Any one else think the lore isn't that great

I did create a sub-reddit where you could post canon and non-canon lore, but either way should they add some depth to the story; i felt as though more work could've been put into it.
Thoughts?

 

One thing I learned while playing Starbound is to completely ignore the "lore" and just headcanon my own.
I just cant take Starbounds lore seriously.
Luckily I have a great imagination so that was fixed very fast for me.

Edit: typo

 

The forced protectorate storyline basically wiped out all the lore for different races that was included in the pre release version of the game. You used to be able to have racial stories and starter weapons too, instead of just having the broken protectorate sword and every single race starts on Earth. In my opinion they should reintroduce the lore for different races

 

Now, more than ever, we need Ron Perlman.

But seriously, I'm not too broken up about it, Starbound is a sandbox game, it can do with more story, lore and missions, but the sandbox will always be the thing that outlasts its campaign gameplay.

 

True, I guess most of the time i do make my own lore

 

I can't stand Starbound's canon lore. For a while, I tried to come up with my own, based off of the original lore but rather significantly improved and added upon, but I eventually gave up when I figured that it'd never make much of a difference to the game anyways.

I got to the point of creating a whole galactic map of occupied species territory, and the concepts for several new game mechanics revolving around the various empires of the Starbound galaxy.

(Since they aren't labeled, cyan in the center are the Glitch, and the orange spots are known current Novakid colonies.)

A great many paragraphs of lore were written as well, though I discarded most of them.

The Protectorate is the term for both the government of most of humanity and a few major organizations controlled by said government. Based on Earth, they form what is in essence a galactic keystone of society. In a convenient location to facilitate trade and diplomatic relations between the Avians, the Hylotl, the Apex and the Greenfinger, humanity's most prominent place on the galactic stage is that of the societal glue that holds together, however thinly, the combined societies of the Milky Way.

The USCM is a breakaway faction of the Protectorate formed after the attempted demilitarization of Earth's nations. Although they recognized they couldn't win a direct war over Earth, not against every other force on the planet, they ended up keeping nearly all of their former territory, as they constituted the bulk of human space colonization. They're easily the most powerful and dangerous faction, with strict citizenship and a jingoistic expansionist policy.

The Avian Followers are an uplifted theocratic imperial state that blends tribal, ritualistic religious practice with advanced spacefaring technology. It is believed that the earliest Avian society was uplifted by the same race that built the Glitch. Much of their current religious beliefs are based around this race and the godlike figures of their mythology, including the likes of Kluex, one of the first uplifted. One of the central beliefs of their religion is based around their lack of wings, and of flight; that they were cast down from the heavens for a crime their species had to pay for.

The Avian Grounded are a splinter faction of the Followers. Until recently with the ascension of humanity to the position of the de-facto diplomats of the galaxy, the Grounded were engaged in an intense civil war with the Followers for survival. Through the pressure of the Apex and Human forces, both sides were forced into a cold state of war, and hostilities ceased for the moment. The Grounded are a secular society formed primarily from the breakaways from the Avian's faith, and though they don't yet have an established government, it's speculated that they will become another imperial state when the dust settles.

If I had the option, I'd leap at the ability to rework Starbound's story, but I don't think my kind of writing fits the kind of tone Starbound seems to have been attempting to aim for since Beta ended. Early on, I got a distinct vibe that behind all the dreamlike floaty fluffy graphics and NPCs and world, there was a nightmare that H. P. Lovecraft would have been disturbed by lurking in every nation and species, but that's been significantly diluted as of late. The hyper-generic main story in the game today feels more like a fairy tale than the story of a galaxy.

 

I think the galaxy map is really cool, and I would hate to bash your lore, but it wouldn't make sense since every planet has a different humanoid colony on it. According to what we see in game, the galaxy would just be one big soup of different things mixed together evenly. Anyways, what are the little circles with the H in the middle? Important planets? Is the one in the Protectorate bubble Earth? Im genuinely interested in your map

 

Mmh, yeah. One of my bigger complaints about the way Starbound's universe is structured is how haphazardly planets are colonized, and how nearly every single star system features a tiny village of a random species, as if it were some perlin noise algorithm. In this hypothetical reworking, the species would actually be forming coherent nations with colonies mostly located inside their own borders.

The (H) symbols are homeworld locations. In the case of the rebels, it's more of a base of operations, and the Hylotl's is almost a dead world after continuous total warfare over the better part of a century with the Floran's infestation left it devastated. The Hylotl haven't taken that well. The Grounded's homeworld is also more of a capitol than a homeworld, since the Followers own the Avian's original planet (and guard it with everything they can spare; it's one of if not the most holy site in the whole galaxy for them).

I found some old Discord messages featuring some brainstorming about methods to drum up conflict after the Ruin destroys Earth, and to justify why so few people seem interested in fighting off the giant world-destroying tentacle monster, so have that as a bonus.

I was thinking up ways to make Starbound's universe feel a bit more real, and make the destruction of Earth feel more like an enormous, significant event

so what if the Protectorate was essentially a keystone of the galaxy's civilizations?

their presence kept the Apex and rebels from nuking each other with every WMD they had, kept the Followers and the Grounded in a state of cold war instead of civil war, kept the USCM in relative check and was helping the Hylotl drive back the tribal Florans?

so if Earth served as the de-facto base of the UN of the galaxy, and was keeping every nation from going straight for the other's throats, the destruction of it would indeed affect the entire galaxy

it also serves as a good excuse as for why no other militaries or governments decided to go and, y'know, help fight off this world-destroying monstrosity

the Miniknog and revolutionaries are in an intense guerrilla war, the Followers and Grounded go right back to their civil war (since the Miniknog is now tied up with their rebels to their full extent and the Protectorate isn't around to push them into helping keep the peace between the Avians), the Hylotl can't do anything because they're already desperately trying to reclaim their homeworld, the Florans wouldn't help anybody, the Glitch don't have a spacefaring army because the only Glitch even aware of aliens are extremely few in number and nationless, and the Greenfingers don't give a damn about any of it
the USCM would be the only group with a vested interest in trying to avenge their homeworld, except, say, the Ruin is too powerful for them alone to fight (as the original lore stated)

Novakid don't have a government or army to speak of

I saw some people discussing months ago how Starbound seems to have the whole "galaxy full of wonder and sprawling civilizations" thing and seems to try to also imply the "you're the galaxy's last hope that everyone is counting on" at the same time, and it really doesn't work and it shows

 

I was comparing your map to the existing lore and you did a really great job. The Florans and Hylotl were at war, so they are next to each other. The first race the Avians came in contact with were the Glitch and they are near Avos. The Novakids are the shattered pieces of the cultivator so they have no homeworld. The Avians had a little skirmish with the Florans about some spaceship, and they are next to each other too.

 

This headcanon of yours with the USCM reminded me of my own kind of headcanon compressed into a mod about an active Rebellion against the Protectorate. This is just the exposition bit for my description although I did shove a bit of a Russian Civil War in there. Morale greyness is where it's at: Loyalists are Racist Authoritarians and Militants have their civilian cities under constant Martial Law.

"Earth, before The Ruin struck, was a relatively peaceful planet. The United Systems Alliance was the Global Military protecting outer-space Human Assets while each Nation on Earth still had their respective militaries, waging war against eachother. A communist uprising suddenly sprouts within multiple major Russian Capital Cities, taking Democratic Russia by surprise and ultimately splitting Russia into 2 sides, Communist West and Democratic East. Communist West Russia fell within 3 months due to completely inferior technology and logistics.

Years later, peace with all 7 space races led to the formation of the Protectorate and the 'Demilitarisation Programme', an initiative to demilitarise every nation's own army, illegalise firearms and for a new level of governmental system: 'Global Leader'. The first 6 months were successful and Earth became completely demilitarised and for the first time in Human history, global peace was achieved and billions celebrated.

This was short-lived however, trust turned into distrust and distrust turned into fear. People began to realise that the only standing militaries were the USCM and the Protectorate. The USCM were a mainly off-Earth military protecting human assets off-Earth. The Protectorate however, had complete control over Earth, including political and military power. Protests began, demanding the pre-Protectorate government as civilians in the millions roamed the streets. The peaceful protests began to become more violent each day, increasing with each protest. Not soon after, the protests became armed riots, with civilians arming themselves with makeshift weapons or from hidden gun caches. Multiple countries such as America, Russia and Iraq illegally re-armed themselves during the chaos. By then, the Protectorate authorised lethal force upon the rioters, leading to Civil Wars across the planet. By this time, the USCM split during a coup d'etat between Pro-Protectorate Loyalists and Anti-Protectorate Militants. The Militant USCM won their outer-space territories and pushed back the remaining Loyalists out of their systems. The Militants returned to Earth and merged with the armed rioters, becoming the United Systems Rebels.

Some of the Militants and Loyalist brought the battlegrounds to Mars's human colonies for its resources and generally vast habitats of terraformed forests.
In the midst of the chaos, The Ruin struck Earth, killing billions and crippling both sides of the war.

As for my own opinions on the lore? Fairytale-level of bad. Blah blah last hope blah blah go save us blah blah we could be morally grey but nah you HAVE to be the good guy that saves the galaxy blah blah. Esther is useless and I wanted to break her legs again, Asra Nox is Kai-Leng gender-swapped, the Occasus are just your generic evil bad guys who technically have the most technological prowess militaristically as they're the only ones using a vehicle and the "Safehouse" that is the Ark with its convenient "Prophecy of the orbs or whatever" to unlock a giant mystical door that breaks anyways. Blah blah go be a hero and stuff.

Florans went from being a sentient and savage plant that used their natural camo to their advantage to merely wanting to kill things but won't cuz now they're friendly and weeb-material.
Novakids are the same as they've been.
Hylotl had an aggressive hate against Florans and.... They still do but their race apparently forgives the Florans who committed genocide on the Hylotl Homeworlds.
Apex are still the same.
Avians used to be absolute fanatics in their religion and had an intro to this. Now there's less lore on their fanaticism.
Glitch are also the same.
Humans, bloody hell our radars that we shoved onto an ocean planet weren't enough to detect a darned space rock coming to stab Earth with its tentacles. So humans just all died from a rock despite all this space technology and other sciency stuff with Erchius not actually being volatile at all. Right, that's convenient.

Missions are also pretty poor. "ASSAULT THE MINIKNOG FACILITY!!one1!!one!!!111!" and all you get is a couple of Miniknog soldiers and a mansion with its very own Big Ape System. The Glitch mission atleast made the Occasus competent by sending in their soldiers in groups and bringing in varieties.

Maybe I'm just spoiled by morally grey stories like Borderlands. I mean, you can't have a perfect "world".

 

The lore died when they drowned and stuffed the Koala with it too, then put it back as a clean washed cuddly toy backpack on the giraffe R. I. P. Koloreala

 

I wasn't cobvinced the froubded were fighting to wrest control from Avos, so much as fighting to get out. kinda like an exodus of those that feared the increased demand of sacrifices to Kluex.

I do think that Starbound, could have gone with a darker theme, but it is not something that that cannot be fixed. None of the factions' conflicts were ever truly dealt with past our need to find the respective artifact in the storyline and could be seen as a whirlwind tour of Starbound's societies, with further missions to expand on how far the destruction of earth and the protectorate goes.

 

I quite liked starbounds lore from before. we still never learned what was going on between greenfinger thornwing big ape and [REDACTED], or who that last person even was. im still curious as to what purpose the agran playing in anything. and over all the universe feels extremely... stale. nothing I do anywhere has any impact on anything or anyone. defeating big ape in the apex mission changes nothing in the universe/galaxy/whatever it is.

I feel like starbound would have been a much better game if they went with a smaller galaxy, rather than an infinite one. still huge, and still with tons of random nothing in it. but it could allow for more defined things. like being specifically in apex rebel space, planets will have rebel bases hidden on them, like in some cave. or possibly being in miniknog space you will randomly come across one of their ships, and based on how you have interacted with them in the past they could be either hostile or friendly.

 

I agree but it doesn't have to have small galaxy, it could be solved by creating some sort of "bubble" where all interesting things are and the rest could be random things we have now. Something like inhabited space bubble in Elite Dangerous.

Back to the topic. In my eyes racial roles are fairly good but there aren't enough info on them, they feel underdeveloped. I wish there would be an option to visit racial homeworlds or "main planets" for making contact, getting respect of race(quests, trading etc.) and getting special equipment available only to friends of that race(available for every player race). Big cities. They could be made also like Outpost is done(no "physical" planet, just teleport location). Access should be needed first. Doing enough missions for NPCs in settlements for example Hylotl underwater city would unlock teleport coordinates for Hylotl planet. Problems like Hylotl vs Florian war could be easily solved, no NPC settlements(don't count dungeons) are hostile so doing quests for Florians as a Hylotl would make Hylotl player "useful so not worth to kill" in Florian homeworld. There could be entire homeworlds for factions, Miniknog planet, Apex Rebel planet, Avos, Grounded planet, maybe even Avian Pirate planet etc. etc.
Whoa, I need to stop. Too many ideas.

And second thing... while I think that racial roles are interesting and worth to expand, I think that entire "protectorate role" and "main story" are garbage. Racial lore is underdeveloped and it's a sad thing.

 

Id like to see homeworlds some time in the future

 

For starters in terms of flaws with the current lore, we know barely ANYTHING about the Protectorate. It doesn't feel like the PC has been studying to be a Protector for years, but as if he suddenly woke up in a Protectorate academy bedroom. We barely know it's purpose, but nothing about it's function (Is is something like the UN, a NGO, the Earth government, or what?), it's structure (What is exactly a Grand Protector? Is it an authoritative title, or just a ceremonial one?), or even why it's practically absent (As others have said, it feels like everyone went to Earth to watch some kids get their graduation).
And that is before mentioning the outright weird decisions made in the lore. For example, the statement that the great mayority of humanity lived on Earth. While it's living standards would have clearly improved because of the extraction of off-Earth resources and technological and social advancement, but the largest off-Earth human settlement being only 19-people big? It just feels like a bad excuse for making the Ruin more important, unless, of course, they wanted to imply that the game takes place shortly after humanity discovered FTL spaceflight (Which has almost no evidence apart from that).
Talking about which, the Ruin itself is also a massive plot hole: Why could one of the aforementioned kids destroy it, but a God-like being could only seal it away? The latter could, if needed, adopt a shape and size similar to the PC's and do the same, but it feels like it wanted to spare the Ruin in spite of there being literally NO REASON to spare it.

 

I very much like the sometimes subtle and sometimes not so subtle lore. I voted yes because I would love there to be more; however this is not to say that the lore is not great or bad.

I think more diverse groups within species and more about the protectorate would be quite nice.

 

The funniest is the fact that Protectorate is supposed to protect the peace in the universe but it's the one who made releasing the ruin possible in the first place. Yeah, the fact that Nox just could release the ruin without anything and player has to collect gems from all races to seal it is laughable. But the real reason of ruin's release is Esther who found about the ruin, told about it to Nox, failed to raise her and let Nox's hate grow and did nothing to stop her when Nox escaped to find a way to release the ruin. Of course Nox is first to blame but Esther could avoid it.

 

Let's not forget that the protectorate didn't do anything about the Apex Civil War, the Floran-Hylotl diplomatic issues and the whole Occasus terrorist cult. Yeah sure, we help people, let's just not do anything about it while we sit here on Earth and pretend everything is absolutely fine. Not like hundreds of Apex are dying in a war or anything. Not like there's a terrorist group out to kill anyone who doesn't believe in their religion. Hmmm nah. Also cut down on building budgets, those railings are expensive we can't afford some metal. A couple deaths isn't anything.

Esther's terrible parenting too. Right so you're supposed to take care of a child and she ended up turning to a terrorist group because you couldn't do as much as send her to a school or something.

The Protectorate is laughably bad. Concept and ingame wise.