Story Board Brainstorming Sink

Species suggestions, story ideas and contributions.
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Nightfish
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Story Board Brainstorming Sink

#1 Post by Nightfish »

Our brand new brainstorming thread for the Story Board. Here you can create your race on the fly with help from others. That ought to help keep the other boards clean.

Impaler
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#2 Post by Impaler »

SPACE PIRATES AS A PLAYABLE RACE!!!

What a great idea. Here it goes. Space pirates are a rag-tag collection of defectors, disidants and criminals from all other races both thouse in the game and ones too minor to be mentioned. They band together and become space pirates. Pirates excell at raiding convoys which gives them most of their resorces (they subtract resorces from the stockpiles of other races). They are also the only race able to capture ships in combat because they will have members of that species as part of their crew they are able to use/retrofit the ship. The ship will not imediatly be useable because they will need to retrofit the ship, this consists of subdividing the ship into different living spaces for each of the ships many races (they wear space suits to move through common areas). They can also build their own ships but the process is slow. They are excellent at stealing tecnologies from captured ships and at conducting spying missions of all types (again because they have defectors). Space pirates can also steal your characters, other races can only bribe your characters into doing poor jobs. Space Pirates do not breed in the noraml sense (or if they do its very slow), insteed they "recruit". Recruiting can be anything from bribing to kidnapping, reprograming, nerve stapaling you name it they do it, basicaly it would be a "focus". Space Pirates also find all planets undesirable or "hostile" as they must build segmented/domed environmentaly controled habitats on anyworld, the effect is as if all planets were at the "bottom" of the EP wheel. Thus they prefer to build secret asteroid bases which other races will have a very hard time finding. They are masters of cloaking tecnology.

The traditional Space Pirate Disaster inwhich some pirates randomly apear in your system and must be destroyed with your fleet would still remain. These now represent independent pirate cells unaffiliated with the SP Player. To the space pirates player they are an oportunity as the cell can be recruited for instant expantion. The person being robbed from can not distinguish between random "disaster" pirates and the actions of the space Pirate player. Space Pirates are also geographicaly dispersed, they have no home planet and start out with a number of widly scattered basses and fleets. Pirates are also excellent at trade (particularly in strategic resorces if these get included). If the Pirates are successfull and gain enough power they start to morph into a semi-respectable "syndicate" and eventualy into "the Guild" and derive their power more by legitimate commerce. Eventualy they may achive some kind of SMAC like economic victory. Their military prowess will not be sufficient to stand against the full force of regular empires but they can nip at the edges.
Fear is the Mind Killer - Frank Herbert -Dune

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utilae
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#3 Post by utilae »

They sound cool, alos should they be able to move their asteroids to different star systems, etc, using rocket boosters.

Impaler
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#4 Post by Impaler »

That would fall under planetary manipulation which is a very high end tecnology so I think not. They just hide in the asteroids and use them as a place to conduct raids from.
Fear is the Mind Killer - Frank Herbert -Dune

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utilae
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#5 Post by utilae »

If the space pirates were the only ones with the ability to capture ships it would be cool, though what's stopping any other race from kidnapping an enemy races pilot, putting a mind control device on the pilot and capturing a ship and using the pilot to control it.

It doesn't sound like something that should be limited to the pirates, because in such a game, where there are space ships, then surely there are also techs to help capture ships. We could always say that other races need a tech to begin capturing ships, while space pirates do not, they have cultural diversity.

Impaler
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#6 Post by Impaler »

I have been doing a little brainstorming on STELLAR BARNICLES!!

Some of you may remember a reference to these things in Dreks Enviromental Preferce Sugjestion, he refred to them as a system level special called "stellar barnicle infestatsion". It would be one of the nasty specials that slows down and possibly destroys your ships.

I started to wonder what stellar banicles look like, what their life cyle was, how they spread from star to star. They must be a highly resilient organism capable of living and reproducing in the void of space. Reminds one a bit of the Andromida Strain but large as its a Barnicle not a virus.

Then I began thinking of the Comand and Concure games which feature TIberium, a green crystalin resorce that suposidly fell from space. EUREKA! Stellar Barnicles are simply interstellar Tiberium in its native habitat of space.

Stellar Barnicles could be the MIND WORMS of our game!!

They naturaly grow on Asteroids and small moons using only minerals and solar engery. The unique structure of the crystal focus and amplifies solar energy onto the surface its growing on and breaks down the molecular structure of that substrate, these materials are then incorporated into the crystal matrix with any unused material excretted alng the Edge forming a "scab" around the crystal. As a barnicle clump grows large it builds up huge internal pressures of upwards of 30 GigaPassclas and at the sligtest vibration Explodes into millions of tiny shards with enough force to escape the gravity well of a star. Ships flying through a system infested with stellar barnicles are struck by these fragments which lodge in the hull and begin to grow rapidly. The cystal canabalizes the metalic elements of the Hull to fuel its growth, this fataly weakens the hull making the ship more easily damaged in combat. The crystal can also damage Organic ships because the harmonic properties of the crystal act to step up cosmic radiation to high frequencies, thus the crystals give off deadly Gama radiation. Ships may even acumulate enough damage to be destroyed if the Barnicles are not removed. Many a curious captain has investigated a mysterious Derilict space ship only to have it explode the moment contact was made. With the ship fataly infested with barnicle fragments from the explosion the captain atempts to limp home as the barnicles rapidly encrust the hull, this ship too will Ironicly continue the cycle as it becomes waiting time bobm for the next ship unlucky enough to find it. (20% chance that investigating Derilict ships results in infestation of the investigating ship with Stellar Barnicles) An infested ship can also spread the infestation to a new systemspace.
Fear is the Mind Killer - Frank Herbert -Dune

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utilae
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#7 Post by utilae »

Sounds cool, but as a race its diplomatic options would have to be zero, because it would keep killing all of its allies, even unintentially. :lol:

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#8 Post by Impaler »

They dont even have brains, their like an interstellar Crystalin Virus.
Fear is the Mind Killer - Frank Herbert -Dune

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utilae
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#9 Post by utilae »

Ordistant - Intro
They are software with the most efficient physical form ever: cells. They make up their world or should I say that there world is made of them. They are machines, computerised and mechanical with no organic parts, they are pure machines, the Ordistant. Each Ordistant is a cell, so can link interchangeably with other cells to form interesting machines that are much larger than their original form. Because of this ability, they allocate less memory to processing and so by themselves are useless as machines or computers. With the ability to link to other cells, creating awesome machines, they merge their software, their spirits, their processing power. Together they are more, they are one machine as well as many. Here in lies their power, combined they have more processing power then ever, and as bigger better machines they can do more useful things.

Homeworld
Their homeworld is called Esruras, a barren cold world. This world is flat and contains very few mountainous areas. This world also is rich in minerals as well as organic life, though all that remains of that life is what is being taken. Most of the life on this world has been absorbed into the entire race of the Ordistant. The world now is covered in cells (the Ordistant), creating a machine world, where they mine everything from minerals to food. Everything of the original world is absorbed, to sustain and create more cells, more Ordistant's. However this world is not enough, they must spread to other worlds, in order to sustain themselves, just as they themselves are their ships, tanks and soldiers. They do this to exists, because it is in their nature, although not natural in the sense of trees and plants, but in the sense of machines and the artificial.

Physical Description
In it's original form, the Ordistant is a 'cell'. It is shaped like a cylinder, with a round dome on the top part of the cylinder. The side of the cylinder is seperated into four areas, with a shield shaped element extending out from the flat surface of each area on the cylinder. On the front of each shield element is a blue lense. The bottom of the cylinder has a flattened dome with five tendrils extending out. Each tendril can move in any direction and is totally flexible. At the tip of each tendril is a spiked mechanism that serves two purposes. The first is for cutting and wielding and the second is as an offensive spear like weapon. The round dome at the top part of the cylinder has three of these tendrils, which are the same in every detail as the first I described. This round dome (at the top of the cylinder) also has a lense, blue like the other lenses described, and all used for seeing light, radiowaves, radiation and heat. Inside the cylinder itself is housed the main processing unit, an anti gravity system and other vital mechanisms. The anti gravity system allows the 'cell' (the Ordistant) to float, with the ability to control how high or low it floats.

When the cells merge with other cells, to create new machines, they use their tendrils to reconstruct each other into the appropriate machine that results. This sounds quite destructive, but it is a complex and efficient process that is done quite fast, mainly as a result of their physical form being made to come apart and go together at will.

Social Structure
Each Ordistant is in essence software that exists inside machine bodies. Each Ordistant is a seperate element of software and so are individual thinkers but have the same goals, most of which are instinct, built in as part of their software parameters. When they combine into a single machine from many Ordistant cells, they combine their software elements into a single software element. This single software element gains parameters that defines its goals and its overall role as this new machine. The machine acts as one, though serves the purposes of the entire race, as defined by its parameters.

It is also possible for a machine to be deconstructed into its original cell forms, with the single machine software seperated into many software elements for each cell. This process is not entirely efficient, though, because a seperate machine specialised in this deconstructing role is required. All cells are reconstructed to their original number before the combination process in this manner.

The most basic of parameter defined in every cells software elements are the need for resources, which are mined and farmed from the planet they occupy. Whatever resource the planet holds is able to be converted to valuable energy nutrients, which are needed by the Ordistant to survive and to create more cells and more machines. However, the world they currently occupy will soon be useless to them, so they must move onto other worlds, which then being covered in Ordistant cells, becomes a 'machine world'. Energy nutirents are then constantly transmitted to all Ordistant cells and machines.

History
The Ordistant do not know much at all of their past, nothing before a ceratin period (sometime after the fall of the Orions). Along with their need to spread (necesary to exist), they seek to recover this lost data. Their are elements of their homeworld that put across the idea that perhaps they were a major part of the Orions empire, an important element. Things such as its richness in resources and some of the ancient buildings they remember consuming, things that are now stored in their archives, accessable by any cell.

Also there are now useless parameters in their software elements that suggest that their need for resources was controlled at some point, as though to stop the need to spread. However, only parts of these parameters are stored in their archives and it seems that after many trials of these parameters they could not reduce or remove thier need for resources. It seems that they have changed too much beyond these parameters and so cannot accept them.

Although the past of the Ordistants is much unknown, it is widely believed that they were once specialised mining machines, used to occupy a planet high in minerals and mine these precious resources, which would then be sent to the Orions themselves. If this was the main source of Orion resources then perhaps the Ordistant became uncontrollable, needing resources for themselves and also gaining goals, they somehow caused a shortage in vital resources needed by the Orions. If this is true, then the end of the Orions began at this point. But this alone surely did not cause their doom. Maybe their were other reasons, perhaps at this point the Orions were exploitable. What could have initiated the dissappearance of the once powerful Orions. Whatever happened, the Ordistants had some important place in the history and fall of the Orions.

Race Attributes
-Improved Mining, Production and Farming (Mining and Farming are basically the same thing to them)
-Population capacity of a planet is four times normal. Also population increases equivalent to the rate of Ordistant production.
-Planetary stockpile caps of minerals and nutrients (food) begin to drop as time goes by, so ultimately the planetary stockpile caps become quite low. This represents the fact the planets are drained of almost all resources.
-Each Ordistant (a cell) can combine with others, creating new machines (ie heavy infantry, tanks, ships, etc). For each unit of population (a cell) their is a rate of upkeep (minerals and nutrients). Population units (cells) a used to build ships, tanks, soldiers and buildings.
-It costs more to put fewer individuals on a project and costs less to put more individuals on a project (ie reversed diminishing returns).
Last edited by utilae on Mon Aug 18, 2003 11:53 pm, edited 3 times in total.

Impaler
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#10 Post by Impaler »

Introduction

The Eaxaw are a Race of Evil Amazonian Xenophobic Aggressive Worms. Approximately 600 years ago a Derelict ship adrift since the time of the Orion’s crashed on their Home World Elli. The Eaxaw were at that point a pre-industrial civilization and the artifact amazed and frightened them. A few select members of their society were able to learn some of the artifacts secrets and it revealed to them a realm beyond the surface of their world. They deduced that the ship was produced by another Race of non Ellian creatures. All this was quite at odds with their rigid belief system and it didn’t help that being a Subterranean race they perceived the surface as a bad and things beyond the surface must their for be even worse. Their Great Matriarchal Council soon issued its greatest Proclamation "All of this must Go!" they have thus dedicated themselves to "Family Values, Prosperity and the Complete Annihilation of all other Life Forms"

Home World

The Planet Elli an un-named White Hot star. The Eaxaw never named the star because they fell that nothing beyond the sub-surface of their world is deserving of a name, this includes other Races. The planet is smaller then Earth with a thinner atmosphere composed of Nitrogen, Methane, Oxygen, Carbon Monoxide and Ozone. Surface Temperate is on average slightly warmer then Earth but Fluctuates widely do to the fact Elli has an extremely slow rotation. Day and Night each last 11.8 Earth Days. The Entire surface of Elli is covered in hundreds of meters of thick dense Soil and Vegetation, Oceans are absent and it never rains as all the planets moisture is contained in the Soil.. Organic Molecules on Elli are very stable and resistant to break down due to adaptations to the high-energy wavelength of light from the Parent Star and the high temperature flux. Thus Decomposition is extremely slow and decomposing material has accumulated to incredible Depths. In most places the surface of the soil is difficult to distinguish as their is a uniform increase in Darkness and Density as one descends through the Canopy of thorny plants and down into tangles of roots fungus and tunnels. The lower reaches of this decomposition symphony are the habitat of the Eaxaw. They are most comfortable at 600-800 meters depth below the uppermost canopy ware they experience highly stable temperatures. In fact they are highly sensitive to temperature and are thus unable to survive at the surface.

Physical Description

The Eaxaw have 3 body forms. One is the mature adult Female Form, the other the intermediate Male form and the lastly the newborn larval form. All forms are completely blind and use touch, smell, hearing and a sensitivity to electric currents to explore their world. The Female form most closely resembles a segmented worm approximately 8 meters long and half a meters in Diameter. At the Front is located the 3 beaked mouth which is able to swallow object as wide as the body. Females variously consume roots, fungus and any smaller organisms them can find. They also dig extensive tunnel system, the inner wall of which they line with Cementing glue they excrete from the tip of the tail. A second secretion can dissolve the first to allow them to expand the tunnel network. The Female forms internal anatomy is rather simple. A wide gullet lined with hair fills the length of the body. The hairs are part of the respiratory system which takes in Carbon Monoxide and expels Carbon Dioxide, they find Oxygen to be poisonous as it so readily bonds with the same absorption Proteins and blocks proper breathing, fortunately oxygen is absent at their depth A half dozen small chambers along the track break down and absorb nutrients. All the while air is passing down the track and this serves to both catalyze the digestion reaction and for the individual to breath the Carbon Monoxide given off by the digested material.

The Neural Network of the Female is distributed along 8 Chains of neural nodes that run the length of the body evenly distributed around the circumference of the body. Most of the rest of the Body is musculature, the armored outer body segments provide support. These outer segments have a small overlap much like a Scale, under each of these overlaps their is a brood Cavity in which larva like off spring are grown. Each female has around 200 such cavities and they can be fertilized individually.

The Male form is the first stage of life for all newborn Eaxaw. They mature rapidly from their Larval birth form and are feed and cared for by older males. A fully developed male is 1.3 meters long and has a more lobster like body then the worm like female. A male has ten legs measuring half a meter in length, the legs terminate in small grasping claws which give them excellent grip and far better climbing ability then Females. At the end of the Males tale is a complex Grasping Claw that comes in huge and astonishingly specialized varieties. Some are adapted for fine and dexterous manipulation some incorporate chemical sensors or textured skins others have variations on the number of pincers and their ranges of motion. These hind-claw variations are also notable because they are practically the only differences between males, almost all other genetic traits are suppressed until the female stage. Males are also rather dim witted having only a fraction of the Females Nural mass though it is distributed in a similar fashion to the females. They are able to perform simple tasks and retain their memories when they metamorphose into Females, analytical skills are completely absent they function mostly on instinct and female orders delivered by Pheromones and electrical shock. The male internal anatomy is quite different from the females, respiration is conducted through the outer skin which is not as heavily armored, digestion is of a more delicate nature in a single gut cavity. Males can consume only a few of the less toxic forms of fungus in stark contrast to the female. The male also has a smaller version of the three part beak found on the female, males also have a single long antenna sprouting out of the back near the front of the body which they use to sense their surroundings.

Social Structure

Eaxaw are organized into matriarchal breeding groups. A female will keep at all time a large "harem" of approximately 200 mature males which protect, feed and mate with her. Any new males that the female births will be added to the Harem and protected by the mature males in it. When ever the group encounters another female and her males their will most often be a friendly exchange of mature males between the groups. This ensures genetic diversity and promotes a wide variety of males to perform specialized tasks. The males rapidly adjust to their new homes and protect their new Matriarch as they did their previous one. All social interaction is female to female as they engage in Semi-Feudalistic Neo-Corporate alliances and power hoarding, females also perform all research with assistance from specialized "Lab assistant" males. Younger females typically pledge allegiance to older females and trade specialized males they produce in exchange for protection, contracts and other services. Males in essence serve as the currency of their society with the unique Hind-Claw of the male determining its value. Some males such as those specialized and trained to perform valuable like Nano Chip fabrication are far more valuable then those that perform menial task such as Telephone Cleaning. The highest ranking Females (having the largest most diverse Harems and sworn subordinate females) form the Great Matriarchal Council which set the global agenda for the Eaxaw and enforce Family Values and seek to eliminate Vices such as laziness, male thought and most especially All other life forms in the Universe.


Reproduction

When a female Eaxaw has available brood Cavities and sufficient food resources available she will select 1 or more males to mate with her. She will chose those that have the highest value and likelihood of producing valuable trading males. The male fertilizes the females Brood Cavities individual using a glad located on its belly. A flat fluk like 6 inch long Larval Eaxaw will emerge approximately 80 days later. Several will hitch rides on a mature male and be feed by it for about 1 year before they are large enough to travel unaided. Once a male has mated with a female it will undergo a metamorphosis into female form. At first the male retreats from the rest of the group and begins to grow larger. Its legs shrivel and its body Elongates, during this period the male is highly vulnerable to predators to too its lack of protectors or armor and many die before completing the metamorphosis. After 3 weeks the male looks very female on the outside but has not taken on the internal female anatomy. For this to happen the male goes into a state of hibernation for an additional week at the end of which its internal structures have been completely altered. Now the newly "born" female starts to give birth to male clones of here self until she has acquired males by trading..



Racial Bonuses

High Production/Manufacturing

Caste system

Environmentally Sensitive/intolerant

Horrible Diplomacy

Fudal/Corporate Government

Fundamentalist Belief system

Good Ground Defense and Resistant to Bombardment

Poor Ground attack

Bonus Maximum population due to Thick Soil
Fear is the Mind Killer - Frank Herbert -Dune

Moriarty
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#11 Post by Moriarty »

Anyone planning on coming up with space-based life?
If someone came up with it, would it even be able to be included with the game?

Anyhow, here's some info on space-based life for anyone interested.
http://www.physics.hku.hk/~tboyce/sfseti/22nonchem.html

Impaler
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#12 Post by Impaler »

That would make a nice space monster, perhaps you have the ability to comunicate with them though. If you succed in comunicating they might even give you something nice like a map of the Galaxy or something. Somtthing a bit more complex then the traditional "kill it" space monster.
Fear is the Mind Killer - Frank Herbert -Dune

Moriarty
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#13 Post by Moriarty »

of course the xenophobic paranoid and persecution complex like races would simply kill it.
And at present, that's most of the races... ;)

Impaler
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#14 Post by Impaler »

True are races as of late have been tilted in the evil direction, most of the races posted on the old forum were on the good side though. Overall I hope we get a braod array of outlooks, alignments and temperments.

A powerfull but pridefull race (like the Protoss in StarCraft)

Space Rednecks (again like in StarCraft)

Terrible Voratious Insect Race (like in StarShip Troopers and ofcorse StarCraft (can you tell I realy liked that game))

An old wise peacefull diplomatic race

A young enthusiastic explorer race

A greedy race

An Ecologicaly oriented Race

An Anti-Ecology Race (an interesting notion in Stars! and the Kim Stanly Robinson Mars trilogy, this race is anti-terraforming. They adapt to the planet rather then adapt the planet to themselves. The disdain terraformers and seek to Un-terraform planets back to an "unspoiled" state)
Fear is the Mind Killer - Frank Herbert -Dune

Nightfish
FreeOrion Designer / Space Monster
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#15 Post by Nightfish »

Personally I'd like to see races that are less focused on one attribute or one cliche. That seem somehow "wrong" to me.

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