As I've started work on a few of my own campaigns and storyline arcs, I've begun to notice a pattern in my thinking. To a one, all of my campaigns revolve around a story told from the point of view of Terrans or Vasudans. Whether they be mercenaries, GTVA military, or any other organization you can think of, its always the same two races everytime. Now of course most campaigns fall into this category, and besides a few of the more original campaign ideas where you fly as the Shivans, there's never a real change in perspective.
That's what I'd like to change.
Now, we can argue the merits of a plausible storyline for that which must not be named until we're all old and grey. The point is, any post Capella era campaign makes assumptions about what's going to happen to the GTVA. That's alright of course, its perfectly natural to want to explore the possibilities for the future of the Terran and Vasudan races, but unfortunately no one can ever come up with a unified vision.
Now its been suggested before, and rejected, that the HLP community band together and make their own version of that which must not be named. Of course, as has been stated before, no one can come up with a single story arc that everyone can agree on. That's natural, everyone has different ideas and different visions of where the future will take the GTVA.
But what if we take a different approach?
Who's to say that the Terrans and Vasudans are the only races in their galaxy? Who's to say there might not be other, less advanced races still battling one another for supremacy without any knowledge of the Shivans? What if, to create a parallel here, there were two such races duking it across the width and breadth of their territory using subspace? Granted, its only recently become standard practice for them, but such a large amount of activity is bound to attract some unfriendly attention.
Now suppose, just suppose here, that the GTVA (without getting into any details on what has actually happened with earth and other unanswered questions), becomes aware of these two races before the Shivans, and is monitoring them to ensure that the Shivans don't return to destroy another homeworld? Suppose they do so secretly, slowly watching the rise in subspace activity and destruction that will incur the wrath of the Shivan armada?
My plan is simple, take one of these two new races and tell the story from their perspective. Vary them greatly to ensure two unique sides, and create a full scale war for them to be involved in. Without going into the particulars of the story too much, what do you think the GTVA would do if these two empires brought the Shivans down on their own heads? Would they step in and help, or stand by and watch the destroyers wipe out another civilization?
Granted this would be a somewhat ambitious project. You'd need an expert team of modellers to craft not only a new fleet of Terran, Vasudan, and Shivan ships, but also the various vessels for the two new species. New weapons would have to be devised, and a massive amount of work put in to coming up with all the particulars. I think that it is worth exploring however, and I just wanted to gather some additional opinions and get a kind of feel for what everyone would think about such a project.
