Backstory suggestion

Species suggestions, story ideas and contributions.
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Redbook
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Backstory suggestion

#1 Post by Redbook »

Well given that we're not gonna stick all that closely with the MOO "canon", I felt obliged somehow to suggest a backstory, if only to offer an alternative to the current one.

Orion Prime is old. Very old. The sentient species that populated the planet started exploring space long before there were any other sentient species in their region of the universe. The "Orions" as we will call them, is actually a collective term for the native sentient races of Orion Prime.

Perhaps because of the racial diversity of the Orions, techology in Orion society grows in an extremely fast pace. To keep the peace between various racial factions within Orion society - and to adapt to fast technological changes in their society - the Orions devised a strict ethical system to run their society. In their exploration of an empty universe, devoid of Alien Intelligence, the Orions felt that they are utterly alone. This perspective only enforced the Orion belief in a strict management of their life - for sentient life, to their experience, is unique to the universe.

So for millenia the Orions grew across the stars. In the arrogance of their powers and the desperation of their loneliness the Orions developed a metaphysical device to actualise their opposites - the Others.

In the beginning the Orions were able to control these "specimens". But the universe demanded a balance. The Others escaped (or perhaps, the Others replicated themselves in their Orion captors - it is hard to tell), and the Orion civilization plunged into war with an enemy they know they cannot defeat.

An interstellar war raged for too long, and then, the Orions (and the Others, being their metaphysical opposites) were no more. In the last breath the Orions sealed the empty ruins that was Orion Prime away from the rest of the galaxy, setting upon it guardians and traps so that none may access the device and find own doom in their Other. Until now.

Whatever the Orions and their Other did in their great war of annihilation, they also planted the seeds of new sentient civilizations to come by accident. Their experiments, templates, and genetic material were left in so many systems that by simple chance some etched enough of a living to develop their own sentience in time. As they evolved unaware of the Orion legacy the Orion star collapsed and went supernova. The resultant explosion weakened the seals placed upon Orion Prime, and as the new sentient races took to the stars they must meet - and survive - the challenges put foward as the defenses of Orion Prime awakens.

There. Got it off my chest.
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luckless666
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#2 Post by luckless666 »

Whatever the Orions and their Other did in their great war of annihilation, they also planted the seeds of new sentient civilizations to come by accident. Their experiments, templates, and genetic material were left in so many systems that by simple chance some etched enough of a living to develop their own sentience in time.
This reminds me a bit of a Star Trek:TNG episode i saw. There was a race of beings, the first sentient beings in the the galaxy, if not the universe. Overtime, the realised they weren't going to live on for eternity and turned their efforts to creating sentient beings and litter them through out the galaxy. They never saw their creations, but the resultant races were Humans, Klingons, Romulans (or rather Vulcans), etc. well, the episode followed all these races following the trial left by their ancestors, thinking it would lead them to a super weapon or something, but instead it enlightened them. It was very good. perhaps a similar story could be adapted for FO. I think two races (no matter how you disguise them) annilating one another is a little cliched and old...
Last edited by luckless666 on Sun Mar 14, 2004 11:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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utilae
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#3 Post by utilae »

Hey this is fun. Lets all make up our own stories. I think the best should be chosen. After all why should the only story be the original one. If we want the best story, then we should have more variety, ie more stories to choose from.

It would make things interesting, anyway. :lol:

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#4 Post by Ablaze »

I don't think the back story is going to be changed. I suppose you're welcome to get your story ideas off your chest if you feel the need, but I wouldn't hold out much hope of them ever being incorporated into the official release of the game. Maybe someone will put it into a mod.
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Sandlapper
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#5 Post by Sandlapper »

I would think the current backstory is, indeed, fixed in place at this juncture. However it may be allowable to add to it, if it changes nothing currently in place.

One could create a different backstories for future mods; if a group of current (or later)coders like it, they may pursue it.

Also, some of these stories could be migrated to a new race within FO.

Satyagraha
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#6 Post by Satyagraha »

hm, where did my thread "backstory discussion" go? :?

I think it makes sense to tell ppl what is fixed and why so they don´t waste time...

some suggestions for small changes that would make sense:
1) orion tech was not destroyed by the Cataclysm, only every organic life form vanished, including plants etc. nobody was able to oberserve what happenend [more mystery, think of the beginning of vanilla sky?]. Most of the tech was then destroyed by the raging lesser races, who felt always inferior to the orion. only heavily armed ships like the guardian weren´t touched [logic explanation for remaining orion tech like guardian]. Fully automated, they performed their duties decade after decade, till today [this shows the real supremacy of the orion. their home planet is still fully operational and highly feared after they are long gone... now that´s real spooky, no? ;)]

2) i agree humans being some sort of "forgotten orions" is kinda cheesy :P does this have some special reason, like camaign-storyline?

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utilae
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#7 Post by utilae »

Satyagraha wrote: some suggestions for small changes that would make sense:
1) orion tech was not destroyed by the Cataclysm, only every organic life form vanished, including plants etc. nobody was able to oberserve what happenend [more mystery, think of the beginning of vanilla sky?]. Most of the tech was then destroyed by the raging lesser races, who felt always inferior to the orion. only heavily armed ships like the guardian weren´t touched [logic explanation for remaining orion tech like guardian]. Fully automated, they performed their duties decade after decade, till today [this shows the real supremacy of the orion. their home planet is still fully operational and highly feared after they are long gone... now that´s real spooky, no? ;)]
I like this. Very good. :lol:

Aquitaine
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#8 Post by Aquitaine »

The back story is not being developed like the rest of FO - that is to say, it is not being done by committee. It is possible to write that sort of thing collaboratively, but not by committee.

All I can say is, don't take what you read too literally. Any time you see a declarative statement (like 'all Orion tech was destroyed') it's there to establish what most people in the Universe think, what the evidence was at the time. Obviously, if all Orion tech was actually destroyed, it's not all that fun, is it?
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#9 Post by Ablaze »

Sat, this is from the stickied thread "stroyboard policy": "You may start a thread for discussion of your race. The thread’s subject must consist of the race’s name and nothing else. Any threads which do not pertain to a race and multiple threads discussing a single race will be deleted."

I'm trying to keep the number of threads to a minimum here. There is already one thread that is dedicated to the back-story (this one). If you don't think your post belongs in this thread then it should be made in the "general discussion" thread.
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utilae
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#10 Post by utilae »

Aquitaine wrote: All I can say is, don't take what you read too literally. Any time you see a declarative statement (like 'all Orion tech was destroyed') it's there to establish what most people in the Universe think, what the evidence was at the time. Obviously, if all Orion tech was actually destroyed, it's not all that fun, is it?
It's all very well to show the story from the point of view that people in the universe have, but the reader is the person is going to be judging the story. If things don't seem right to the reader, then maybe it's time to do something about it. Little tweaks in the story here and there. :wink:

I think it would have been good to have more input into the story from the public, at least for the parts we are mean't to know about. But if it is already decided then, oh well . . . sigh :cry:.

Redbook
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#11 Post by Redbook »

By all means please delete this post if it contravenes the rules. But perhaps I should explain *why* I place the story here even when the rules were pretty explicit about this being for Races:

Orions are a race. But it really doesn't matter since its the backstory I'm talking about. So this is just a caveat I'm working with, to put this story into the forum.

Its just that I found I can't relate to the current backstory, so I thought I'll suggest one just to see what others think. I don't want to sound like I want the developers to change the backstory, but I certainly feel something can be done to make the story more, well, approachable.

The excellence of the Orions is relative to their society. Any other race that comes later to claim their title as the Master should shape their society relative to themselves. This means that attaining Mastery should not be a matter of inheritance, but a matter of revolution.

Still, if the backstory is kept under lock and key, or perhaps everyone's more interested in making sure the game works first, please do whatever's necessary with this thread.
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Satyagraha
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#12 Post by Satyagraha »

Ablaze´s post was directed at me because i started another thread about that topic ;)

Aquitaine
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#13 Post by Aquitaine »

Aquitaine wrote: I think it would have been good to have more input into the story from the public, at least for the parts we are mean't to know about. But if it is already decided then, oh well . . . sigh :cry:.
...let me get this straight:

You want more input on the parts you're not supposed to know about?

There is nothing stopping you from making your own story and your own scenario (think of EU2 scenarios) with your own events. The fact is that there isn't a single story that would please everyone, or even most of everyone, so no, there isn't a point to getting more public input on something that isn't going to be decided by the public.

It's easy to be a critic. The best we can do is leave things open enough so you can change what you don't like.

-Aq
Surprise and Terror! I am greeted by the smooth and hostile face of our old enemy, the Hootmans! No... the Huge-glands, no, I remember, the Hunams!

Aquitaine
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#14 Post by Aquitaine »

One other point: yes, we are very much interested in making the game work first. Compared to the amount of time I've spent on design issues, I'd say, overall, maybe 2% of my time on this project has been dedicated to the backstory. And it does reflect that, to a certain degree.

My priority is to design the game. My second priority is to give it some good content that is a decent starting point for everyone to run with. So don't get too upset if you hate the backstory, because I guarantee you, a year after v1.0 comes out, there will be five other ones. :)

-Aquitaine
Surprise and Terror! I am greeted by the smooth and hostile face of our old enemy, the Hootmans! No... the Huge-glands, no, I remember, the Hunams!

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