Terran Empire (Humans)

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Krikkitone
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Re: Terran Empire (Humans)

#16 Post by Krikkitone »

Tortanick wrote:
Krikkitone wrote:Of course we could make it so that Humans are not a "stock" race instead they are a race that you can only pick if you are going to customize them. (and the computer, if using them could choose random picks)
[or you could pick them as a stock race but they would get AI or Random selected picks]
I actually like that quite a bit (just don't limit customized races to humans only), in sci-fi often each alien has a single culture for the entire species while humans are still as multicultural as today, the description could play on that:

Culture: reports are highly conflicting, we have herd of humans living in democratic sates where every person is given inalienable rights, we have reports of communist dictatorships where the state rules from the top and corupt military juntas where the government barely rules.

The belief's of humans are equally hard to determine, we have reports that dominant faith is monotheistic but the details vary widely in every report, then we have evidence of devout polytheism and others that claim humans have been atheist since before leaving their home planet.

From this we believe the most likely conclusion is that Humans are a skilled and secretive race of spies running an extremely effective disinformation campaign.
Or that they are a bunch of bumbling idiots incapable of properly maintaining records.

... Not to mention that these are tales of the past, and it is not known how far in the past. There are rumors that previous human empires ruled the galaxy and destroyed planets, there are also stories that their homeworld was destroyedeither by aliens or themselves and they either established a new homeworld or a post-apocalyptic population recovered on the old, or that they are currently reaching into space for the first time with no major disasters.

In short, when dealing with Humans, judge them from your experience with them... not the tales you hear in old books.



I do definitely agree "custom" should not be limited to humans only.

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Tortanick
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Re: Terran Empire (Humans)

#17 Post by Tortanick »

Krikkitone wrote:Or that they are a bunch of bumbling idiots incapable of properly maintaining records.
That's kinda the opposite of what I meant, I was thinking that humans never unify as a culture so depending on witch currently living humans the alien scouts met they might find democracy, communism, atheism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, etc. The aliens who being characters in a 4x game have one culture for the entire species would come up with three separate theories:
1) its a very clever disinformation campaign.
2) they're actually lots of different species
3) they're one species but have have multiple different cultures :shock: .
then from these three they'd use Occam's razor, conclude that theory 1 is the simplest and go with that. I'm aware that some of our races do have multiple cultures in the backstory but ingameplay terms they're pretty much uniform so this is a bit of metafictional humour of how they'd react to a real species with hundreds of cultures and near infinite variations upon them.

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Krikkitone
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Re: Terran Empire (Humans)

#18 Post by Krikkitone »

Well, I was thinking even That would be a bit too stereotypical (humans are diverse).

I was suggesting more that there is no single Human 'backstory' so any backstory might be applied to explain whatever traits they have. (they might also unify as a culture... the best to explain their presence in a 4x game). you might have a game where the best model is all humans are brainwashed drones who all think and behave Exactly the same.... or a game where humans are best modeled as a collection of 1,000s of space faring city-states with drastically different cultures and even biologies (or anywhere in between)

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Bigjoe5
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Re: Terran Empire (Humans)

#19 Post by Bigjoe5 »

What would their ships look like?

BTW, while I think of it, have any campaigns actually been written yet, or are we waiting for more confirmed species? Have the two v.4 species been chosen yet (I believe the Gyisache [sp?] are definitely in)?

And while I'm rambling about things with no relation to this thread whatsoever, can someone point me to a link to the tech tree? I can't seem to find it...
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Tortanick
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Re: Terran Empire (Humans)

#20 Post by Tortanick »

Tech trees are here viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1137

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Krikkitone
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Re: Terran Empire (Humans)

#21 Post by Krikkitone »

Bigjoe5 wrote:What would their ships look like?
Human ships would be from one randomly (or by the player) selected existing set of ship designs.

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Re: Terran Empire (Humans)

#22 Post by Bigjoe5 »

That's no fun... why should Humans be any more/less special than the rest of the races? They don't even get their own ship designs?

And thank you for that link, Tortanick. Can I assume that no "weapons" tree for v.4 has been grown yet?
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Re: Terran Empire (Humans)

#23 Post by Krikkitone »

Bigjoe5 wrote:That's no fun... why should Humans be any more/less special than the rest of the races? They don't even get their own ship designs?

And thank you for that link, Tortanick. Can I assume that no "weapons" tree for v.4 has been grown yet?

Well humans Could have their own ship designs, but.... well.
The problem is ship design is supposed to reflect something of the race's psychology/culture/backstory, etc.
Humans won't have a psychology/culture/backstory, etc. that is the same from game to game. So their ship design shouldn't be either.
Also that would decrease art team work.. just need diplomacy pictures for the humans... (yes that would also reflect those things but we at least know what Humanity's "ancestral" physiology is like, even if we are genetically engineered cyborgs in the chosen backstory, coming out looking like a 21st centure Human would be realistic enough for any backstory.

It would be nice to see human ships have a possibility to be
highly ornate (the United Imperial People's Republican Kingdom of Greater Solar system and her dependencies..or the Genus Hominem)
High tech, clean (star trekky)
Ruthlessly industrial (star warsy)
Brutal images of Terror (like the Terran Empire would probably have, alien skeletons mounted on the hull, Skull shapes)
Biological (after the 25th century gengineering revolution makes all human industry biologically based)
Giysache-like (after the repeated apocalyptic wars between interstellar powers the humans could barely comprehend left them in a society where discretion was the better part of valor, and cowardice the better part of discretion..only those who hid survived)
etc.

And that could be it... the only way you knoe what human ship designs look like is by seeing them (or picking them if you are the human player)

Otherwise, If they must have one of their own, just stick to good old fashipned star wars design...
flying wedges
maybe flying shoe boxes for IF ships..
and fighters that look like our jet fighters with a little bit less air foil, more 'rockets at wing tips'
overall gray industrialist

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Tortanick
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Re: Terran Empire (Humans)

#24 Post by Tortanick »

Krikkitone wrote:And thank you for that link, Tortanick. Can I assume that no "weapons" tree for v.4 has been grown yet?
Yes, work will start when Geoff thinks its time.

Krikkitone wrote:coming out looking like a 21st centure Human would be realistic enough for any backstory.
Multinational humans, not just Americans/Europeans.
Krikkitone wrote: Otherwise, If they must have one of their own, just stick to good old fashipned star wars design...
flying wedges
maybe flying shoe boxes for IF ships..
and fighters that look like our jet fighters with a little bit less air foil, more 'rockets at wing tips'
overall gray industrialist
Aren't we trying to avoid Cleche's here?

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Krikkitone
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Re: Terran Empire (Humans)

#25 Post by Krikkitone »

Tortanick wrote:
Krikkitone wrote:coming out looking like a 21st centure Human would be realistic enough for any backstory.
Multinational humans, not just Americans/Europeans.
??? why?? what if my human backstory is the rise of the NeoNazi's or the development of the pan-african civilization to space after a nulear holocaust destroys life on all the other continents????
or a society in which they perfected the artificial uterus/parthenogenesis so women/men have been wiped out????

After all, the "Terran Empire" nobility has a good chance of being racially pure (in one way or another) as well as 'species pure'
Tortanick wrote:
Krikkitone wrote: Otherwise, If they must have one of their own, just stick to good old fashipned star wars design...
flying wedges
maybe flying shoe boxes for IF ships..
and fighters that look like our jet fighters with a little bit less air foil, more 'rockets at wing tips'
overall gray industrialist
Aren't we trying to avoid Cleche's here?
If Humans are going to have no backstory/picks that are specifically theirs, then they should have no ship types that are specifically theirs. If they are going to have their own ship types (which I disagree with) then they should go with standard-cliche ship types.

Ideally you have an option for your diplomat as well (say just male/female, hair+skin color...include the full pallette)..otherwise just go for the standard cliche [maybe a European/Asian male if one is going to apply to the likely majority audience of 4x games]

I'd ideally like to be playing George and start diplomacy with a light green skinned human in a bioship... and notice their extensive military, diplomatic and repressive government picks (and imagine the brutal genocidal war between the blues and the green alliance, both genetically engineered to survive the catastrophes after the Sol system was destroyed and their capital of 'Dorin' was cut off from supplies 2,000 years ago.)

*note: the computer probably shouldn't select the light blue skin when it is playing humans... at least not often.

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Tortanick
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Re: Terran Empire (Humans)

#26 Post by Tortanick »

Krikkitone wrote:??? why?? what if my human backstory is the rise of the NeoNazi's or the development of the pan-african civilization to space after a nulear holocaust destroys life on all the other continents????
or a society in which they perfected the artificial uterus/parthenogenesis so women/men have been wiped out????

After all, the "Terran Empire" nobility has a good chance of being racially pure (in one way or another) as well as 'species pure'
Because you probably wont get a chance to choose the pics yourself (well not with the ingame editor, moving some jpgs into the right folder would do it). If we have humans with an actual back-story then making the pics fit that one backstory is fine.
Krikkitone wrote:If Humans are going to have no backstory/picks that are specifically theirs, then they should have no ship types that are specifically theirs. If they are going to have their own ship types (which I disagree with) then they should go with standard-cliche ship types.
The cliche isn't inherently "realistic" nor dose it accurately show real human engineering principles. the only reason its used is because the other Sci-fi shows use it. IMO we should avoid the cliche just for the sake of avoiding the cliche.
Krikkitone wrote:Ideally you have an option for your diplomat as well (say just male/female, hair+skin color...include the full pallette)..otherwise just go for the standard cliche [maybe a European/Asian male if one is going to apply to the likely majority audience of 4x games]
I suddenly had a vision of Comic Book Guy as the human diplomat "Worst. Trade. Agreemen.t Ever." :lol: (sorry players, I don't mean to imply you, I just finished watching some Simpsons)
but we probably wont have a build your diplomat and IMO designing any part of the Terran Empire based on the fact we are Huamns, rather than treating them like just another race is the wrong way to do things. When authors play favourites the result is rarely good. Besides why not subvert a few cleche's while we at it and base the default human diplomat on Amanda Waller.

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Re: Terran Empire (Humans)

#27 Post by Krikkitone »

I understand their probably wouldn't be multiple diplomat pictures.
But there is no particular reason for/against any particular appearance (except the idea that human physiology should be roughly comparable.. four armed people can fit in with the backstory, but its more likley a backstory would stick with bipeds...at least for the diplomats who want to represent a traditional human physiology... at least in their holoprojection)

I wasn't arguing against the 'multiracial diplomat' or for 'Euro/American diplomat' as much as saying they should be equally valid. There is no good argument for either of them based on human backstory.
Multiracial does seem the easiest way to "thread the needle", but only because it would be closest to any possible backstory.

As for the ship design... Any of the ship designs I've seen so far are reasonable enough... and if there is no race with flying wedges*, and humans have to have something ......we could make it humans with the flying wedges. (which are as 'realistic' as any other starlane travelling vessel design). Otherwise, I'm not sure why a race would necessarily have to have their own individual ship design.
Maybe make them flying saucers... the only place those were cliche for humans to fly in was the Twilight zone.. those were always a sure mark of aliens. Plus, if the humans realize that facing doesn't matter in this 4X game, they would necessarily try and make something efficient for all faces being equal ; )

*which could definitely fit with human engineering/design principles.. because I don't think anyone on Earth can tell me what "human enginering/design principles" are. (especially with regard to starships)

[Actually Simpsons as Human diplomats could be fun... although copyright violating....mmmm, trade treaty]

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