Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: Marcov on May 17, 2010, 11:42:09 pm
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Don't you think? They've classified the Colossus, the Shivans to an extent, the Knossos, the entire info on ETAK, the Sathanas, several Ancient artifacts, research on the Knossos, the Hades, the Mara, and probably much more. Why are the GTVA so strict about keeping things secret? Are they afraid of being sabotaged?
All this limits the info on FS, which is why I'm starting to get annoyed. :mad:
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I think it was one of the best storytelling decisions :V: made.
The less you know, the more interesting everything is.
A certain excellent collaborative fiction site (the SCP Project) tends to place REDACTED liberally throughout its narrative, typically right when the document's about to describe something eerie, frightening, or disturbing...which makes it even worse!
It's the old movie adage of 'never show the monster' in literary form.
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well think about it this way:
-it leaves you a lot of things to work with in the next releases.
-you don't need to make up extensive and conclusive descriptions.
-enhances the interest of fans by keeping mysterious things undisclosed.
-gives the feeling of a real Intel manipulation seen on any organized army/government.
I can't seem to think on another reason, but I guess those might suffice for now.
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Why are the GTVA so strict about keeping things secret? Are they afraid of being sabotaged?
Bosch knew a lot more than the player did about the Shivans due to the knowledge he gained fighting the GTI during the Hades Rebellion. Look how well that turned out for them.
Can't say I blame them.
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A certain excellent collaborative fiction site (the SCP Project) tends to place REDACTED liberally throughout its narrative, typically right when the document's about to describe something eerie, frightening, or disturbing...which makes it even worse!
That's, however, sometimes done to the point where I just give up on trying to figure out what anything is and stop caring about the narrative in question altogether.
Too much of a good thing can become a bad thing.
That said, I feel FS doesn't suffer from lack of information.
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I agree, I believe in a true democracy, there should be no 'secrets'. However, given the situation with the NTF and HOL, it comes to no surprise.
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Think about it from the GTVA Command standpoint. Your pilots and crew need to know what it can do. They don't need to know how it does it, why it does it, or when someone found out how to do it. To keep them from distracting themselves with an overflow of information they don't need to fight effectively, you classify it.
EDIT: Alternately, if you just don't know, you could say you do and call it classified. Keeps morale up if they think you know more than you do.
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I take Battuta's viewpoint on this. And from a mil-sci fi viewpoint, well, why the bloody hell should an ensign know about this kind of stuff? He doesn't need to know, and it just makes him a huge risk if he's captured. I praise the GTVA commanders for it, actually.
Or who knows? They might've read Sun Tzu and fed you a whole lot of bull****. ;)
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I think it was one of the best storytelling decisions :V: made.
The less you know, the more interesting everything is.
This can, of course, be overdone... sometimes it feels like "that's classified pilot!" is just a way to hand-wave over incongruities, contradictions, and random added mysteries that you have no intention of ever explaining. It's a fine line to walk. :)
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I take Battuta's viewpoint on this. And from a mil-sci fi viewpoint, well, why the bloody hell should an ensign know about this kind of stuff? He doesn't need to know, and it just makes him a huge risk if he's captured. I praise the GTVA commanders for it, actually.
Or who knows? They might've read Sun Tzu and fed you a whole lot of bull****. ;)
But what if you've reached Admiral and didn't go read a book? :nervous:
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The real reason it's classified is because volition couldn't be arsed writing extremely lengthy tech descriptions that 99% of people will never read.
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99% of the people suck. Why don't they do things for the normal people of us ?
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they don't pay ensign fighter pilots to know the large scale battle plans of the entire fleet, they pay him to get into his fightercraft and blow up other enemy fighters
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Well the thing is they should be saying it is irrelevent but you can know if you want to. Makes me stop feeling I'm working for north korea.
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Well the thing is they should be saying it is irrelevent but you can know if you want to. Makes me stop feeling I'm working for north korea.
The US military uses pretty much the same scheme, mind.
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And it makes a lot of sense. No matter how much or how harshly you interrogate someone, he can't reveal what he doesn't know.
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i can't say i ever got the feeling too much was classified when playing through.
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I thought this thread was going to be about how everything is classified level Phi, Upsilon, or Omega.
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And sometimes even Rho.
Does someone know in what order they are?
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That's Classified pilot.
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Alpha
Beta
Gamma
Delta
Epsilon
Zeta
Eta
Theta
Iota
Kappa
Lambda
Mu
Nu
Xi
Omicron
Pi
Rho
Sigma
Tau
Upsilon
Phi
Chi
Psi
Omega
It's probably getting fairly highly classified at about Sigma.
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Alpha
Beta
Gamma
Delta
Epsilon
Zeta
Eta
Theta
Iota
Kappa
Lambda
Mu
Nu
Xi
Omicron
Pi
Rho
Sigma
Tau
Upsilon
Phi
Chi
Psi
Omega
It's probably getting fairly highly classified at about Sigma.
That's probably why they never tell Alpha 1 anything; he's got the absolute minimal amount of clearance! Heck, even things he sees with his own eyes and hears with his own ears get classified above his level and he's ordered to forget them!
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I am Omega 1. Fear me. I am the Son of God. I AM....
A TRANSPORT PILOT!!!
Omega is always GTT Argos :P
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Wing assigment has absolutely zero bearing on clearence level.
Except, of course, for the fact that that means you are a pilot, and very low on the pole.
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Wing assigment has absolutely zero bearing on clearence level.
Except, of course, for the fact that that means you are a pilot, and very low on the pole.
That's why it was a joke. :blah:
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Well, as you can see, some people miss that. :P The disclaimer is there regardless now.
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Heck, even things he sees with his own eyes and hears with his own ears get classified above his level and he's ordered to forget them!
They could even hang him under charges of spying! :lol:
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I am Omega 1. Fear me. I am the Son of God. I AM....
A TRANSPORT PILOT!!!
Omega is always GTT Argos :P
Actually Argos are generally named Lambda, it's Elysiums that typically get Omega.
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I think it was one of the best storytelling decisions :V: made.
The less you know, the more interesting everything is.
A certain excellent collaborative fiction site (the SCP Project) tends to place REDACTED liberally throughout its narrative, typically right when the document's about to describe something eerie, frightening, or disturbing...which makes it even worse!
It's the old movie adage of 'never show the monster' in literary form.
Yes well, it seems kind of odd that a dossier intended only for the eyes of the GTVA Security Council would have anything redacted. And the way various places it says "Additionally, see REDACTED" is just plain annoying.
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well, the fact that you saw it was evidence that it WASN'T only viewed by the security council. thus the redactment.
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I think it was one of the best storytelling decisions :V: made.
The less you know, the more interesting everything is.
A certain excellent collaborative fiction site (the SCP Project) tends to place REDACTED liberally throughout its narrative, typically right when the document's about to describe something eerie, frightening, or disturbing...which makes it even worse!
It's the old movie adage of 'never show the monster' in literary form.
Yes well, it seems kind of odd that a dossier intended only for the eyes of the GTVA Security Council would have anything redacted. And the way various places it says "Additionally, see REDACTED" is just plain annoying.
Wut? I don't recall any of this in canon tech descriptions.
If you're referring to the BP fluff, are you on the Security Council?
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If you're referring to the BP fluff, are you on the Security Council?
Maybe not, but after a while I read that and thought, "Stop trying to dazzle me with formality and big words. We all know there's no fluff actually written for that."
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Completely to the contrary. We know exactly what each of those REDACTED notations mean, but revealing them at this point would spoil elements of the story.
A clever reader could probably figure each one out.
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Oh cool, I should probably reread those. But that is, in fact, what I was thinking on the first read-through.
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That's a risk of hinting at additional information. But the alternative is to not hint at additional information, which is way more boring.
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Protip: Hang out on #bp for the latest news, rumors and slip-ups from the Blue Planet team. :)
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Or just buy me rudder pedals and I'll tell you everything, children. ;)
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Great work neutralizing those Shivan devices. You delivered a top-notch performance. Analysts are poring over the data now, but you can rest assured the results will be classified above your level of clearance. They always are.
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Also,
Wut? I don't recall any of this in canon tech descriptions.
WAT. Then what the heck were you talking about when you said...
A certain excellent collaborative fiction site (the SCP Project) tends to place REDACTED liberally throughout its narrative, typically right when the document's about to describe something eerie, frightening, or disturbing...which makes it even worse!
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Are you clueless, or just very confused?
I mean, think about what you said. Has the FreeSpace Source Code Project ever written a tech description? Even if it had, would they be canon? Who in their right mind would describe it as a collaborative fiction site?
So, are you just confused (http://tinyurl.com/34abfk9)?
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Not to mention that redundancy in "FreeSpace Source Code Project Project" is redundantly redundant if you though SCP Project referred to that :P
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To be honest, I thought they were the same as well until I stumbled on the SCP Project's page on TvTropes. :nervous:
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Not to mention that redundancy in "FreeSpace Source Code Project Project" is redundantly redundant if you though SCP Project referred to that :P
I forgot that Battuta is incapable of error, and that anything that looks like a mistake in his writing is actually on purpose. :rolleyes:
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Not to mention that redundancy in "FreeSpace Source Code Project Project" is redundantly redundant if you though SCP Project referred to that :P
I forgot that Battuta is incapable of error, and that anything that looks like a mistake in his writing is actually on purpose. :rolleyes:
It's true!
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I think it was one of the best storytelling decisions :V: made.
I think it would have been better to slowly reveal more as the story progresses like other games usually do. Classifying too much could be seen as V being lazy with the storyline, and they aren't expanding the story unless they reveal it, and since there is no sequel, also makes it less interesting since it will never be answered even though the story ended. All secrets should be revealed when a story ends or it kind of makes the story have less of a point. Too much speculation and not enough revealed. The point of playing through a game is also to see the secrets revealed (origins and motives of the enemy among other things in general) and more story being revealed as progress is made, and that makes a game more enjoyable and worth playing. I like action mixed with a good story.
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I disagree. Many of the best films and games are great because they don't reveal everything. It's much better to leave your audience in awe so they can come up with their own interpretations rather than spoonfeeding them a metric ton of plot. Few of us would be here speculating on Freespace if everything was answered.
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I disagree. Many of the best films and games are great because they don't reveal everything. It's much better to leave your audience in awe so they can come up with their own interpretations rather than spoonfeeding them a metric ton of plot. Few of us would be here speculating on Freespace if everything was answered.
This!
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i don't get it. what in your minds was left out of the story by classifying stuff? it all seemed complete to me. unless you're talking about minor detail crap like the shivan comm node.
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Don't you think? They've classified the Colossus, the Shivans to an extent, the Knossos, the entire info on ETAK, the Sathanas, several Ancient artifacts, research on the Knossos, the Hades, the Mara, and probably much more. Why are the GTVA so strict about keeping things secret? Are they afraid of being sabotaged?
The Knossos, Sathanas, and Ancient artifacts could to some extent reveal more evidence of Shivan motives. The Hades and the Mara can be called "minor detail crap" to an extent. The Shivan Comm Node, yes, could reveal some cool info on what the Shivans are up to.
And hell, ETAK - ETAK could actually reveal WHAT their motives REALLY WERE and are far from "minor detail crap".
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And kill all sense of mystery, and lock the storytelling into one particular storyline for a possible sequel (or, for that matter, the amount of speculation we've done here)?
I'd rather have things that I can build upon as a storyteller than a locked framework that my story has to fit inside, but that's just me.
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Don't you think? They've classified the Colossus, the Shivans to an extent, the Knossos, the entire info on ETAK, the Sathanas, several Ancient artifacts, research on the Knossos, the Hades, the Mara, and probably much more. Why are the GTVA so strict about keeping things secret? Are they afraid of being sabotaged?
The Knossos, Sathanas, and Ancient artifacts could to some extent reveal more evidence of Shivan motives. The Hades and the Mara can be called "minor detail crap" to an extent. The Shivan Comm Node, yes, could reveal some cool info on what the Shivans are up to.
And hell, ETAK - ETAK could actually reveal WHAT their motives REALLY WERE and are far from "minor detail crap".
Well look at this from a military standpoint, and it might make more sense. What do you become, Marvoc, when you're running around with the Alliance's secrets?
A liability. Now, if you fall into NTF hands, or the Shivans hands, you're going to tell them all of our secrets, and we're going to be right up **** creek when it comes to fighting them.
Simply put, if you don't need to know it, then you shouldn't. By the way, read some Sun Tzu. :D