player identity

[Periculi]

No, no no.. no leaving.

I think I see you making a lot of a little.

Perhaps you are not being clear.

How do you manage to get a backstory out of listening at a doorway in the hallway? It just doesn't float for me, sorry. The first time I encountered it I thought I was reading an error in a mission I had missed... definitely did not even think it as backstory material.

Or are you refering to the opening lines that scroll so nicely? I don't see much backstory there, just the bit of definition of a little possible minor compulsion to get to the core.

[Betelgeuse]

it is the opening lines. You have a compulsion to go to the core from Domina.

We didn't have this problem before because we had no opening lines.

[Periculi]

But there needs to some reason for you to blast your way through what ought to be your neighborhood and take on various and alien superpowers.

I just can't feel what you are saying. I don't get the same feeling of limitation by that. It just doesn't register with me very strongly, I suppose

[Betelgeuse]

But there needs to some reason for you to blast your way through what ought to be your neighborhood and take on various and alien superpowers.

I just can't feel what you are saying. I don't get the same feeling of limitation by that. It just doesn't register with me very strongly, I suppose

Personally I like the idea of doing that in game some how. Like at first you are given no quest and once you reach St. K you get the message to go to the core. Why going to St. K can be supplied by the player due to it is reasonable to think that many ships would go between St. K and Starton.

[Atarlost]

It's not hard to come up with a reason to take on the Iocrym. They're blocking humanity's access to the greater galaxy. There's two reasons right there: Manifest Destiny and Resentment. Take your pick. We don't need some spirit guide to get us through the blocade, we just need normal human expansionist tendencies.

[F50]

As for Domina: the game never says explicitly that you are being "compelled". In fact, I imagine that to the character, it feels like he/she is acting of his own free-will. "I want to leave my life behind and be an adventurer. No one is making me." You are free to believe that.

I see. Interesting. In that case I have a hard time imagining how to make Domina's influence in the matter visible to the player, but I will be eagerly awaiting the next installment of backstory.

[digdug]

I would like to do 2 citations:

Arthur C. Clarke 3rd law: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

Shermer's Last Law : "Any sufficiently advanced extraterrestrial intelligence is indistinguishable from God."

Thus making Domina an Omega Point alien race. (well, this is how I think of it)

[Betelgeuse]

I would like to do 2 citations:

Arthur C. Clarke 3rd law: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

Shermer's Last Law : "Any sufficiently advanced extraterrestrial intelligence is indistinguishable from God."

Thus making Domina an Omega Point alien race. (well, this is how I think of it)

With all due respect to those two that is just not true. What makes science science is that anyone can do it. Just saying it is magic that only Domina has access to makes Domina play by different rules than everyone else.

There is also an issue where it has nothing to due with what powers Domina has anymore Domina is presented as an object of worship.

but these are minor things that don't effect the game too much

[digdug]

What makes science science is that anyone can do it.

It's true what you said, but there is a limit to what can be done considering the actual knowledge of science.

Just an example to explain my point of view: my laptop in medioeval times: there is no way a that a medioeval scientist can understand the technology of my laptop, he simply has not enough science knowledge and instruments to analyze it. Even if I can let it disassemble and look at every component for 20 years, it won't be enough. It's just magic. (and I would risk to be burned as heretic or something)

If the Domina entity, race or whatever mastered energy and matter instant teleport in the whole galaxy, it shouldn't be surprising that she can comunicate with the player or bestow force fields or summon dark energy blasts to protect her chosen knight (the player)

But , again, this is just my point of view, and I'm open to any discussion.

[Betelgeuse]

medieval scientist? There was no such thing as a medieval scientist. Science as we know it wasn't invented yet.
While there are many questions we don't know that doesn't mean we can not measure what is happening and see how we have to adjust our thoughts. Plus there are many things we are very sure on in terms of what can't be done. (not 100% but science doesn't work that way)

such as
ftl information transfer
a massive object going light speed

while I know this is a game and should have some black boxes but making black boxes of stuff we already have constraints for is silly (the dark energy and dark matter stuff in game)

But even if we couldn't find out in a reasonable about of time that means nothing. Magic implies supernatural causes and I am not afraid of saying I don't know without resorting to magic.

(sorry got on a rant)

[Atarlost]

Shermer is a fool. God by defenition transcends physical laws. Shermer relies on the converse of Clarke's law. The converse of Clarke's law is false. Even if sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic it does not follow that magic (or divine intervention) is indistinguishable from technology. Real technology, no matter how advanced, can not surmount the fundamental laws of the universe. We do not know all of those laws, but we know some of them and anything that circumvents them cannot be of mere technological origin.

I can look at Jesus's first miracle and say "Turning water into wine involves the ex-nihilo creation of complex organic molecules, or the conversion by nuclear fusion of hydrogen and oxygen into other elements to be assembled into complex organic molecules. The former violates the first law of thermodynamics. The latter would produce large amounts of waste heat, which we do not see so violates the first law in the other direction. To create from an external power source would, according to the second law of thermodynamics produce waste heat, which is not evident in the description of this miracle and could not be ignored if it was present. This is not technology, no matter how advanced, but magic, or equivalently divine intervention"

By this means I can distinguish God from an advanced alien intelligence. Aliens, no matter how advanced, must follow the fundamental laws of the universe, some of which we already know. God need not.

[Clear Air Turbulence]

I know this is an old thread, but I missed out on this conversation as the last time I played before recently was before the story elements were added.

As a person with a family (wife and three kids), I find the compulsion element very spooky and emotionally powerful. What kind of compulsion could drive me to leave behind my family? It's not something impossible to imagine (e.g. I would gladly do it if I felt it would protect them from harm), but it does make your quest to reach the core more meaningful.

To those who don't like the backstory because it interferes with your own backstory for the character - get over it. This is NOT a story-less sandbox game, the artist behind the scenes has a story and if you play the game, you are taking a role in the story. If you can't stand that, you can ignore it, just as you can pretend that you are not a space marine in Doom and instead a fairy with a magic wand that shoots happy bullets that make the demons fall asleep and have happy dreams, it's a subversion of the creator's intent but there's nothing stopping you.

The backstory does not restrict roleplaying or background in any significant way. All it says is that your character has a family of some sort (it does not say that the woman is your wife or the child is your own) and that Domina has somehow compelled you to leave it behind. More details may be added by George later, but as it is, it can be interpreted in many ways. Maybe your character doesn't really care much for their family, so the compulsion doesn't have to be strong, or maybe it's tearing your character apart on the inside. Maybe your character has put the past behind them in the face of the compulsion, or maybe your character hopes that, once they have reached the core, Domina will let them go back home. Maybe the compulsion is so strongly seated that you are physically incapable of returning home, or maybe it's a choice - maybe your character has returned home before, but the desire to reach the core interfered with their life so much that they decided it was better for all involved to leave.

You can still play the game in any way you want, the only thing you can't do is return home, and that's the story. If you liked, you could even blow up your home station so you were no longer tempted (a true religious fanatic might do that).

As to the nature of Domina and magic/technology - there is nothing in the compulsion created by Domina that is scientifically impossible. You have to remember that the Iocrym have been around for over 250 million years, and it looks like they are probably a lesser power than Domina. With hundreds of millions of years to develop, quite possibly at a much faster rate of thought than humans are capable of (i.e. 1 year may be like a million for a human to a transcended being), manipulating the brains of biological beings from afar is a simple task.

[Aury]

You can still play the game in any way you want, the only thing you can't do is return home, and that's the story. If you liked, you could even blow up your home station so you were no longer tempted (a true religious fanatic might do that).

As to the nature of Domina and magic/technology - there is nothing in the compulsion created by Domina that is scientifically impossible. You have to remember that the Iocrym have been around for over 250 million years, and it looks like they are probably a lesser power than Domina. With hundreds of millions of years to develop, quite possibly at a much faster rate of thought than humans are capable of (i.e. 1 year may be like a million for a human to a transcended being), manipulating the brains of biological beings from afar is a simple task.

But if you blew up the station, then you'd get arrested the moment you step onto a CW station... Darn police.

Judging by the fact your little ship w/ an antimatter cannon (developed by other humans) will totally destroy what is supposedly one of the more powerful if not most powerful classes of ships in the Iocrym fleet, I'd say they advance rather slowly.

[Clear Air Turbulence]

Judging by the fact your little ship w/ an antimatter cannon (developed by other humans) will totally destroy what is supposedly one of the more powerful if not most powerful classes of ships in the Iocrym fleet, I'd say they advance rather slowly.

Do we know that it's supposed to be one of their most powerful ships, or that it's intention is to completely prevent humans from escaping? It seems unlikely. I think it's pretty clear that it is simply a test to make sure that humans don't get out before they are advanced enough. There's the field of particles surrounding the gate that may be intended to filter out small probes or space-adapted animals from coming through (or to mark anything that comes through in some way so it can't sneak past the Iocrym - we don't know). Then there's the Iocrym ship, which can easily overwhelm less advanced ships, but not ones with certain kinds of weaponry and shielding.

I think the Iocrym ship is a simple drone left behind to let the Iocrym know that a sufficiently advanced and motivated human has made it that far. Even if they do intend to maintain their quarantine, we have no proof that the quarantine line is drawn at that point - it may be many systems further on, and the space between Heretic and the quarantine boundary may be filled with humans who were able to get past the Iocrym ship.

[Bobby]

being a "command ship" suggests to me that the ship is supposed to get most of it's defense from ships under it's command like an aircraft carrier or csc, to organize and command a battlefleet, and not to engage enemies directly, which explains the long range disintegrator and the repellers, the other pilgrims just blew up the rest of the fleet before you got there, or it was abandoned with the expectation that the puny humans would never get past the quantumspheres.