the idea that the aliens seen thus far were merely feral children of advanced ship-builders, it makes the civilized adults look pretty messed up. Which is totally awesome IMO; I would expect Giger art monsters to be terrifying regardless of intelligence.

Some ideas on the bugs

The bugs are your standard swarm of alien bugs. Like the Zerg and Tyranids, all of their units are created from the genomes of species they consumed. In many cases there is a clear host species which was used as a template, and in other cases not.

The bugs are a symbiotic lifeform, consisting of these modified host organisms and microscopic helminths. The helminths are the original bug species and the glue which holds their grotesque civilization together. An autopsy of any bug unit will reveal these helminths swimming around in their bodily fluids. (This is a reference to the SC1 zerg backstory which was retconned by SC2. And to The Strain TV show by Guillermo del Toro.)

The helminths have ESP and CRISPR. They can communicate telepathically and can detect other sources of telepathy, which works analogous to radio and RADAR. They can splice genomes of themselves and other organisms with ease. These are believed to be adaptations to living in a radioactive environment, such as that present in tiberium fields. (This is also a reference to SC1 backstory, again discarded by SC2. Plus Alien and tyranid genestealers.)

The bugs assimilate new species by first infesting them with helminths. The difficult part is making the helminths compatible with the physiology of new organisms without killing either party, which generally requires a period of research and development. Although it is uncommon, they can acquire genomes from well-preserved corpses as seen in several species which were extinct by the time the bugs arrived. (This is a reference to Gradius’ Origins campaign, which makes mention of resurrecting extinct species and overcoming biochemical barriers.)

The bugs typically produce their forces at dedicating cloning facilities, but host species have been seen reproducing on their own. The helminths contain the complete genomes of all bug units, allowing them to mature into any host species provided they have a suitable environment. (This is a reference to Zerg larvae and the autopsy section of the 2004 Tyranid codex.)

Human-conducted experiments on bugs have revealed some interesting information. It is possible for human telepaths to communicate with the bugs, but this process appears quite unpleasant due to the alien and single-minded nature of the bugs’ psychology. The experiments were able to extract a limited amount of information, such as basic motivations: the bugs consider all other life to be food for their young and clay for their creations. (This is a reference to the novel Liberty’s Crusade, which was contradicted by later sources.)

The human experiments revealed the bugs have known the elves long before the elves knew of them, and label the elves xenophobic and genocidal gardeners. This contrasted against intercepted and translated transmissions from the elf listening posts, which seemed fairly innocuous (even if the space-time manipulation casually mentioned in the census records was terrifyingly advanced). (This is a reference to Liberty’s Crusade and the Starcraft beta website.)

Mislagnissa

03-15-2018, 10:36 AM

aesthetics: Teleportation and wormholes
Wormholes are used by the Protoss in Starcraft, the Scrin in Tiberium Wars, and the Undead Scourge in Warcraft 3.

I am of two minds about how the bugs construct things. On one hand they could gestate troops in buildings on the battlefield. On the other hand they could create portals which summon their units from their home reality (if they are aliens from hyperspace).

If the bugs are summoning their buildings and units, then the elves would have to not do that to maintain a sense of aesthetic distinction. Maybe they could grow their buildings like trees similar to the Night Elves in Warcraft 3.

base building in OpenRA
If I'm using the OpenRA engine, which I am partial too since I loved playing RA2 back in the day, then I would probably be limited to the mechanics used there. All buildings have to be built near the base, and you cannot move buildings. The closest to movable buildings would be the ability to revert an construction yard back to an MCV (mobile construction vehicle), which is only allowed in certain game modes; modding could expand that to other structures, such as a mobile war factory I saw in a mod once.

The closest to creep/blight in OpenRA would be concrete in Dune2k. Concrete is built like any other building. Buildings have to be built on concrete foundation or they will fall apart. This was dropped in Emperor, where the only limit was that buildings had to be built on rock, never sand.

Power is a resource in all Westwood RTS games. It is produced by power plants and consumed by structures. This could be fluffed a variety of ways for the three sides: humans have conventional power plants, bugs have bioreactors that rely on tiberium, elves have their weird alien power plants.

harvesting resources in OpenRA
I found it pretty easy to imagine how the three sides would harvest ore/tiberium. The humans use a soviet-style harvester, the elves use an allies-style chrono miner, and the bugs use a yuri-style slave miner. In the bug's case the slave miner would actually be a giant bug creature which serves as a mobile refinery: it sits down next to a patch of resources and releases smaller mining bugs to collect the materials.

I was thinking the bugs could also use a yuri-style grinder, fluffed as a digestion pool or something. Units could be sent to it to be digested and reclaim their resource value for use elsewhere.

KaiserStratosTygo

03-15-2018, 11:44 AM

"FTL was redesigned in 2.0, though."

Ah, I didn't play that patch yet since it killed half my mods.

Nolanstar

03-16-2018, 01:18 AM

Interesting to give the bugs hyperspace lanes. Some natural phenomena they are aware of and is outclassed by other stuff? Or is navigating it so complex it requires a hive mind.

Mislagnissa

03-16-2018, 12:37 PM

Interesting to give the bugs hyperspace lanes. Some natural phenomena they are aware of and is outclassed by other stuff? Or is navigating it so complex it requires a hive mind.

There are a number of different ways to explain why they use different methods. It would be easiest if everyone used the same kind, but this is an aesthetic choice to make them stand out more.

A lot of it, I think, has to do with knowledge and technical capability. The humans and bugs developed their FTL from scratch, but the former use machines and the latter living creatures. The elves reverse-engineered their tech from the ancient elves, so they have yet to master it or replicate some feats of the humans and bugs.

In theory it should be possible for them to replicate the other's FTL method if they understood the principles behind it and their technology did not prohibit it. In practice, this may not be feasible or preferable. It may not be feasible for the bugs to create warp drives using living creatures; conversely, it may not be feasible to enter hyperspace in the first place without a bug swarm. The elves might not reverse-engineer human warp drives because their wormhole network is faster (since we can assume the ancient elves already placed a network of portals across the space where the game story occurs, including human space being on the frontier of the ancient empire).

In Andromeda, slipstream (their version of hyperspace lanes) requires the intuition of biological life to travel with speed and precision. An AI that tried to travel on its own would be lost for months before it reaches its destination, if it ever does before running out of fuel. In Dune, prescient abilities unlocked by the spice prove superior to computers with regard to calculating the trajectory of FTL jumps, as a miscalculation may result in immediate death or getting permanently lost. Something similar may apply to hyperspace travel, where the bugs rely on intuition and/or limited prescience to traverse hyperspace safely. (To explain why the bugs do not use prescience to predict the outcome of battles burrows logic from Dune itself: typically prescience only extends into the immediate present and more advanced application may invalidate free will due to the paradox of omniscience. For example, one may predict one's own death and any attempts to prevent it only ensure that it happens. In my view of bug psychology, they are terrified of dead ends and desire to marry the best parts of unity and diversity.)

Gradius

03-16-2018, 01:40 PM

Do hyperspace lanes have any basis in reality? What’s the science behind it. I think in Andromeda it had something to do with quantum entanglement.

Mislagnissa

03-19-2018, 08:54 AM

Do hyperspace lanes have any basis in reality? What’s the science behind it. I think in Andromeda it had something to do with quantum entanglement.

Hyperspace lanes have no basis in reality (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/scienceandtech/columns/forscience/11746-5-Faster-Than-Light-Travel-Methods-and-Their-Plausibility.4).

Mislagnissa

03-19-2018, 02:54 PM

Here are a few ideas for potentially interesting story lines with the right execution. You can probably tell they are based on some of the sillier plots in SC.

Mengsk did nothing wrong
Something that I would like to feature as a humanocentric story is the rebel-becomes-dictator plot. Unlike certain other characters in popular fiction, I would prefer to treat such a dictatorship with more complexity.

Overthrowing the previous regime is motivated by revenge and a desire for freedom. In doing so, however, the rebels commit the same kind of immortal acts as the previous regime would have. Ironically, the new regime is little different from the previous regime.

I do not want to treat either the old or the new regime as malicious idiots. Real humans are flawed and make bad decisions all the time, especially heads of state. Nobody is really evil, either; they just think they are the good guys and that their enemies are inhuman monsters. Humans are tribal and short-sighted.

Overthrowing the previous regime is, objectively, a moronic waste of resources that essentially betrayed humanity to the bugs for no gain and massive losses. The new regime basically shot themselves in the foot due to stupid human emotions. Even so, the new regime genuinely tries to fight off the bugs and protect mankind.

The moral of the story is that democracy is good and dictatorships are bad. There is no such thing as a benevolent dictatorship (except the bugs), because humans are flawed.

The Count of Monte Cristo
The bugs are essentially a completely biologically version of the Borg from Star Trek. One of the upsides of being infested by the bugs is that your memories and personality are preserved forever within the hive mind. The hive mind is wired for empathy, so the bugs become sympathetic to those they consume and vice versa. The bugs are also the ultimate intelligence nightmare, because once they infest someone like a high-ranking black-ops agent, that agent’s knowledge is immediately shared with all the swarms.

In practice, a number of swarms with the highest percentage of human souls consumed become obsessed with exacting vengeance upon the rebel groups who betrayed Earth and other planets to the bugs, and the remnants from the old regime who wanted to experiment on the bugs by sacrificing people, despite the fact that being infested is totally awesome (humans are emotional and tribal, not sane and rational). Prior to the bug wars this has little effect on their strategy since they intend to exterminate the entire human race anyway. During the bug wars, when the swarms lose the ability to coordinate, some of them prioritize revenge over conquest or survival.

Seeking revenge is irrational, petty and antithetical to their overall goal. The bugs know this, acknowledge it many times, but ultimately do not care. They acutely feel the pain of losing the human lives they could have had, or seeing loved ones slaughtered, yet they consider humanity pitiable and desire nothing more than to eat them. Losing the connection between all the swarms has affected their sanity. They seek revenge because they lost sight of the bigger picture and can no longer resist their base impulses.

Ultimately, human emotions are a mental illness. A contagious mental illness.

sandwich_bird

03-21-2018, 12:11 PM

I do not want to treat either the old or the new regime as malicious idiots. Real humans are flawed and make bad decisions all the time, especially heads of state. Nobody is really evil, either; they just think they are the good guys and that their enemies are inhuman monsters. Humans are tribal and short-sighted.

Would probably need to elaborate here on what the old and the new are. In SC, assuming you consider being egocentric evil, the confederacy was evil since their goal wasn't the betterment of mankind but the betterment of the elite. Are you sticking with that line or changing it?

Mislagnissa

03-21-2018, 01:23 PM

Would probably need to elaborate here on what the old and the new are. In SC, assuming you consider being egocentric evil, the confederacy was evil since their goal wasn't the betterment of mankind but the betterment of the elite. Are you sticking with that line or changing it?

If they wanted the betterment of mankind, they would be democratic. Authoritarianism is inherently bad because it inevitably leads to the elite oppressing mankind.

I was thinking along the lines of portraying the individual characters as sympathetic even if their cause is unjust or becomes corrupt. Like in real life, everyone thinks they are the hero/victim.

Mislagnissa

03-22-2018, 02:20 PM

Here is a Washington Post article (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/democracy-post/wp/2017/02/13/why-the-rise-of-authoritarianism-is-a-global-catastrophe/?utm_term=.769c1a891b58) explaining why authoritarianism stifles progress.

On another note, I have toyed with the idea of using the Holocene calendar (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_calendar) rather than the Gregorian calendar. The Holocene calendar was originally intended to be more relevant and inclusive to humanity as a whole, but I think it would be easy for the authoritarian governments to rationalize this as making humanity seem more important. It was traditional for ancient philosopher-kings to make themselves seem more important by adopting the names of their predecessors and continuing the previous calendar (as in those days calendars measured the reign of a specific king), giving the impression of longevity. Additionally, humanity has made more progress in the last century (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerating_change) than in the last hundred millennia. This could serve as a little joke when the space elves note with concern that humans have such a long history, when the elves themselves only recovered from the dark ages within a single elven lifetime (which is, IDK, 1000 human years?).

To add some more complexity to the human political situation, let's go back to the suggestions about robots and cyborgs. In addition to human models of government, we could also have nation-states run by robots and cyborgs. Similar to Stellaris' machine intelligence government, but allowing for civilizations that are not gestalt consciousness. Kromosome, Cyberpunk 2020's Deep Space supplement, Transhuman Space, Eclipse Phase are the few (RPG) examples I can think of cyberpunk space opera. I was thinking the machine governments would use Unix time (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_time).

KaiserStratosTygo

03-22-2018, 10:46 PM

"On another note, I have toyed with the idea of using the Holocene calendar rather than the Gregorian calendar."

Join the club.

Mislagnissa

03-26-2018, 08:17 AM

Religion

Something I have not seen much in scifi is religion. Most of the time the future is perceived as an atheist utopia (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OutgrownSuchSillySuperstitions).

This is complete nonsense for one key reason: humans are tribal. Religion was never anything more than an excuse for our tribalism. Just look at how people behave on the internet, simultaneous claiming Jesus never existed (https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Evidence_for_the_historical_existence_of_Jesus_Chr ist) and starting flame wars over trivial nonsense (http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/the-internet-is-serious-business). Flame wars are just the internet equivalent of witch hunts.

Although traditional religions are on the decline in rich countries, new religions are replacing them. Cosmism (http://www.corespirit.com/cosmism-the-emerging-religion-2-0/), for example, bills itself as "religion 2.0." Mormonism claims that God is a space alien from the planet Kobol (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolob) (in case you recognize that name, the original Battlestar Galactica's chief producer was a mormon).

Religion is ripe to explore as a theme in an RTS about aliens invading.

The original Zerg were portrayed with religious overtones (Metzen outright states he based them on the Old Testment and Shakespeare): the Overmind was analogous to the Old Testment God and the cerebrates were his prophets. There's also Gravemind in Halo, who speaks entirely in rhyme. I would like to do something similar for the bugs, since many of my ideas are just recycling neat stuff from Starcraft that Blizzard threw away.

I expect that religion would be quite prevalent in human space, since religiosity scales with poverty and human space is full of poverty. I would probably copy the Brotherhood of Nod plot from Command & Conquer, since the tiberium rip-off is seeding the religious outer planets first. When the bugs invade, there would probably be people worshiping them; since the bugs are intelligent, they will probably realize it would save time and resources to exploit this religion.

The elves would have religion. Since they have a telepathic internet, elves who die would have their memories preserved in the cloud. I suppose the cloud would become something akin to their afterlife and serve as the focus of their religion. I imagine their religion being a form of ancestor worship. However, taking cues from Starcraft, they would have a theocracy loosely based on the medieval Catholic church. Their theocracy has very good reasons to exist, in contrast to what atheist propaganda would have you believe, but even so that does not mean they are perfect. I believe I mentioned the alien protectorate, multiple genocides and civil war back in the rough timeline. Much like the Covenant in Halo, they offer the more mature species in their protectorate places in their military.

Space zombies
Much like the Flood in Halo and the Necromorphs in Dead Space, the bugs make use of space zombies. The space zombies are actually a provisional force designed to establish a beach head, not the main force of their army. Unlike the main forces of bugs, the space zombies are not engineered breeds spawned from the breeding pits. The space zombies are composed of organisms recently infested by the helminth and various Frankenstein abominations composed of transplanted tissue. However, the space zombies are also accompanied by breeds engineered for infestation, which are similar to things like Halo's infection forms, Starcraft 2's infestors and virophages, Half-Life's headcrabs, and so on. Unlike other space zombies in fiction, the bugs also make use of literal and vehicular zombies: these operate similar to Tleilaxu contaminators and leeches in Emperor: Battle for Dune (I'm using OpenRA as my conceptual basis for gameplay right now).

EDIT:

The bugs as invasive ecosystem
I would like to frame the bugs as being more than just the bugs that fight the humans and elves. They are an invasive ecosystem, with analogues to plants, fungi, and pathogens. An invasive or hostile ecosystem is a concept only explored in a few works of fiction: Alpha Centauri's xenofungus and mindworms, The War Against the Chtorr novels, Fragment and Pandemonium by Warren Fahy, the sandworms and spice in Dune, the tiberium in Command & Conquer (based on the spice, btw).

The bugs are pretty much an amalgamation of all those ideas I thought was cool. They have xenoforming agents, they have zombie apocalypses, and they have fleets of engineered warrior monsters. Each of these aspects has its own identity and can exist apart from the others in different plots.

A political story could focus on the ramifications of humans exploiting the properties of the miraculous alien moss, which is very loosely similar to the modern debate about climate change and green energy. The zombies would be great for a survival horror story.

Nolanstar

03-26-2018, 03:04 PM

Going on the invasive ecosystem tangent, SC2 actually does a decent job with that. Showing creep withering and infesting or killing trees and flora, as well as the large variety of zerg-ish flora doodads we see in infested areas.

Going further and you can have replacements for most levels of an ecosystem. The swarms of flies picking over bodies can be bug servants, the local water microfauna co-opted by them and used to hijack populations, pollen and spores modified for reactions, etc.

Mislagnissa

03-27-2018, 12:20 PM

Some more miscellaneous ideas

Elf society
The elves are divided into around three major super-ethnic divisions.

The high elves are those who adopted the faith of the telepathic internet. Although composed of numerous clans, kiths and tribes, these divisions are secondary to a caste system dividing the ethnic groups among the knights, clergy and guilds. The knights manage the military, the clergy manages the civil, scientific and bureaucratic issues, and the guilds maintain the infrastructure.

After the high elves are the various heretics: the wood elves and dark elves.

The wood elves are analogous to the Warcraft night elves, the Starcraft dark Templar or Warhammer eldar exodites. They rejected the faith and were exiled from their homeworlds, but now live a hidden existence in the shadow of the high elf empire. They are divided into numerous ethnic groups that often have little to do with one another, united only by their shared hiding from the empire.

The dark elves are analogous to the Warcraft nightborne elves, the Starcraft taldarim, the Warhammer dark elder, the sith lords, yadda yadda. They are nominally evil pirates and rejects from Hot Topic. I don’t have as much to say about them.

Where the humans are only a single species and the bugs assimilate other species into themselves, the high elves have an empire that includes various client species similar to the Halo covenant, the Mass Effect citadel, or the Warhammer tau.

Taking a page from tvtropes, the iconic client races could fall into the "Five Race" stereotypes of stout, fairy, mundane, high men and cute. This would include the industrious rodent people mentioned earlier.

Mislagnissa

04-02-2018, 11:50 AM

After thinking through it some more, I think the elf aesthetic could stand to be more abstract. Something like the angels in Evangelion and their numerous imitators, like the gnosis in Xenosaga, the d-reaper in Digimon or the vertexes in Yuki Yuna.

What do you think?

EDIT: I recently learned from the IGN 20th anniversary interview that the Protoss were at one point intended to be non-humanoid. As an old old school fan, I feel vindicated in my decision to make the elves non-humanoid in appearance. To distinguish them from the bugs I want to avoid any insect features, though.

Mislagnissa

04-02-2018, 04:22 PM

Considering the spate of big budget movies based on trashy young adult novels, I am considering writing plots with child soldiers as protagonists.

No, it makes no sense that a spacefaring cyberpunk civilization would employ child soldiers. So they would have to be from the poorer outer colonies which live in space western conditions. It just so happens that the tiberxenofungus hit those worlds first and the bugs invade those first.

Why young protagonists? Really, they are more marketable. Plus most fanfic writers are women in their teens and twenties. I would like to encourage others to play in my sandbox.

I would probably have to add gay and trans characters to get more mileage. Fanfic writers seem to go wild for that.

What do you think?

Turalyon

04-03-2018, 05:00 AM

^ Caving into what's "marketable" eh? What happened to your almighty integrity, lol?

Those trashy young adult novel are rife with characters that are to idealised, be wish-fulfillment for the reader and where the fictional universe seems to spin around and exist for those very characters. You know, the very thing you apparently hate about Starcraft and its supposed predilection for such Sue-ish type of characters.

Mislagnissa

04-03-2018, 06:43 AM

^ Caving into what's "marketable" eh? What happened to your almighty integrity, lol? I am capable of compromise. I was too hard on others when they suggested more radical ideas, but I am lightening up and adopting ideas like biopunk humans and rodent aliens and alternate universes.

Those trashy young adult novel are rife with characters that are to idealised, be wish-fulfillment for the reader and where the fictional universe seems to spin around and exist for those very characters. You know, the very thing you apparently hate about Starcraft and its supposed predilection for such Sue-ish type of characters.Execution is key. Since I am aware of those flaws, I can avoid them. For example, I can kill characters off for making dumb decisions and then use cyberpunk mind uploading to resurrect them while justifying that plot point as death being a valuable learning experience during wartime. I can make the characters flawed and give consequences for their actions. Coming of age stories do not have to be badly written drek.

On another note, does anyone have suggestions for the elves' protectorate species? I have industrious rodents but I cannot think of much else at the moment.

Mislagnissa

04-03-2018, 02:43 PM

I discovered another Starcraft clone in the vein of Atrox called Starfront. https://www.amazon.com/Starfront-Collision-HD-Kindle-Tablet/dp/B006OBU2HA

Like me, it also takes some ideas from Command & Conquer, such as making the main conflict a resource war. It has "rare Xenodium crystals" to which "The Myriad, an indigenous race of aliens, is addicted." That is the exact same relationship as the tiberium and Scrin.

Speaking of Atrox, what little I could learn of the story for that was weird. Apparently the not!Zerg and not!Protoss descended from black and white "angels" created from human genetic experiments. I could not find the not!Zerg story in English, but the not!Protoss story ended with them deliberately becoming hybrids of not!Zerg.

Mislagnissa

04-05-2018, 08:40 AM

Queen of blades-style plots, and why I'd never use them

One of my enduring disagreements with the SC storyline is the queen of blades. Her character does not fit the hive mind hierarchy that characterizes space bugs. What makes this so irritating for me is that this plot point is fairly easy to salvage.

I said before that I find it plausible for bug swarms to demonstrate aberrant behavior during the bug wars after their unity is shattered. It stands to reason a swarm which has consumed a large number of human souls might, I don't know, display simplistic human motivations like revenge on the groups who betrayed Earth to the bugs in a political coup. Even before the bug wars, a swarm might go insane and break from the unity after unwittingly assuming a human personality (this is straight out of Starcraft: Insurrection, btw).

The bugs are a hierarchy of hive minds, where every level of organization is a gestalt consciousness. They can hold conversations among themselves, but this is merely a vastly expanded example of the inner conversations that we humans normally hold inside our own heads (e.g. should I or should I not perform action X?). The group mind of the bugs is so huge that its equivalent of personality quirks are intelligent, fully realized personalities whose individual quirks are also intelligent, fully realized personalities.

The reason for this is practical. It is much easier for writers, and more engaging for audiences, if the bugs are written as a family drama rather than a deep voice saying "feast!" all the time. I am looking at you, Dawn of War 2 tyranid campaign. Gravemind is decent as a villain, but not as a protagonist.

The idea that the bugs would elevate infested human hosts to leaders or counselors is completely absurd. An infested human host's personality would be utterly subsumed by all the other minds it is connected to like an individual neuron in the brain. But, like Locutus of Borg (http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Locutus_of_Borg), these human hosts provide a convenient face (quite literally) for enemy humans to interact with and get a deliberately false impression of what the bugs are like.

It is entirely valid for a character backstory to be a human host severed from the hive mind and how they deal with that separation. I imagine that such characters would behave much like Ripley 8 (http://avp.wikia.com/wiki/Ripley_8), Seven of Nine (http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Seven_of_Nine), Illyria (http://buffy.wikia.com/wiki/Illyria) or Amaru (http://dusktilldawn.wikia.com/wiki/Amaru) depending on disposition. Speaking of the latter, something I find particularly intriguing is the idea of a swarm personality being trapped in a human body.

Mislagnissa

04-06-2018, 08:48 AM

I originally intended to post this a week ago but never did. My SC clone is largely based on SC plot points which were dropped during development or retconned in the sequels. A recent interview with Metzen reiterated a few of these plot points.

IGN has posted an interview (http://au.ign.com/articles/2018/03/30/celebrating-20-years-of-starcraft-an-interview-with-starcrafts-creators) with Chris Metzen and Sam Didier.

Kerrigan was never conceived to be a villain in Sc1 nor was redemption ever a possibility for her in BW. Her role in the narrative was to represent a "loss for the hero" and to help personify the Zerg.I honestly prefer this to the evil queen we got in SC. She did not act like a member of a hive mind at all. See my previous post for more on my thoughts of infested human characters.

The UED were to have a bigger role in BW, culminating with the Zerg invading Earth. The UED were going to be "a really big theme that was going to define the Starcraft franchise" but the "grand plan got walked back" for unspecified reasons.The SC manual made a big deal that K-sec was cut off from Earth, but BW retconned all that away. When I decided to just have the bugs invade Earth, I did it for simplicity (to avoid Earth being retconned in by sequels) and was not aware this was originally planned for BW. In any event, I think I made the right choice.

Apparently, the idea of bringing in fourth franchise power during the development of Sc2 made less sense over time.My clone does not have any fourth races because I think that dilutes the themes and the three faction symmetry. The ancient elves take the role of a precursor race, and the bugs are the main villains of the series.

The way Tassadar sacrifices himself was not pre-planned. That end cinematic was created last and the only one to reflect the written story whilst in all other cinematics, the story was written and/or changed to reflect them.I was initially confused by why Enumerate, another of my primary sources, decided to keep Tassadar alive, but I guess this explains it. It makes more sense that the dude who united the high elves and dark elves would remain to teach them the path of twilight elves or something.

At one point in the early stages of development, the Protoss were more insectoid and Zerg-like in appearance.I was never satisfied with giving the elves an appearance too similar to either the humans or the bugs. Other clones like Atrox and Starfront made the elves obviously robotic, but I still find that too similar to the mechs and robots employed by the humans. Currently I settled on a more abstract design inspired by the alien enemies in some Japanese mecha franchises, which provides a good contrast against the conventional mechs employed by the humans.

Mislagnissa

04-06-2018, 02:15 PM

A couple additions I wanted to make to the timeline to account for things I learned recently:

The cold war goes on for a while, and in many ways resembles the plot of Command & Conquer. Although it does not go hot until the first contact war, many of the colonies are emboldened to succeed by the wealth they rapidly gain. Many groups similar to the Brotherhood of Nod and the Forgotten show up as a result of the political and ecological strife.

The first contact war also goes on for a while. While humanity is locked in both civil wars and defending themselves from aliens, the elves are having strife of their own. The high elves experience a schism between those who want to exterminate humanity as collateral damage and those who want to protect them. When the dark elves show up, they serve as wild cards: some help the humans defend themselves from the bugs and genocidal high elves, some team up with the caretaker high elves to protect the humans, some team up with the high elves to take the offense against the bugs, etc.

One of the fallouts of the first contact war that occurs during the bug wars is that the unity of the high elves is broken. Previously they were united by the telepathic internet, but electronic warfare by the bugs has interfered with it and fostered the growth of tribal nationalism that was previously kept dormant. Since their core worlds were lost to the bugs, they need to reunite to reclaim them.

Honestly, the timeline is becoming really, really complicated because of the time scales, space scales, and number of sides involved. I love it!

Mislagnissa

01-02-2020, 03:00 PM

Hello again! I just wanted to necro this thread because I have been thinking over starcraft clones again. Anyway, if anyone is still here, I am happy to discuss ideas for Starcraft clones.

Here are some notable Starcraft clones I found over the past couple of years. They might be useful to analyze.

Atrox (https://www.mobygames.com/game/atrox)
Dark Planet: Battle for Natrolis (https://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/dark-planet-battle-for-natrolis)
StarFront: Collision (https://www.mobygames.com/game/starfront-collision)
Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends (https://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/rise-of-nations-rise-of-legends)

An idea that came to me recently was the idea of different spin-offs for different genres. A scifi spin-off, a fantasy spin-off, a science fantasy spin-off, etc. It seems that fantasy is more popular than scifi for whatever reason, so I thought maybe I could use that to my advantage.

For example, the humans could be changed from space marines to a generic fantasy world army with knights and mages. Or even orcs!

What do you guys think?

The_Blade

01-02-2020, 04:26 PM

I'd say there's been quite a good amount of input on this thread for you to start something of your own, rather than wait for us to gather as a community to continue writing. I'd definitely would be more interested on the political aspects of the new universe the most, however I feel like you should start with a "text dump" for worldbuilding and character creation.

Create a drive that only you can edit and give us a link. First start really rough. Write random characters and archetypes with reference images from google that might add a visual towards their appearances and motif. Considering the density of the StarCraft scifi universe I would start writing the world and the plot at the same time, even if you are a 100% Pantser or Plotter.

Creating a character can help you create a world.

King > Castle > Country

Or the world itself can give you a character.

Wasteland > Mental Instability > Fanatics > Mad Max

Either way, choose how you want to mutate the StarCraft Universe and how much to push it away from the source. I'm not opposed towards anything. However, a scifi world would be best for theory-crafting and feedback within this community. Some here hate the thought of fantasy ;)

Mislagnissa

01-02-2020, 05:05 PM

Mislagnissa

01-02-2020, 08:31 PM

The_Blade

01-02-2020, 10:17 PM

That was fast.

Doing steady work at a steady pace is the only real thing in this world.

In a way, these late fiasco stories and reboots coming from all kinds of media spark the same kind of nostalgic rage on all of us. There is just no second chance for an existing universe once it gets out there. A Spanish writer named Miguel de Unamuno constantly said that art did not belong to the artist after leaving the warehouse. Others could appropriate it as an idea and change it into something else, and then art would never be owned by anyone. That's the curse of fucking up on the large spotlight. That a fuckup is barely relevant, but the potential and what great a thing it could have been is way more haunting.

Skills can be learned and funding becomes irrelevant if you scale down a project instead of trying to go full Blizzard production (which now just means bullshit long). Just stop and think if you will get the same satisfaction from a teenager frustration rather than other more competent life goals. Sure you can always develop an rts as a hobby, but people have come to find that they would rather create their own stuff if they are going to bang that hard at it.

Mislagnissa

01-03-2020, 06:46 AM

Mislagnissa

01-03-2020, 09:27 AM

I posted a basic pitch to google. It's still very rough and focuses primarily on laying the conceptual groundwork. I haven't gone into detail on fictional history, locations, technology, or characters. That's for later updates. I'm also open to making the basics generic and offering multiple campaign settings using the same tools.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vQ5r_YmuMwXEERYiPBqdjnGhjI55fIhsa2vDzy2Tish1ADnjD g-37IHzZ2KcSr0exe35VvyRpGPReWr/pub

sandwich_bird

01-03-2020, 12:49 PM

My attempts to plan an RTS game are going nowhere. I don’t have any useful skills or funding.

All I want is a Starcraft with a story that doesn’t suck. Is that too much to ask for? Apparently yes!

You know, you're 100% focused on the lore as far as I can tell. Why does this have to be a new video game then? Video games are the hardest media you could ever want to make for one. And secondly, the story is rarely the sole selling point. Conceptualizing one involves thinking about every aspect of the medium. Primarily the gameplay of course but other things such as visual and music/sound are important. Plus, even if you'd manage to realize your idea, I'm fairly sure it wouldn't sell well and wouldn't develop the kind of community you dream of. Not necessarily because I don't think you wouldn't do it well (though, tbh, your chances of making a classic on your first try are low), but because the current overall gaming demographic would probably not support such an idea short of a very very small and ageing niche. Maybe, instead, you could focus on the tabletop community. This is something that pretty much anyone can do and thanks to kickstarter (among other things), there's some kind of board game renaissance going on. What you want to do sounds especially well suited for a board game. I'm far from a connoisseur in that realm(in fact I don't really play them) but you could make some kind of mix between a strategy board game and a rpg. I know some board games you can play alone too(see scythe). And if you manage to write your companion book and have a prototype, you can work with companies that specialize in producing said prototype into a real game. You have people like: https://www.makemygame.com/ that make it easy. And, lets say you go through with this, make a solid game, actually have people buying it... maybe just maybe you would then be in a better position to turn your board game into a videogame

Mislagnissa

01-27-2020, 03:56 PM

You know, you're 100% focused on the lore as far as I can tell. Why does this have to be a new video game then? Video games are the hardest media you could ever want to make for one. And secondly, the story is rarely the sole selling point. Conceptualizing one involves thinking about every aspect of the medium. Primarily the gameplay of course but other things such as visual and music/sound are important. Plus, even if you'd manage to realize your idea, I'm fairly sure it wouldn't sell well and wouldn't develop the kind of community you dream of. Not necessarily because I don't think you wouldn't do it well (though, tbh, your chances of making a classic on your first try are low), but because the current overall gaming demographic would probably not support such an idea short of a very very small and ageing niche. Maybe, instead, you could focus on the tabletop community. This is something that pretty much anyone can do and thanks to kickstarter (among other things), there's some kind of board game renaissance going on. What you want to do sounds especially well suited for a board game. I'm far from a connoisseur in that realm(in fact I don't really play them) but you could make some kind of mix between a strategy board game and a rpg. I know some board games you can play alone too(see scythe). And if you manage to write your companion book and have a prototype, you can work with companies that specialize in producing said prototype into a real game. You have people like: https://www.makemygame.com/ that make it easy. And, lets say you go through with this, make a solid game, actually have people buying it... maybe just maybe you would then be in a better position to turn your board game into a videogame

Thank you for the suggestion. Tabletop games are probably better options. There’s an unofficial Starcraft tabletop game too. I reached out to the developer and he seems pretty chill.

Nissa

01-27-2020, 05:50 PM

Is it just me, or did some of the most recent posts get deleted?

Mislagnissa

01-28-2020, 07:22 AM

Is it just me, or did some of the most recent posts get deleted?
I don’t remember. The site has been experiencing hosting issues for the past couple of months.

I think the DNS server needs to be replaced.

Mislagnissa

02-26-2020, 09:08 AM

Complaining about Starcraft makes me want to kill myself, so I decided to switch to this thread.

In case you didn't see my other post, I recently explained that I'd bank on pure sex appeal to sell my pitch. Each of the three sides (robots, bugs, marines) would be given a few "iconic" characters whose sole purpose is to be eye candy.

The "human" iconic characters are cyborg cowboy catboy multiracial LGBT+ space marines who wear Confederate flag underwear.

Thoughts?

Mislagnissa

02-26-2020, 03:27 PM

Here's some atmospheric backstory bits. I originally imagined this as part of my Starcraft fanfiction, but you know my thoughts on that.

The planet Cipher Cyprus was a lush ancient world of unparalleled biodiversity that gave rise to an intelligent civilization named the Ornix. They were lovely creatures, six legs with gliding membranes, dexterous grasping extremities with opposable thumbs, long sinuous tails, and covered in colorful feathers. They worshiped the twin moons as their mothers and cultivated some of the most acute minds in the known universe.

Then an asteroid struck a glancing blow against the planet. It was knocked off its axis, placing one pole in perpetual freezing night and the other in perpetual scorching day. The forests of the equatorial region, where day and night cycles still existed, withered and risked dying forever. Deep cracks spread across the surface, collecting dust and draining the seas.

The Ornix were undeterred. They had already calculated the impact centuries before it happened and had evacuated to stations in orbit. They had yet been able to develop FTL travel, and they lacked resources to now. What they did have, however, was a mastery of biological sciences.

Most of the ecosystem was in shambles. In order to regrow the forests, they engineered herbivores that would instinctively cultivate the forests, promoting their growth while remaining unaware of their planned role in the new ecology. These Arborvores were covered in sharp blades that gave them a fearsome appearance completely at odds with their docile behavior: their blades were nothing more than pruning shears. Without any apex predators, they had little selective pressure to develop aggression.

For a time it was good.

Then the Swarmers came.

Led by the great one Nodens the Hunter, the brood of the nightgaunts swept across Cipher Cyprus and the darkened the skies. Their featureless visages gazed with desire upon the bladed bodies of the Arborvores, and so abducted them by the thousands. These unfortunate wretches were dragged kicking and screaming to the moon palace of Nodens, where the vivomancers spread apart their tissues and organ systems to learn their secrets. Countless died in agony as they were torn apart cell by cell, the microscopic farandolae invading and remaking them in the image of the great ones.

After many generations of horrific crossbreeding experiments, Nodens gazed upon its new creations with pride. The Shrikes embodied the beauty of the Swarmers' devotion to warfare: shining armor of razor sharp bone encased what little flesh remained of their original selves, and long spindly limbs danced gracefully along the lifeless lunar surface. Nodens gifted his children with fanned blades for whole arms and the edges it lined with a highly refined sensory apparatus, that they might take the greatest of pleasure in impaling and slashing the enemies of the Swarms.

When Nodens sent a clutch of Shrikes against their former kin on the surface, for a moment it was taken aback at the sheer delight they took in the slaughter and torment of their own defenseless ancestors. It called out to the starts, and took counsel with the great ones who so offered. Shaitan the Inquisitor wondered if perhaps such sadism was an unnecessary quirk in the pursuit of their goals. Belial the Tormentor assuaged these concerns under the justification that this odd behavior would better serve to unnerve and confuse their enemies.

The surprises did not end there. From the deep cracks and hidden places, hordes of ravening beasts emerged to repel the Swarm's vanguard. Nodens withdrew in shock. How could such creatures exist? How could they have escaped notice until now? How could they so closely resemble the Swarm, in principle if not form? The Hunter sent the deadliest of the nightgaunts and the new shrikes to find the source of this new enemy.

Thus Nodens discovered the Ornix, and the Swarm grew flush with desire once again. But to no avail. Few Ornix survived capture, and the Swarm's plagues left no survivors to study. Nodens brought the corpses to its moon palace and submit them to the vivomancers. To its great consternation, it discovered that the Ornix had tricked them. Their colorful inexplicably bodies inexplicably withered and died when the plagues touched them, and the farandolae could find no purchase.

Nodens withdrew its children from the planet and contemplated its options. It had to consume the Ornix, for they rivaled the great ones even in their limited state and would certainly became a great threat in the future. At the same time, they could not be arbitrarily destroyed without forever depriving the Swarms of one of the greatest treasures they had yet discovered.

It sought counsel with Tormentor Belial, for the latter understood the most about intelligent species that were otherwise rare across the galaxy. Belial explained that the Ornix might respond to a concept called "diplomacy." Perhaps, like the small minority of other intelligent species the Swarms had encountered, the Ornix would cease their futile resistance if only the benefits of joining the Swarms were given to them.

Nodens cursed its own recklessness and turned its attention back to Cipher Cyprus. From its moon palace it gazed upon the world below. It saw the Ornix in glimpses of their dreams. So Nodens released the Enchanting Voices and sang to the Ornix in their dreams. It whispered of the great legacy of the Swarms and the future that awaited them and all who joined them in their quest for absolution. Nodens waited and watched.

After years of silence, the Swarms heard a reply... and smiled.

What do you think?

sandwich_bird

02-26-2020, 06:26 PM

In case you didn't see my other post, I recently explained that I'd bank on pure sex appeal to sell my pitch. Each of the three sides (robots, bugs, marines) would be given a few "iconic" characters whose sole purpose is to be eye candy.

The "human" iconic characters are cyborg cowboy catboy multiracial LGBT+ space marines who wear Confederate flag underwear.

huhhh what are you making exactly now? Book, comic, video game, board game? I'm no expert but I'm not sure this would work out. I guess I've seen people on DeviantArt get their OCs popular due to the aforementioned characteristics you're targeting but DeviantArt basically turned into an alternative rule 34 porn site so the audience is there for that stuff. Otherwise, I'm not sure how strong it is as a marketing hook in other communities.

One thing that would particularly scare me is the fact that your work could be deemed lesser quality because it relies heavily on that sexual imagery. Another thing is that, if you seek the appreciation of hard sci-fi or military type fans, I think your marketing hook is fundamentally incompatible with that audience.

Mislagnissa

02-27-2020, 09:11 AM

huhhh what are you making exactly now? Book, comic, video game, board game?I have no preference. It could be any or all of these things. I have absolutely no useful skills to create anything worthwhile, only brainstorming and writing drabbles.

I'm no expert but I'm not sure this would work out. I guess I've seen people on DeviantArt get their OCs popular due to the aforementioned characteristics you're targeting but DeviantArt basically turned into an alternative rule 34 porn site so the audience is there for that stuff. Otherwise, I'm not sure how strong it is as a marketing hook in other communities.

One thing that would particularly scare me is the fact that your work could be deemed lesser quality because it relies heavily on that sexual imagery. Another thing is that, if you seek the appreciation of hard sci-fi or military type fans, I think your marketing hook is fundamentally incompatible with that audience.Yeah, that's what I figured. It's mostly sheer desperation at this point. I'm holding out hope that the lore part would attract the casuals to the gritty military elements. I've seen plenty of evidence that something like that could actually work, because there's like a bazillion Netflix She-Ra fanfics which are basically dark gritty war stories even though the show itself is poorly written tumblr fodder. Heck, people wrote a bazillion fanfics based on the Free anime based solely on the teaser that did nothing but show off boys in swimsuits.

I know selling out to the lowest common denominator is degrading, but the sad thing is that it actually works. Netflix She-Ra attracted more newbie military scifi fans and resulted in higher military scifi fanfiction output than Starcraft ever did, and with equal or worse writing than SC1/SC2.

The only thing I bring to the table (well, not really) is that I have no emotional attachment to the iconic characters I'm imagining. At least the human ones. I plan for them to die horribly in every story and then return unharmed without explanation in the next, like Kenny from South Park or the cast in Aeon Flux.

Also, what do you think of the drabble I wrote? I know it's awful. Anyway i could improve, you think?