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Support for the Terrene Protectorate?

Discussion in 'Starbound Discussion' started by Combozone, Jun 29, 2017.

  1. florinblain

    florinblain Subatomic Cosmonaut

    If that were true then it wouldn't even matter how big or small the Protectorate got as an organisation, since they don't have the item in question.

    Grabbing any given Protector anywhere in the galaxy and taking their stuff would be enough, if they had no proper support network outside of Earth. And a Protector's job is to protect; it wouldn't be especially difficult to find one, their role makes advertising their presence more or less essential. All of this is of course assuming anyone would actually care to steal a Matter Manipulator, which again, there isn't really anything to suggest is the case.

    Your hypothesised inability of the Protectorate to find enough people to train could be attributed only to an unwillingness to expand. If they were of sufficient size and had sufficient influence they would be able to develop more talent. The more people you have the more manpower you have to train more people.
     
    Last edited: Jul 13, 2017
  2. Namtazar

    Namtazar Subatomic Cosmonaut

    Maybe it is not about training, but about some special talents candidate need to show before he will be able to train. I don't know - something like absolute willing to Protect everybody no matter who and what race he is. Because if you just Grab 1000 or more people and train them to survive on lost planets, fight and command spaceship - you will train not a protectors, but army rangers or marines! Even the fact Graduate received his Matter Manipulator only After years of training and learning on Earth show us that Protectorate don't want to give it for anybody who meet just physical conditions but who really have this state of mind when even a Floran ready to help hylotl and other species.
    We still don't know how Protectorate secure this tech. After all in game when you or ever NPC defeated - it teleport somewhere. If you doing planetary mission to save some NPC and fail it - the say that this NPC was teleport to safe zone so don't worry! It can be really hard to capture a protector because: he can teleport out there, he probably have a ship with some crew on orbit, he have matter manipulator and know how to use it so he can really make himself exit from various situations.
     
    STCW262 likes this.
  3. florinblain

    florinblain Subatomic Cosmonaut

    How strict the Protectorate were about recruitment is well into the realm of speculation, but even if you assume they were very selective, FTL space travel means they have literally an entire galaxy full of people from a bevy of different species as their recruitment pool, so more people available to recruit suitable candidates = more recruits.
     
  4. Namtazar

    Namtazar Subatomic Cosmonaut

    Well. Show me a planet full of people. Really it must be part of game mechanic, but for now entire galaxy we travel looks like a very lonely place. Not all planets have settlements of any kind and most of this settlements described as a villages, not even towns! So yeah - we have FTL. And we have galaxy so big - that literally you can ovn entire planet for yourself. looks like this is why Protectorate is exist. Galaxy is too big and all settlements is too small and spreaded too much! So protectorate trying to help by sending this pods and chests with some goods and Protectors to help this small settlements to survive. A large established colonies simply don't need Protectors couse they dure will have they ovn spaceships, army and police and other structures to deal with space and any kind of troubles. But where is this large colonies? Where is big cities, large space trade centres, other things? All we see - still unknown universe we need to explore. And little settlements we need to help... or fight.
     
    STCW262 likes this.
  5. florinblain

    florinblain Subatomic Cosmonaut

    I disagree strongly that the galaxy is a "very lonely place". Almost every planet you visit (realistically, every planet that isn't lush, toxic, arctic or magma) contains at least one colony full of people, hostile or friendly (complete with "army/police" when the population is largely civilian), and frequently up to two or three colonies, and every other system contains a manned space installation. Given that the Starbound galaxy contains such an enormous amount of systems and planets I would say that it qualifies as heavily-populated - unrealistically so, in fact (it would be pretty boring if it were realistic, as most planets you landed on would be bereft of settlements/dungeons). You can complain that none of the settlements have a lot of people in them, but in a game where you can circumnavigate a planet on foot in about five minutes, I don't know how large you expect a colony to be; they're already several screen lengths in size in biomes that themselves aren't usually much more than 10-15. (You could argue with some level of truth that even games like Skyrim lack large cities, but most of the settlements in Starbound actually have more NPCs in them than those in Skyrim; you simply need to suspend your disbelief to some extent when it comes to settlement sizes in video games.)
     
    Last edited: Jul 13, 2017
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  6. Zeoinx

    Zeoinx Phantasmal Quasar

    So I tried using some of the new ship // station blocks to make a Room that looked like the Protectorate, but I might feel its a bit lacking. Maybe need to paint some of them white or something yet. but here ya go for some ideas. Protectrate Space Station Room.PNG
     
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  7. M_Sipher

    M_Sipher Oxygen Tank

    (Holy hell I love that bathroom mirror)

    Any rate, I think there's a smidge of overthinking the Apex/Protectorate thing. Personally, I have my own thoughts as to why the Miniknog have not managed to gain any kind of upper hand on the Protectorate and steal their tech.

    The Apex are, in their own way, incredibly stupid and they rarely try to take on the Protectorate.

    They've been so successful in subjugating their own people uninterrupted for so long they haven't had to actually try for generations. And they've forgotten how to actually do it. They could never pull it off again. Their propaganda is utterly transparent to anyone looking in from the outside, but the Apex population is so conditioned that getting them to see it is largely an exercise in futility. Even the Apex rebels are bad at being rebels when viewed from the outside. They're great at shouting slogans and very enthusiastic, but with rare exception they're mostly enthusiastic troublemakers who can't plan for poo. Both sides are really, really, really bad at subterfuge and very tunnel-visioned on each other. The Miniknog are convinced they'll have their OWN Matter Manipulators developed any day now, and they'll be better! They jsut need more test subjects! And funding. And man that paperwork. Maybe, maybe if the Miniknog didn't have to deal with those rebels they might be able to focus more on other races, but... well.

    I figure though every now and then, something like this happens in the Protectorate application offices...

    "All right. Name?"
    "Ivan Rebellious."
    "... I see. *immediately and silently hits 'Miniknog spy' tab on the datapad* Special skills?"
    "Espionage."
    "Mmm-hmm. Not sure we really need that."
    "A am also very skilled in the free-thinking and not worshiping Big Ape."
    "I'm sure you are."

    Silly? Yes. But this is a silly universe.
     
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  8. Guest0241525

    Guest0241525 Guest

    Completely missing the point of what I meant by "constantly on the move."

    Seems somewhat out-of-character for Apex if you ask me. Their very premise is that they traded physical devolution for mental evolution, and Minknog is presented as being incredibly thorough - which included wiping out the USCM when they became a liability.

    If anything, I imagine a situation where some Miniknog agents did successfully infiltrate the Protectorate. Except as some of them trained to become Protectors, the loyalty instilled in them by the Miniknog started to weaken as they learned of what the universe can be when outside of its reach.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jul 15, 2017
    STCW262 likes this.
  9. florinblain

    florinblain Subatomic Cosmonaut

    What did you mean by that? I fail to see why there being small numbers of Protectors would put them at any less of a disadvantage given that their entire purpose places them in a constant defensive posture.
     
  10. Guest0241525

    Guest0241525 Guest

    Protectorate is hardly on a defensive posture. They're also not an offensive posture either, because that's simply not their mission.

    Do I have to reiterate the entire intro mission for you on what tasks of a Protector's are? Protectors assist settlements across the universe, and to do that, they move from one world to another, occasionally coming back to Earth. On that matter, tell me - what happened to the last group of bandits that tried to ambush you, or the last creature that attack you? Where do you store your important equipment? For most, the answers would be that you defeated the attackers, and that you store your equipment on your ship.

    Protectors are not a military faction, but its members are evidently armed and trained in combat, to fend off bandits and wildlife alike. Taking that into account, you can't really just grab a Protector from wherever.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jul 14, 2017
    STCW262 likes this.
  11. florinblain

    florinblain Subatomic Cosmonaut

    Would it defeat your point if I said that they beat the tar out of me? Because that can and has certainly happened.

    Their mission is to help and protect settlements. That means that any time a settlement is under threat, their job is to react. That places them in a defensive posture. If their duty is to protect then they are a reactionary group who is more or less at the mercy of any threat or aggressor to any given colony. That means that if anyone seriously wanted to kidnap a Protector, they would be able to lay a pretty effective ambush by targeting colonies until one turned up. All of these things make it quite foolish for the Protectorate to deliberately stay small. They would be much better served in every way by expanding as much as possible; better able to help and defend more areas of the galaxy, less vulnerable to outside influences, etc.
     
  12. Guest0241525

    Guest0241525 Guest

    Protectorate isn't exactly small. They just happen to have their headquarters on Earth.

    By the way, here's my take on a Protectorate- styled structure:

    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jul 15, 2017
  13. florinblain

    florinblain Subatomic Cosmonaut

    This whole conversation revolves around the notion that the Protectorate are better off as a small faction, that was the argument presented earlier in the thread. I don't believe that to be true; it seems to me that it would simply make them less effective at their stated goal and more vulnerable to any given threat. And again, I would say it makes little sense for a galaxy-spanning organisation to be so completely centralised, much the same as it makes little sense for humanity in general to be so centralised.
     
  14. Guest0241525

    Guest0241525 Guest

    Why?
     
  15. florinblain

    florinblain Subatomic Cosmonaut

    Well, what happens in the game's intro?
     
  16. Guest0241525

    Guest0241525 Guest

    Hindsight is 20/20.

    There was no reason for anyone to expect an attack from an entity capable of destroying the entire planet in less than an hour.
     
    STCW262 likes this.
  17. florinblain

    florinblain Subatomic Cosmonaut

    It could have been any planet-wide cataclysm. Meteorites, epidemic, whatever. By refusing to expand from a single place the Protectorate were rendering themselves needlessly vulnerable, as was humanity. They had access to space travel, so there was no need for what happened to happen. It would never actually happen, either. The urge to expand and colonise is one of the most essential in humans, and in life in general.
     
  18. Guest0241525

    Guest0241525 Guest

    Tell me, do you expect an atomic bomb to suddenly drop in your place of residence? Do you base your living habits on that idea?

    Meteor trajectory can be predicted, epidemic can be counteracted as it's ongoing. It was a different matter with the Ruin, which annihilated the entire planet in a record time.
     
  19. florinblain

    florinblain Subatomic Cosmonaut

    Even if I did, I wouldn't be able to do much to mitigate the effects of it, would I? But the humans in Starbound could've.

    Who says they can? What makes you think a planetwide epidemic couldn't occur with an onset too quick to permit effective reaction? In a universe in which advanced alien life obviously exists, what makes you think a hostile species couldn't suddenly appear and obliterate Earth from orbit? There are a lot of very bad things that can affect a single area very quickly. Why do you think we feel compelled to spread out as much as possible?
     
    Last edited: Jul 14, 2017
  20. MysticMalevolence

    MysticMalevolence Oxygen Tank

    The funny thing is that one of the protectors in the intro mentions you possibly getting reassigned outside of Earth, if I recall correctly, implying there are places where protectors can be reassigned.
     
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