How is it that the player is the ONLY survivor?

Yes, it makes sense for a lot of people to die really quick and have no chance, but out of the billions of people on earth, only US? One, single, person. And in the cut-scene, why is it that people STARTED leaving but their ships spontaneously blew up? If it is because their ship got damaged from the ruin before it lifted off why didn't ours get damaged? Chances are some people had better ships than our tiny little ones too. And when you were getting your matter manipulator why did everyone AROUND you die just not you? It would make sense if some of them simply got knocked out for a bit, than ran off to at least try and leave. And how was the ruin not detected? This must be hundreds of years into the future, and somehow we didn't notice a giant tentacled mass? If it was growing under the Earth's crust, our seismic scanners and stuff could probably detect it. Of course WE survive, it wouldn't be much of a game without that, but it only makes sense for others to make it too! I can't help but feel like there is a MASSIVE plot hole here!

 

Because--*trips and falls into plot hole*

Strictly speaking, we don't know that we're the only survivor, just that we're the only surviving Protector. There could be other survivors who we never run into. But yeah, Starbound pays remarkably little attention to the destruction of Earth considering it's probably the biggest event in human history...

 

Aren't the small human settlements we find survivors? Or were they already there before the Ruin destroyed earth?

 

I suppose the galaxy is insanely big, but it still seems logical you could find a couple of NPCs here and there that when you talk to them they are all like: "Hey, I was there too." Or "I still have nightmares from the tentacled mass we somehow idiotically missed that seemed to have been growing under the Earth's crust for a really long time."
Chances are, most people on Earth aren't protectorate, but it would make sense if it wasn't just civilians that made it too. To point out, we probably have better ships than ones for civilians, ours need to be fast to get around and stop the baddies, while theirs are mostly cargo and transport. Of course, this is just a general idea, but it is realistic.
@EnigmaTardigrade Possibly a mixture, although chances are many humans were there in the first place, since it wouldn't make sense for them to only colonize Earth. They have been wanting to go into the stars (Metaphorically speaking) for so long, so why would they suddenly decide to just stay on Earth?

 

Because Chucklefish says so. I find it ridiculous, but supposedly there are no major settlements beyond Earth. Just scattered families of up to five.

 

Well, the ruin could've always been there. So our seismic scanners never noticed anything unusual.

 

The Ruin probably emerged from some kind of portal and immediately broke the planet apart, meaning there was nothing to detect before the first tremors in the opening scenes. Ships blowing up might be due to previous damage or attack from the Ruin's spawn, either way no one ever claimed ours is the only ship that makes it. Many humans did in fact survive and ended up in the refugee camp site towns.

As for the Protectorate, besides luck/plot armour there is also the possibility all other survivors were hunted down by Occassus and this might have even begun on Earth including sabotage of escaping spaceships. They would obviously focus on veterans and ships carrying multiple passengers which increases our relative chance of survival, and by the time we rejoin the galactic community Chosen Hero Syndrome has kicked in and we simply plough through our would-be-assassins. If any other Protectors did survive they would have gone into hiding for a bit, they could still be helping out here and blend in with the civilians as we pass through.

 

@Photoloss Huh, that actually makes a lot of sense. Now of course, the nooby player is too much of boss to care about such things as 'hiding.' We just go ahead and insert bullets, blades, and bombs into our villainous enemies! (Among other things) For Narnia! I mean the Protectorate!

 

The bit about the ships exploding is explained in the Starbound Chronicles: It's just what using the FTL drive in the atmosphere causes an explosion, but the ship isn't actually destroyed.

 

Wish there is an after the storyline quest where you could visit Sol System, with the task of recovering something important about the Protectorate that is floating in space now. You would get to see remnants of Terra during the quest. Probably can be done as an instanced system similar to how go to Ruin functions.

 

Yeah, wasn't that hinted already? That the ruin's 'prison' was becoming unstable. So it was most likely a rip in it's dimension but not big enough for the Ruin to escape. Wouldn't it be awesome though, IF THE DEVS COVERED UP THIS PLOT HOLE!

 

Honestly, it doesn't seem like it would be too hard to cover up said plot hole, just a couple explanations would do. Perhaps the Ruin's prison was becoming unstable which unleashed a small part of it into the most populated place in the galaxy (Honestly, focusing on that wouldn't actually be too illogical in my opinion); Maybe, the Ruin's prison has forever and unknowingly been under the Earth's crust for so long, and it burst through the whole world as it escaped. There is plenty of other possibilities too!

 

Actually, the first one was pretty much stated, or at least heavily implied. A better question is why people sometimes seem to fail to read cutscene text.

 

But there are a lot of camps of survivors scattered through the galaxy. The humans there live in tents and campers and have little to nothing besides the clothes on their bodies. They talk alot about how they cannot believe Earth being gone. They are clearly just refugees not long time settlers. To me they play an important role in SB lore.

 

@STCW262 Well, I have read the cutscene text, many times. I've read it so many time I got a mod to skip the cutscene text, thus I no longer remember the cutscene text.

 

Im pretty sure there are some human npcs on the outpost that mention just escaping earth's destruction as well. Probably not protectorate tho

 

I WANT THAT TOO

 

I think it is safe to presume a few things: One is that many veteran Protectors probably laid down there lives to let Protectorate Cadets, civilians, and perhaps other members of the
government to escape. Another is that many ships were probably badly damaged during the escape, whether it was from the crew rushing to launch, attacks from the Ruin's Spawn, or something else, with them either crashing while attempting to launch/jump, miscalculate and jump into a celestial body, or being to badly damaged to survive the strain of FTL Speeds.

That being said, its reasonable to say that there were ships in orbit of Earth at the time that were able to escape relatively unharmed. Not to mention that it is stupid to put your entire army on one planet, even if you are in a time of peace and are hosting a massive graduation for the next generation of Protectors, at most i would say 3/4 of the Protectorate would be on earth at this time. the rest are most likely scatter throughout the galaxy on small outposts or on peace-keeping missions, meaning that there is probably a good amount protectors left around the galaxy.

 

Considering that the Ruin was essentially an outside context problem that they had no way of even predicting (After all, how do you even predict that what is most likely just an ancient myth of a destroyer of life is going to reveal itself as real by destroying your homeworld?), and that Earth isn't stated to be at war with anyone, it makes perfectly good sense for them to have most of their armed forces in their homeworld (After all, humanity in Starbound didn't systematically colonize worlds, and instead used other worlds as a means to obtain resources to improve life on Earth itself). Think of it as essentially the equivalent of a country having all of their army within their territory because they consider it's main use being to defend their homeland, or because there's no inmediate need to project power at the time.

 

Would've been at least better to save uhh few members like "who lives and who dies" situations for starting crew > w>