FreeOrion

Yes, definitely. I really wanted to push the idea of a core and machinery assembled around it. In reality, the core would probably be completely hidden for protection, but in such a case I wouldn't be able to communicate the basic idea. As a teacher of mine used to say: "If you can't hide it, show it (off)."
The surfacing is also a less broken up and therefore less busy, leading to a more advanced design.

Thanks for commenting.

I like the asymmetry of the colouration. Definitely adds visual interest.

However, I find that on the first one, the blue side seems to dominate the image, due perhaps to the more noticeable difference in brightness (or something?). It's more subtle on the other ones though - not distracting at all.

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Warning: Antarans in dimensional portal are closer than they appear.

I took the liberty of composing some theme music for the Trith. My brother is responsible for making the instruments sound good with all of his fancy electronic music software.

Feedback would be appreciated.

Also, this is just a draft (though it probably doesn't have much further to go), so it's not in .ogg format yet.

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Warning: Antarans in dimensional portal are closer than they appear.

i expected some "more aggressive" sound for the race which going to eliminate all other sentience in the galaxy. IMO this soundtrack is more appropriate to some "sentient tree-plants" race.

They're not going to kill all the other races in the galaxy because they're aggressive. They're going to kill all the races in the galaxy because their children are being killed by the other races' thoughts.

The motivation is IMO much more important than what they're actually trying to do in the game.

This soundtrack is meant to emphasize that aspect of the Trith; they're not just trying to kill all the other races for the heck of it (like the Eaxaw), they're doing it out of self-preservation and love for their children. Their essentially being forced into being terrible monsters for the sake of survival, while their ordinary nature makes the killing of others repulsive to them. Their minds and hearts are torn between the tragedy of letting their children perish to the thoughts of other races, and the tragedy of having to eliminate all life in the galaxy for perhaps ultimately selfish reasons. An aggressive theme wouldn't give them any of this personality, which makes them much more interesting than your basic aggressive "kill-'em-all" race.

Also, I don't think being "sentient tree-plants" would immediately qualify a race for this type of theme either. A race theme shouldn't embody the stereotypes that generally accompany the race's biology (though the biology can be expressed in the theme, as long as it is subordinate to the race's personality and motivation).

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Warning: Antarans in dimensional portal are closer than they appear.

Very beautiful music. Is there a reason why you haven`t composed anything earlier, other than been doing other things, if you can produce music of this quality? Something similarly calm and clear could surely be used as background music in the galaxy map for example.

I don`t currently see a problem with using this music for the the Trith, especially since you gave a good reason for it. However, I can`t say that I know the Trith even nearly as well as pd, who has spent a lot of his time developing the visual side of this race. So comments from him could probably be very helpful for you.

Hopefully this music is going to be used at least somewhere in the project. By the way, how can I download this mp3 file? (It is currently very late around here, so there might be more mistakes in this post than usual.)

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What is your favourite alien species and WHY?
Preliminary thoughts about diplomacy
Some unfinished ideas for specials

It really has more to do with a lack of confidence and motivation than anything else...

Thanks for your comments. I have no idea how you could download the mp3 file - my plan was to post it on the forums here, but it turned out to be far too big, so I threw together a webs.com site and posted it there instead... If you like, I could e-mail it to you.

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Warning: Antarans in dimensional portal are closer than they appear.

The file can be downloaded using this link. Apparently there's a flash player embedded which is streaming the file located at http://freeorionmusic.webs.com/Trith_draft2.mp3 .(You can check the sourcecode for it)

I appreciate the effort a lot, but I have to agree to some degree with mZhura, the music is too friendly. I would imagine the Trith theme to be much darker, but less melodramatic, if that makes senese. You are right that their motivation is self-preservation and self defense, but they are driven to kill everyone nonetheless. They are evil in the sense, that they value their own survival as more important than everyone else's and actually enforce the first over the latter.

It's especially the melody that starts at 0:22 that doesn't quite fit in my opinion. I'd also like to see(hear) more variation with the repeating "ta-ta ta-ta ta-ta..." going through the entire track.

It's a good start, please keep working on this.

I don't know if I would say they are evil because they are doing what they must to survive, but they are the antagonist for sure. Maybe the suitable word for them is dangerous. Your current music, though good, sounds like a waltz and doesn't hold the sense of danger and aggression I would like for the Trith. I am thinking that their music would feel colder with an edge of deadliness.

Good stuff all the same

if the thoughts of others kills their children they might be researching some protection shield for them. in any case thoughts are a some sort of energy field (electro-magnetic in human case). but still they decided to kill everyone else.

That's a realism argument.

Anyway, thanks for the feedback everyone, I've started work on a new Trith theme, which should be up before the end of the Christmas season (but perhaps not before any other music is finished).

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Warning: Antarans in dimensional portal are closer than they appear.

Also, if there would be a quick fix available for this problem through research the Trith would seem either as dangerous gamblers or just simply a bit foolish to try and kill every thinking creature in the galaxy. Thus we can probably assume that there isn`t a quick fix available for this problem. However it might be interesting to mention in the Trith story that there is a small group of researchers still desperately trying to find a scientific solution to the noise problem, but the majority of the Trith have already abandoned any scientific solutions as hopeless, and want a solution that actually works (=killing every thinking species). This could hopefully add a bit of colour to the Trith by showing that they are capable of coming up with other alternatives as well that don`t involve killing everybody.

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What is your favourite alien species and WHY?
Preliminary thoughts about diplomacy
Some unfinished ideas for specials

or they just don't want to look for it? civilization that developed interstellar travel couldn't protect itself from simple and weak electro-magnetic field?

Of course they could have previously protected against regular thoughts travelling through space, but it wasn't really troublesome enough for there to be a great need at that point. However, when the neural field is magnified by starlane travel, it becomes significantly more difficult to block the thoughts, since as the thinker approaches the speed of light, a sort of "sonic boom" effect (remember that relativistic physics doesn't apply within starlanes, so there can, in fact be "sonic booms" of electromagnetism) occurs, which amplifies the effect to a far greater level than anything the Trith are able to deal with. /technobabble

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Warning: Antarans in dimensional portal are closer than they appear.

good point

and how do they shield their own thoughts while traveling?