STGOD: A Dead Art? (II)

[Spyder]

First thing's first.

This current STGOD is going into Armageddon mode. Let the factories start pumping out hulls at a rate the likes of which the universe has never seen. It's time for the previously benign to go from world to world and erradicate all life in an orgy of death and chaos.

Plunge the universe into an unending sea of madness!

...madness? This is The Good Old Days!

[Adrian Laguna]

I'd be up for a new STGOD, I was having fun in the old one. I got to blow up a fleet, mostly thanks to Beo.

[Covenant]

One of the big issues with the previous one was just how weighty the factions were. I found it pretty unsettling that I'd need to shoehorn myself into a Giant Stinking Alliance with someone just to be able to survive mostly because half the people were on Earth. That made Earth partially a fortress world and partially a powderkeg waiting to happen. My posts, while fun to make, were mostly irrelevent compared to the Earther stuff going on! That then created a nasty alliance situation, and you had mods at each-other's throats, people metagaming like fucking madmen during one tense point, and umteen zillion layers of early warning systems around Earth making some of us feel like bit players even before the first build turn was run. Remember, I was the one who lofted the Solar Egg into Sol to allow Neph to gate in and attempt a feeble prodding maneuver! We all saw how quickly humanity united to face that tiny threat. With OOC metagame guns ablazin' as well!

And nobody even scanned the thing I put into the orbit of the sun! It was a teapot! The Cretaceans put a celestial teapot into orbit of the sun. ;_;

Combine that with the "nobody knows anyone they haven't met yet" sort of thing and it seemed like things ended up going belly-up pretty fast as far as the far-flung crazy alien sides were concerned. Not a fun situation. It would make more sense for people to craft alliances BEFORE the game, so you can make nations that are not diametically opposed to each other. I was a bunch of athiest Dinosaurs in the middle of a bunch of Fundamentalist racial supremacists. Not a good combo!

But pre-making alliances might help a lot. It'd be like finding a team. You'd be responsible for getting your team to post (each team could be run by a mod, for example or have a mod as a 'team whip'), you'd have a source of internal RP to keep things bubbling, and you'd have less odd-man-out situations where a bunch of utterly unique forces glom together completely metagamingly just to avoid being devoured completely by the violent horde.

It might also be fun to do a Fantasy STGod, ya' know. ;D

[Darkevilme]

I would like the idea of a start over. Less messy than breaking the current one like the plan was. And I agree with Dahak that well, the idea of doing a fall of the empire doesnt appeal that much really.

On the subject of who i'll play next time, well i had an idea for space satanists, but i wont do that. I've played through all of freespace and freespace two recently so... The Chamarans will be back, perhaps as an expeditionary force from the previous STGOD's galaxy to escape it exploding. and with new and terrifying technologies, mwahahaha!

Means i get to build motherships as well, joy.

And yeah the whole, CON versus NGTO coldwar kinda stagnated everything, despite starglider doing his damnedest to make the galaxy burn.

[Adrian Laguna]

I think it would be interesting if everyone knows their next door neighbours and a couple farther away nations. There would already be trade going on, with some routes even crossing the entire playing field. Also, pre-existing diplomatic relations, some people could switch things-up by having tensions from the get-go, whether trade disputes, territory issues, or just plain dislike. It should make the start game a bit smoother, with less random exploration going on a meetings of peoples you really shouldn't be meeting for the first time.

[Academia Nut]

Okay, I think we can all agree that we want some more set-up time this time around so that there is less bumbling around diplomatically at the beginning and we have pre-arranged allies and enemies to get the shit started right away.

So, modification to my collapsing empire idea. We leave the mods in charge of the core factions of the empire(s) with all the best stuff, but players can choose to play as vassal states/trading clans/whatever or barbarians. Thus you have various internal factions trying to break away, having chaffed under the rule of their overlords for countless generations and with all sorts of grudges against their neighbours, and suddenly these Mongol hordes start showing up, presenting an opportunity for revenge. The hordes could be coalitions of players with their own factional strifes, or groups that decided to go off on their own. Thoughts?

Oh, and I am not adverse to a fantasy STGOD. Might be an interesting change of pace. Any other voices for or against such a proposal?

[Darkevilme]

Hmm, If the Chamaran Exodus counts as a horde then this might be workable. i'll just invade one of you yokels and steal your stuff okay

[Tanasinn]

I was sad to see the STGOD die (and just before my sociopathic space-squid saw naval action!), and would be glad to get in on another. The collapsing empire idea sounds interesting to me, too. I guess that's one more voice of support.

[SirNitram]

If we're nuking the old game, I guess I can finally reveal the absurd alliance the Wanderers entered into before things began bogging down.

[Academia Nut]

I guess we might as well get a quick yea/nay for the nuking of the last game before we go ahead and reveal anything that might compromise our nations, although at this point it looks like there is a strong desire to start anew. I personally vote for the nuking of the last game.

Oh, and if anyone doesn't like my fall of an empire scenario, please make other suggestions. And has been said, it doesn't even need to be a sci-fi STGOD (although considering the number of screwballs in here now there will probably need to be some degree of the fantastic). As another idea to consider, think of a Dominions style fantasy STGOD where we play as rival gods controlling our factions in a bid for ultimate divine supremacy. I'm somewhat more favorable towards another sci-fi STGOD, but I'm pretty sure if we all come up with something cool enough we can agree on a setting.

[Darkevilme]

I vote yay for nuking, i'm gonna write it in the Chamaran backstory as someone whoopseyed a precursor device which promptly ate the galaxy, i'm fine with fall of the empire provided i get to be extra galactic felines who just turn up one day and start blowing up and conquering stuff. and ooh a fantasy one...could be interesting, though i imagine having the players as gods with all that entails could result in the mods calling for...hell what sort of thing can a mod call for when the players are gods? cthulu? atheists? noise cancelling headphones?

[Covenant]

I'm for nuking as well. It fell completely apart. Can someone point me towards the old thread though? I'll search for it on my own, but I want to copy down my old OOB, since I love it so much and felt it was totally sweet.

Also, for Fantasy, having players be Gods doesn't mean they can do anything. Nit, as one of our Fantasy Gurus here, will be the first to tell you that you can quantify magical effects. Plus, I was hoping people would stay away from the whole "Army of Gods" sort of thing and do more like Skaven versus Dwarf type armies. In our previous STGOD, we all had limits already. Plus, worst case, a mod can always call on a Bigger God, or falling rocks. Gods have had previously bad experience with stopping geophyiscal phenomena.

I just thought it might be an interesting change of pace, as it would allow us a wide range of insanity, but without the hell of Cloaking, FTL devices, ECM, ECCM, and so on. It'd allow us to have a wide range of interesting little armies without as much confusion. Also be a lot easier to write and do diplomacy. I'd also be happy with a WWI era one (where I could play an evil genius with an army of brass robots) or space one or whatever. The idea of a Map with actual Landmarks, rivers, mountains, etc seemed kinda nice though. It'd make it a lot easier to move things around on the map, and say things like "You can't go there! That's a mountain!"

[SirNitram]

Well, a divine-FSTGOD might be interesting. Name what you're a god of, who your followers are, and set forth. Of course, you'd wind up having to choose: Invest your power in your divine self, or in your people, or try to strike a balance.

[Dark Hellion]

I like that idea more. Plus, because you are playing as a god losing all your followers doesn't necessarily take you out of the game, so there is less reasoning for the hopelessly cautious play that this STGOD saw.

[Covenant]

The collapsing Empire could be seen as a collapsing pantheon--or a single unitary diety collapsing into multiple aspects. The nations would either be divine in nature (a war in the collapsing kingdom of the heavens) or mundane (civil war as the followers of God shatter into new sub-religions), or whatnot.

Just an idea. If this is getting too wacky for people's tastes, just say so, I'm just offering ideas as they come. I'd be happy with anything, so long as we get involved. I'm definately looking for a strong alliance right off the bat this time, just because it makes more sense. Forming them 'naturally' as we did last time (sorta) is a mess.

[Shinn Langley Soryu]

If we're going to nuke the old STGOD, then I say we should literally nuke it. I second Spyder's suggestion. Grant each of us a final, massive point allotment. Once everyone's done spending their points on the biggest, baddest killing implements in known space, have all of us engage in an orgy of destruction so big that it would make even Shep blanch, enabling us to wipe the slate clean and rebuild.

Destruction on such a massive scale ought to draw the attention of divine entities. Once their attention is suitably caught, they start getting involved in the affairs of the mundane so that such a disaster doesn't happen again.

On the mortal side of things, some empire rises from the ashes and brings the remnants of the previous factions together under one flag; this empire swiftly grows in size but quickly falls prey to corruption and decadence. Quite a few of its constituents split off and become barbarian states for various reasons.

Organized religion is what brings the divine and the mundane together, and in a huge way. Let's say that the official state religion of this empire is, say, the cult of the God-Emperor of Man. You can have members of the Ecclesiarchy involved in sex scandals, collecting indulgences, and basically falling prey to the same foibles as their counterparts in the Roman Catholic Church, for instance. For simplicity's sake, let's not start on the multitudes of other religions involved in this mess; you've got Haruhiism, the Cult Mechanicus, Chaos cults, Asgard cults, Goa'uld cults, Vorlon cults, Pastafarianism, and so on and so forth.

Imagine the fall of Rome combined with the Thirty Years' War, on an interstellar scale and with 100% authentic divine intervention.

By the way, Academia Nut, I see your KISS Army, and I raise it by an SOS Brigade. You can guess at what kind of faction I'll be playing this time around.

Guess I'm out of that creative rut now.

[SirNitram]

If we're nuking the old STGOD. I call Earth. Only because I had it's doom planned from the world go.

[Hawkwings]

By the time you get there, it'll already be a debris field.

[SirNitram]

By the time you get there, it'll already be a debris field.

I have my doubts. Among other things, no one else built planetbusters.. Or has the alliance I was building.

[Adrian Laguna]

I want some naval battles with heavy artillery! So I preffer either sci-fi (ish), or tech-level of 1880-1920s. The problem with the latter is, however, the difficulty in simulating the way wars were waged as you start moving higher-up in the years. Things start to get stalematy and slow. Not only that, there are sundry factors that affect war which can be rather complicated.

Regardless of what we do, I vote it be a non-existent world. No Earth, not our Earth anyway, I think we can all agree things are better that way.

[Covenant]

Regardless of what we do, I vote it be a non-existent world. No Earth, not our Earth anyway, I think we can all agree things are better that way.

I'd go a step further and ban all humans, near-humans, furries, humanoids, or beings with roughly bipedal movement and bilateral symmetry. When someone goes "I call the humans" it's basically downhill from there.

Getting rid of Earth, at least, solves the biggest problem. But I'm also really tired of a variety of Well Known Very Popular forces that encourage multiples of the same species. It's essentially a force multiplier to take a single species, multiply it's power by as many Players want to also be them, and then act as if they won't ever ally.

If people want to be a union of human colonies, okay, but we need to treat them as people who'll eventually ally up anyway. Let's clamp down on the metagame once we get started, but let's just be honest before we get going. Claiming Earth would infight was not honest. ;P

[SirNitram]

I'm definitely taking a bunch of humans. Sorry, I don't waste creativity on the biology; I save it for the social structure, so it's more than just a one-note.

[Starglider]

I'd go a step further and ban all humans, near-humans, furries, humanoids, or beings with roughly bipedal movement and bilateral symmetry. When someone goes "I call the humans" it's basically downhill from there.

That would be interesting but I doubt it'll fly. Creating Really Aliens is hard work; few professional sci-fi writers manage to do it convincingly. Even there, most of them tend to fall into established tropes (energy beings, protoplasmic blobs, insectoids, motile plants, Cylon style androids). Very original inventions such as Hivers and Moties are very rare, furries-in-all-but-name are insidious. Sorry.

[A-Wing_Slash]

I am generally against nuking the old game, unless it first involved a titanic orgy of destruction, but if everyone else wants to move on, I'm up for a new one.

[Starglider]

I am generally against nuking the old game, unless it first involved a titanic orgy of destruction.

You know we could just skip straight to an earth vs NGTO general war, with sideline wars as necessary for anyone not involved in that. Flash forward three months, skip all the rhetoric and maneuvering and denaible raids.

I want to see a massive 10 player fleet powering through space dead set on eliminating earth. I want to see an awesomely powerful defence force. I want to hear impassioned speaches saying why the xeno scum must die or why the human cancer must be burned out of space before it can spread. I want to see that 1000 ship battle with no one caring about game mechanics or balance or whether the outcome is fair. Because while the capships blow the hell out of each other, the strategic warp missiles will be flying, the plant killers will be moving into position, the homeworlds will be burning. I want to see every remaing player have their characters shout the following;

ALL SHIPS, FLANK SPEED

LAUNCH FIGHTERS

CHARGE THE LIGHTNING FIELDS

FULL POWER TO THE DEATH RAYS

FIRE AT WILL ON ALL TARGETS

FOR GREAT STGOD

CHARGE !!!

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Armageddon Roster

STRIKE FORCE GEOCIDE
Starglider
A-Wing
DarkEvilMe
Covenant?
Academia Nut?
Noble Ire?

DEFENCE FORCE TERRA ULTIMA
Dahak
Hawkwings?
Tanasinn?
Shinn Langley Soryu?
Dark Hellion??
Adrian Laguna??

Lone Wolf Suicidal Crazies?
Sir Nitram?