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What Exactly Is The USCM?

Discussion in 'Starbound Discussion' started by VoltageHero, Dec 8, 2013.

  1. Gunslinger

    Gunslinger Existential Complex

    STCW262 likes this.
  2. Garatgh Deloi

    Garatgh Deloi Master Astronaut


    They are the human military in starbound, the name is a easter egg refearing to the Alien franchise.

    It stands for United Systems Colonial Marines. (the Alien origin being United States Colonial Marines unless im mistaken).
     
  3. Solar Ace

    Solar Ace Scruffy Nerf-Herder

    Now that it the game is officially out, I will give the widely accepted theories to this question. USCM stands for United Systems Colonial Marines and it is a reference to the USCM from Aliens. It is military force consisting primarily of humans as it was made by humans hundreds of years before the Protectorate. After the Protectorate was formed 500 years ago, the USCM possibly disbanded. The USCM could also have turned into the Protectorate. The falling out of the USCM explains the lack of Human dungeons. Seeing as the game is still constantly being updated it wouldn't be surprising if Penal Colonys are going to be removed as well. As far as we know, the USCM no longer exists. Human campsites can be found around the universe however as well as houses. Most of the humans on earth died due to the the Ruin and the remaining were scattered through the universe like dust in the wind. (Sorry that my interpretation is so long and for possibly going off track)
     
  4. Jackie2581

    Jackie2581 Title Not Found

    There is an easy way to keep the USCM in Starbound along with the protectorate. by design the protectorate is a peace keeping agency so they would be considered a police force while on the other hand the USCM is a military dedicated to the worst of the worst. if the protectorate had existed for 500 years then it is impossible that the majority of humanity is on earth due to overpopulation depletion of natural resources, and earth would look more like a scorched planet then the pristine skyscrapers. yes the destruction of earth would still be devastating to humanity, but it would not be enough to cause a major dent in human population
     
  5. Solar Ace

    Solar Ace Scruffy Nerf-Herder

    According to the codex "Off-Earth Human Census", there are only 15.8 million humans living somewhere other than Earth. This is signififcantly less than Earth's population at this time of the game. Your AI tells you that you are the 714 billionth person to discover fire, so the game can't take place too far into the future if you consider that other races (apex, avian, Floran, etc.) have discovered fire as well and that there populations have been growing. My guess for what year the game takes place would be approximately 3000 A.D. Since it is predicted that the human population growth will begin to plateau within the next 50-100 years and it would be a safe assumption that the human population on earth would be between 15 and 20 billion at this time with 1-5 billion aliens. By this point, humans would have gotten there shit together and prevented a "scorched planet" scenario by using space travel to acquire resources from other planets and therefore not having to take any more from Earth and end up preserving the planet and even allowing it to thrive which is why it appears so lush in the intro. Most of Earth's sentient population was human and most humans lived Earth meaning that after the destruction of our world the species became endangered. With a such small colonies on other planets the human race could not evacuate to a safe location cause only a small percentage to survive. Seeing as the USCM is no longer a part of the Starbound story, the Terrene Protectorate was the last hope for humans. With so few protectors (approximately 50,000) spread so thinly across the entire galaxy, the ability to create adequate colonies would be impossible.
    P.S. Sorry that this is so long.
    P.S.S. Sorry that I derailed a bit.
     
    Last edited: Jan 4, 2017
  6. Jackie2581

    Jackie2581 Title Not Found

    It still logically doesn't make any sense on how that few people would not be living on earth especially since in the old human description it said that the usage of spacecraft right now was considered a myth due to how old the event was.
     
  7. Solar Ace

    Solar Ace Scruffy Nerf-Herder

    Space travel is rare and it's not like humans really need to go anywhere since Earth is being sustained by the imported resources.
     
  8. LilyV3

    LilyV3 Master Astronaut

    it feels like the new lore just had to somewhat cover the cut offs chucklefish did thats why it is so weird and nonsense.
     
  9. Jackie2581

    Jackie2581 Title Not Found

    Even still, the USCM will always be my favorite, and frankly I like the group more than the protectorate (which come to think of it, why haven't we seen any protectorate established colonies)? and to think that before my hiatus from starbound I was complaining about the lack of a human village.
     
  10. SamuelXproductions

    SamuelXproductions Scruffy Nerf-Herder

    The USCM are back in the new update, the mech quest has an abandoned ship and the USCM sign description got updated, so they at least existed and were not completely throw out of the lore.
     
  11. PyreStarite

    PyreStarite Space Kumquat

    But the USCM kinda got thrown into chaos being replaced by the Protectorate and the destruction of Earth. Members of the USCM either resorting to Piracy or joining the Cult, from what I hear. They are just a relic now, and I don't understand why there is a ruined Apex research facility but not a ruined USCM dungeon, either riddled with pirates or monsters.
     
  12. M_Sipher

    M_Sipher Oxygen Tank

    Probably time concerns. The old USCM bunkers were... really kinda poor dungeons and definitely needed replacing. But with the USCM in a severely reduced lore-role, "fixing" that dungeon would have been waaaaay down on the list of priorities, so instead it gets dropped for the 1.0 version. The prisons would be enough for "now".

    NOW-now, sure, adding more ruined USCM facilities back in the game would be feasible, since they're back in the lore a bit more and we could use more dungeon types anyway.
     
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  13. Sharp(JQ)

    Sharp(JQ) Ketchup Robot

    I do not like "toothless" humans from 1.0 .
     
  14. Jerln

    Jerln Oxygen Tank

    What do you mean? Humans were never depicted as having teeth, there isn't any situation where they're depicted in such detail.
     
  15. Sharp(JQ)

    Sharp(JQ) Ketchup Robot

    They dont have a army.
     
  16. rubyoctopus

    rubyoctopus Scruffy Nerf-Herder

    The U.S.C.M, or United Space Corporate Military, was a human military faction, which died before the destruction of Earth.

    The USCM is a faction that exists to expand humanity's influence across the galaxy. They are on bad terms with the Terrene Protectorate, which denounces them as 'rogue footnote in Earth's history', but they continued.
    However, they struggled with keeping their ranks in line, and mutinies aboard their freighters caused their private prisons to run out of supplies. Thus, the inmates and staff took over the prisons completely, forming independent bases.
    Upon meeting the Miniknog, they began working together in the field of bioweaponry. However, the Miniknog deemed the USCM troublesome, and destroyed it by creating the Parasprites.
    Now, derelict USCM ships can be found drifting through space, and their private prisons sit uncontrolled.

    Sourced from:
    USCM Annual Report
    Internal Report

    (1.3 codexes)
     
  17. Guest0241525

    Guest0241525 Guest

    USCM was brought back to Starbound canon with 1.3 alright. It actually felt pretty disheartening to learn about what happened to them.

    It's Universal Space Corporate Military, by the way.
     
  18. Sharp(JQ)

    Sharp(JQ) Ketchup Robot

    I am really dont like the new lore.
     
  19. Guest0241525

    Guest0241525 Guest

  20. Jackie2581

    Jackie2581 Title Not Found

    It seems as if Chucklefish had decided to almost completely trash the plot it was building on since the earlier builds up until Cheerful Giraffe, and scrambled to put together something that resembled a story. I don't know if this was an attempt to make it more "kid friendly" or was the result of one of the writers leaving the team. but still the whole thing feels rushed. I know that early access games change as work is done on them, but to have the lore completely rewritten so close to the official release seems unplanned. I just wish Starbound has taken a different course story wise
     
    Sharp(JQ) likes this.

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