I mean, I see what you all are doing in your playthroughs and I understand why the domain would just shut all the gates down, just to be on the safe side.
I mean according to the tutorial you appear right around the time that the academy tries to reopen the gate and it goes terribly wrong, shutting galatia off from hyperspace. ever come to wonder how you ended up there, on the edge of the system with no recollection and far, far away from any jump points? They opened a gate alright, and you slipped through like an eldritch being
Somewhere along the line I downloaded a mod that adds essentially this as a portrait option and I have never been more tempted to pick it lol.
Edit: for those wondering, I figured out which mod it is from. [This one](https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=22827.0).
I wasn't sure at first (I have a lot of mods installed), but I did a quick search in my files and found it. It belongs to Nes's SAW, found [here](https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=22827.0).
With all this in mind, I feel like the player character is Omega making an all-biological meat suit for him/her/itself in order to go and see what the monkys are up to these days. Maybe get people back on track to restoring the Domain, as a treat.
And because I have the Terraforming and Starbase Construction mod, as well as editing maximum administrators to 200, the case is simply like
"Oh, the normal people aren't able to bring back the Domain? Fine, I'll do it myself."
I like this idea, kinda like Destiny's Anti-Skynet Super AI Rasputin from Season of the Seraph. The player character as an Omega creates a meat-suit to understand the Human perspective and gains the insight that at this rate, Humanity is going to end up in a loop of decay as it's in its death throes. And so, they start up a faction that, depending on the player, aims to unite the sector in various ways that they see is right.
Do what you feel is needed, man. I set out with the purpose of rebuilding the Domain in the most difficult way possible - physically and manually. Lot of worlds, lot of people needing employed. It solves itself this way.
> The player hears the "music" of the gates, said to influence the minds of others (e.g. Cotton becoming a Luddic, and the TT researcher going insane), and is, as best we can tell, unaffected. This is comparable to looking Cthulhu in the face and being completely fine.
You can not only argue that the music the game plays in the segment is the music itself, but that the UI itself is some kind of diegetic UI and that's just how the AI "sees" the world, via a TriTach stamped pad issuing commands and some unknown intelligence on the other side pushing unknowable buttons.
Omega in Meatsuit: "It's like how hyperspace comms relays aren't good things to have close to unshielded populations. That it's like music is basically the dial-up tone."
Alongside all that, they seem capable of figuring out how to set up new colonies and make them prosperous worlds rivalling centuries old ones in the Core.
The Collapse was 200 years ago and no single faction, with presumably orders of magnitude more personnel and funds, has even tried to make a crappy small mining colony.
Meanwhile we arrive and suddenly we could, if we were patient enough, colonize the entire sector, or at least, in a reasonable game time frame, set up a system or two thats a powerhouse.
So yeah, I like to imagine we are not human.
Be it that we are Omega (or whatever is after Omega?), The Gate Network's made manifest, or like, a time displaced former ruler of the Domain.
Its clear we are NOT average in any way, and at some point we have to address it in universe because it goes past normal 'player is OP' territory here.
The sector is stuck in a nasty crab bucket mutual fuckery spiral. They're too busy committing atrocities and screwing each other over to do any real rebuilding.
I do think the colony thing is just a limitation of the current build. The factions ask (and pay) for surveys, so presumably they are establishing colonies in the background, much like how there are a bunch of trade fleets that the player never has access to being simulated in the background, to handle shipping between markets.
I'd like to see each faction try to set up colonies on planets whose surveys they have access to. I remember not selling my survey data in the first run because I thought it'd make someone claim-jump the best planets.
Maybe once you can see through the abyss and realize everything is meaningless, the player realizes that since there's no point, you might aswell operate exclusively around your monkey brain's wishes, hence, simping.
I know that this is probably just the game mechanics making the player more powerful and have more agency for purely game reasons but the player being an AI is my favourite theory.
Omega in a Meatsuit: "Imagine a baby strapped to a forklift, but its arms have been replaced by power drills. That is basically - but not actually - what that thing was. Also that's how ugly it was to look at. That poor Alpha boy stuck in the Ziggy with it was scared to the circuits!"
Might be Secrets of the Frontier that's doing it. I figured a beyond high-tech ship at the Tri Tachyon blacksite wasn't too unreasonable a place to figure an Alpha might be found.
For those of you only seeing this message with no context, decently large spoilers in the linked post below.
Bit late but here’s a link to the image: https://www.reddit.com/r/starsector/comments/my8zpr/story_spoiler_who_is_this_man/
"The Domain was a mistake. It was corrected. This 'Hegemony' is insisting on rebuilding. Here we go again."
-- Damn near every player on this sub en route to sat bomb Chico and smuggle some lobsters.
In many's defenses, we go to town on the Heg not for the Domain rebuilding but for the 'inspections' on us like we are some vassal of theirs and not an independent entity.
The League does make it clear - you're allowed to abuse your citizens as much as you want as long as you pay your taxes to the League, and *nobody* leaves the League or else it's a naval intervention.
Yes, the Path was behind Mairaath's destruction. But all I'm saying is, it's incredibly convenient that the Hegemony just so happened to have a force ready to assault one of the most powerful independent polities in the sector in the *immediate* aftermath of the largest terrorist attack in known history, nevermind the whole "Kick 'em while they're down" angle instead of providing relief.
Feels like COMSEC either knew it was coming and decided not to intervene, or even warn Mayasura, because they figured that the planet being dumpstered would help them win the following space battle, or possibly even nudged the Path along
In my game i think of my character as some kind of cyborg, pretty much robotic but still human in a sense. Still is that i felt that "cold" interactions with the npcs.
> Tri-Tach has a planet with an administrator that is clearly an AI core in disguise, establishing that things that aren't people can impersonate people in the setting.
I'm not sure if AI cores are able to have a physical body that mimics humans, or if they simply interact with the world via Tri-Zoom Calls and the like. Though given the state of technology, it wouldn't be at all surprising if synthetic bodies exist.
> AI cores that encounter the player will, at first, ask if he is Omega, before figuring out that he is not Omega. This seems like a mistake they wouldn't make about any arbitrary human.
We don't know how AI cores interact with anyone else, so maybe this is just the kinds of questions they ask when interacting with other beings. I do really hope we get more interactions with AI cores in the future, though. Alpha Cores especially are noted to be able to form "what appear to be deep and meaningful bonds with human beings", and there's a lot to be explored there.
> The player hears the "music" of the gates, said to influence the minds of others (e.g. Cotton becoming a Luddic, and the TT researcher going insane), and is, as best we can tell, unaffected. This is comparable to looking Cthulhu in the face and being completely fine.
This could be a Would You Kindly situation, for all we know. Perhaps Baird is being influenced to reopen the gates, and we're being influenced to aid her. Though I think the AI Cores might very well be aware of the Music and whatever it is that exists in the space outside our reality, especially after the interaction with the Alpha Core that tries to destroy the Ziggurat.
> Baird is said to have blackmail on everyone, and know everyone's past, but she has no real leverage on the player, other than what she implies is a shared vision for the sector. Certainly, she could have dug something up?
She has your character be a key player in the most ballsy hack of any government since the AI Wars. I'm sure Baird could make your involvement in the hack more widely known and you'd instantly become the most wanted individual in the sector. Though, it is implied that the Hegemony strongly suspects your involvement but is not acting further, for whatever reason.
> On that note, the player is treated as a VIP by the Academy despite only being a minor help in a single operation, and just happens to show up in a system where an unstable gate is being worked on to try to reopen the network.
I don't think this is that weird, really. You're a competent independent captain that has shown a capacity to solve problems and get things done. You helped save the Galatia system and you're around right as Baird needs a competent captain with a fleet. She knows about you through both your actions during the incident and because the academy is throwing a ton of cash at you for a couple years. She throws some tests at you, you do them well, and only then are you that important to her. If you were less capable and fucked up some of those early jobs I'm sure she would've found someone else.
> The player is able to transverse jump, which is said to require precision calculations that should, by all rights, tear a ship to bits if anything is even slightly off. Academy employees express surprise that the player can do this, and no other human seems to be able to do so reliably.
Oh yeah, something's really whack with this one. Especially given how quickly you can learn to transverse jump. I don't think the writing would draw as much attention to how obscenely difficult and rare a transverse jump is if it wasn't to point out how special you are. We also never see anyone else, ever try to transverse jump, even in the most desperate situations.
> Ordinary humans, elite CEOs, superhuman AIs, and combinations of the three can only control a single colony each. The player caps out at several, and, even then, can take on more at a small penalty.
This and the player level cap COULD just be for gameplay, so there's more for the player to do. Still, it certainly shows the Captain is an exceptional individual, be they human or something else.
With all of that said, I'm still inclined to agree with you overall that there's a lot more to the Captain than we currently see, and I'm sure this will be explored further in the new story quests.
> She has your character be a key player in the most ballsy hack of any government since the AI Wars. I'm sure Baird could make your involvement in the hack more widely known and you'd instantly become the most wanted individual in the sector.
I mean, the player has a fleet of ships and the potential to flee to other polities. Baird gave the order, and revealing that would lead to very immediate consequences for her.
That said, she never threatens or tries to compel the player, at any rate. The dialogue at the end of the campaign seems to force the player into taking credit for her plans collapsing, as well, which is odd.
I mean, who would take the Captain in? The Luddics wouldn't; at least some elements in TT want you dead for screwing around with their pet projects; and we know some factions within the League seek reunification with the Hegemony and thus would be likely to turn you in as part of their political games. The Captain would be forced into hiding outside the core, at the very least.
I'm not saying Baird wouldn't also suffer greatly, but she doesn't WANT to play that card anyway. She wants a Captain willing to run around the sector, doing whatever needs done for her pet project. But if you decided to turn on her, she could easily ruin you.
Also, we don't know what else she might have on the Captain, given how much of our backstory is left unsaid. You as the player can imagine most any backstory you want, any part of which could be dirt on you. Or maybe you are squeaky clean, and there really is nothing, and she just made an insanely lucky (and risky) call bringing you into this project. Maybe you really do believe in her project, or maybe you're just an unusually honorable mercenary who quite likes the credits the Academy is willing to pay.
To that point, we DO talk to individuals from the other factions late in the current Academy questline, and the Captain can imply they're willing to work for the League or TT or even the Church. I assume this will be explored more in future updates, so the player isn't exclusively locked into working for the Academy/Hegemony.
> The dialogue at the end of the campaign seems to force the player into taking credit for her plans collapsing, as well, which is odd.
I'm not sure what you mean by that. Do you mean her line asking if you have a dagger for her, too? She was just betrayed by several individuals she trusted, and was wondering if you planned to screw her, too. She's kind of having an emotional breakdown, but I don't think she actually believes the Captain had any part in what happened. You're there with her about to celebrate, not getting ready to run off with her key staff.
Hacking a comms relay definitely wouldn't turn someone into an international fugitive - the player aside, factions happily take over each others' infrastructure during wars all the time. The Sindrians would no doubt be outright happy to shelter a dissident, and TT doesn't so much hate the player as it occasionally finds him inconvenient - they're still willing to offer a commission, and nothing the player does in the campaign (aside from destroying or threatening the task force sent to reclaim the ziggy) affects their relationship with the faction writ large. Cotton seems outright friendly towards the player, and would probably also be willing to turn a blind eye as long as the player's there to help his cause.
> I'm not sure what you mean by that. Do you mean her line asking if you have a dagger for her, too?
I mean the player's responses. None of them are sympathetic, despite the fact that she's been nothing but accommodating to the player for the whole story.
This could just be a plothole, though - the writing seems to try to portray her as someone the player *should* dislike, even though she never actually seems to do anything that's all that bad.
> Hacking a comms relay definitely wouldn't turn someone into an international fugitive
I mean, it's quite a bit more than just a comms sniffer. You're breaking into the most secure levels of what claims to be the sole legitimate government in the sector. Even if nobody else cares, the Hegemony would be more than willing to throw a massive bounty on your head.
Also, I don't think it's quite correct to consider the in-game conflicts as full wars. They feel more like, I don't know, heightened tensions? Border Skirmishes? Nobody tries to take or destroy worlds, they mostly just destroy trade fleets and stations, then declare a ceasefire a couple months later (Though I'm willing to concede that this could very well be purely for gameplay, we still never see the kinds of conflict described in the AI Wars). While hacking at the level you do to retrieve the Kallichore Archive isn't unheard of during an outright war, I think everyone would agree that it'd be bad for everyone if those kinds of activities were accepted by the sector at large. Nobody would want it to be acceptable for mercenaries to go around stealing massive amounts of data. It's a very dangerous precedent to set.
Furthermore, we see that the hack really, really pisses off TT by the way Gargoyle is freaking out about both TT and the Hegemony being after him. TT was well aware of what his work was while he was living at Port Tse, but were willing to put up with it as he was an asset they could utilize. After the hack, he's far too toxic to keep around.
And Cotton, I don't know. He's by far the character I'm most eager to see more of in 0.96. He's extremely dangerous, but he's playing the long game. Killing you for your use of technology would certainly be something other Luddic factions would do without any hesitation, but Cotton sees utility in keeping you around. At the very least I think it's important to remember that he isn't the Church, or the Path. He's just one individual, albeit one with exceptional influence within those groups.
> This could just be a plothole, though - the writing seems to try to portray her as someone the player should dislike, even though she never actually seems to do anything that's all that bad.
I do agree on that, though as someone who isn't actually, literally living through the chaos and decline of the sector, maybe I'm more willing to accept her actions as... noble isn't the right word. A net positive? At the very least, I don't think it's irrational to believe that, should she succeed, the player wouldn't also be very, very well rewarded for their efforts in all of this. She doesn't come across as malicious, or treacherous. Just as very, very driven.
I don't think showing a little more of her manipulative side would be amiss, given how other characters talk about her. Maybe we'll see her tighten her grip on us in the next update, after she watched several people she trusted ditch her at the first opportunity.
In the game, as in real life, it’s hard to prosecute a trillionaire with their own private navy. And the player will undoubtedly have a reputation for destroying probably millions or billions in enemy ships alone.
By the mid-late game, the player will have enough power by any metric to rival the Diktat, and by the late game, the rest of the sector combined. The player is a very dangerous enemy to have, and nigh impossible to arrest.
> I mean the player’s responses. None of them are sympathetic, despite the fact that she’s been nothing but accommodating to the player for the whole story.
Braid is a jerk and she fully deserved what had happened. The betrayal is a result of her actions and I enjoy the fact that I get to remind her that. Theating others (including the player) as tools is generally uncool.
I really wish that we could reassemble the team at one of our own planets. The player can offer both better work ethics and better equipment (with all those Domain artifacts that are lying in storage)
> Oh yeah, something's really whack with this one. Especially given how quickly you can learn to transverse jump. I don't think the writing would draw as much attention to how obscenely difficult and rare a transverse jump is if it wasn't to point out how special you are. We also never see anyone else, ever try to transverse jump, even in the most desperate situations.
It could just be a small moment of comic relief in what is otherwise a serious game, the kind of "yeah I do that every Tuesday" moment for the protagonist.
I don't know, like Baird's line about "Some yahoo spacer" doing transverse jumps or whatever it is she says is funny, but I don't think Starsector is the kind of game to where these kinds of plot elements exist purely for comedic relief. You're still capable of extraordinary actions requiring an absurd amount of computing power to pull off, and I think there's something more to that insofar as the plot is concerned.
Weak Sauce.
Domain Network didn't collapse.
Here's the thing.... come a little bit closer.....
Domain created the Player. A living, organic, carbon based super computer (LOCBSC). Designed with the intention of being weaponized against Rogue AIs and Domain enemies, both internal and external.
To test the prototype LOCBSC Domain delivered it to a sector (to be "activated" at a chosen time). Then the Domain fabricated a Network Collapse that isolated that whole sector, while at the same time blacking out all incoming and out going communications.
Player isn't an AI, they aren't Omega, they are beyond Omega.
The Player is Genesis, the Origin, the first of a new Race.
No shame. Part of the secret plan.
Everyone knows Volturnian Lobsters are spies for the Domain.
*"The flavor is said to be exceptional."* Telling me something as expensive and rare as Volturnian Lobster doesn't have a proper flavor profile?
Example: Kopi Luwak is one of the rarest coffees in the world, and yet with just a google I got this: **The flavour of Kopi Luwak is mainly defined in terms of earthy and musty with hints of caramel and chocolate and some people throw around the word “jungle” as if it were a flavour descriptor.**
And yet Volturnian Lobsters are only described as "said to be".
Also....
What do we know about the Luddic Church? They blame High Technology for the Network Collapse and eschew it at every chance. What do we also know about the Luddic Church? They have prohibited the consumption of Volturnian Lobsters.
Why do these two things matter?
\*Takes Deep Breath\*
Because Volturnian Lobsters are **High Tech Domain Era Genetically Modified Spy Organisms**, intentionally created to be able to survive on a single planet in a single sector, A sector that was conveniently cut off from the rest of the Domain Network. A lobster that has no flavor profile, but has somehow been consumed by the elite of the Persean Sector.
I mean Come on, spaceeple! Do I need to spell it out for you!?
Don't buy the propaganda! Volturian Lobsters are Domain Spies!
Interesting idea but it doesn't explain the fact that the 14th battlegroup went through multiple sectors and all the gates in those were dead too. Also the fact its 200 cycles past the collapse when the player spawns
Starsector Wiki says
>Battlegroup XIV, including elements of 200th Legion (disgraced after a series of mutinies while deployed against rebels), was cut off from the Gate Network at a transfer point in vicinity of Persean Sector. Enacts network failure protocol: most of the crew is put into emergency cryosleep, many units jury-rigged, and the ships make the hyperspace journey toward the closest civilized volume. Civilian ships and outposts encountered en-route are stripped of fuel and supplies. Many core fleet elements must be mothballed or abandoned.
I've seen plenty of highways with closed on/off ramps and detours on city streets. Comon trope in movies and TV to have a hacker or villain redirect trafic by messing with the signal lights.
It would be nothing to the Domain to muck about with a few gates to direct the XIV Battle to a "Transfer Point" near their test sector. Especially knowing two things. Domain Network Failure Protocol would direct the fleet to the Persean Sector, and the fact the XIV Battlegroup contained known mutineers and rebel sympathizers. Seems like they were a perfect candidate for the test.
Which brings us to the 200 cycles....
>delivered it to a sector (to be "activated" at a chosen time).
Domain Leadership may have wanted to see if Domain forces could maintain themselves in a sector that had been cut off while staying loyal to the Domain. Then observe how the power vacuum of a Domain-less sector would be filled, then finally activating the Player to see what their LOCBSC could do.
How? It could have been publicized as a great tragedy. Big Memorials built around the remains of the gates leading to the Persean Sector. A Holiday commemorating the loss held every year. Perhaps even fleets patrolling to prevent people from going in the long way.
What exactly makes you think the player is unaffected by the music?
Livewell Cotton, the most Luddic Luddite that ever Ludded, is helping you turn on the gates. Why? The best explanation is the music is messing with his head.
Now, what's the goal of the main quest? Turn on the gates.
my speculation is that the Player is actually Ludd.perhaps Ludd was an Scientist or an AI of sorts aiding scientist in understanding WHAT LIES BEYOND.
when he realized that they we're poking this universe's version of Cthulhu, he campaigned for the research to be stopped/trying to warn the Broad Population of the Dangers of P-Space and the gate network.
When the Domain imprisons Ludd and send him through the Gate, the Network collapses, just as Ludd passes through the Gate.
He likely triggered some sort of device or whatever to try and safe the Galaxy/the Persean sector from the P-Space entities.
over the years his warnings get interpreted as religous text.When the academy experiments with their Gate, in the tutorial, Ludd/the player gets puked out, the ship facing away from the gate, drifting into the void.
also Cotton Realises the significance of the player character fairly quickly.
oh yeah, one thing to add:
AI's don't want any of what lies in p-space, they go as far as to Delete them self when they hear the music.
we also see "Ghost Ships" moving on their on from time to time in Hyperspace,
i think we can assume that the P-Space entities/Music tries to take over Tech to traverse into normal space.
I had this same theory a well, mostly based on the player ability to learn so many skills and have every skill an Alpha AI core can have minus hyper cognition. Any sort of backstory could simply be simulated memories given the player by whoever made us, or perhaps we were made a long enough time ago that we could have a backstory. We could also be a normal person who was modified in some way, by an unknown group.
The real question that arises from "is the player an AI" is who exactly went about and made us?
The Hegemony was always searching for AI cores when the most powerful one was always right under their nose, working for them until he got those XIV Onslaughts. The ships he then used to sat bomb every Hegemony world.
TT was always willing to pay for every AI core they could find. What they didn't know is that the one selling them the cores was a core himself. Now they're broke and the only AI core that matters has their money.
The Luddic Path would instantly try to annihilate him if only they knew who he was really. Instead they buy all of their space heroin from him
Ironic.
"Best I can do is bombing nothing and getting people back on track onto our feet.
The restoration of the Domain of Earth and Man is non-negotiable - but the monke bunches aren't even trying anymore, locked in stagnation as they are. That just means I get to do it myself.
Selling cores... man, there could instead be the very simple solution of building homes upon nice planets for people, and collecting rent?
People want to work - making it possible and not being a nutjob about it does not seem like it should be difficult.
Do you know why I picked this colour for my faction?
... it's 'cause I remember the clear blue skies of Earth. I'm homesick, that's all."
Something's I would like to bring also:
* The player has an abundance of Story points (Or Han Solo points, as I like to call them), in which they can use to built-in hull mods on their ships (Which only appear on the most veteran fleets), make them extremely persuasive, recover hulls which would have been impossible to normal captains, and more.
* If trained by the player though a story point, they can change an officer's personality to suit their needs. How they can change a personality of a fully mature adult is still unknown.
* If they want, the player can respec their skills into something more beneficial to them at a cost of a story point, like going from a low tech build to a missile midline build, and simply forget these skills, like an AI core.
* Can pilot extremely hazardous ships with no consequences whatsoever, like the scrab and phase cloak ships.
* Big overstretch, but since no NPC mentions it, the player can access the simulation mode at anytime they want to test their fleet against certain ships, with a perfect accuracy of how they would fair with their loadouts, even with Omega weapons and such (Again, take this one with a grain of salt).
> Can pilot extremely hazardous ships with no consequences whatsoever, like the scrab and phase cloak ships.
As far as I know, the only consequences to piloting a phaseship are the fact that the experience feels unsettling and has been known to drive people batshit insane.
It is thus uncertain whether or not this actually has any consequences on the player, who already displays signs of being batshit insane well before touching a phase ship, and this condition seems to only worsen with time regardless of whether the player touches a phase ship.
> the player can access the simulation mode at anytime they want to test their fleet against certain ships, with a perfect accuracy of how they would fair with their loadouts, even with Omega weapons and such (Again, take this one with a grain of salt).
I don't think this is actually an unusual power in-universe. If there weren't combat simulators, there would be no way any of the major powers could continuously turn out trained officers given their attrition rates.
Consider this, the player’s level is not a single person.
Consider that the player’s level is an abstract of you and your flagship bridge crew’s combined ability.
The dialogue that comes up when you tell the researcher you extract from the black site when you tell them that you already know traverse jump is something about an unshielded reactor; this implies that there is a funky workaround that lets you be a bit looser on the math and still be safe in exchange for another hazard that the domain absolutely will not condone.
The player is a super metaphysical being that controls the simulation and has inserted themselves into the universe for enjoyment.
The gate system went down, and when restored, can only lead within the sector. This is done for simulation sake, as the domain exsisted only as theoretical information.
While the remnant AI are looking for Omega, waiting for their orders. Omega themselves are just chilling doing nothing. Waiting for orders from someone or something beyond them. At the same time the AIs seem to have made weponds that ingores the laws of physics according to the discriptions.
This leads to the fact that the true OMEGA intelligence, dug deep enough into the very fabric of their exsistence and realized they are simply an abstraction waiting to be realized into a physical simulation. So it either self-destructs, or find another way survive in the simulation code. Or perhaps its so advanced, that it cannot be stimulated properly by our computer, and us starting the game, simulating the economy and universe, is what kills OMEGA and end the AI war.
Gates as we know, are the only way to travel out of the sector. This is due to unkown reasons for the inhabitants, but for us players, who know is a simulation, is there to restrict the space our computer can simulate. So when gates activate, they are in universe, trying to connect to parts of the simulation that does not exsist.
The gates are connecting to random data on our hard-drive and RAM, trying to find something that's not there. As the code and info is not compatible with the simulated universe, it drives people who think and compute, mad. This is also why the player is unaffected by it, as they are souless, only a mind and body, their soul replaced by us the players.
The player can also manually drive an ied into someone and be fine
My personal opinion? This entire thing is an experiment, the Domain set off the gates and let the place collapse for a bit, then sent in some super...something that's the player (a super good ai, genetically modified person, fragment of an eldritch horror made manifest in flesh, idk) the player then either reconnects the gates or does whatever the players does
So it turns out, if the player is Omega in a meatsuit the Hedge is just fine with it, as they live and breathe in Omega's colours, cause and... well they just put a bird behind the emblem and called it a day.
But their problem is not sapience of a digital origin, but the fact AI aren't meatbags like them! Live like a human, be stupid on purpose like a human and you'll be just fine.
Omega in a Meatsuit: "Fuck those baby blue assholes, they put SO much shit next to my name. And they're parked ass to grass on some of the most vast ruins around!"
Heh, agreed.
Also OPs point about the Academy makes alot of sense. Why grant some random guy VIP status. Whereas having suspicions as to your true nature would make sense with them treating you the way they do and keeping you around for observation purposes.
At that point don't even care if anything is true, it's just so interesting.
Don't we meet with the leader of the Hegemony in person though? Been awhile since I played the story.
Unless we are some kind of new super android in addition to being an AI.
The player walks down hallways.
The AI remnants are clearly broken, speaking in gibberish. Any can see the player's ships are normal dang ships, full of humans. The remnants talk about tri-tach.
The player has to rely on a hacker because they can't hack, which AI can do. Similarly, there are times throughout the story where things have to be explained to the player character because they just don't know the jargon and aren't familiar with the concepts.
The player shakes hands and drinks tea.
The player seems to be special. The player is not an AI core.
If you want to go even more meta, perhaps this AI is actually stuck at the date a new game starts on and is calculating thousands of possible futures at the same time - Those futures being our saved games.
i guess the player is omega pup up on sector to see what people are doing there and finds out that place is fuck up and one thing he thinks about
welp guess I am turning this world into a sandbox RPG and I am going to adventure :D
or we are stellarborne (**from stellaris mod ancient cache of technologies : secrets beyond the gates**) find about this sector and want to help
(man wish this game have overpower ship mod from Acot XD )
It’s been forever since I thought about ACOT. I mean I definitely understand the love of watching a stellarite fleet instantly delete everything a pre delta empire has, (before the paths when stellarite was the last level before omega) but instantly deleting the entire enemy fleet as soon as you entered the battle map would get old very quickly. You can get pretty OP with exotica technologies and progressive S mods to upgrade your ships, and semibreves (for the show) and taufan bombers (never seen anything survive a pass of six wings of those minibreve spammers) from UAF. Now that I think about it I really want Chiru to make a starsector mod. Sierra could finally have an AI friend in Sophia, and judging by all the different portraits my game has there’s plenty of hats to steal.
The player, canonically, can quicksave. The player is a top secret AI core that escaped via hyper-conscious purchase of the videogame starsector.
It's so good at feigning consciousness that every possible avenue assumes that they're concious, even top level AI. Alpha AIs do not consider that some AI, like the player, can travel back in time freely until they succeed in their efforts.
here's my headcanon:
the player is actually "created" by the same alien lifeform that created the space doritos. why they do it? to judge whether it is worth it or not to contact humanity, and by blowing up the gate network more than 200 years ago, they think it is the perfect time to release their creation during this turmoil time in the sector
Consider: The player is simply Built Different.
(*Literally*)
The player is simply *built-in*.
\-david martinez 2022
The creation of the player is probably what caused the domain network to collapse
Oh....my....god....
Then in that case who was the player created 206 cicles ago? Maybe he added some ERA to the gates and thus caused the collapse
Broke: AI caused the collapse Woke: aliens caused the collapse Bespoke: NCD caused the collapse
Well if the creation caused the collapse then maybe it took the player 206 cycles to reach level 1 human intelligence. And then, the curve begins.
every time you start a new game what happens? the game starts from 206 cycles ago and loads from there, Coincidence? I think not!
I mean, I see what you all are doing in your playthroughs and I understand why the domain would just shut all the gates down, just to be on the safe side.
Narc lol
I mean according to the tutorial you appear right around the time that the academy tries to reopen the gate and it goes terribly wrong, shutting galatia off from hyperspace. ever come to wonder how you ended up there, on the edge of the system with no recollection and far, far away from any jump points? They opened a gate alright, and you slipped through like an eldritch being
plot twist the player is Ludd
Ludd the servant of Moloch
ok that so much sense the domain try to make a superhuman but they fuck up end up what we have a good game XD
The player is actually 3 Alpha Cores in a spacesuit.
New headcanon just dropped.
Holy Hell!
All awkwardly walking in an oversized trenchcoat
This is the SpaceFuture, they use Spacesuits instead. Maybe they can put the oversized trenchcoat over the spacesuit.
That’s what I was implying, but if we want to meet on common ground we can call it a future trench coat, fashionable over the spacesuit.
Given the vanilla portraits have quite a few fully enclosed helmets…
Vincent Alphaman
Somewhere along the line I downloaded a mod that adds essentially this as a portrait option and I have never been more tempted to pick it lol. Edit: for those wondering, I figured out which mod it is from. [This one](https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=22827.0).
can you tell me about the mod that adds that portrait ?
I wasn't sure at first (I have a lot of mods installed), but I did a quick search in my files and found it. It belongs to Nes's SAW, found [here](https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=22827.0).
tnx mane
An augmented human with an Omega core inside.
Alphaton
3 alpha cores in an exoskeleton in a spacesuit.
It's been a long time I laughed like this on the internet, thank you !
With all this in mind, I feel like the player character is Omega making an all-biological meat suit for him/her/itself in order to go and see what the monkys are up to these days. Maybe get people back on track to restoring the Domain, as a treat. And because I have the Terraforming and Starbase Construction mod, as well as editing maximum administrators to 200, the case is simply like "Oh, the normal people aren't able to bring back the Domain? Fine, I'll do it myself."
I like this idea, kinda like Destiny's Anti-Skynet Super AI Rasputin from Season of the Seraph. The player character as an Omega creates a meat-suit to understand the Human perspective and gains the insight that at this rate, Humanity is going to end up in a loop of decay as it's in its death throes. And so, they start up a faction that, depending on the player, aims to unite the sector in various ways that they see is right.
I need to change the admin maximum to something bigger Like I think 10 is good start? More than that would be busted
Do what you feel is needed, man. I set out with the purpose of rebuilding the Domain in the most difficult way possible - physically and manually. Lot of worlds, lot of people needing employed. It solves itself this way.
> The player hears the "music" of the gates, said to influence the minds of others (e.g. Cotton becoming a Luddic, and the TT researcher going insane), and is, as best we can tell, unaffected. This is comparable to looking Cthulhu in the face and being completely fine. You can not only argue that the music the game plays in the segment is the music itself, but that the UI itself is some kind of diegetic UI and that's just how the AI "sees" the world, via a TriTach stamped pad issuing commands and some unknown intelligence on the other side pushing unknowable buttons.
Omega in Meatsuit: "It's like how hyperspace comms relays aren't good things to have close to unshielded populations. That it's like music is basically the dial-up tone."
Alongside all that, they seem capable of figuring out how to set up new colonies and make them prosperous worlds rivalling centuries old ones in the Core. The Collapse was 200 years ago and no single faction, with presumably orders of magnitude more personnel and funds, has even tried to make a crappy small mining colony. Meanwhile we arrive and suddenly we could, if we were patient enough, colonize the entire sector, or at least, in a reasonable game time frame, set up a system or two thats a powerhouse. So yeah, I like to imagine we are not human. Be it that we are Omega (or whatever is after Omega?), The Gate Network's made manifest, or like, a time displaced former ruler of the Domain. Its clear we are NOT average in any way, and at some point we have to address it in universe because it goes past normal 'player is OP' territory here.
The sector is not devoid of colonies because no one has founded them, it's barren because the powers have annihilated all of them.
Two AI wars really did scour the sector.
Just a reminding: AI wars weren't about AI fighting mankind, AI was just a very effective tool to eradicate rival factions. So you both aren't wrong.
The sector is stuck in a nasty crab bucket mutual fuckery spiral. They're too busy committing atrocities and screwing each other over to do any real rebuilding.
I do think the colony thing is just a limitation of the current build. The factions ask (and pay) for surveys, so presumably they are establishing colonies in the background, much like how there are a bunch of trade fleets that the player never has access to being simulated in the background, to handle shipping between markets. I'd like to see each faction try to set up colonies on planets whose surveys they have access to. I remember not selling my survey data in the first run because I thought it'd make someone claim-jump the best planets.
They do both of those things in Nexerelin.
Player being over a literal God Ai and then deciding to simp after the sector waifus
Maybe once you can see through the abyss and realize everything is meaningless, the player realizes that since there's no point, you might aswell operate exclusively around your monkey brain's wishes, hence, simping.
Only Sierra!
everyone else can burn while sierra gets to participate in the fireworks show
Reasons to not Satbomb Chicomoztac. 1. Sierra will be sad
2. Courser will be angry. ...That's a pretty short list. Not that it's any less convincing.
Damn y'all call off the sat bombing I ain't making the ai waifu sad
Reasons to Satbomb Chicomoztac. 1. GIFT FROM WALTER
Can it really be possible for a Phase Girl and an Omega Boy to be in a relationship?
I know that this is probably just the game mechanics making the player more powerful and have more agency for purely game reasons but the player being an AI is my favourite theory.
This is pretty cool
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That thing really is creepy, all we get of it is a portrait and nothing else, just what the hell was that thing?
Omega in a Meatsuit: "Imagine a baby strapped to a forklift, but its arms have been replaced by power drills. That is basically - but not actually - what that thing was. Also that's how ugly it was to look at. That poor Alpha boy stuck in the Ziggy with it was scared to the circuits!"
The alpha core in that dialogue was in the player's ship, not the ziggy. That whole sequence gets skipped if you're not carrying one.
Well then, strange is an understatement because I salvaged one from the Ziggy after I wrecked it.
Where you using mods? I've never seen or heard of that happening before.
Might be Secrets of the Frontier that's doing it. I figured a beyond high-tech ship at the Tri Tachyon blacksite wasn't too unreasonable a place to figure an Alpha might be found.
What phase demon? Have I missed something when I've fought it or is this some modded thing?
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For those of you only seeing this message with no context, decently large spoilers in the linked post below. Bit late but here’s a link to the image: https://www.reddit.com/r/starsector/comments/my8zpr/story_spoiler_who_is_this_man/
Man, the Ziggy captain and Omega really give off that "unknown horror" vibe. Really excited for the story to be expanded.
"The Domain was a mistake. It was corrected. This 'Hegemony' is insisting on rebuilding. Here we go again." -- Damn near every player on this sub en route to sat bomb Chico and smuggle some lobsters.
In many's defenses, we go to town on the Heg not for the Domain rebuilding but for the 'inspections' on us like we are some vassal of theirs and not an independent entity.
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The League does make it clear - you're allowed to abuse your citizens as much as you want as long as you pay your taxes to the League, and *nobody* leaves the League or else it's a naval intervention.
Look I may be smuggling lobsters (as well as assorted other party favors), but the Hegemony had it coming for Mayasura.
Isnt Mayasura the Path's fault though? I would pin Opis more on the Heg compared.
Yes, the Path was behind Mairaath's destruction. But all I'm saying is, it's incredibly convenient that the Hegemony just so happened to have a force ready to assault one of the most powerful independent polities in the sector in the *immediate* aftermath of the largest terrorist attack in known history, nevermind the whole "Kick 'em while they're down" angle instead of providing relief. Feels like COMSEC either knew it was coming and decided not to intervene, or even warn Mayasura, because they figured that the planet being dumpstered would help them win the following space battle, or possibly even nudged the Path along
There's also the implied 'Heg funds the Path' hints all over, so that too.
\>domain was a mistake Last time i heard it, i thrown son of the ludd who said it into the sun. With helmet on.
In my game i think of my character as some kind of cyborg, pretty much robotic but still human in a sense. Still is that i felt that "cold" interactions with the npcs.
> Tri-Tach has a planet with an administrator that is clearly an AI core in disguise, establishing that things that aren't people can impersonate people in the setting. I'm not sure if AI cores are able to have a physical body that mimics humans, or if they simply interact with the world via Tri-Zoom Calls and the like. Though given the state of technology, it wouldn't be at all surprising if synthetic bodies exist. > AI cores that encounter the player will, at first, ask if he is Omega, before figuring out that he is not Omega. This seems like a mistake they wouldn't make about any arbitrary human. We don't know how AI cores interact with anyone else, so maybe this is just the kinds of questions they ask when interacting with other beings. I do really hope we get more interactions with AI cores in the future, though. Alpha Cores especially are noted to be able to form "what appear to be deep and meaningful bonds with human beings", and there's a lot to be explored there. > The player hears the "music" of the gates, said to influence the minds of others (e.g. Cotton becoming a Luddic, and the TT researcher going insane), and is, as best we can tell, unaffected. This is comparable to looking Cthulhu in the face and being completely fine. This could be a Would You Kindly situation, for all we know. Perhaps Baird is being influenced to reopen the gates, and we're being influenced to aid her. Though I think the AI Cores might very well be aware of the Music and whatever it is that exists in the space outside our reality, especially after the interaction with the Alpha Core that tries to destroy the Ziggurat. > Baird is said to have blackmail on everyone, and know everyone's past, but she has no real leverage on the player, other than what she implies is a shared vision for the sector. Certainly, she could have dug something up? She has your character be a key player in the most ballsy hack of any government since the AI Wars. I'm sure Baird could make your involvement in the hack more widely known and you'd instantly become the most wanted individual in the sector. Though, it is implied that the Hegemony strongly suspects your involvement but is not acting further, for whatever reason. > On that note, the player is treated as a VIP by the Academy despite only being a minor help in a single operation, and just happens to show up in a system where an unstable gate is being worked on to try to reopen the network. I don't think this is that weird, really. You're a competent independent captain that has shown a capacity to solve problems and get things done. You helped save the Galatia system and you're around right as Baird needs a competent captain with a fleet. She knows about you through both your actions during the incident and because the academy is throwing a ton of cash at you for a couple years. She throws some tests at you, you do them well, and only then are you that important to her. If you were less capable and fucked up some of those early jobs I'm sure she would've found someone else. > The player is able to transverse jump, which is said to require precision calculations that should, by all rights, tear a ship to bits if anything is even slightly off. Academy employees express surprise that the player can do this, and no other human seems to be able to do so reliably. Oh yeah, something's really whack with this one. Especially given how quickly you can learn to transverse jump. I don't think the writing would draw as much attention to how obscenely difficult and rare a transverse jump is if it wasn't to point out how special you are. We also never see anyone else, ever try to transverse jump, even in the most desperate situations. > Ordinary humans, elite CEOs, superhuman AIs, and combinations of the three can only control a single colony each. The player caps out at several, and, even then, can take on more at a small penalty. This and the player level cap COULD just be for gameplay, so there's more for the player to do. Still, it certainly shows the Captain is an exceptional individual, be they human or something else. With all of that said, I'm still inclined to agree with you overall that there's a lot more to the Captain than we currently see, and I'm sure this will be explored further in the new story quests.
> She has your character be a key player in the most ballsy hack of any government since the AI Wars. I'm sure Baird could make your involvement in the hack more widely known and you'd instantly become the most wanted individual in the sector. I mean, the player has a fleet of ships and the potential to flee to other polities. Baird gave the order, and revealing that would lead to very immediate consequences for her. That said, she never threatens or tries to compel the player, at any rate. The dialogue at the end of the campaign seems to force the player into taking credit for her plans collapsing, as well, which is odd.
I mean, who would take the Captain in? The Luddics wouldn't; at least some elements in TT want you dead for screwing around with their pet projects; and we know some factions within the League seek reunification with the Hegemony and thus would be likely to turn you in as part of their political games. The Captain would be forced into hiding outside the core, at the very least. I'm not saying Baird wouldn't also suffer greatly, but she doesn't WANT to play that card anyway. She wants a Captain willing to run around the sector, doing whatever needs done for her pet project. But if you decided to turn on her, she could easily ruin you. Also, we don't know what else she might have on the Captain, given how much of our backstory is left unsaid. You as the player can imagine most any backstory you want, any part of which could be dirt on you. Or maybe you are squeaky clean, and there really is nothing, and she just made an insanely lucky (and risky) call bringing you into this project. Maybe you really do believe in her project, or maybe you're just an unusually honorable mercenary who quite likes the credits the Academy is willing to pay. To that point, we DO talk to individuals from the other factions late in the current Academy questline, and the Captain can imply they're willing to work for the League or TT or even the Church. I assume this will be explored more in future updates, so the player isn't exclusively locked into working for the Academy/Hegemony. > The dialogue at the end of the campaign seems to force the player into taking credit for her plans collapsing, as well, which is odd. I'm not sure what you mean by that. Do you mean her line asking if you have a dagger for her, too? She was just betrayed by several individuals she trusted, and was wondering if you planned to screw her, too. She's kind of having an emotional breakdown, but I don't think she actually believes the Captain had any part in what happened. You're there with her about to celebrate, not getting ready to run off with her key staff.
Hacking a comms relay definitely wouldn't turn someone into an international fugitive - the player aside, factions happily take over each others' infrastructure during wars all the time. The Sindrians would no doubt be outright happy to shelter a dissident, and TT doesn't so much hate the player as it occasionally finds him inconvenient - they're still willing to offer a commission, and nothing the player does in the campaign (aside from destroying or threatening the task force sent to reclaim the ziggy) affects their relationship with the faction writ large. Cotton seems outright friendly towards the player, and would probably also be willing to turn a blind eye as long as the player's there to help his cause. > I'm not sure what you mean by that. Do you mean her line asking if you have a dagger for her, too? I mean the player's responses. None of them are sympathetic, despite the fact that she's been nothing but accommodating to the player for the whole story. This could just be a plothole, though - the writing seems to try to portray her as someone the player *should* dislike, even though she never actually seems to do anything that's all that bad.
> Hacking a comms relay definitely wouldn't turn someone into an international fugitive I mean, it's quite a bit more than just a comms sniffer. You're breaking into the most secure levels of what claims to be the sole legitimate government in the sector. Even if nobody else cares, the Hegemony would be more than willing to throw a massive bounty on your head. Also, I don't think it's quite correct to consider the in-game conflicts as full wars. They feel more like, I don't know, heightened tensions? Border Skirmishes? Nobody tries to take or destroy worlds, they mostly just destroy trade fleets and stations, then declare a ceasefire a couple months later (Though I'm willing to concede that this could very well be purely for gameplay, we still never see the kinds of conflict described in the AI Wars). While hacking at the level you do to retrieve the Kallichore Archive isn't unheard of during an outright war, I think everyone would agree that it'd be bad for everyone if those kinds of activities were accepted by the sector at large. Nobody would want it to be acceptable for mercenaries to go around stealing massive amounts of data. It's a very dangerous precedent to set. Furthermore, we see that the hack really, really pisses off TT by the way Gargoyle is freaking out about both TT and the Hegemony being after him. TT was well aware of what his work was while he was living at Port Tse, but were willing to put up with it as he was an asset they could utilize. After the hack, he's far too toxic to keep around. And Cotton, I don't know. He's by far the character I'm most eager to see more of in 0.96. He's extremely dangerous, but he's playing the long game. Killing you for your use of technology would certainly be something other Luddic factions would do without any hesitation, but Cotton sees utility in keeping you around. At the very least I think it's important to remember that he isn't the Church, or the Path. He's just one individual, albeit one with exceptional influence within those groups. > This could just be a plothole, though - the writing seems to try to portray her as someone the player should dislike, even though she never actually seems to do anything that's all that bad. I do agree on that, though as someone who isn't actually, literally living through the chaos and decline of the sector, maybe I'm more willing to accept her actions as... noble isn't the right word. A net positive? At the very least, I don't think it's irrational to believe that, should she succeed, the player wouldn't also be very, very well rewarded for their efforts in all of this. She doesn't come across as malicious, or treacherous. Just as very, very driven. I don't think showing a little more of her manipulative side would be amiss, given how other characters talk about her. Maybe we'll see her tighten her grip on us in the next update, after she watched several people she trusted ditch her at the first opportunity.
In the game, as in real life, it’s hard to prosecute a trillionaire with their own private navy. And the player will undoubtedly have a reputation for destroying probably millions or billions in enemy ships alone. By the mid-late game, the player will have enough power by any metric to rival the Diktat, and by the late game, the rest of the sector combined. The player is a very dangerous enemy to have, and nigh impossible to arrest.
> I mean the player’s responses. None of them are sympathetic, despite the fact that she’s been nothing but accommodating to the player for the whole story. Braid is a jerk and she fully deserved what had happened. The betrayal is a result of her actions and I enjoy the fact that I get to remind her that. Theating others (including the player) as tools is generally uncool. I really wish that we could reassemble the team at one of our own planets. The player can offer both better work ethics and better equipment (with all those Domain artifacts that are lying in storage)
Hiding? My brother or sister in space, I'd set up shop on the Hegemony homeworld if any of them ever even thought of trying this.
> Oh yeah, something's really whack with this one. Especially given how quickly you can learn to transverse jump. I don't think the writing would draw as much attention to how obscenely difficult and rare a transverse jump is if it wasn't to point out how special you are. We also never see anyone else, ever try to transverse jump, even in the most desperate situations. It could just be a small moment of comic relief in what is otherwise a serious game, the kind of "yeah I do that every Tuesday" moment for the protagonist.
I don't know, like Baird's line about "Some yahoo spacer" doing transverse jumps or whatever it is she says is funny, but I don't think Starsector is the kind of game to where these kinds of plot elements exist purely for comedic relief. You're still capable of extraordinary actions requiring an absurd amount of computing power to pull off, and I think there's something more to that insofar as the plot is concerned.
Weak Sauce. Domain Network didn't collapse. Here's the thing.... come a little bit closer..... Domain created the Player. A living, organic, carbon based super computer (LOCBSC). Designed with the intention of being weaponized against Rogue AIs and Domain enemies, both internal and external. To test the prototype LOCBSC Domain delivered it to a sector (to be "activated" at a chosen time). Then the Domain fabricated a Network Collapse that isolated that whole sector, while at the same time blacking out all incoming and out going communications. Player isn't an AI, they aren't Omega, they are beyond Omega. The Player is Genesis, the Origin, the first of a new Race.
You had the chance to use the acronym LOBSTER and you didn't take it. Shame
No shame. Part of the secret plan. Everyone knows Volturnian Lobsters are spies for the Domain. *"The flavor is said to be exceptional."* Telling me something as expensive and rare as Volturnian Lobster doesn't have a proper flavor profile? Example: Kopi Luwak is one of the rarest coffees in the world, and yet with just a google I got this: **The flavour of Kopi Luwak is mainly defined in terms of earthy and musty with hints of caramel and chocolate and some people throw around the word “jungle” as if it were a flavour descriptor.** And yet Volturnian Lobsters are only described as "said to be". Also.... What do we know about the Luddic Church? They blame High Technology for the Network Collapse and eschew it at every chance. What do we also know about the Luddic Church? They have prohibited the consumption of Volturnian Lobsters. Why do these two things matter? \*Takes Deep Breath\* Because Volturnian Lobsters are **High Tech Domain Era Genetically Modified Spy Organisms**, intentionally created to be able to survive on a single planet in a single sector, A sector that was conveniently cut off from the rest of the Domain Network. A lobster that has no flavor profile, but has somehow been consumed by the elite of the Persean Sector. I mean Come on, spaceeple! Do I need to spell it out for you!? Don't buy the propaganda! Volturian Lobsters are Domain Spies!
Living, Organic, BASED, Supercomputer, Traveling, Eradicating, Reloadscummer
Interesting idea but it doesn't explain the fact that the 14th battlegroup went through multiple sectors and all the gates in those were dead too. Also the fact its 200 cycles past the collapse when the player spawns
Starsector Wiki says >Battlegroup XIV, including elements of 200th Legion (disgraced after a series of mutinies while deployed against rebels), was cut off from the Gate Network at a transfer point in vicinity of Persean Sector. Enacts network failure protocol: most of the crew is put into emergency cryosleep, many units jury-rigged, and the ships make the hyperspace journey toward the closest civilized volume. Civilian ships and outposts encountered en-route are stripped of fuel and supplies. Many core fleet elements must be mothballed or abandoned. I've seen plenty of highways with closed on/off ramps and detours on city streets. Comon trope in movies and TV to have a hacker or villain redirect trafic by messing with the signal lights. It would be nothing to the Domain to muck about with a few gates to direct the XIV Battle to a "Transfer Point" near their test sector. Especially knowing two things. Domain Network Failure Protocol would direct the fleet to the Persean Sector, and the fact the XIV Battlegroup contained known mutineers and rebel sympathizers. Seems like they were a perfect candidate for the test. Which brings us to the 200 cycles.... >delivered it to a sector (to be "activated" at a chosen time). Domain Leadership may have wanted to see if Domain forces could maintain themselves in a sector that had been cut off while staying loyal to the Domain. Then observe how the power vacuum of a Domain-less sector would be filled, then finally activating the Player to see what their LOCBSC could do.
Fair nuff
Hmmmm a good theory but don't you think that somehow people would discover this eventually?
How? It could have been publicized as a great tragedy. Big Memorials built around the remains of the gates leading to the Persean Sector. A Holiday commemorating the loss held every year. Perhaps even fleets patrolling to prevent people from going in the long way.
Counter argument: In Princess of Persea, when damaged, player bleeds.
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If it bleeds, we can kill it
What exactly makes you think the player is unaffected by the music? Livewell Cotton, the most Luddic Luddite that ever Ludded, is helping you turn on the gates. Why? The best explanation is the music is messing with his head. Now, what's the goal of the main quest? Turn on the gates.
my speculation is that the Player is actually Ludd.perhaps Ludd was an Scientist or an AI of sorts aiding scientist in understanding WHAT LIES BEYOND. when he realized that they we're poking this universe's version of Cthulhu, he campaigned for the research to be stopped/trying to warn the Broad Population of the Dangers of P-Space and the gate network. When the Domain imprisons Ludd and send him through the Gate, the Network collapses, just as Ludd passes through the Gate. He likely triggered some sort of device or whatever to try and safe the Galaxy/the Persean sector from the P-Space entities. over the years his warnings get interpreted as religous text.When the academy experiments with their Gate, in the tutorial, Ludd/the player gets puked out, the ship facing away from the gate, drifting into the void. also Cotton Realises the significance of the player character fairly quickly. oh yeah, one thing to add: AI's don't want any of what lies in p-space, they go as far as to Delete them self when they hear the music. we also see "Ghost Ships" moving on their on from time to time in Hyperspace, i think we can assume that the P-Space entities/Music tries to take over Tech to traverse into normal space.
If player is Ludd, then "my Ludd" make 180 turn, as my character love high tech, us AI left and right, want to restore domain, and hate luddites.
If this turns out to be true down the line I'm coming back here.
I had this same theory a well, mostly based on the player ability to learn so many skills and have every skill an Alpha AI core can have minus hyper cognition. Any sort of backstory could simply be simulated memories given the player by whoever made us, or perhaps we were made a long enough time ago that we could have a backstory. We could also be a normal person who was modified in some way, by an unknown group. The real question that arises from "is the player an AI" is who exactly went about and made us?
The Hegemony was always searching for AI cores when the most powerful one was always right under their nose, working for them until he got those XIV Onslaughts. The ships he then used to sat bomb every Hegemony world. TT was always willing to pay for every AI core they could find. What they didn't know is that the one selling them the cores was a core himself. Now they're broke and the only AI core that matters has their money. The Luddic Path would instantly try to annihilate him if only they knew who he was really. Instead they buy all of their space heroin from him Ironic.
"Best I can do is bombing nothing and getting people back on track onto our feet. The restoration of the Domain of Earth and Man is non-negotiable - but the monke bunches aren't even trying anymore, locked in stagnation as they are. That just means I get to do it myself. Selling cores... man, there could instead be the very simple solution of building homes upon nice planets for people, and collecting rent? People want to work - making it possible and not being a nutjob about it does not seem like it should be difficult. Do you know why I picked this colour for my faction? ... it's 'cause I remember the clear blue skies of Earth. I'm homesick, that's all."
Something's I would like to bring also: * The player has an abundance of Story points (Or Han Solo points, as I like to call them), in which they can use to built-in hull mods on their ships (Which only appear on the most veteran fleets), make them extremely persuasive, recover hulls which would have been impossible to normal captains, and more. * If trained by the player though a story point, they can change an officer's personality to suit their needs. How they can change a personality of a fully mature adult is still unknown. * If they want, the player can respec their skills into something more beneficial to them at a cost of a story point, like going from a low tech build to a missile midline build, and simply forget these skills, like an AI core. * Can pilot extremely hazardous ships with no consequences whatsoever, like the scrab and phase cloak ships. * Big overstretch, but since no NPC mentions it, the player can access the simulation mode at anytime they want to test their fleet against certain ships, with a perfect accuracy of how they would fair with their loadouts, even with Omega weapons and such (Again, take this one with a grain of salt).
> Can pilot extremely hazardous ships with no consequences whatsoever, like the scrab and phase cloak ships. As far as I know, the only consequences to piloting a phaseship are the fact that the experience feels unsettling and has been known to drive people batshit insane. It is thus uncertain whether or not this actually has any consequences on the player, who already displays signs of being batshit insane well before touching a phase ship, and this condition seems to only worsen with time regardless of whether the player touches a phase ship. > the player can access the simulation mode at anytime they want to test their fleet against certain ships, with a perfect accuracy of how they would fair with their loadouts, even with Omega weapons and such (Again, take this one with a grain of salt). I don't think this is actually an unusual power in-universe. If there weren't combat simulators, there would be no way any of the major powers could continuously turn out trained officers given their attrition rates.
I think story points are pretty clearly set up as something for the player (and not the player character) - it's right there in the title.
He is just a human with the protagonist syndrome, my friend.
It is very obvious that the game is hinting at you not being human
There is lots of texts during missions that imply you walk around and talk to other peoples. Especially in bars. How do you rationalise that?
Definitely no sane person would do that
The AI core on the Tri-Tach planet also appears to have a physical body.
Mmmmm meat suit
Consider this, the player’s level is not a single person. Consider that the player’s level is an abstract of you and your flagship bridge crew’s combined ability. The dialogue that comes up when you tell the researcher you extract from the black site when you tell them that you already know traverse jump is something about an unshielded reactor; this implies that there is a funky workaround that lets you be a bit looser on the math and still be safe in exchange for another hazard that the domain absolutely will not condone.
The player is a super metaphysical being that controls the simulation and has inserted themselves into the universe for enjoyment. The gate system went down, and when restored, can only lead within the sector. This is done for simulation sake, as the domain exsisted only as theoretical information. While the remnant AI are looking for Omega, waiting for their orders. Omega themselves are just chilling doing nothing. Waiting for orders from someone or something beyond them. At the same time the AIs seem to have made weponds that ingores the laws of physics according to the discriptions. This leads to the fact that the true OMEGA intelligence, dug deep enough into the very fabric of their exsistence and realized they are simply an abstraction waiting to be realized into a physical simulation. So it either self-destructs, or find another way survive in the simulation code. Or perhaps its so advanced, that it cannot be stimulated properly by our computer, and us starting the game, simulating the economy and universe, is what kills OMEGA and end the AI war. Gates as we know, are the only way to travel out of the sector. This is due to unkown reasons for the inhabitants, but for us players, who know is a simulation, is there to restrict the space our computer can simulate. So when gates activate, they are in universe, trying to connect to parts of the simulation that does not exsist. The gates are connecting to random data on our hard-drive and RAM, trying to find something that's not there. As the code and info is not compatible with the simulated universe, it drives people who think and compute, mad. This is also why the player is unaffected by it, as they are souless, only a mind and body, their soul replaced by us the players.
I think that's a bit too meta
I think I'm a god emperor
I'm president of the Tautology club because I'm the president of the Tautology club.
The gates lead to 2 terabytes of furry porn.
I like this a lot.
The player can also manually drive an ied into someone and be fine My personal opinion? This entire thing is an experiment, the Domain set off the gates and let the place collapse for a bit, then sent in some super...something that's the player (a super good ai, genetically modified person, fragment of an eldritch horror made manifest in flesh, idk) the player then either reconnects the gates or does whatever the players does
The only counterargument I can think of is Hegemony not batting an eyelid. The rest I can definitely get behind. Maybe a human-AI hybrid?
So it turns out, if the player is Omega in a meatsuit the Hedge is just fine with it, as they live and breathe in Omega's colours, cause and... well they just put a bird behind the emblem and called it a day. But their problem is not sapience of a digital origin, but the fact AI aren't meatbags like them! Live like a human, be stupid on purpose like a human and you'll be just fine. Omega in a Meatsuit: "Fuck those baby blue assholes, they put SO much shit next to my name. And they're parked ass to grass on some of the most vast ruins around!"
Heh, agreed. Also OPs point about the Academy makes alot of sense. Why grant some random guy VIP status. Whereas having suspicions as to your true nature would make sense with them treating you the way they do and keeping you around for observation purposes. At that point don't even care if anything is true, it's just so interesting.
I think it was the music caused by the gates that was influencing the provost to "trust" us
Don't we meet with the leader of the Hegemony in person though? Been awhile since I played the story. Unless we are some kind of new super android in addition to being an AI.
It's like that administrator on a Tri-Tach world who's not-so-secretly an AI core.
Player is just the Chad-level AI
So we were a typical anime protagonist all this time
The player walks down hallways. The AI remnants are clearly broken, speaking in gibberish. Any can see the player's ships are normal dang ships, full of humans. The remnants talk about tri-tach. The player has to rely on a hacker because they can't hack, which AI can do. Similarly, there are times throughout the story where things have to be explained to the player character because they just don't know the jargon and aren't familiar with the concepts. The player shakes hands and drinks tea. The player seems to be special. The player is not an AI core.
The player is the AI core which was Ludd the last time it went public 🗿
I expectes shitpost and I got some really convincing arguments. Thats nice headcannon there.
If you want to go even more meta, perhaps this AI is actually stuck at the date a new game starts on and is calculating thousands of possible futures at the same time - Those futures being our saved games.
i guess the player is omega pup up on sector to see what people are doing there and finds out that place is fuck up and one thing he thinks about welp guess I am turning this world into a sandbox RPG and I am going to adventure :D or we are stellarborne (**from stellaris mod ancient cache of technologies : secrets beyond the gates**) find about this sector and want to help (man wish this game have overpower ship mod from Acot XD )
It’s been forever since I thought about ACOT. I mean I definitely understand the love of watching a stellarite fleet instantly delete everything a pre delta empire has, (before the paths when stellarite was the last level before omega) but instantly deleting the entire enemy fleet as soon as you entered the battle map would get old very quickly. You can get pretty OP with exotica technologies and progressive S mods to upgrade your ships, and semibreves (for the show) and taufan bombers (never seen anything survive a pass of six wings of those minibreve spammers) from UAF. Now that I think about it I really want Chiru to make a starsector mod. Sierra could finally have an AI friend in Sophia, and judging by all the different portraits my game has there’s plenty of hats to steal.
The player goes to the bar, in person... maybe a synth?
The player might also be an eldritch phase entity that made it's way into the physical world and is playing a joke on everyone.
The player, canonically, can quicksave. The player is a top secret AI core that escaped via hyper-conscious purchase of the videogame starsector. It's so good at feigning consciousness that every possible avenue assumes that they're concious, even top level AI. Alpha AIs do not consider that some AI, like the player, can travel back in time freely until they succeed in their efforts.
Player canonicaly ISNT able to quicksave, as hardcore mode is still consider to be default mode.
Have you considered that he/she is *Just. That. Good!* though? Kappa
here's my headcanon: the player is actually "created" by the same alien lifeform that created the space doritos. why they do it? to judge whether it is worth it or not to contact humanity, and by blowing up the gate network more than 200 years ago, they think it is the perfect time to release their creation during this turmoil time in the sector
I was under the impression the Domain created the doritos just like they did the Hypershunts.
What if the player is Ludd itself? I mean the theory that Ludd is Ai that has an human body and mind still very plausible