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Hosted Projects - FS2 Required => Blue Planet => Topic started by: An4ximandros on February 18, 2013, 10:26:32 pm

Title: MacDuff was a god**** hero.
Post by: An4ximandros on February 18, 2013, 10:26:32 pm
 He was a crazy religious man. Perhaps crazy enough to be Nagari sensitive.

 He wanted to force humanity to live in habitats, free of the chains of solar systems. Free of subspace... and Shivans.

 MacDuff wanted to free humanity from the Vishnans and the Shivans, no matter the cost. What better way to do so than taking advantage of the flaw in subspace? The need of a star's gravity well?

 Granted, his methods were ruthless... but he was not as mad as you'd be inclined to think.

 His final gambit? Destroying the surface of Earth to force everyone into habitats. Here they would be able to escape the apocalypse.
Title: Re: MacDuff was a god**** hero.
Post by: SpardaSon21 on February 18, 2013, 10:44:51 pm
Destroying the Earth is just going to make everyone decide to live on Mars and terraform it into a new Earth, so bad plan.  Either that or they decide to just get over needing planetary gravity and go adopt radical transhumanism as zero-g-evolved space people since there's no more Kostadin Cell to tell them they can't, most likely with pointy elf ears because *** you, elf ears are awesome. :P
Title: Re: MacDuff was a god**** hero.
Post by: Phantom Hoover on February 19, 2013, 07:05:39 am
the ancients in bp canon had sublight interstellar travel, and they built an empire with it. keeping out of subspace probably isn't enough to stop the shivans
Title: Re: MacDuff was a god**** hero.
Post by: Crybertrance on February 19, 2013, 07:53:38 am
the ancients in bp canon had sublight interstellar travel, and they built an empire with it. keeping out of subspace probably isn't enough to stop the shivans

Yes, but, iirc, the Shivan incursion of the Ancient's systems only began after they began using subspace.
Title: Re: MacDuff was a god**** hero.
Post by: Klaustrophobia on February 19, 2013, 09:39:13 am
there is no way a human colony would survive outside a solar system.
Title: Re: MacDuff was a god**** hero.
Post by: Phantom Hoover on February 19, 2013, 10:23:58 am
the ancients in bp canon had sublight interstellar travel, and they built an empire with it. keeping out of subspace probably isn't enough to stop the shivans

Yes, but, iirc, the Shivan incursion of the Ancient's systems only began after they began using subspace.

and they never tried to flee in stl ships?
Title: Re: MacDuff was a god**** hero.
Post by: General Battuta on February 19, 2013, 10:25:09 am
there is no way a human colony would survive outside a solar system.

Kuiper Belt/Oort Cloud is already so far out it might as well be.
Title: Re: MacDuff was a god**** hero.
Post by: MP-Ryan on February 19, 2013, 10:47:31 am
there is no way a human colony would survive outside a solar system.

Kuiper Belt/Oort Cloud is already so far out it might as well be.

I'm curious how Klaus reached this conclusion in the first place.
Title: Re: MacDuff was a god**** hero.
Post by: Luis Dias on February 19, 2013, 11:25:15 am
Because unjustified claims are the greatest! <-- example.
Title: Re: MacDuff was a god**** hero.
Post by: General Battuta on February 19, 2013, 12:32:35 pm
Klaustrophobia is a smart dude, don't be hatin
Title: Re: MacDuff was a god**** hero.
Post by: Klaustrophobia on February 19, 2013, 02:35:29 pm
sure they are far out on the edge of the system, but they still have contact with it.  they still get supplies from it.  a well-stocked and efficiently run habitat could survive for a while out on its own, but not indefinitely.  it can't be purely self-sustaining out in the void.  which is what i assumed was meant by "free of the chains of solar systems."

at best, i would think they might be able to "drift" from one system to the next, resupplying as they hit each one.  or go out, toss anchor, and return when they need to restock. 
Title: Re: MacDuff was a god**** hero.
Post by: Gray113 on February 19, 2013, 02:45:18 pm
I doubt any habitat could survive long outside of the Heliosphere. The solar winds and cosmic radiation would be to much overcome.
Title: Re: MacDuff was a god**** hero.
Post by: -Sara- on February 19, 2013, 02:47:42 pm
MacDuff should have flown away from Sol, far away. For aeons, until his descendants no longer resembled humans, free of whatever blaim humankind called upon itself. Now he's dead. I wonder if he ran to his entombed wife, I imagine him having done so.
Title: Re: MacDuff was a god**** hero.
Post by: QuakeIV on February 19, 2013, 06:03:28 pm
I was not expecting this viewpoint.  An interesting thought.

With that said I rarely enjoy fully understanding a character and then killing them.  I enjoyed killing MacDuff, and the BP writers are pretty good.  I may replay that mission tonight when I get home now that I think on it.
Title: Re: MacDuff was a god**** hero.
Post by: qwadtep on February 19, 2013, 08:54:20 pm
Go back to bed, Sergei.

I doubt any habitat could survive long outside of the Heliosphere. The solar winds and cosmic radiation would be to much overcome.
Which is presumably why the Gefs are genetically engineering humans like the Greenfly sleeper. The bigger problem is probably making their habitats self-sustaining; they still can't get by without the Jovians, let alone a star.
Title: Re: MacDuff was a god**** hero.
Post by: Crybertrance on February 20, 2013, 01:42:22 am
the ancients in bp canon had sublight interstellar travel, and they built an empire with it. keeping out of subspace probably isn't enough to stop the shivans

Yes, but, iirc, the Shivan incursion of the Ancient's systems only began after they began using subspace.

and they never tried to flee in stl ships?

Probably because after the Shivans knew they needed to be culled, they would probably just do a small sub-space jump and kill the smart-asses.


But, wait a second... Got a bit of a brain-wave here. What if there were Ancients who escaped the Shivan genocide and are there somewhere, undiscovered in the void? Since Terrans, Vasudans, and Shivans (presumably) rely heavily on Subspace to cover vast distances (as opposed to sub-light travel). And since it is also well established that the Ancients had a vast sub-light empire, they certainly had the know-how to efficient sub-light travel and possibly even extra-solar habitation.
Title: Re: MacDuff was a god**** hero.
Post by: Darius on February 20, 2013, 01:50:20 am
What if there were Ancients who escaped the Shivan genocide and are there somewhere, undiscovered in the void?

I'd say it's possible, even likely.

Whether they'd reach a place in time to have any impact on the story is another matter.
Title: Re: MacDuff was a god**** hero.
Post by: UnlimitedBacon on February 20, 2013, 03:50:50 am
I actually ended up feeling sorry for him because of the specific way I played the mission. Since Earth was about to be destroyed, there was no time to waste. I bypassed the destroyer and headed straight for the cave, spewing countermeasures along the way. Then after taking out the reactor and escaping the blast, I finished off MacDuff.

In the span of a few minutes, that man had his lifelong dream shattered while on the verge of sucess then watched as all of his friends and family died (including his son) before he was finally killed by an inferior opponent. Thats a cruel way to go. If I had taken out the destroyer first then in his mind he would have died a hero.

MacDuff and the Gefs also remind me of the terrorist group from Pandora's Star.
Title: Re: MacDuff was a god**** hero.
Post by: Buckshee Rounds on February 20, 2013, 05:36:02 am
the ancients in bp canon had sublight interstellar travel, and they built an empire with it. keeping out of subspace probably isn't enough to stop the shivans

Yes, but, iirc, the Shivan incursion of the Ancient's systems only began after they began using subspace.

and they never tried to flee in stl ships?

Probably because after the Shivans knew they needed to be culled, they would probably just do a small sub-space jump and kill the smart-asses.


But, wait a second... Got a bit of a brain-wave here. What if there were Ancients who escaped the Shivan genocide and are there somewhere, undiscovered in the void? Since Terrans, Vasudans, and Shivans (presumably) rely heavily on Subspace to cover vast distances (as opposed to sub-light travel). And since it is also well established that the Ancients had a vast sub-light empire, they certainly had the know-how to efficient sub-light travel and possibly even extra-solar habitation.

[conjecture]Maybe their ghosts prowl the Nagari-space as soulless husks.

Spoiler:
Maybe the Great Darkness is the resulting gestalt of every civilisation annihilated by the Shivans (and Vishnans).
[/conjecture]
Title: Re: MacDuff was a god**** hero.
Post by: Garfield on February 20, 2013, 10:27:19 am
MacDuff should have flown away from Sol, far away. For aeons, until his descendants no longer resembled humans, free of whatever blaim humankind called upon itself. Now he's dead. I wonder if he ran to his entombed wife, I imagine him having done so.

The way the briefing described it, I honestly thought that MacDuff's wife was built into the ship and was controlling it in some sort of horrifying transhumanist undeath. Combined with the music, it gave the duel with the Morena a seriously creepy feel on my first playthrough.
Title: Re: MacDuff was a god**** hero.
Post by: Luis Dias on February 20, 2013, 10:44:18 am
I don't think cosmic radiation is a sufficiently worrying problem in FS2verse. I don't think resources are a problem.

I also think that the Gef's idea to spread through empty space is a worthy approach. Treat suns as dangerous spot zones where shivans dwell, and try to thrive in the dark space between them. If they are sufficiently successful they will have "conquered" a lot of space and material hidden in it (lots of "lost" planets and planetoids to mine and exploit - one single planetoid found might be sufficient for thousands of years of mining, if they are organized). Perhaps they will even learn to live a good live in the dark space. For millions of years.

The problem is that McDuff is the stupidest person alive in BPverse. To grant this guy the status of "hero" can only be done when speaking with the irony mode on. Not only he failed his mass murdering project, he put the lights on gefs as amazingly dangerous terrorists, capable of doing what even the Tevs wouldn't dream of doing. Yeah, not only was he able to destroy his own cell, now all the other cells are tainted, and perhaps even noticed by the shivans and the vishnans.
Title: Re: MacDuff was a god**** hero.
Post by: Legate Damar on February 20, 2013, 11:12:27 am
What if the Shivans send out STL ships of their own?
Title: Re: MacDuff was a god**** hero.
Post by: Luis Dias on February 20, 2013, 02:14:37 pm
That's why you don't want to provoke anyone.
Title: Re: MacDuff was a god**** hero.
Post by: Vidmaster on February 21, 2013, 03:14:08 am
Fanatics who are trying to impose their will on others using extreme measures are NEVER positive, no matter if religous, political, social, cultural or personal in nature. I do think that founding and subsequently ruling a sect with an iron fist plus building a doomsday device is kind of extreme (plus inhuman).
Title: Re: MacDuff was a god**** hero.
Post by: -Sara- on February 21, 2013, 12:32:31 pm
I'd pay to run into a species who somehow found out about the Shivans and subspace prior to using subspace, relying on near-lightspeed travel of alternate means, sort of remaining more or less undetected. Far away from suns and further away from nodes.

Or a sort of von Neumann probe, which seeds every suitable (yet different) planet with seeds of life of a same species, as a legacy to a dead species which hopes to strike gold by having a species evolve far enough to survive and take to space again. Their genetics giving them the instinct to unite with others of their species, grown up elsewhere, so that they each contribute different technology and science as it evolved in unique circumstances to quickly form a fast collection of knowledge and abilities. A sort of think-tank, engineered to grow and learn from eachother. Quite xenophobic (maybe unintentionally) to outsiders as they know only to trust what in their genetic mind is similar to them.
Title: Re: MacDuff was a god**** hero.
Post by: Buckshee Rounds on February 22, 2013, 12:13:59 pm
An interesting idea, but in my mind it'd be far less idealistic mostly because I can't see any way for different factions of the same species not going to war, somewhat because that's what we're familiar with for our own species and mostly because pew pew pew boom is more flashy and interesting than sharing and utopia. :P
Title: Re: MacDuff was a god**** hero.
Post by: Woolie Wool on February 22, 2013, 03:35:40 pm
I don't think a species could make it to the status of a spacefaring civilization if it wasn't as brutal and ruthless as humanity is.
Title: Re: MacDuff was a god**** hero.
Post by: -Sara- on February 23, 2013, 06:57:13 am
I don't think a species could make it to the status of a spacefaring civilization if it wasn't as brutal and ruthless as humanity is.

The galaxy of Freespace is pretty empty, possibly as a result of Shivan and/or Vishnan actions, or factors not directly related to these two. External threat seems limited. Internet global threat before getting to space, perhaps more likely. Curiosity seems important though, to reach out.
Title: Re: MacDuff was a god**** hero.
Post by: FSW on February 23, 2013, 12:18:39 pm
The galaxy of Freespace is pretty empty, possibly as a result of Shivan and/or Vishnan actions, or factors not directly related to these two. External threat seems limited. Internet global threat before getting to space, perhaps more likely. Curiosity seems important though, to reach out.
Not every star has subspace nodes. Perhaps the galaxy is teeming with life, in places the Ancients and Shivans could never reach.
Title: Re: MacDuff was a god**** hero.
Post by: Luis Dias on February 23, 2013, 01:54:38 pm
Space is big.
Title: Re: MacDuff was a god**** hero.
Post by: SpardaSon21 on February 23, 2013, 01:59:37 pm
Yeah, you may think that's a long ways down to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space. :drevil:
Title: Re: MacDuff was a god**** hero.
Post by: Buckshee Rounds on February 24, 2013, 08:40:59 am
The galaxy of Freespace is pretty empty, possibly as a result of Shivan and/or Vishnan actions, or factors not directly related to these two. External threat seems limited. Internet global threat before getting to space, perhaps more likely. Curiosity seems important though, to reach out.
Not every star has subspace nodes. Perhaps the galaxy is teeming with life, in places the Ancients and Shivans could never reach.

If they are unable to leave their home systems then they aren't really worth the Shivan's attention since the only species they could jeapordise would be themselves. Interstellar travel is probably one of the things that keeps species from ripping themselves apart since they inevitably encounter other species to compete with, case in point with Humanity and Vasudans. If a species can't leave its home system then it must eventually destroy itself or at the very least be forever isolated and irrelevant. If a species is able to leave its home system then it either destroys itself in a war with another subspace-capable species or gets culled by the Shivans. This is why I think the T-V relationship is sort of out of norm:- we haven't destroyed each other and haven't been destroyed by the Shivans (yet). Maybe part of the reason the Shivans and Vishnans have any interest in us at all is precisely because we tolerate an alliance with the Vasudans.
Title: Re: MacDuff was a god**** hero.
Post by: qwadtep on February 24, 2013, 02:31:29 pm
The galaxy of Freespace is pretty empty, possibly as a result of Shivan and/or Vishnan actions, or factors not directly related to these two. External threat seems limited. Internet global threat before getting to space, perhaps more likely. Curiosity seems important though, to reach out.
Not every star has subspace nodes. Perhaps the galaxy is teeming with life, in places the Ancients and Shivans could never reach.
The node in UT dealing with the Lucifer specifically notes the emptiness of the sector following the Ancient hegemony and subsequent cull, which implicitly suggests that other regions of space are teeming with life and the Terrans and Zods just evolved at the wrong place at the wrong time. Or the right place at the right time, since a region with four, five different races competing against each other would get culled that much more brutally.
Title: Re: MacDuff was a god**** hero.
Post by: Luis Dias on February 27, 2013, 05:28:13 am
The problem is not infighting between various species. The problem is the formation of a hegemon.
Title: Re: MacDuff was a god**** hero.
Post by: -Sara- on March 05, 2013, 05:54:37 am
Here's another one to think on. A species which communicates with another species, possibly but not per se over subspace, without an actual rendevous, sans live contact. Basically two Skyping civilizations which share science and knowledge while sticking to their own turf, perhaps for religious, moral or self-restraining reasons. In metaphore, like monks, sealing themselves in their cloister to not thread on the sacred grass outside, yet curious enough to share ideas and philosophies with a likeminded group through smoke signals.