Lore

[MrRovin]

With what little lore we have in this game, I found it quite interesting and refreshing. I don't know much about interstellar science-fiction epics, but I've heard the game is reminiscent of things like Battlestar Galactica. What are some of the lore aspects you find interesting in this game? Would you say it's unique? Or do some of you see heavy influences in it?

I don't know if the dev(s?) check the posts on this forum, but if you do, I think you have viable world to create here, if you ever do decicde to expand on this game or plan sequels, definitely look into developing your lore.

[The Dess 2023 GOTY Edition]

The Emperor's enemies are plenty, and they must be eliminated.

Hahaha yeah, totally agreed man. This may very well be the start of a franchise. If played right, I wouldn't mind reading books about it or watching a TV show even.

I am still trying to understand it myself, but the game made me feel like one of the Royal Guard pilots seeking vengeance upon the enemies of the empire. I haven't felt that way for any game in a long time. The style of the writing, the pace of how info is being drip fed to you and burning sensation that I must bring ruin to the people of the Traitor Lords. Yeah man, everything thus far. I hope the Dev has an entire backdrop to this, this is a gold mine!!

[Mightyrick1]

I loved what little there was of the lore, and I hope to see the dev expand on this in the future, either through DLC or a sequel. I'll definetly be playing this for a long while!

[Kobl]

Also totally dig the lore. The whole fact that there is little to go on makes it all the more alluring, making me want more. I really hope that there will be sequals, story driven DLCs or yeah, books. The 'I am not human' ending feels to me to be the 'real' story, the other endings might be there as an illusion to the thoughts of the pilots, not the dragon itself that is possessing them. Heck a good book would be to tell the prequal tale of how they found the dragon on this alien ship they mention. I need more gritty sci-fi in my life.

[Vidmaster]

Seth Dickinson is a brilliant writter, check out the Blue Planet Mod for Freespace 2.

[XcuteX]

There was an immortal emperor who ruled over a vast empire. We only see two planets in this game: The Flame and Rhatoom (sp?). There are likely thousands of occupied planets. With the news of the emperor's death, there are likely a number of power consolidations and civil wars on those planets.

Not all traitor lords need be destroyed. Traitor flagships don't need to be beaten to finish the game. IIRC, only the False King's flagship shows up as an optional objective. The others give no in-game benefit. This means the Dragon was only hunting specific traitor lords. It's reasonable to assume hundreds of lords took place in assassinating the emperor to various degrees.

Unless the emperor was universally reviled outside the royal guard, there are likely many loyal lords fighting to avenge him. Given the number of probable traitor lords, there is probably a huge civil war going on. I doubt it is going in the traitors' favor.

In the tutorial mission, we can see a single, well-fortified base, along with constant reinforcements. The dreadnaught is at 12% hull. In the last mission, it's at 100%, it doesn't repair itself, so the royal guard still has the resources to repair its dreadnaught. If you stay in the mission for a bit, you notice royal guard forcces are continually entering one way and exiting another. They're probably going to fight somewhere.

Specific lords. You notice the royal physician is very far from the capital. He's been running. The 'high prince' decides to test a prototype fighter during a civil war, very unusual. I speculate the False King was trying to establish this 'prince' as a counter to the Dragon. You stop him before everything is in place for him to start body-hopping into fighters or some similar ability. There are two known clones of the False King - they're titled A1 and B1. Those are optional flagships to destroy. If you don't destroy all the clones, killing the False King is probably meaningless. The presense of those clones also suggests thorough cooperation between the False King and the emperor's physician.

There is also the Dragon being a Siamach and not human, which implies a whole race of super-pilots. I don't know what this would mean in the context of an imperial civil war.

There's an absensc of carriers and battlecruisers on the Dragon's side, as well as an absence of dreadnaughts on the traitor side. This suggests lords aren't allowed to be in anything heavier than a battlecruiser, or at least a few of them would be in dreadnoughts. Since there's only one dreadnought remaining for the royal guard, it can be assumed any carriers and battlecruisers of theirs were destroyed. I'm curious how many dreadnaughts there originally were, and why the traitor lords didn't all upgrade to battlecruisers and carriers. Vulnerability should be the thing an immortal avoids most.

Speculative conclusions:

The reasons you use a small fleet are to avoid suspicion (fleets will call for more backup if they see a large fleet), and your assassination-based missions. You don't get capital ship reinforcements, because the enemy might respond with more forces.

The reason there are rarely enemy full battle fleets is because most of their forces are engaged in this post-assassination civil war. Accompanying ships are probably personal bodyguards and/or local security. So, while war rages, your piloting skill allows you to quickly fly in and assassinate vulnerable targets.

The False King has more clones. The high prince may not be dead.

What we see in the game is only a small (but important) sliver of a larger and grander conflict.

Thanks for reading, tell me what you think.

PS: Interesting thought: this game could be mostly ported to X3:TC or X3:AP as a mod.

[The Dess 2023 GOTY Edition]

Originally posted by XcuteX:

There was an immortal emperor who ruled over a vast empire. We only see two planets in this game: The Flame and Rhatoom (sp?). There are likely thousands of occupied planets. With the news of the emperor's death, there are likely a number of power consolidations and civil wars on those planets.

Not all traitor lords need be destroyed. Traitor flagships don't need to be beaten to finish the game. IIRC, only the False King's flagship shows up as an optional objective. The others give no in-game benefit. This means the Dragon was only hunting specific traitor lords. It's reasonable to assume hundreds of lords took place in assassinating the emperor to various degrees.

Unless the emperor was universally reviled outside the royal guard, there are likely many loyal lords fighting to avenge him. Given the number of probable traitor lords, there is probably a huge civil war going on. I doubt it is going in the traitors' favor.

In the tutorial mission, we can see a single, well-fortified base, along with constant reinforcements. The dreadnaught is at 12% hull. In the last mission, it's at 100%, it doesn't repair itself, so the royal guard still has the resources to repair its dreadnaught. If you stay in the mission for a bit, you notice royal guard forcces are continually entering one way and exiting another. They're probably going to fight somewhere.

Specific lords. You notice the royal physician is very far from the capital. He's been running. The 'high prince' decides to test a prototype fighter during a civil war, very unusual. I speculate the False King was trying to establish this 'prince' as a counter to the Dragon. You stop him before everything is in place for him to start body-hopping into fighters or some similar ability. There are two known clones of the False King - they're titled A1 and B1. Those are optional flagships to destroy. If you don't destroy all the clones, killing the False King is probably meaningless. The presense of those clones also suggests thorough cooperation between the False King and the emperor's physician.

There is also the Dragon being a Siamach and not human, which implies a whole race of super-pilots. I don't know what this would mean in the context of an imperial civil war.

There's an absensc of carriers and battlecruisers on the Dragon's side, as well as an absence of dreadnaughts on the traitor side. This suggests lords aren't allowed to be in anything heavier than a battlecruiser, or at least a few of them would be in dreadnoughts. Since there's only one dreadnought remaining for the royal guard, it can be assumed any carriers and battlecruisers of theirs were destroyed. I'm curious how many dreadnaughts there originally were, and why the traitor lords didn't all upgrade to battlecruisers and carriers. Vulnerability should be the thing an immortal avoids most.

Speculative conclusions:

The reasons you use a small fleet are to avoid suspicion (fleets will call for more backup if they see a large fleet), and your assassination-based missions. You don't get capital ship reinforcements, because the enemy might respond with more forces.

The reason there are rarely enemy full battle fleets is because most of their forces are engaged in this post-assassination civil war. Accompanying ships are probably personal bodyguards and/or local security. So, while war rages, your piloting skill allows you to quickly fly in and assassinate vulnerable targets.

The False King has more clones. The high prince may not be dead.

What we see in the game is only a small (but important) sliver of a larger and grander conflict.

Thanks for reading, tell me what you think.

PS: Interesting thought: this game could be mostly ported to X3:TC or X3:AP as a mod.

Really well speculated, honestly the devs should build on this and make more games based on the backdrop. I would love to see more from this universe, or lore; like what Amplitude Studios did with the "Endless.." series.

[Vec Chromatron]

I am surprised no one has mentioned Frank Herberts novel Dune, which was a major work in its time. HotDS is similar in naming conventions and also because both depict "feudal" space settings. There are also some references to Dune in the game such as "The one who controls [single planet, controls the universe." It was the same in Dune.

[XcuteX]

I see. I never referenced it because I never read Dune.

[MrRovin]

Originally posted by Vector Chromatron:

I am surprised no one has mentioned Frank Herberts novel Dune, which was a major work in its time. HotDS is similar in naming conventions and also because both depict "feudal" space settings. There are also some references to Dune in the game such as "The one who controls [single planet, controls the universe." It was the same in Dune. [/quote]

There's a lot of sci-fi references, I noticed one of the missions called 'Slaugher at Tannhauser Gate'

[Kobl]

Originally posted by XcuteX:

There was an immortal emperor who ruled over a vast empire. We only see two planets in this game: The Flame and Rhatoom (sp?). There are likely thousands of occupied planets. With the news of the emperor's death, there are likely a number of power consolidations and civil wars on those planets.

Not all traitor lords need be destroyed. Traitor flagships don't need to be beaten to finish the game. IIRC, only the False King's flagship shows up as an optional objective. The others give no in-game benefit. This means the Dragon was only hunting specific traitor lords. It's reasonable to assume hundreds of lords took place in assassinating the emperor to various degrees.

Unless the emperor was universally reviled outside the royal guard, there are likely many loyal lords fighting to avenge him. Given the number of probable traitor lords, there is probably a huge civil war going on. I doubt it is going in the traitors' favor.

In the tutorial mission....(truncated)

Nice analysis.
here's my 2 cents [SPOILERS]:

We are told The Flame is the last Imperial stronghold. So this tells me the Imperial navy is in a very dire state. There are probably civil wars going on (maybe even between other divided factions), but I'm not sure the scale of it is that large, so the Imperial remnant is probably using guerrilla tactics. I think you don't have capital ships because the imperial navy just don't have any to spare. It is mentioned that the dreadnought you escort ingame is the last one the Imperial navy has. But another reason as you mentioned, is small fleets can probably infiltrate enemy lines easier.

I don't think the factions use symmetrical ship composition, meaning their tactical philosophies might differ. A battecruiser with its escort might be a dreadnought's equal. The Imperial navy might not believe in fighter carriers as they have the Harbinger fighters for fleet support. So that might be why we see different ship classes for each faction. I get the impression that the strike on the homeworld took the Traitors completely by surprise and they did not have a significant defence force ready.

The Dragon is in fact not human with a reference to 'it' being salvaged from an alien ship wreck, but there is only one that we know of under the control of the King that can possess human pilot hosts. The Dragon primed the human race with this civil war so that his race could reemerge unopposed. I don't think the Traitors would be able to mimic the Dragon's abilities without finding another of his race.
It's mentioned by The Dragon that he made sure (as advisor to the King in some way) most of the Kingdom was consentrated on the homeworld. Now if this means just most of the royalty or people of power, or the majority of the actual population I don't know. Depends on how you interpret it. We do know that whatever the case the glassing of the homeworld must've severely crippled the whole Kingdom's ability to function the way the Dragon put it "on one fragile world" in my mind.

An interesting thing to note about the name Sciamach:

Originally posted by The Famous Eccles:

Sciamachy means to fight an imaginary enemy, literally 'fight shadows' which has interesting implications for the lore. I suppose a sciamach would be someone who fights said imaginary enemies.
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/sciamachy

linking some of the lore pointing towards some (or all?) of the battles being only simulations runs.

[XcuteX]

The Imperial Navy's situation is ambiguous. Presumably dire, but we don't know how many strongholds and/or capital ships the IN had originally. Your forces do loot supplies on one or two missions. Selective looting does sound desperate, but I'd rather see what was in the crates to be sure. Looting gold wouldn't indicate desperation tactics.

Now that you mention, it's true the two different navies used different compositions
- definitely technology, ship doctrine is closely related and therefore plausible. None of the traitors use gap drives, carapace armor, or kamikazi chasses as far as I recall. Capital ship weapons are also similar in function, but completely different models. The Imperial navy gets the (crappy) destroyer missiles, (crappy) frigate artillary, and the ember lance. The traitors use flak and whatever else on destroyers (they don't tend to live very long); capital ships use their signature railguns, target jammers, fighter bays, and (better) missiles. [Interesting bug: those rails are supposed to have 7500 range, but they'll one-shot unshielded fighters at 20 km or more.] The Imperal Navy (IN) seems to have awesome f-you fighters and crappy capitals using outdated technology. The exception is the Dreadnought, because it has planet-killer warheads. It probably also has anti-capital ship missiles or torpedoes.

'Not Human' Dragon is one of six endings. I don't recall whether there was a consensus as to which, if any ending, is canon.

Other crazy notes:

Host termination sequences: the Dragon can do something to kill off its hosts at any time. Very 'obey or die' for the pilots of ships under the Dragon's command. I'd infer from the last mission that loss of a connection to the Dragon triggers it. I think the challenges are a good indication the Dragon can also arbitrarily terminate hosts. This would explain why pilots don't balk at the 'ram into ship' command. They're dead whether or not they obey. Assuming all the pilots know about the loss-of-connection kill switch, that means as soon as the rebellion started on Rhatoom, all the pilots knew they were as good as dead. The Dragon's going to destroy Rhatoom. If the pilots comply, the Dragon is destroyed and they die. If they disobey, they die anyways. Tell me that isn't crazy. I think they used criminals, the insane, or others they could force into this poisiton - I don't see a lot of people volunteering for this. It'd also possibly explain some of the old-seeming tech on the IN ships.

What's the time span of the game? From what I've seen, the game could take place over the course of a few hours, or a few years, or even longer.

I'm assuming if you can assassinate the emperor and destroy all his clones, you have the resources to scour the planet (or deduce by scanning for the source of broadcasts), find the Dragon, and disable it before it destroys the planet. You could also run away from the planet before it gets destroyed. It looks like the lords decided to run instead of search, given how far away you find some of them, and the fact their families are being evacuated through one of the only two gates in the game (which is presumably the only way to travel such distances). Why didn't they just shut down the Dragon? Was something stopping them? I imagine it's either very difficult to destroy or very scary and deadly.

[Kobl]

The Traitors did use kamikaze fighters in some of the final missions (on higher difficulties). It's interesting because it shows how desperate they were getting to try and stop the IN forces.

There are multiple endings yes, but the way I see it, if you have to play NG+ games to unlock the other endings they seem 'more valuable' to me, suggesting that they reveal more important/truthful information about the ending. For me the real events might be an unknown combination of the the endings. The 'Not Human' ending can fit into some of the other endings if you see it as a different perspective.

I don't know if the pilots in the IN knows they are being possessed, but your theory on The Dragon triggering the termination process makes sense. I thought it was an external command, something like a fail safe for when The Dragon completes its final directive, they terminate all his availible hosts? Or The Dragon's capsule might be on the homeworld (as mentioned by one ending I think) but can't be accessed/found? but its destruction seals The Dragon's fate (would actually be a smart move in a grand sense, but still plays into the Dragon's plan even if he dies). Or the Dragon's capsule is still hidden somewhere at an secret IN installation... unable to be found.

I have not been able to make sense of the very last codex. It's quite an enigma to me. I don't know who triggers the termination and I don't know who the 'his' is refering to when saying "all who draws his blood will earn a place in the new free world". Is the free world the one just after the revolt? After the homeworld destruction? Before the revolt? The context is missing.
The termination could be refering not to the Dragon, but the Emperor himself before the revolt. Severing the clone links, leaving the real Emperor vulnerable. That codex message might be the one the betraying physician sent to start the revolt. It might have started due to the fact that the inner circle was getting fed up with their 'immortal Emperor'.

I remember the codexes does make mention of host transfer tech being possible (implied) and with the Emperor clones/hosts. But maybe only a select few in the inner circle knows about it. You might be right that the physician might be trying to copy the tech for Traitor fighter pilots with the Prince testing the fighter.

Time span of the game is ambigious I agree. But I think it's relatively short. Pretty much how long it takes them to repair a dreadnought I think. Such an operation you would want to keep the enemy off balance before they can dig in and finish asap.