Modding Discussion Avali 1.0 Reboot Discussion

Discussion in 'Starbound Modding' started by RyuujinZERO, Aug 11, 2016.

  1. Roland Weiss

    Roland Weiss Tiy's Beard

    There's one way to explain that kind of stature; he grew up in a lower gravity environment than normal.
     
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  2. Sock of Retribution

    Sock of Retribution Scruffy Nerf-Herder

    I suppose you could be correct, but I have reason to believe that such a document would not try to pass off the avali populace or government as more tolerant than they really are: that would cause nothing but trouble, as far as I can see. Furthermore, the Avali Wiki is not consistently adherent to the whole "Illuminate document", so it could just be pure lore and therefore unquestionable, but too confusing to rightly say.

    As for NPC remarks, when was the last time you heard remarks like that? I've never come across avali as a human, mostly because I've never played as a human in Starbound before because I'm too busy being an avali myself. I think such remarks would just indicative of their environment: a more conservative upbringing, or human rogues/pirates which seem to be quite common in the Starbound universe. You can't just assume it's a race-wide attitude, you have to take into account the factors. If I seem triggered or anything, it's probably because I know that isn't the case thanks to my OC: he's of a very opposite mentality towards humans.

    Well at least this was said. I shall now place Jiroku snugly between these parentheses. He probably won't think them as comfy as his favorite blanky though. Jeez what a weirdo, 16 years old and still clinging to one of those; I wonder where that character trait comes from.

    Why did I expose myself? Come to think of it, where am I going with this?
     
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  3. Sock of Retribution

    Sock of Retribution Scruffy Nerf-Herder

    Nope, he grew up on Avalon. :/
     
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  4. Sock of Retribution

    Sock of Retribution Scruffy Nerf-Herder

    Just keep in mind that avali do not share the same bodily proportions as Terran dromaeosaurs: due to having more humanoid form and posture, their dimensions are somewhere between the aforementioned taxonomic group and our own. You can check the wiki for meter-based proportions closer to lore, but I do remember the tails still being quite long so you're not far off in that department.

    Let's not kid ourselves here: nobody really draws the avali to have their full canon tail length or sometimes even their properties, and the albeit non-canon in-game sprite also notably shortens it down.

    *SMITE announcer* TRIPLE POST!
     
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  5. Roland Weiss

    Roland Weiss Tiy's Beard

    So he's just a beanpole, then.
    And you've won an express ticket to gulag! Do not pass go, do not collect 200 rubles.
     
  6. Sock of Retribution

    Sock of Retribution Scruffy Nerf-Herder

    I should say he is heavier than your average avali as a result (I'm guessing 80 pounds), and he does have more muscle and fat, but this is purely due to his size: in other words, it's the same amount if you take proportion into account. He actually used to be lighter, but his colleagues were worried about his lankiness and inadvertently fattened him up by a few pounds, so now he thinks he's chubby. Jiro tends to be quite self-conscious, perhaps overly so.
     
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  7. YellowDemonHurlr

    YellowDemonHurlr Ketchup Robot

    While I should point out that an OC isn't really suitable evidence of avali canon, I did not mean to imply that all avali dislike humans, only that it's the most widespread attitude, and likely even the official attitude of the Illuminate. Some individuals and even sub-cultures will, of course, vary.

    Here is the list of all the dialogue options avali NPCs can use to speak to human players:
    "Hello... oh, a human."
    "I thought something smelled bad."
    "I understand, it wasn't your fault. But some of my kin might not be so understanding."
    "You have Impervium gonads coming here, human."
    "So, are you still into bombarding fledgling races on first contact?"
    "How's that whole civil war working out, oh right, tentacle beast stopped it."
    "What's the weather like on Earth lately, violent with a chance of tentacles?"
    "Now where'd I put my tiny violin..." (As far as I can tell, this is a response to the destruction of Earth)

    These from the version I used to make my machinima (since I have that one unpacked), and I don't think and new lines have been added since then. As you can see, while one option is friendly and one is almost neutral, nearly everything avali NPCs say to you as a human indicates that they really, really don't like you. Those last three in particular indicate a level of dislike that goes beyond a mere "low-level grudge," it's like someone going up to a New Yorker and mocking them over 9/11. You have to be really, really callous not to sympathize at least a little with people who have just suffered a disaster of that level.
     
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  8. Roland Weiss

    Roland Weiss Tiy's Beard

    In the case of low vs. high gravity, it wouldn't be a case for 'mutation' in the genetic sense. Astronauts actually gain height while under the effects of zero-g, only returning to their normal height after returning to Earth. On the other side, jet pilots who have to eject from aircraft have been noted to lose height due to the extremely high-gs that they experience during the ejection. Growing up in a 'non-standard' gravity can potentially influence how your body develops; those living on low gravity worlds will have taller statures and lower bone and muscle densities, while living on high gravity worlds will have the opposite effect.
     
  9. TheOnlyRen

    TheOnlyRen Phantasmal Quasar

    I hinted at a pack in the Protectorate intro because it would seem weird for a sole Avali to join the Protectorate. Of course, since the Triage mod doesn't add other Avali to the intro sequence, the idea I had was to make it so, as a practical graduation-day joke, your pack disabled your alarm and ran off ahead of you to graduation, and didn't make it (barring multiplayer friends who also make Avali) once the Ruin attacks. End result, sole survivor Avali PC.

    As for the "whiplash" bit. A single person is often better than people as a whole. It's a general psychology thing as far as racism goes to believe that "X race are all idiots until proven otherwise". You of all people should know this, Yellow, considering how Rhaomi warms up to you in your series. The PC Avali likes the Grand Protector because the Grand Protector was cool, as far as humans go. While at the same time they wouldn't give a shit about some dead guy's ashes because they didn't know the guy.

    EDIT: I'm not going to address why or how an Avali would wind up in the Protectorate to begin with because I really can't. The game just kind of thrusts it on you by default unless you skip the intro entirely. I would say it's certainly feasible for an Avali pack to wind up in the Protectorate one way or another, but I can't say how. Regardless, it has to happen because the Matter Manipulator, you know, that thing you need to more or less play Starbound, is explicitly a Protectorate tool. Non-protectorate just don't have it. And if a non-protectorate person does, I would imagine the repercussions of it would be drastic. The Matter Manipulator is a powerful tool, there's a reason you have to attend an academy to be able to even get one.
     
    Last edited: Apr 10, 2017
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  10. Scival

    Scival Oxygen Tank

    Except, of course, the Protectorate is then dead after that event. Just about anyone could acquire one from whatever factory they're built in.
     
  11. IFailAtGaming

    IFailAtGaming Scruffy Nerf-Herder

    except there's a pretty good chance that factory is on earth, and as such is currently on... tentacles. just doesn't have the same ring as "on fire"
     
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  12. YellowDemonHurlr

    YellowDemonHurlr Ketchup Robot

    Yeah, I caught that bit, I'm just surprised that they're never mentioned again. You'd expect that when disaster hits, an avali's first thought would be for his/her pack.

    Well, Rhaomi doesn't really exhibit the pattern you describe. Once Yellow proves himself to not be an evil monster, Rhaomi reevaluated his opinion of humanity as a whole. His whole speech to Kaala at the end is him sticking up for humanity, not just Yellow. He doesn't necessarily like all humans, especially the USCM, but he wouldn't revel in their destruction.

    And in the case of the avali player character, he/she has been bunking with humans for years (just look at all the human memorabilia in the bunk area: lava lamps, rock guitars, hula figurines, etc). They've got to be used to humans by now. Plus you need a certain level of regard for sapient life in general to seek/accept nomination into the ranks of the Protectorate.
     
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  13. hypergen8

    hypergen8 Guest

    Or there could be an avali mining tool that does the same thing as the Matter Manipulator, they DO have powerful, if not higher tech then the humans.

    Just saying that we can give them the tool without the oddness of figuring out the "Avali in the human protectorate" thing, it might be more lore efficient. Anyway i never liked the matter manipulator with avali characters, it never matched the color scheme of any of the avali stuff witch made it feel out of place to me, an avali themed one would be sweet.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Apr 10, 2017
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  14. Scival

    Scival Oxygen Tank

    But then we need a custom intro mission that gives it to you.
     
  15. hypergen8

    hypergen8 Guest

    that wouldn't actually need to be there immediately, it could be something that would be added later. But they could have it start like the old starbound, no mission, just a note with what happened.
    Really its just an idea in how we can make it better then the default intro (which is pretty bad lets be real) and make it more lore friendly for the avali.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Apr 10, 2017
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  16. Sock of Retribution

    Sock of Retribution Scruffy Nerf-Herder

    Personally, I would advocate for the implementation of all 3 of these options relating to Avali campaign directly based on all possibilities we have discussed: simply using the current story and missions and utilizing dialogue and descriptions unique to the avali, as TheOnlyRen is already working on; developing a single intro mission to dovetail into the Protectorate storyline which can be used to cast off the typical avali setting; and likely the hardest option to implement, creating a new story and set of missions exclusive to the avali yet still focusing on the conflicts of the original campaign, perhaps as well as new more avali-specific storylines.
     
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  17. Sock of Retribution

    Sock of Retribution Scruffy Nerf-Herder

    Also, there's something I'd like to bring to your attention, Yellow. Months ago on the Triage Discord server, I talked with the "loremasters" there and brought up the validity of avali pointing fingers on such a large scale (as depicted in Monsters Below, in any event) towards humans as the benefactors/malefactors. They stated it is unlikely at best that the avali would be oblivious to the technological level of the human race at the time of the uplifting for very long: therefore, the persistence of such claw-pointing would only be kept if humans actually were capable of reaching Avalon at the time.

    I think they have a point. While it may be difficult, especially with the destruction of Earth, for us to prove the course of our own history, it's only a matter of time before some adventurous kit brings back evidence at least too definitive to ignore.
     
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  18. Scival

    Scival Oxygen Tank

    I mean, it's not like we don't already know it wasn't the humans.

    [​IMG]
    Or
    [​IMG]

    [​IMG] [​IMG] [​IMG]
    Or
    [​IMG]


    "A few thousands years prior to the current timeline an unknown alien race settled upon their world," "their ruins still scatter Avalon today,"
    Only evidence of human activity outside of Earth are minor outposts, and the destruction of Earth was enough to completely eliminate the Protectorate, according to what Esther tells you.

    Seems virtually impossible to draw a connection between Earth and Avalon.
     
  19. YellowDemonHurlr

    YellowDemonHurlr Ketchup Robot

    I dunno, people can hold on to misconceptions for a long time, especially if it is useful for a party in power for the people they rule to believe it. I think the "humans as the malefactors" is a weak point in the lore. It requires us to accept that...
    1. Humans were capable of intergalactic travel thousands of years prior... (maybe plausible, depending on how long space-faring civilization has existed)
    2. They kept no record of their involvement on avalon, nor did any other credible race...
    3. They uplifted the avali and supplied them equipment with which to mine, but none of that equipment (or other artifacts like beer cans) survived to the present...
    4. There is no clear "evolutionary path" between human tech and avali tech, even though avali tech is reverse-engineered from the malefactor's tech (which, again, is conveniently absent).
    5. Similarly, there are no cultural aspects of modern avali that can be traced to humanity, which is unlikely if they interacted as closely as they were said to.
    6. Despite the fact that the malefactors lost a war, I've never heard anything about human remains being found on this planet that would freeze and preserve any human exposed to it.

    In short, there are a myriad of ways by which humans could be placed on Avalon, and when none of them say "yes, humans were here on Avalon," it starts to become pretty clear that you're barking up the wrong tree. This is probably why most of that section has since been redacted. It just doesn't make sense. I figured out a way to reconcile at least some of the evidence, but it is most definitely not canon.

    You could maybe say avali archeologists are incompetent (or nonexistent), but human archeologists are not and they would definitely want to investigate this.
     
  20. Sock of Retribution

    Sock of Retribution Scruffy Nerf-Herder

    Doubt it. If the wiki is correct, then there have already been a few pre-malefactor avali catacombs and dwellings unearthed in the higher altitudes of Avalon: pre-malefactor avali weren't completely nomadic. Since necessity is the mother of invention, there is likely some semblance of archaeology among avali society if it is not already a full-fledged field.

    If not, then Indiana Jones fanboy supreme Jiroku Tanalya shall be the first true avali archaeologist! Except he's not completely canon himself, so I should probably stop mentioning him altogether. *sad avali kit chirp*
     

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