Lore and theme clarification

Sy

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Nov 16, 2018
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sya.li
#1
From a LORE perspective and ignoring the discussion on game popularity and mechanics, do I misunderstand the lore and theme?

- We gather to survive, and travel across the stars.
- We find a planet.
- We terraform as a group.
- We gather resources.
- We meet enemies and fail to terraform.

From lore, what I thought the loop would be is:

- We craft to militarize.
- We fight to create our first forward base.
- We fight and gather resources.
- Overlapping events keep things fresh.
- Enemy invasion; we defend or they take bases and zones.

This isn't ever individual or homesteading. The world isn't safe.

I need clarification to help me understand concept of single player aspects or individual claims with respect to lore.
 

Pandagnome

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#2
In the novel one of the Reaper Darla i think her name is, the red haired engineer had a farm place and guess that was her place away from home.


I need clarification to help me understand concept of single player aspects or individual claims with respect to lore.
With the lore i could imagine single players are Reapers who have crash landed or got split up from their team and as a result. The solo reaper capability is tested, little do some know that it is a simulation to prepare Reapers for what could happen if the worst should occur!
 
Feb 10, 2020
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#3
Curious, I actually dug out and read the vision book for the first time.

Em8er Vision Book, page 6-7, Gatestriders.
Literally that entire section.
I'm kind of surprised how you could read that section and say homesteading doesn't fit.

This isn't ever individual or homesteading. The world isn't safe.
...snip...
Days and nights at portions of the planet lasted for years, and gravity, while not exactly crushing, was still an exhausting 1.8 G. The local flora and fauna were also highly toxic or lethally aggressive to humans.

This made the people of the Omega Frontier some of the best survivalists and explorers of all the colonies. They were subject to a wide range of environmental conditions, from extreme deserts to frozen wastelands, long nights, hostile environments, and predators.
...snip...

They preferred to test themselves, as they were, against their new world. They relied on their technology and survival skills to carve out a harsh existence and still thrive.

This is the planet we came from. Not even the Planet we are going to. To segue into Gatestriders themselves... Here are the last two paragraphs about Gatestriders.

The pioneering spirit of the Omega Frontier colonists was second to none. They were fiercely independent, rugged individualists, who had taken writer Robert Heinlein’s phrase TANSTAAFL to heart. Standing for “there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch,” tanstaafl is still a common and popular phrase amongst Gatestriders today. Everything had to be earned by hard work or sacrifice, and everyone was expected to contribute and to “haul their own G’s.”

The people of the Omega Frontier were spread out wide across the planet. They preferred to gather into large extended families or tribes. Each took on a unique pride and identity as they banded together to survive the deadly world. Competition and rivalry was fierce, but violence was rare. There were enough ways for a human to die in the harsh planetary environment, that none felt they needed to add to them.


Even from the first sentence there, it looks like the people we play as are perfectly fine claiming a stake out in the remotest of wildernesses and carving out an existence, no matter what. Just because they wanted to. This reads like you're a space cowboy and there's a vast landscape in front of you just ripe for the taking. You want that piece of desert? Fine. Tundra? Great! Woods? Alright, here's your atmospheric genny and a shotgun. And you can take it with your friends, family, or a tribe. Or even alone. There's nothing in there saying they exclusively gathered as such, just that it's preferred...On a personal basis.

I don't see anything militaristic about Gatestrider society in the Vision Book itself. I can't see anything where you are to do something for a greater military power. It reads like disparate pioneer groups or individuals taking matters into their own hands just to have a place to live.


Em8er Vision Book, page 8, The discovery of Em-8er

...snip...
The planet would first have to be bootstrapped. Smaller atmospheric terraformers would open up small but survivable pockets of atmosphere and tame temperatures over the most promising terrain.
...snip...

This can be the function of player claims. The bases are meant to protect people as they fight over the main resource caches on the planet, but the player claims are small atmo generators to further the effort in terraforming. You get your own place, but you know you are helping by keeping that thing running; even by your lonesome.
 

Sy

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Nov 16, 2018
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#5
Curious, I actually dug out and read the vision book for the first time.


They preferred to test themselves, as they were, against their new world. They relied on their technology and survival skills to carve out a harsh existence and still thrive.
They.


The pioneering spirit of the Omega Frontier colonists was second to none. They were fiercely independent, rugged individualists, who had taken writer Robert Heinlein’s phrase TANSTAAFL to heart. Standing for “there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch,” tanstaafl is still a common and popular phrase amongst Gatestriders today. Everything had to be earned by hard work or sacrifice, and everyone was expected to contribute and to “haul their own G’s.”

The people of the Omega Frontier were spread out wide across the planet. They preferred to gather into large extended families or tribes. Each took on a unique pride and identity as they banded together to survive the deadly world. Competition and rivalry was fierce, but violence was rare. There were enough ways for a human to die in the harsh planetary environment, that none felt they needed to add to them.
Individualism and hauling your own weight explicitly means people work in groups.

Large extended families or tribes.

So this lays down the history of large shared claims like towns, and not individual ones.

It is lore that resources were nearly expended getting to EM-8ER. It isn't efficient for there to be individuals and individual claims.


The floating machines were massive, but even at this size they worked slowly, and could only open up small “islands” of habitability a few kilometers radius at a time.

After an initial atmospheric pass, reaper teams could move in and begin to survey and mine the resources needed to construct the gigantic terraforming factories that would open up even larger areas of the planet surface. The resources gathered would be also used to upgrade MEKs, improve equipment, and build bases and other facilities needed to expand the small footholds on the planet.

...

Reaper teams had already opened several pockets of habitable territory...
Maybe these might have been claims.


Mining turned into a dangerous operation, and military MEKs were sent out regularly to protect THMPR miners.
This is where I get my militarization concept from. It didn't need to exist for the gatestrider homeworld or their other terraforming endeavours. Once Tsi-Hu began attacking, specialized MEKs were armed as guards.


But now aided by their kaiju, the Tsi-hu stepped up their offensive from attacking miners to full blown invasions into Gatestrider territory. They invaded by the hundreds, attacking and destroying bases and refineries. The Gatestriders found themselves in a full on war…
I don't see gatestriders proliferating, I see them losing small-town claims.

After this vision book was created was discussion on having a safe zone (which got moved into orbit) and then creating one foothold at a time. I understand how that can change, but I can't understand how that goes to individual safe zones scattered around the planet.
 
Feb 10, 2020
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#6
Means the people as a whole. Gatestriders. Not a group.

Individualism and hauling your own weight explicitly means people work in groups.
No it doesn't. You can haul your own weight alone and be Individual just as well as you can with others.
Nothing in this precludes people striking it out alone and provides space for individuals who do. If you are an individual who doesn't want to socialize at all, or outside of a tight group, then you can.

Large extended families or tribes.

So this lays down the history of large shared claims like towns, and not individual ones.

It is lore that resources were nearly expended getting to EM-8ER. It isn't efficient for there to be individuals and individual claims.
Not all towns and cities start as a group of people. Especially given how that paragraph is worded. It's almost explicitly eliciting a pioneering wild west scenario. The only thing it doesn't do is go "WILD WEST, YEE HAW BOYEEEEE, GETCHER GOLD CLAIM."

Given there is a hub, which is supposedly a gargantuan space station near the moon and enough time has been given to complete it... Plus, the accepted feedback about everyone asking that your first frame and starting gear just be given to you... I think we're past the all of our resources being nearly expended. This implies mining, gathering, and manufacturing is well under way at this point, and the time where extreme rationing is needed has passed. We're at a point in time where expansion is needed.

If Jim wants to take a genny and plop it down in the middle of the desert and promise to protect it because it helps terraform, why not? Especially since you could just give him auto-turret blueprints and tell him to get a couple on his territory asap to help protect it with his shiny new frame.

If Gary, Mike, and Sarah want to build homes together for a small village or "The Knights of Aeturnus" want to build their citadel, then sure. But Jim can have a shack where he shoots saber-squirrels who venture too far onto his lawn with a 40 gauge space shotgun so long as he keeps that genny running. If he makes a friend who wants to move nearby, he's not going to stop them and a town can start to develop organically. Hell, if people want to cluster with others who they don't even know nothing is stopping them. They can. But others who want to be and start alone can as well.


This is where I get my militarization concept from. It didn't need to exist for the gatestrider homeworld or their other terraforming endeavours. Once Tsi-Hu began attacking, specialized MEKs were armed as guards.
I don't see gatestriders proliferating, I see them losing small-town claims.
There's nothing in there talking about how valuable the mining ops, refineries, and manufactories are.
You aren't going to send forces to attack Jim all that often. Maybe if a scout gets in range, sure.

But your eyes are on the Knights of Aeturnus, who have to supply 100 people with arms, ammo, and armor.
Your eyes are on the military bases protecting 2 of the 3 motherlodes of space-maggufinite, which Jim is nowhere near because he calculated the exact furthest point away from any thing of military value and plopped his shack down right there.

After this vision book was created was discussion on having a safe zone (which got moved into orbit) and then creating one foothold at a time.
Great.. How does this change anything? Footholds come after bootstrapping, which is what homesteads do. It makes everything after easier because you have extremely low value targets doing some work and all you had to do is give someone empty land, a genny, and a dream. Maybe also, you know, a baller 3D printer. This just makes footholds easier to set up because everyone is capable of producing their own crap instead of having to wait their turn at the Manufactorium, which whoops, is under attack again.
 

Grummz

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#7
Cowboys and rugged individualism is always how the lore was intended.

I had in mind how the farmers of Israel had to band together an militarize eventually. Blended with a healthy dose of Heinlein and TANSTAFL.

In the novel there are different houses and factions.
 

Sy

Well-Known Member
Nov 16, 2018
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sya.li
#8
Cowboys and rugged individualism is always how the lore was intended.

I had in mind how the farmers of Israel had to band together an militarize eventually. Blended with a healthy dose of Heinlein and TANSTAFL.

In the novel there are different houses and factions.
To leverage this idea to justify individual claims, this lends itself to having those claims appended to one another in one clump where everyone has at least one neighbor.

Maybe this would be path of exile-style where a player's personal space is terraformable to one of a selection of unlocked terrains?