“Domination of the Draka” Videogame?
Posted: 2007-07-12 10:23am
It would be good if we could design a war game around the Domination of the Draka; not based around the original far fetched novels penned by S.M. Sterling, but more around the SD.Nets fan fiction about the Draka that is a little more grounded in reality. It would be a FPS game similar in tone and presentation to the Medal of Honour or Call of Duty , but it would be much darker in tone and won’t be as relatively sanitised as the latter two game franchises with 18 rated violence and swearing. It wouldn’t shirk from the genuine nastiness and petty meanness of human conflict, although it would be in a semi-fantasy/sci-fi setting. You would witness the suffering of innocent civilians, POWs and slaves, with many war crimes being committed by all sides - also NPCs can be horribly mutilated by gunfire and shrapnel or blown apart by ordinance.
And the narrative could centre around a Drakan anti-heroine - a female Security Directorate commando who participates in the full scale attack on a Soviet stronghold in the summer of 1941 when the Domination of the Draka marches through Georgia. You’d get parachuted into a Georgian town to capture it, fight off the Soviet counter attack and hitch a ride on a Hoplite II. The Hoplite II trundles further up the narrow canyon pass is blocked by dragon’s teeth defences and you witness a Hond IV tank getting blasted apart by a dug in Russian artillery piece (similar to a Flak 88 ) - you hop out your Hoplite with other Citizen Force troopers and join the Janissary infantrymen in clearing out the Red Army pillboxes, trenches and casemates. However you’re nearly mortally wounded in combat and you’re returned to Archon in a hospitalised state (then awarded medals by War Directorate commanders in a grand Archon ceremony hosted by the Security Directorates‘ Dominarch).
You cannot yet return to frontline duties by the Security Directorate, so you spend a few months hunting with a friend of yours in the African savannah. Yet your so-called Drakan friend is actually an English spy - the hunting trip is his cover for recon work, he is gathering information on sensitive Drakan R&D and production facilities located in remote parts of Domination. It is for this reason why you get busted by an Order Police patrol and your “friend” is caught taking photos of a adjacent heavy water plant - due to no official police stations nearby you are both taken to a privately owned mining compound and placed in it’s brig, awaiting punitive execution for spying (even if you‘re a citizen). Using your special forces training you break out, killing many dozens of private serf guards, Orpo soldiers and former colleagues from the Security Directorate - you also inadvertently stage a mass serf break out and the industrial complex is destroyed, it’s citizen staff all murdered by their vengeful charges.
You then catch up with your "friend" working for MI6 out in the West African wilderness, several days later after you evade the doggedly pursuing Order Police and you confront the Drakan double-agent who put you into this shit in the first place. He typically apologises to you and is very impressed with your “work”, where you did so much damage and managed to catch up with him, despite the overwhelming enemy opposition. He offers employment at MI6, since you now have nobody to turn to (especially if your implicated in the murder of a notable Drakan businessman and a Security Directorate Junior Merarch, who was a cousin to the SD Dominarch herself). The narrative then spirals off from here, where you join the Allies in fighting the Domination…
How is that for a story pitch?
I also like to see some realism where you cannot see your weapons in the corner, only when you try to aim them - the rest of the time you see your pistol wildly swaying about in your right hand and rifle/SMG in both arms, when walking or running about. You can also run much faster if you’re just carrying a pistol and you cannot carry any carbine (like a Holbars or Thompson) if you’re wielding a bazooka/panzer faust/RPG, just a pistol. Your SD issued combat knife is also an integral weapon and has many tool uses as well. I also don’t want the levels to be overly linear and be as open ended as possible - the enemy AI of “bad guys” should be adaptive as well and they use radio comms to call in more soldiers or even aircraft and AFVs (however only Drakan citizen soldiers use compact walkie-talkies while the Janissary types and Soviet infantrymen make do with bulky radio sets in guard posts or vehicles).
And the narrative could centre around a Drakan anti-heroine - a female Security Directorate commando who participates in the full scale attack on a Soviet stronghold in the summer of 1941 when the Domination of the Draka marches through Georgia. You’d get parachuted into a Georgian town to capture it, fight off the Soviet counter attack and hitch a ride on a Hoplite II. The Hoplite II trundles further up the narrow canyon pass is blocked by dragon’s teeth defences and you witness a Hond IV tank getting blasted apart by a dug in Russian artillery piece (similar to a Flak 88 ) - you hop out your Hoplite with other Citizen Force troopers and join the Janissary infantrymen in clearing out the Red Army pillboxes, trenches and casemates. However you’re nearly mortally wounded in combat and you’re returned to Archon in a hospitalised state (then awarded medals by War Directorate commanders in a grand Archon ceremony hosted by the Security Directorates‘ Dominarch).
You cannot yet return to frontline duties by the Security Directorate, so you spend a few months hunting with a friend of yours in the African savannah. Yet your so-called Drakan friend is actually an English spy - the hunting trip is his cover for recon work, he is gathering information on sensitive Drakan R&D and production facilities located in remote parts of Domination. It is for this reason why you get busted by an Order Police patrol and your “friend” is caught taking photos of a adjacent heavy water plant - due to no official police stations nearby you are both taken to a privately owned mining compound and placed in it’s brig, awaiting punitive execution for spying (even if you‘re a citizen). Using your special forces training you break out, killing many dozens of private serf guards, Orpo soldiers and former colleagues from the Security Directorate - you also inadvertently stage a mass serf break out and the industrial complex is destroyed, it’s citizen staff all murdered by their vengeful charges.
You then catch up with your "friend" working for MI6 out in the West African wilderness, several days later after you evade the doggedly pursuing Order Police and you confront the Drakan double-agent who put you into this shit in the first place. He typically apologises to you and is very impressed with your “work”, where you did so much damage and managed to catch up with him, despite the overwhelming enemy opposition. He offers employment at MI6, since you now have nobody to turn to (especially if your implicated in the murder of a notable Drakan businessman and a Security Directorate Junior Merarch, who was a cousin to the SD Dominarch herself). The narrative then spirals off from here, where you join the Allies in fighting the Domination…
How is that for a story pitch?
I also like to see some realism where you cannot see your weapons in the corner, only when you try to aim them - the rest of the time you see your pistol wildly swaying about in your right hand and rifle/SMG in both arms, when walking or running about. You can also run much faster if you’re just carrying a pistol and you cannot carry any carbine (like a Holbars or Thompson) if you’re wielding a bazooka/panzer faust/RPG, just a pistol. Your SD issued combat knife is also an integral weapon and has many tool uses as well. I also don’t want the levels to be overly linear and be as open ended as possible - the enemy AI of “bad guys” should be adaptive as well and they use radio comms to call in more soldiers or even aircraft and AFVs (however only Drakan citizen soldiers use compact walkie-talkies while the Janissary types and Soviet infantrymen make do with bulky radio sets in guard posts or vehicles).