[Gregster2k]

Long post alert (TLDR: What if Sol went to hell?) - The following is a tentative 'universe outline', feel free to steal it and make a mod out of it.

I've never really posted or shared this yet but figured I should seeing as I'm not apt to go take this mod idea and actually create it (well maybe, but not yet).

I noticed a common theme.  All of the current to date campaigns involving a return to Sol involve returning to a Sol that is in some state of, well, normalcy.  In BP you have the UEF, in Inferno the EA, and not sure what Blackwater Operations was going to do.

In any event, I remember reading the FS2 tech room about Earth and noticed that nobody had explored the question of returning to a Sol which had collapsed into utter anarchy.


The premise is that the GTVA returns to Sol to find a Sol system ungoverned.

Warlords, factions, civilian militias, pirate bands and individual nation states now rule the system.  Remnant forces of the old GTA who still believe in the Shivans' return maintain a base on the outer edge of the system near Saturn, but are under constant attack by raiders looking for resources.

The GTVA enters the system to find a cacophony of communications traffic, a hundred nations all screaming to be heard and sided with.  Shocked by the state of affairs in Sol, the GTVA moves to establish itself as an enclave of stability, only to find itself under attack by independent factions who refuse GTVA rule.  The player is thrust into a climate of anarchy and chaos.

To restore order, the GTVA adopts a plan to rally people to their cause by becoming the most desirable faction to join in the system, offering relief aid and supplies previously unavailable to Sol ... so long as the receiving factions ratify BETAC and join the GTVA.

As the campaign progresses, you are Alpha 1, sent in to preserve the treaties being signed and help protect the GTVA's efforts.  Your primary antagonists will be:

1. Pirates and other fiercely independent militias refusing to join the GTVA
2. Nations which refuse to join the GTVA
3. Deceitful groups which 'accept' BETAC in an attempt to hijack GTVA ships and equipment, or Groups which join the GTVA and then change their mind later
4. Anti-Vasudan forces attacking the "V" in GTVA
5. ????

Your primary objectives "in this theatre:"
1. Protect all civilian lives per BETAC.
2. Protect all GTVA assets.
3. Reduce strife in Sol system.

Common themes:
- Prepare to get backstabbed a lot.  Trust nobody.
- How do you identify a civilian vs. a combatant?
- How do you win over people when all you've got are comm channels, supplies, and guns? (answer: all of the above - you just have to figure out what they want)

Oh, one more thing.  I got just one rule for this "Crapsack Sol" idea:
NO SHIVANS.  Having them just makes it too easy to get everybody to rally under the GTVA's banner.

On the other hand, the SOC using FAKE Shivans to scare people into joining... heheh 

Do discuss this idea - I'd like to read the comments.

I just figure, we've seen so many campaigns with 'stable' Sol systems, it'd be interesting to see one where the place is 'homewrecked' and restoring order is like pulling teeth.

</end ramble>

[BlasterNT]

That sounds like really intriguing idea.  And I feel like it also makes Sol sound a whole lot more "alive" and "vibrant", actually. 

[Alex Heartnet]

The #5 might be individuals who believe that humanity should not have a large governing body at all.  These anarchists cover the entire spectrum of moral integrity (to make you feel bad about having to shoot the ones that really do have a brighter future to offer, plus to question established stereotypes), and like any other human are willing to band together with whom they serve common goals with.

This honestly seems like the sort of campaign that should force the player to make difficult decisions, and branch on occasion, perhaps with an option to outright defect later in the game (possibly taking a significant chunk of the GTVA fleet with you).

Another theme to explore is that the GTVA might very well be on the far end of authoritarian government, and one doesn't have to go from that extreme to wanton chaos on the streets.

[headdie]

A concept myself and I am sure others have chewed over privately and tbh based on my own thoughts you have a good starting point here.

One point I think would need sorting early on is what is stopping the GTVA just steam rolling the system under pure weight of ships and troops, is it going to be a BP style limitations on node transit, perhaps the reason is political in some way or maybe something else I haven't thought of.

some areas of your post that might want rethinking:
"The GTVA enters the system to find a cacophony of communications traffic, a hundred nations all screaming to be heard and sided with.".  personally I would expect factions near the node to be aware faster than factions based further away, also while some factions would start dialogue quickly, others might take some time, perhaps days to consider what the GTVA arrival means, if they should respond, and if so how. so yes comm traffic would be busy due to the multiple factions but not ridiculous.  Which leads into the second point I think want reconsidering

"a hundred nations all screaming to be heard and sided with"  While heavy fragmentation is a valid scenario, them all being of equal enough terms to call out for an audience is probably not so likely, not to mention would be a potential story writing nightmare, you would probably be better introducing a system of a small number of major factions opposed by their incompatible motivators, then allied with them as appropriate are masses of smaller gangs, warlords, freedom fighters, mercenaries, GTA loyalists, etc.  While some of these smaller groups might have the guts or legitimate freedom to contact the GTVA without direct approval from their sponsor factions, most probably wont and will either follow their sponsor or break away to do their own thing.  Also the many sponsored little factions give additional avenues for betral for example the GTA might provisionally accept the GTVA but a group allied to the GTA might still carry T-V war hatreds and so attack vasudan ships regardless.

[-Norbert-]

I'd also expand a bit on the hatred for Vasuands.
Some people might just hate them for the T-V war, loosing family members ect... but I'd also introduce a new faction that hates the Vasudans, because they blame them for the Shivan's appearance.
The same could also be done with people hating the GTA and Vasudans equally, for bringing down the Shivan's wrath on mankind, because they believe if the war had ended much sooner, the Shivans would never have appeard to "punish the destroyers".
Wther this is actually true would be irrelevant. What matters is that this particular faction(s) believe it strong enough to make war over it or at least refuse any kind of contact with both the GTA remnants and the GTVA.

[Unknown Target]

That's a cool idea, I like it. You can explore modern day themes of terrorism and the "soft" nature of warfare very well in this setting. Nice

[An4ximandros]

A problem I see with this is that it assumes (like Blue Planet and possibly more mods) that the capital of the GTA (Now GTVA) MUST have the weakest military presence of the GTA and lack contingencies.

As if the GTA never prepared for the possibility of the nodes collapsing, something which is well established in canon to happen naturally (which might account for why all the node maps change per game.)

That plus the fact there's FEKING space pirates implies the GTA can't even police a single system properly.

The end result ends up implying that the GTA was the most incompetent government body in existence on the universe and does not deserve to survive in an era in which proper handling of a single star system is mandatory if you want a body able to govern as many systems as it had in Freespace canon.

[BlasterNT]

Problem is space is big.  No government should be expected to entirely an entire system, much less several.  The mobility of jump, coupled with light lag, coupled with space is big, ensures that it's very easy to hide, and very difficult to patrol. 

Another thing is that these scenarios presume that the GTA was largely unified because of the t-v war, and the sudden cutoff from the war made it so that what I am sure is the massive military industrial complex in sol was unnecessary.  Though it's a good point that we don't see any contingencies for changes in the node network... One thing is that they could've not anticipated all 3 nodes to sol collapsing at the same time

[headdie]

A problem I see with this is that it assumes (like Blue Planet and possibly more mods) that the capital of the GTA (Now GTVA) MUST have the weakest military presence of the GTA and lack contingencies.

As if the GTA never prepared for the possibility of the nodes collapsing, something which is well established in canon to happen naturally (which might account for why all the node maps change per game.)

That plus the fact there's FEKING space pirates implies the GTA can't even police a single system properly.

The end result ends up implying that the GTA was the most incompetent government body in existence on the universe and does not deserve to survive in an era in which proper handling of a single star system is mandatory if you want a body able to govern as many systems as it had in Freespace canon.

I think something you have missed here is that the node collapse represented a sudden fundamental shift in both the political and economic situation of the system, we suddenly go from a system which has evolved into the political, economic and cultural centre of a multi system Terran alliance into the same system without the access to the outside so trade in resources suddenly stops and communication with loved ones out of the system suddenly stops.  The system is possibly population heavy for it's ability to produce food due to it being the hub of terran space politically and culturally so probably imports food goods from outside to make up the difference.  The system might also lack resources gathering infrastructure for certain materials for that population size as resources were probably imported from systems where they where easier to obtain them.  In addition the GTA economy was literally shot to pieces during the T-V and Great War and was running a total war economy so the resource distribution and usage in sol would be far from optimum for the shift in circumstances, ie in a system like Sol which would have a massive industrial base that would mean ship and weapons construction rather than housing, resource exploitation and agriculture.  Another thing is that my understanding is that nodes have long and possibly predictable life cycles (depending on Terran knowledge) so a natural collapse might have been a long time away reducing the need for such plans.

an equivalent to the node collapse on Earth would be something like a natural disaster that wipes out all but 1 major capital city of the developed world which is untouched and just has a little of the surrounding land intact.  believe me everything in that city would go bad and quickly.

{tl/dr}

In short you could try to prepare for it but in reality it would be very difficult and likely to go wrong anyway, also the GTA was likely more worried by the more imminent and real threat of extinction from armed and angry aliens.

[Megawolf492]

Nice idea. I guess the reason why no one wants a doomed Sol is because that is us you're talking about. If it was the Vasudans or another humanized planet, that would be different. You do have to explain why the GTVA doesn't just take over the system by force. Maybe reverse engineering the Knossos has problems and keeps us from sending "unlimited" ships through with ours. Also, when we do turn on our Knossos, there is no guarantee that the subspace node on the Sol side would be in the same place (right by earth according to FS1 cut-scene). That could help with not being detected because whoever is looking will be looking in the wrong place.

I would have few space faring factions. Since it seems like the GTA had a good grip on all ships/weapons, it would be difficult to say that a bunch of groups either got their hands on ships or broke away. A few, yes, but not a lot. Also since most of the fleet wasn't in Sol at the time (that's the feeling I get anyways), there would be limited ships available right away. The major power brokers would be the shipyards and manufacturing centers.

I would move away from BETAC having a major roll in this campaign. BETAC seems too political for anarchy. The pirates and/or other factions probably wouldn't base their loyalties on BETAC, but instead what they think the GTVA really is. Also, going out of your way to protect civilians that don't truely belong to the GTVA seems weird. Sure, don't fire on them, but trying to save your allies' civvies' butts because they wander into a battlefield?

Let me say this before I shut up: how about a campain kinda what you are saying but the character (please can we have someone other than Alpha 1?) is fighting for one of the factions (maybe the still loyal GTA) and the GTVA doesn't factor into this? You are trying to restore order in a chaotic Sol system that is still cut off from the rest of the galaxy. Hmmm?

[An4ximandros]

Well, we still have Alphas 2 to 3 and the rest of the Greek alphabet.
You could be referred to as Sampi 3!
 
But I really like you last idea Megawolf...

[NGTM-1R]

Problem is space is big.  No government should be expected to entirely an entire system, much less several.  The mobility of jump, coupled with light lag, coupled with space is big, ensures that it's very easy to hide, and very difficult to patrol. 

Subspace mobility cuts both ways, providing instant reinforcement and communication to anyone under attack. At no point in FS1 or FS2 is the ability to disrupt this demonstrated thought it would have provided great advantage several times; the NTF attack on Enif Station comes to mind.

The Sol scenario is predicated on really only one variable: how quickly and how well First Fleet managed to control the sources of combat spacecraft hulls. The most likely, if least interesting, answer is that they did so rapidly and without screwups, because the GTVA was at war and these were valuable assets that would be actively protected during that war.

[Hades]

A problem I see with this is that it assumes (like Blue Planet and possibly more mods) that the capital of the GTA (Now GTVA) MUST have the weakest military presence of the GTA and lack contingencies.

As if the GTA never prepared for the possibility of the nodes collapsing, something which is well established in canon to happen naturally (which might account for why all the node maps change per game.)

That plus the fact there's FEKING space pirates implies the GTA can't even police a single system properly.

The end result ends up implying that the GTA was the most incompetent government body in existence on the universe and does not deserve to survive in an era in which proper handling of a single star system is mandatory if you want a body able to govern as many systems as it had in Freespace canon.

I seriously doubt they had many of their ships stationed in Sol, due to the war, and due to the Lucifer coming. Perhaps a destroyer or two to distract it being it, while they try to evacuate if the need arises.

[redsniper]

Let me say this before I shut up: how about a campain kinda what you are saying but the character (please can we have someone other than Alpha 1?) is fighting for one of the factions (maybe the still loyal GTA) and the GTVA doesn't factor into this? You are trying to restore order in a chaotic Sol system that is still cut off from the rest of the galaxy. Hmmm?

This is what I wanted to say. You don't even need the GTVA returning; you could have plenty of fun just with this hectic soup of crazy different factions. Hell, you could take it even farther and say that the Sol node just never gets reopened, so after centuries of isolation all kinds of bizarre groups, cultures, and religions spring up. With spaceships.

[An4ximandros]

And in the end they are all wiped out by a crazy religious leader with the intent of dooming Sol's population as punishment for their sins, you play as a pilot in one of the last surviving capital ships trying to get enough civilians out for a... Sol Exodus.

[Colonol Dekker]

Calling shotgun as king of Titan

[Adi]

I'd stick with the idea of chaotic Sol. Two or three major factions (ex-GTA collapsed after nods collapsed) fighting over Sol. Maybe not a real fights like we've seen between GTVA and NTF but rather short bursts of border line violence plus lots of political fights. Few "good guys" pirates like Han Solo and some other minor smugglers just wandering around the system.

I thought of beginning like this:

A fighter ("ye old Alpha One") from a cruiser group on a recon mission (few Leviathan Class Ships or so) that remains unnoticed by the main factions. Only the well informed pirates discover that the nod has been reactivated and someones coming back home. After some time spent on scouting the recon mission calls for a backup to stabilize the chaotic, corrupt Homeworld. That calls in for a Hecate class ship and maybe few Orions. This one can't remain unnoticed. So the fights between three hostile factions are set aside to confront with the newcomers. At first they talk, like the politicians like to talk - a lot. Then someone gets nervous and fires the first shot (one side or another - doesn't matter). GTVA remains cold blooded. They give ex-GTA a warning that if they don't stop this conflict GTVA will use force to take over and reestablish the only legitimate government of the System.

That's all I got on my mind   

[Scourge of Ages]

Heh, if anybody remembers, Dekker's Dodgy Mod that I agreed to work on a loooooooong time ago had sort of a similar plot written by headdie.

I'm pretty sure the mod is dead, and sort of doomed from the start, but some good stuff came from it at least. With headdie's permission I'll post his outline.

[headdie]

Grief I had forgotten about that lol.

here you go:

Sol is in a state of civil war, the GTA is in tatters holding onto Earth (just), Venus and a few rocks in the asteroid belt. Two successor states are in the mix one based on Mars the other out of the terraformed moons of Jupiter.

The GTA has become transfixed in the 'Glory Days' of the T-V war when it was perceived to have power. Most of the public knowledge about the Great War has been suppressed and much of the current fighting generation has no knowledge about what happened, why the node collapsed or even that the Shivan war happened at all. The public has access to only very controlled media which is saying that the GTA is winning the wars against the successor states and correspondents between the military and their families is heavily censored. In truth the economy is shattered, they are nearly out of material resources, technical innovation has nearly ceased with no radical new designs or technologies unveiled beyond a few years after the node collapse and are often on the loosing end of most armed encounters. Earth is ravaged and uninhabitable outside of carefully maintained habitation structures. The GTA government refuse to accept the validity of the other two states and seek to destroy them any way they can which has resulted in acts of terror. Militarily the GTA is T-V/Pre ST Great War era with a few custom designs from the period up to about 5 years after the node collapse. In short the GTA has become the twisted, backward, evil little runt that thinks it should be king.

The Mars faction is high tech and operates in a generally sophisticated society. The Martians have avoided storming Earth out of reverence for its place in human history but are unhappy with the state Earth is in. Public rumour suggests that an assault might be being planned but there is mixed public opinion on this. Mars has become the new Earth with sophisticated Terraforming and planet management technologies maintaining a comfortable environment over most of the surface without the need for any personal life support equipment. Diplomatically Mars is maintaining a mostly defensive war against the GTA even allowing limited civilian trade to stop the population of Earth starving, In regards to Jupiter no treaty exists meaning there are occasional 'border' skirmishes and 'incidents' involving civilian traffic but little planned military action. Militarily they maintain a small but advanced fleet in order to keep their material and financial economies stable and have proven enough to keep them safe for the time being. The Han-Ronald had their HQ and principle Fighter Factory based on Mars.

The Jupiter Moons are a proud and industrial lot who have a rough and ready society balanced with a code of respect for one and another. During the T-V and Great wars Jupiter was the hub of the remaining mining activity in Sol giving them access to a large material wealth when they went independent. After the Node collapsed the Vasudan Survivors settled in the Jupiter Colonies bringing most of their fighters with them also making for a small Vasudan population within the Jupiter area. In regards to the GTA, Jupiter see themselves as the eventual successors and don't see a place for an independent Mars but don't want to initiate a 3 way war which they think might see the GTA and Mars working together against them. Technologically they are a little more advanced than the GTA and have a significant advantage in engine and warhead technologies. Skirmishes between GTA and Jupiter forces are frequent and bloody. At the point BSG arrives Jupiter is close to probing Earth orbit but has been unable to make the most recent push stick.

In terms of the size of ships
-Fighters and bombers are in abundance,
-Cruisers are fairly common
-Corvette sized ships have started appearing recently as the centrepiece of ‘larger’ formations
-Destroyers are extremely rare mostly consisting of retrofits (or not) of whatever was in system when the node collapsed which have survived this long. Their construction is considered by all to be too expensive materially, take to long and take too much to maintain.

The early days of the conflict between the three the fighting forces consisted of the separate formations of the 1st fleet which aligned themselves with the local regions.
1st Battle group defended Earth and the GTA government.
2nd Battle group protected Mars with its large population and shipyards.
3rd battle group protected Jupiter and the various mining operations that were controlled from there.
4th Battle group defended the Sol jump node and the trade centres near by. The 4th disappeared during the breakdown of GTA rule and its present location remains a mystery though legend says they are waiting to greet to GTA when they re-establish the node from the other side.

[Mongoose]

...I think we need to get Dodgy again.