Starbound 1.0 Human Plot [SPOILERS]

You are on Earth and it is your graduation day to join the Terrain Protectors, the peace organisation of the galaxy, as you have been training for quite some time. On your graduation day you sleep in accidentally, and SAIL wakes you up to get ready, in your dorm, base thing. You get your graduation outfit, and hurry to the graduation. On the way, many other people on the way that introduce you to the backstory, as you rush through clean, futuristic London, in the overlook over Terra Bridge, another famous monument. You pass the 5 paintings of the leaders of the organization, as well as a Matter Manipulator on a pedastool, the tool of Terrain Protectors. On graduation, each grad recieves their own matter mannipulator, kinda like a diploma. One of the grand protectors gives a speech: "My fellow protectees. Today we come together to witness the Protectorate grow. For over 500 years we have stood proudly here on Earth, drawing together races of all kinds in the name of peace. Our task: to protect our fellow beings; to support, house, and educate tose that seek our aid, and to foster accord between those that aspire to it. Today, in the name of peace, we welcome our newest compatriots, and present them with our greates tool... The MATTER MANIPULATOR..." She is intorupted by a loud crash. "Huh, what was that?" she asks, as she puts on a face of fear. The room vibrates furiosly. A flash of light sweeps the room. The roof and walls break. Large striped tentacles course through the walss, grabbing on to people in the bleachers, and throw them around like ragdolls. "Wha- What the..." the announcers qustions. Moments later, another tentacle wraps around here, constricting her like a snake. "You..." the woman tells you. "Take the manipulater. Youve graduated. Take it and run to safety!" She drops it, as she is pulled under the stage by the tentacle. You grab it, rushing past the bleachers, strewn with dead bodies of other students. You run to the roof, over the view of tentacles wrapping around buildings,
crushing them. You escape to a ship, as SAIL hacks into it, making it operational. Your journey begins.

 

Might want to add a spoiler tag to that. ^

And for the sake of on-topic-ness, I actually like the story plot.

 

MOON SIZE SPOILERS!!!

 

IMO, the updated SB lore doesn't really hold up against the old lore, which actually contained some dark humor and some actual wit.

I had no problem with the lore back in the Koala days, and would definitely choose it over the cookie cutter plot and increasingly linear approach to the gameplay that CF is taking.

 

I miss the racial backgrounds for beginning Chars.
I mean... the main plot seems to be okay. Its a bit "Mass Effekt" mixed with Startreks "Starfleet" and Fantasy Elements. But is there a chance we get the old backgrounds back?

Avian Atheist flees from Kluex priests.
Apex restistence member flees from Miniknog
etc.

Its a cool story, but i never felt like we have one great Unity in Space in Starbound. Rather that i thought all races do their own things. The old codexes told me for exemple that human marines never had great contact to Apex or Avians and so on.
I hope chuckle fish change it one more time, and give every race their own special intromission.

 

Yeah, the Ruin always felt like it was a primarily Human problem, but going through the old codexes showed that Greenfinger was fully aware of it as well and appears to have been genetically engineering the Florans to one day be able to combat it. The Avians, Hylotl, Apex, Glitch, and Novakid all have their own problems or trials to deal with, which honestly made things more interesting.

Though on the flip side, I do realize that a campaign for each race would likely take the current release date and kick it clear into next year, so eh. If nothing else, intrepid modders might be able to do that.

 

this is -the- plot, not the human plot. story wise, there's no difference between the races.

and honestly though, what lore? the cobbled-together codex flair for the races? all the major characters are still there, with tons of new ones, and it's not like they removed anything. they just connected the dots into a cohesive story that's reflected by what happens in game, instead of just some random lore bits you got from books. the tentacle monster was always supposed to be the big bad- the only thing they "added" was the creator character and the story NPCs- which, I should add, you can completely ignore and just play the game as a sandbox.

unless you were literally just referring to the codexes, in which case... eesh. they were pretty fuckin' sloppy, dude.

to me, the option of a lore-rich, actually CONNECTED story that we get to actually, you know, experience, supplemented with all the -new- codex shit they've come up with is way better than the weird snippets of lore that you never interacted with or saw. i really don't get the hate here. you want to be an avian rebel fleeing kluex? well shit, thats why you joined the protectorate. Apex rebel, big ape? Exact same scenario. What they've done by introducing a bland, across the board backstory is completely open up our character's purposes and motivations instead of chaining us to a vague (and in just about every case, lame as fuck) background we then had to reconcile with whatever story WE wanted to tell.

i'm honestly curious as to what you mean by "linear" approach to gameplay. the nightly build is anything but. hell, you don't even have to mine for core fragments anymore, that's what the mines are for. if anything, compared to "unlock sector ___, build suit, grind ore", the inclusion of tenants, ship crews, the outpost equipment/quests, branching progression paths (questing, grinding), the current starbound blows any Koala build out of the water in regards to diversity and open-endedness.

the only thing that sucks is that stupid ship pet.

 

i dont know... its not that i want a exclusive starbound campain for every Race. just a "unic" first (tutorial) mission. This "protector" setup is just to "brightlight" for my taste.
In the old version Avian-, Apex- and Glitch- SCs were outcasts. Florans looking for a great hunt and Hyotl were on a mission of peace and harmony. And Nova Kids... well... what Nova Kids do, just what they feel like, cause they didnt remember why and how...
The first codexpages told you what you are and were you come from.

Humans seems to be the at the end of the foodchain ---> Just clever enough to build spaceships and first colonys with no or little contact to the other races and just lost their precious homeworld from a giant tentacle Monster.

Florans hunt Hylotl, Hylotl hate Florans. Avians were half half spiritual fanatics and atheists, Apex fight a civilwar (more or less), and Glitch hunted their own kind if they "thought" differently.

All that thaught you the first codex entrys. That was a cool background for every race. And a little grimdark in 5 of 7 choices.

Now you start a game as member of a greater Space-Society which has its base ("surprise") on Earth with most greatest members (the pictures show it) are human.
In the old codex entries the human race were not that special and wise or great. And the other races diddnt join or build a greater society. They had their own problems. Or fight a war against other races (Floren <-> Hylotl)

It feels now like a "MassEffekt" (Part One) where Humans are the owner of the citadell right from start and all other Races are their underlings AND you can choose a Race for Shepard but fight with special attention for earth. <------ It sounds like crap and doesnt make sense.

Why not start with a extra start mission for each race? I ask again.

just a few ideas:

- Avian: The ruin drives the Kluex priests to madness (more then before) you escape with a clue what happend
- Hylotl: The ruin attacks a holy temple (or something like that) and you escape (1 to 1 the starting mission now, but in a Hylotl shape)
- Floran: one of the fleeing spaceships from earth crashed with a part of the ruin into your homeworld. You hunt down the tentacle monsters and start your great stabing with the crashed ship.
- Human: Change the protectors to just marines and everything is fine.
....

It should not be long or complicated. But this ideas carry the "old Lore" of each startcharakter more as the "protector" tutorial mission.

 

As someone else has noted, this isn't the Human plot this is just the plot for everyone, there's no difference if you're floran or apex or whatever- everything is the same with what appears to be no differences in dialogue.

This is an attempt to streamline lore into one big storyline rather than the background information of before through a rewrite.
It's a change where as you used to just be a part of a big universe where things are/have happened and everyone else is doing their thing it's now more compressed. You are the main character, you are the last of star fleet (Because they were all on earth..? That's a gripe i have with that piece of plot) it's you who's saving the universe, it's you who's the chosen one, it's you who has to unify the species and it's you who has to do the legwork for everything so things get done. Instead of a being in a living universe you're instead on stage going through the motions asked of you.

The change isn't inherently bad as a direction for the game, but a lot of the charm from before is lost in a pretty jarring way through the current implementation and i definitely wouldn't mind if it was overhauled again in future

 

Ew, please no. Never again. I hated backstory forced on the player like that.

 

I never said that. i just don´t like this new merged beginning.

Same here.

And what is it exactly now? Its just that.

 

Well, the thing with the old lore is that while it was disconnected from the normal gameplay to a degree, and a fair few come under the category of apocalyptic logs that you loot from bases, it still provided the framework of a story that could actually be interacted with. I honestly and fully expected the Chucklefish devs to take all that lore, sort out the kinks and contradictory entries (see The Glitch Who Would Be King as an example) and maybe take those, the species introduction, and form full 'campaigns' as it were from the combined lore.

Like, each race would eventually be pushed toward a conclusion, but could get additional insight from the stuff and codecs they swipe. Maybe major NPC characters to help explain things and the like. ...Sorta like the old premise of being able to recruit people for your ship. I was under the impression that major characters were supposed to join your crew, for example, and not just be glorified decorations on the Ark.

I guess my major complaint about the Protectorate at this point is how it's too well-established. It's a complete 180* in terms of how humans were handled in the past, what with them learning about the other races by necessity when the Ruin came knocking, and Humanity being in a spacefaring fledgling state who's trying to get its act together after a literally apocalyptic disaster. Suddenly, we went from humans being scared, paranoid, and slowly learning enough about their environment to come out of their shells and take their place among the stars, to a Protectorate which has every indication of being involved with every race across the galaxy to some degree, and absolutely no shortage of human space travel.

Like, when I see the Protectorate, I imagine that humanity's gotten FTL tech already and didn't have anywhere near the kinds of trouble they did in the past versions. No race seems to be inherently against them or what they stand for, though that might just be because I haven't seen any of the new codex entries yet beyond what the devs gave us.

It feels like it actually cheapens the Ruin's impact somewhat, because while it DOES destroy Earth same as in the past versions, there's no indication of humanity being pushed particularly hard. With the Protectorate's ability to interfere anywhere they can, it stands to reason that there are probably other human-controlled planets/colonies and by extension makes the Ruin event less of a cataclysmic force of change and more of a particularly nasty disaster (or dare I say a mere setback,) like a super volcano or a massive earthquake.

 

Signing up into Protectorate doesn't entirely dictate my character's beliefs and their past back among their own kind, the previous starting lore did.

 

Agreeing with a lot of the sentiment(even if not tone) about lore in that I actually prefer the new stuff...

.... but if they hadn't included that ship pet, then that's one of their pre-order campaign funding goal promises they would have not kept
(literally, that's why the ship pets are there. They were a stretch goal of the original very first pre-order campaign from before the game was even on Steam Early-Access).

 

just my thinking.

Are you sure?

For Example: Apex. ---> As loyal citzien you are not allowed to think what you want and should be under controll of the miniknog. No spacetraveling at free will, no joining of dangerous organisiations...
Now nobody says that you are a rebell, but you are member of a "open-minded" society (the Protectorate). In fact you are a rebell.
Same for glitch, same for Avian. The new start dictates you even more: You have found a path for your new life. In the old story this part was open. Its more railroading and sucks.

Floran: Old background you were a hunter, just searching for a good stab and maybe friends. Now the story told you: you have to be a Protector and you have friends and lost all of them pretty fast... <--- the new story dictates more then the old.

Nova Kids: Could make sense. Maybe you joint after a really funny night and have a hangover about this time xD
Hylotl: Only race were it realy make sense besides the "arrogant" behavior sometimes ---> Hylotl have to be the "founder-race" of the Protectorate. sounds like their idea.
Human: just as Aroxys said 180* from before. if i could ignore this fact, it is okay.

All races had lost their special flair with the new starting mission. It doesnt make even sense that you own your race-specific ship anymore. Not in a organisation with unisex uniforms and so on ^^
How lucky... the only shuttle you could find is from your very own race... (really?)

Remember: I said the story as whole is cool. I wish only for a diffrent start for every race.

 

What's sad is it's too late to do anything about this at this point, all you can do is hope to play legacy versions at some point in the future.

 

I'm not down with the whole memory loss aspect people keep applying to novakids.

I just don't see it that way. They might be careless and forget about things in the past because the past wouldn't have much bearing on the present because of the way they live.

But I really doubt they wake up every day having forgotten most of the previous day. Or week or whatever. That idea just doesn't sit well with me.

Just thinking out loud. Back to the discussion I think they did every race the same way due to time constraints. Hopefully in the future either the devs or a modder will make each races starting mission unique to the race.

But it's not something I'm overly concerned about.

 

Please tell me it wasn't spelled Terrain.

 

It's not that they forget stuff as if they were goldfish.

But "word of god"(i.e.: official cannon) officially states that they never keep any record of events or such, be them written or otherwise.
It's not as if they completely would be unable to recall if they actually tried to.

It's that they... just don't care.

Something that's in the "past" will be so because it more or less simply stopped being interesting and they've thus already moved on to the next project.

Edit: literally, from the concept written for them by the creator who won the "design a race" contest:

"Although the Novakid's short attention span has lead to many believing them to forget what they're doing moments after the fact, Bietol has stated the following:

• "I see this notion here and there where Novakid appear to have brains like crows & goldfish.

• I really intended for them to be more like Leonardo da Vincis in the sense that:
  • he was a brilliant guy, but he often didn't finish things because his interest in the project would wane after time not because he saw something shiny, or forgot what he was doing he also had too many things that he wanted to do
• and then, unlike da Vinci, the Novakid:
  • live in the now, with little care for learning from or preserving the past
    • imagine if da Vinci didn't keep a journal
    • imagine also if da Vinci didn't like to read books (maybe he really didn't, I don't know)
  • are non perfectionists; they can settle for "good enough""
    
    • "Here's an example of how technology propagates for them in light of these traits:
      • A novakid sees a floran space ship in action and is inspired
      • He sets out to make on his own, trying to reverse engineer what he can from what he saw in his memory
      • this is not actually something you reverse engineer from sight, but somehow he manages a very crude makeshift space ship
      • he's satisfied; he's spent enough time on this machine and it does what he wants it to
      • his kid sees this work and thinks "cool, me too!"
      • he doesn't ask his dad how he did it, though. Even if he did, his dad would not want to explain it - it's like asking "How do I program a Starbound?" And even if his dad did explain, Junior would not be able to sit through more than an hour of it. He'd rather be working with his hands than listening to theory.
      • instead, he does the same thing his dad did: trying to reverse engineer it
      • however, since his dad's space ship is much simpler and readily accessible, Junior is able to complete his version much sooner
      • before Junior becomes bored/satisfied and stops, he throws in a couple improvements of his own
      • Junior's kid also sees this work and thinks "cool, me too!"
      • the next generation of space ship comes out even more refined and improved. However, this space ship takes a little longer to develop since NovaShip II is a little more complex to understand than NovaShip I, there are fewer improvements this time around, since it took longer to "catch up," and the engineer wants to do other things this continues until the time spent trying to understand the old tech does not leave enough time to introduce new tech, and the general complexity of the ship reaches a standstill"[5] "
        
        This last part alone, couple with the confirmation that they don't seem to build settlement, is sort of what make me feel that in the end the "true" living space of novakids are their ships and that their biggest "social unit" might thus be at the family level. Families that basically go their own way as soon as the kids have developed the means to do so.