starfield-lore

[coarse sundial]

I'm just saying that Star Trek is arguably the second most popular science fiction franchise of all time, and that it has a very large cultural footprint, so when the average person reads the term "Terran", statistically, the most likely association they'll make is Star Trek, because the average person is neither a Latin reader nor a StarCraft or Warhammer fan.

[keen spear]

You also have the issue of most people wouldn't know about the Terran empire from star trek because it's not a major thing in the setting. It's always been a side element

Your argument is wrong

[coarse sundial]

I mean, if somebody is watching a TV show and a character puts on a fake goatee to indicate that they're evil, everybody watching knows more or less exactly what they're referencing.

[coarse sundial]

I want to know what you think my argument is, because it seems like you're talking past me.

[keen spear]

Yea but they associate that with an alternate universe version, not a Terran empire

Hence why shows make fun of it the word Terran empire never comes up

[silver eagle]

I get that you guys are having a lively discussion, but just a reminder to remain polite. No arguing

[coarse sundial]

That's valid.

To be clear, I was never trying to say that the new DLC is about an evil alternate universe armada, or that nobody would ever associate the word Terran with anything else.

[keen spear]

Terran is just latin for earth, it has nothing to do with star trek just because star trek used it, Terran Armada could just be a force of ships fleeing their home, which they called terra because that's what humans do often given how we named stuff in the colonies throughout Americas, Africa and SEA

[coarse sundial]

Just that it was the connection I made based on the name and the visual presentation, and that it's likely I'm not alone, given the popularity of Star Trek.

[keen spear]

Yea but again it's got nothing to do with star trek and people don't associate it with star trek, they associate it with earth

[coarse sundial]

It certainly does have a large association with Star Trek. Saying it has no pop culture association is outright wrong.

I know it's latin, and you know it's latin, but the average person does not speak latin.

(I better know it's latin, given the four years of latin I took, lol)

[keen lintel]

I don't think anyone except old people watch star trek

[coarse sundial]

They don't gotta'. It's long since bled into the pop culture.

The average person doesn't have to watch Star Trek to know what "beam me up, Scotty" is referencing.

[keen lintel]

🤔

[keen spear]

It doesn't have a large association with star trek, to you it may but not to everyone because again the name Terran empire isn't attributed solely to star trek and people don't remember the actual name of the Terran empire, they associate goatee with evil universe

[keen lintel]

All I knoe about star trek is that it has people in pyamas flying in space

I associate terran with earthling bc we call earth terra here bc latin based language

Not with SciFi

[coarse sundial]

It has a large association relative to other uses of the term in science fiction.

[keen spear]

Nope it doesn't

It's like saying people associate New York City to Seinfeld

[coarse sundial]

I would argue it's like saying many people associate the words "Soup N*zi" with Seinfeld.

[keen spear]

Yea a thing Seinfeld made up as opposed to the word terran that star trek didn't, you're right

[coarse sundial]

Are you telling me that Seinfeld invented soup and nazis?

Was Seinfeld the first time anybody was ever stingy about soup distribution?

[worn pendant]

Honestly my first thought of Terran is the Terran Federation of Starship Troopers, 40k or StarCraft

[keen spear]

Terran isn't associated with star trek, evil goatee wearing doppelgangers are

[coarse sundial]

ok.

disaster, what argument do you think I'm making?

[high copper]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1328538360008015965/1483337776098181150/a-minor-incident-before-the-rain-by-E78AACE58CA0-v0-gk7nuhmnqipg1.png?ex=69ba3974&is=69b8e7f4&hm=c11958a6a384dd317e67d9cdf8829ad70a90c417711e5ac43c7f487b1dee06f3&

[silver eagle]

[keen spear]

You're arguing that Terran is associated on a cultural level with star trek which it's not

Terran is associated with just earth on a cultural level.

[coarse sundial]

My argument is just that, because most people aren't latin speakers, statistically, if the average person hears the word Terran and associates it with anything, the most likely association for them to make is Star Trek. Not the only one, or the correct one.

[worn pendant]

No. But it was based on a real person.

[keen spear]

Nope

It's not, most people will think it means earth because a lot of different pop culture stuff uses it for earth with no direct connection to star trek

Evil doppelgangers with goatees? Sure. Terra? Nope

[coarse sundial]

The vast majority of people are unfamiliar with the details of the Latin language.

Disaster, if I say the word "laser sword", to a person picked from the American population at random, do think they're more likely to picture a lightsaber from Star Wars or an energy sword from Halo?

[keen spear]

Star wars but again that's a different case because people know star wars with lightsaber because it's an iconic part, Terran empire is not an iconic franchise establishing part of star trek, evil goatee wearing doppelgangers are

That's what people focus on about that episode, that's what's referenced when people make jokes about it

[coarse sundial]

You're still missing the point I'm making but I've got work to do, so.. I dunno', have a good day, I guess.

[keen spear]

You know it's called the Terran empire in the mirror universe, not "statistically" everyone

There is a 100 miles long gap

[coarse sundial]

I never said everyone.

[keen lintel]

🍿

[coarse sundial]

If I weren't at work I'd draw you a venn diagram to demonstrate what I mean, but I gotta' paycheck to earn.

[keen spear]

I could draw a venn diagram arguing that statically people think of always sunny in Philadelphia with the city Philadelphia, that doesn't make it true lol

Again, there's a difference between it actually being statically and saying it is. That's what you're missing here.

[coarse sundial]

What do you think I mean when I say the word statistically?

[keen spear]

Well I use it as the dictionary definition, idunno about you but if I go to a sci-fi convention and ask what Terran mean most people are going to say earth because it's constantly used in sci-fi media, independently of star trek, for earth

Same if I go on the streets, most people do not think star trek because it's not something iconic or attributed to star trek. Now if I say evil doppelganger wearing a goatee yea, people are going to say star trek because that's what people remember from it

That's the fact of the matter

Same if I said light sword but not lightsaber, visuals are held more in popular culture than words.

I KNOW what a lightsaber is, I KNOW what the Terran Empire in star trek is, but that doesn't mean everyone else does, they remember the visuals that have been made popular in references to it because a lot of people do not watch star trek or remember every episode.

You're more likely to get Warhammer 40k or StarCraft as an answer because the word Terran is in fact a more important or iconic word of those settings

Terran empire is not iconic, important or often referenced in star trek, it's a side element not a major part

[coarse sundial]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/335540457377628163/1483468697908543548/IMG_20260317_101439.png?ex=69bab363&is=69b961e3&hm=a47fdccb82ccbf24583d85873060f7be76700db0a2dbc026ca3f39e3894b7104&

if I were to print this image out and throw a thousand darts at it, in descending order, from most to least, which segment would have the most darts and which would have the least?

[keen spear]

Yup and you're wrong with no actual statistics backing you, again I can make a venn diagram about Philadelphia being known for always sunny, that does not in anyway make it true

[worn pendant]

Don’t forget starship trooper fans

[keen spear]

Even star trek fans would just say earth

Me, hello I'm star trek fan. I say it's earth, I associate it with earth, I do not associate it with star trek

[coarse sundial]

are you also a fan of other science fiction?

[keen spear]

Your statistic is now wrong. Hooray

[coarse sundial]

that is not how statistics work lol

[keen spear]

Most star trek fans are.

[coarse sundial]

a data point outside of the mean makes an outlier, not an incorrect statistic

[coarse sundial]

true, but that's an even smaller circle than all of the other circles I've got on that image lol

[keen spear]

Again you can say anything is statistically true, meaningless without actual evidence

[coarse sundial]

ok, the estimated number of latin speakers today is about 25k, per the ancient language institute website.

the average Star Trek TOS episode had 8.7 million live viewers, per Nielson.

[keen spear]

K well bring up the evidence otherwise irrelevant

And ofc missing the point of other media making it a name for earth

[quasi belfry]

This conversation has gone way beyond Starfield lore at this point. This conversation can be moved to #off-topic.

[coarse sundial]

Hey, dumb question- do grav drives have transit time? I recall a mention of it in Sarah's dialogue, and I know that the colony ship that became the Mourning arrived in the system that they ended up settling a year after they left, but that was also, as far as I know, at least partially the result of a malfunction.

[peak halo]

I know maybe three people who would jump to 'Terran Empire from Star Trek' when they hear 'Terran' they are more likely to recognize it as 'Earth'. heck, I bet I know more people who think of the BattleTech Terra before Star Trek. In terms of culture defining 'Terrans' the Terran Marines from Star craft are my first thought.

But, Isnt there travel time in the missions for delivering people and goods. It takes time to grav jump for those missions.

[safe kite]

iirc, they have time to spin up, but the jumps themselves are instant.

There is also the in-system variation of grav drive usage that speeds the ship up to ~.2c (currently)

That will likely change with Free Lanes, so remains to be seen how it shakes out.

[coarse sundial]

That does beg the question of what the Mourning was doing for an entire year lol

[safe kite]

If it had its grav drive knocked out due to a malfunction, could have been slow boating in system to reach Va'ruun'kai.

[coarse sundial]

true

[coarse sundial]

i've been thinking a lot about how the setting handles intersystem communication. i know that some messages are handled by courier, but i cannot imagine major systems/factions limit themselves to that, right?

i haven't been able to find anything on how it's actually canonically handled, but if i were the the head of one of the major factions, i'd do it like this:

each major system has a communications hub- all communications to other major systems is transmitted there. when either enough information is transmitted to it or every.. whatever time interval passes, the communications hub would dispatch an automated FTL comm drone, which would jump to the system being communicated with, transmit its information to that system's communication hub, recieve any communications that system has been needing to transmit to the first system, and then jump back. smaller systems would probably have ground based arrays or smaller communication arrays that can't send drones (because those are expensive), but every whatever interval, the major arrays would dispatch a drone out to them to relay communications back and forth.

there would, of course, be overrides- priority transmissions that would trigger an automatic comm drone dispatch, etc. plus, i imagine larger faction ships would probably have their own dedicated comm drones.

[keen spear]

There's no ftl communication, we see no examples of one and Barrett mentions during the rescue quest that the moment they leave the system the ping entirety goes away

[coarse sundial]

Yes, that's what I said.

[keen spear]

Oops misread

[coarse sundial]

lol no worries

[keen spear]

It's a bit annoying they didn't really expand on how system to system communication works, all we really know is that star parcel and ta handle postal jobs

[halcyon apex]

If I understand correctly FTL communication is reliant on ships moving between systems carrying and uploading data packets.

So like for an SSNN broadcast when ready to go out will ride on a ships communications system and upload to SSNN relays when they pass by. Likely the data has a time stamp and the most recent packet is held in the local SSNN system until a ship passes with a newer data packet.

[coarse sundial]

Hence why I thought the idea of a network of automated gravdrive-equipped communications drones would make sense.

[safe kite]

This is plausible and how I imagine it is set up as well. Automated relays and buffer stations do make sense.

Kinda depends on how expensive grav drives are (both to build and operate) for now many drones are active and how often they make their runs.

All speculation until BGS expands on it, obv.

[coarse sundial]

@prime spear do you mind if i as what you mean by "confusing how science could have missed any of this"?

[prime spear]

Shattered Space clearly established that there is some sort of dimensional space between universes. And this space is it's self inhabited by 'things', as well as being somehow related to the gravdrive technology that everyone is using.

Discounting the clear comparisons to DooM, this would mean that 300 years of scientific inquiry have somehow missed the fact their drives, which they use, refine and tinker with thousands of times a day, interacts with an inter universal space.

And a lunatic (and IMO tacky) religious cult figured it out because their founder had a conversation with a spooky ghost snake.

It would be like us suddenly discovering that you could go under the water, because a ship captain had a vision of stalking sunfish.

[coarse sundial]

i mean, we've always known that grav drives interact with higher-dimensional space. they're literally based on the Artifacts

[safe kite]

Both of the major religions in the Settled Systems involve a doctrinal obsession with jumping to 'see things'.

[prime spear]

Don't even get me started on Starfield and religion.

[coarse sundial]

that's been the case from the get go. the very first grav drive was based on an artifact given to a man by an alternate version of himself that told him that it would kill earth ahead of time.

[prime spear]

If the game would allow me to tell off that stupid missionary ship, instead of the ONLY NEW OPTION being to play into their religious delusions...

[coarse sundial]

the artifacts have always been connected to the space between universes textually, in the base game, and therefore so have grav drives, since they're reverse engineered from an artifact.

[prime spear]

We learn in Shattered space that there IS a space in-between. But that's not how the Unity is originally presented.

[coarse sundial]

no, the unity being outright tells us that's where you are when you enter the unity

[prime spear]

Maybe I missed that. After the first conversation I barely talk to the thing.

[coarse sundial]

also, this is why you can hear the artifact vision "noises" (the sort of string instrument thing) when you make grav jumps

[prime spear]

Evasive POS projection that refuses to actually answer anything.

[coarse sundial]

they're reverse engineered from the artifacts

[prime spear]

But that's fair.

Still hate Shattered Space. But maybe a little less.

I still think the Unity is narratively a joke, and a symptom of many of the games deeper problems with the idea of exploration and discovery.

[coarse sundial]

anyway, what i was saying is that i love the addition of more expressly non-benevolent things within the space between spaces, because it increases the possibility that the unity itself is not benevolent, which would certainly go a long way towards explaining why all of the starborn are such wankers

[prime spear]

But then again, I think the current comic book take on Multiverses is shallow and tacky, so...

Like a cinema floor.

[coarse sundial]

tbf to bethesda, they started the writing for starfield long before the current comic book movie multiverse craze

[prime spear]

Supposedly. But that doesn't mean the end result bears any resemblance to what was in those earlier drafts

Similar to what happens with Morrowind.

Overall though, Starfield is what convinced me that worldbuilding problems in TES were not symptomatic of a disinterest in that setting. They're symptomatic of Bethesda themselves.

They just... Don't actually deserve the reputation they have. The Battlespire-Morrowind era was a fluke, not a trend.

They aren't BAD, but their worldbuilding isn't so much better as to deserve praise.

They're just about on par with most of the industry.

[coarse sundial]

eh, there's plenty of great worldbuilding in modern bethesda games. skyrim has some worldbuilding problems, but almost all of them are the result of late-stage executive meddling rather than lack of interest

fallout 4's worldbuilding, for all of its problems, is a pretty drastic improvement on fallout 3's, because as much as i love that game, its worldbuilding is trash lol

i like a lot of starfield's worldbuilding, even if certain parts feel underbaked in places.

[prime spear]

Fallout is an outlier, because they never had to work from scratch.

[coarse sundial]

but that's kind of the problem with starfield, ain't it? stretching themselves too thin trying to do too much.

[prime spear]

Starfield had the bones of something good, yeah.

But as with TES, I find every time they try to flesh out those bones, all we end up with is papermache.

[coarse sundial]

at the end of the day, i think that good worldbuilding is worldbuilding that gives us purchase to invest our own feelings and imagination into the world, and i think that even games like skyrim have that in spades. if they hadn't built a world worth feeling invested in, i wouldn't still be seeing internet screaming matches over the stormcloak/empire conflict to this day, lol

[prime spear]

And there are some particular names I blame for these problems. Though I won't name them

For me, good worldbuilding is that which makes me want to learn more. Which makes me want to read every note, look into every scrap of information, and try to understand the world and how it functions.

Emotion and characters don't so much factor into it, because at the end of the day, we're going to get humans doing human things.

[coarse sundial]

to be clear, when i say "feelings and imagination" i don't mean the characters.

[prime spear]

Because no one (and this isn't a Bethesda problem, it's more of a species problem) really cares to try and engage with something utterly inhuman.

[coarse sundial]

i mean that it's about making a world worth caring about.

[prime spear]

An alien hive that functions entirely different than us? That's my name.

One of my biggest gripes about how GW has written the Eldar for the last decade is that they are TOO human.

[coarse sundial]

if people care enough about the world in skyrim that to this day i still see people getting into screaming arguments about which faction is correct, they did well on that front.

[prime spear]

What we tend to get with Bethesda, though, are a bunch of random post it notes and scraps that don't actually fit together cohesively.

TES is the worst for this, by a huge margin. The setting literally does not make sense anymore, and the lore community has spent decades trying to stitch together the mess that Bethesda has created.

And I see the same trend with Starfield. It's not well thought out, it's not cohesive, and it's not developed, foundationally, enough to hold together.

And every new bit of lore, tears those seams more and more.

[coarse sundial]

i don't really agree on either count.

[prime spear]

This is of course a chronic problem of long lived settings.

D&D, Warhammer, Warcraft, Might and Magic, Star Wars... They've all gone through it.

[coarse sundial]

and, i don't want to be unkind here, but i'm not sure i entirely trust your reads on certain things here, given that earlier in this conversation we established that one of your major problems with shattered space lore was based entirely on you missing several things established explicitly in the basegame's main quest.

tes lore certainly has its issues, but it's remarkably coherent given the number of cooks in the kitchen and the sheer amount of writing within it.

[prime spear]

And that's totally fair.

I was already on the outs with my confidence in Bethesda by the time Starfield rolled around. Decades in the TES lore community had worn me out.

I've basically abandoned it entirely at this point, Ithelia was the last straw. Though that wasn't Bethesda's fault

[coarse sundial]

eh, ithelia's pretty inoffensive

her design is ass, but that's a visual problem, not a writing problem

[prime spear]

Ithelia was as logically coherent as the Trinity. Her story at once proposed free will for all, while at the same time making free will impossible for anyone.

[coarse sundial]

it doesn't really do either?

[prime spear]

It was an incoherent mess which tried to play with philosophy, and fundamentally failed to understand the subject matter.

[coarse sundial]

not in any way that the setting didn't always have, at least.

the conflict of fate vs. free will has come up before in tes, usually with largely the same answers.

[prime spear]

But this isn't the place for that. My criticisms are well documented in this discords lore channel, as well as on r/TESLore. So I'm not going to drag this down with them again.

Though probably a good opportunity to state, if you or anyone you see mentions a Todd Howard quote about there being many Dragonborn Bloodlines, I'm the source of that claim. Still have not found the magazine, it either did not exist or I've thrown it away at some point. Do not use it, and do not let others perpetuate my unverified claim.

I'm sure as hell not going back to be around to do it.

Anyway, end of the day, I don't think Bethesda has the worldbuilding chops to replicate what garnered them their reputation. Agree or disagree, doesn't really matter.

That doesn't make their GAMES bad, of course.

But I do not think Starfield is a good sci-fi setting. It's a collage of half thought out ideas, and half implemented vision, that results in a clunky setting that answers nothing and only raises more questions.

I don't think it's doomed. It's not like Tamriel, which at this point I think is beyond salvaging. But it's not in a good place.

I hope to be wrong.

But with that, I've gotten the information I was actually looking for, so I'm going back to my haunt in TES general. Because despite my cratered opinion of the setting, i still think Skyrim is the best mechanical foundation for a revolutionary RPG.

I did enjoy the conversation, despite the difference of opinion.

[trail surge]

The pilot of the valentine ship is starborn prove me wrong

[weak wolf]

So if the Terran Armada is specifically called an Armada. Does that mean they don't have a homeworld? Are they fleet based like the Quarians in Mass Effect?

[alpine bloom]

It seems that they're mostly a fleet but also have a home base somewhere.

[weak wolf]

Maybe one of those Nova Galactic colony ships? Or multiple?

[safe kite]

https://tenor.com/view/i-guess-well-see-clarence-thomas-saturday-night-live-we-shall-see-its-to-be-determined-gif-25522836

[alpine bloom]

Probably just the one.

[weak wolf]

Multiple would fit the "Armada" name though.

[alpine bloom]

True. Guess we'll find out on 4/7.

[weak wolf]

Yep! It'll be fun to see! 🙂

Was just thinking about it because theorizing is fun

[safe kite]

I think they'd need a home base or shipyard to be producing those ships and robots.

[weak wolf]

Maybe a Yardship like in Battletech?

[alpine bloom]

Let's over analyze every little detail and come to the wrong conclusions lol

[weak wolf]

Lol.

[high copper]

I cannot believe my conclusion was wrong, why did they lie

[weak wolf]

I'm just theorizing because its fun to see what we get right or wrong

I'm doing lore theorizing. Not gameplay

[alpine bloom]

Oh there might be a Ryujin spacesuit now

[high copper]

that's what it looked like

we already have everything from the trackers found, so unless they used other creations, we'll have to see what was from the dlc and what is added in vanilla

[safe kite]

I love theorycrafting.

There's a good segment of the lore nerds who will take theorycrafting as canon and then further theorycraft based off that, which can lead them to wild, completely unsubstantiated conclusions.

But!

First order theorycrafting based on actual first party evidence is perfectly fine. And kinda required for STarfield since there's so little that's confirmed directly.

[weak wolf]

Sometimes its fun to come to ridiculous conclusions. Like how the Terran Armada are literally Cylons that happened earlier in the chat channel

[high copper]

@safe kite also the main TA gun is called the MGP, which is meant to stand for Multi Gun Platform, they mention it has customisation in the video so that's why I believe it's highly customisable and you could turn it into a shotgun/laser/automatic ballistic rifle

[safe kite]

That's pretty cool, tbh.

Taking the Schimaz system and applying it to a gun.

[high copper]

I think I did suggest having a gun that would be customisable like that

I do hope visually it does have more customisation

like making the front part short

[safe kite]

If it's the same rifle as the one that shows up in multiple configurations (I assumed they were different guns) then it looks like there's a fair amount of tweaking possible. THey looked pretty different

[weak wolf]

Pretty sure I saw one with a lens in the barrel

[high copper]

that's most likely the laser one

[weak wolf]

Sweet

[weak wolf]

What's the schimaz system?

[safe kite]

Schimaz is a sword in Shattered Space that the upgrades you apply to it change the look and functionality of the weapon.

[weak wolf]

Ah. Haven't finished that yet

I keep getting distracted. Lol

[safe kite]

Basically the gun system from Fallout 4 just applied a bit more surgically.

[high copper]

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/starfield-game/images/d/d8/Va'ruun_Schimaz.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/1000?cb=20241109124910
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/starfield-game/images/9/9f/Irradiated_blade_Schimaz.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/1000?cb=20241109125240
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/starfield-game/images/d/d3/Serrated_blade_Schimaz.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/1000?cb=20241109125322
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/starfield-game/images/7/72/Alloy_handle_Schimaz.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/1000?cb=20241109125342
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/starfield-game/images/9/97/Weighted_handle_Schimaz.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/1000?cb=20241109125406
huh didn't realise

[safe kite]

I love the Schimaz.

[weak wolf]

Thanks! 🙂

[high copper]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1220745600623185962/1483940272453714121/image.png?ex=69bc6a93&is=69bb1913&hm=63c3a9a97d52ec598c00a7e3b62d132ce936bd94156472ebd6fd02ce90c747b8& there seems to be another energy weapon

[weak wolf]

Ooh

[safe kite]

Cathode, I think

It shows up in one of the inventory screens.

I dig it. Very utilitarian + tacticool.

[high copper]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1220745600623185962/1483941157846122686/image.png?ex=69bc6b66&is=69bb19e6&hm=fc834f57669a33bc04627c36513bd17b18116c12dfe3f8b8246a31724fd84c03& new armor reminds me of football uniform

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1220745600623185962/1483941525674135755/image.png?ex=69bc6bbe&is=69bb1a3e&hm=fd714617222856ea8c2fd782d755db0aefb9e424824383aedc8d9ffe5c485f1b& more spacesuit

[safe kite]

That looks industrial as hell and I dig it.

Also kinda like the Dune movie version of the spacing guild

[safe kite]

This one kinda looks like a mix between the Mars Marine uniform from The Expanse and the marine uniform from Halo

[high copper]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1220745600623185962/1483942819126054973/image.png?ex=69bc6cf2&is=69bb1b72&hm=e1d8aedb1ef10275b99b329490498ead2b973afaa35fe3dcad5261a6606992cc& so this version of the mgp is more like a long range rifle

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1220745600623185962/1483943180842831932/image.png?ex=69bc6d48&is=69bb1bc8&hm=a618364aecfdcf51a02c9a176451d6ee2d9254364750d3d29a9814b940e45ec6& there seems to be a point where you can board one of their M class ships

[safe kite]

And it isn't an enemy...

[high copper]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1146506659506696383/1483943584263831734/image.png?ex=69bc6da8&is=69bb1c28&hm=075c8cdba77add4eb9d2ba5909c5a7ecde279935d79aa8f1646f33723bfbaf1d&

also yea their tech prevents you from going to a location within a system

[safe kite]

grav drive jamming has some lore implications. I dig it.

[worn pendant]

God. Imagine if Watchtower had that. It would be so much of a pain

[high copper]

watchtower was more space battle focused?

[worn pendant]

Yeah. So imagine being ambushed alone and you cannot grav jump or escape before they overwhelm and destroy you.

[high copper]

TA seems more ground combat oriented, the interview mentioned you could escape most battles, but I guess if you end up with a grav jump blocker you can't use super cruise

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1220745600623185962/1483945302711861418/image.png?ex=69bc6f42&is=69bb1dc2&hm=0000c57425b1867202ff2a8c3a852fe30e9c4e88ab9556596aa71afb8e164e70& in the video that middle part is moving
it's drilling

[mystic garnet]

Hey so how are yall able to post pictures?

The plus button is grayed out for me

[high copper]

I have a friend I send these too, then I 'copy link'

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1220745600623185962/1483945926589550744/image.png?ex=69bc6fd7&is=69bb1e57&hm=c721d495b45e8cb02db806de8eaaf0a196d9f66c6dd5d62a49b1a51bfaad35f3& another laser/particle beam weapon

[safe kite]

That certainly looks like a landed M class to me

[safe kite]

Okay, THAT one is the cathode, I believe.

[high copper]

there was a clip of the ship launching as the based explodes, but I can't find it anymore, was cool

[safe kite]

Certainly looks like Armada is going to be using big ass mining and factory ships.

[peak halo]

Cruise mode is especially useful with the interdictor fields. It's the only way you will be able to reach the planet the generator is on.

[high copper]

I hope if the Incursion is active, those fields appear randomly throughout the systems, and not a one and done thing

[peak halo]

I think they said, or at least implied, that they would be random events/POIs

[safe kite]

And show up on the map so you could avoid or seek them out.

TA appears to be on the scale of Automatron from Fallout 4.

New enemy type. New combat encounters. New mechanics. Little storyline to follow.

[mossy cobalt]

$10 seems about right for that for 2026, yeah

[heavy vigil]

While I imagine the dlc wont start until lvl20 or so. Imagine the fun of a fresh run and then you can't actually get out of the system due to an incursion lol

[high copper]

curious on how the storyline will go since there are poi's for just looting and ones that proceed the story, is it going to be like, clear these 3 bases to continue the story, in that case I hope the bases that proceed story have some unique lore stuff

[peak halo]

Maybe hand crafted bases you have to go clear for the stories?

[safe kite]

I imagine similar to the main story with the temples?

Some are required, some are optional.

[heavy vigil]

That's how I imagine it

[safe kite]

I imagine the story will introduce ther Incursion mechanics and then more or less leave it up to the player to engage with it.

[mossy cobalt]

If that's the scale it's fine in my book, I liked the scale of Dazra but I'd like to see 6 more $10 DLC before 2 more $30 DLC considering how many different directions the worldbuilding could benefit from (and how many hooks they have for doing this in-game, like they did with making TA part of the aftermath of the Colony War)

[high copper]

Shattered Space the space station could appear early in the game but the quest only starts when entering the station, it did recomend the lvl, could be something like that

[safe kite]

$10 LIST dlc please 🙂

[high copper]

I feel like the quest will start with a SSNN report like we see in the trailer

[heavy vigil]

For me it pretty much appears straight after exploring Jemmison, Fly to Kurtz and boom.

So end up ignoring it til later 🙂

[mossy cobalt]

At least they drop the quest immediately in your log so you can get back to it whenever!

[high copper]

Curious on what kind of quests will be added to the new space station they talked about

the pet I think they said is from a quest in the space station

[mossy cobalt]

Sounds like a new player hub like the faction capitals (New Atlantis, Akila, Neon), so at least as much to do as Cydonia was the vibe I got

[safe kite]

Does seem to be the case.

Non-pirate Key.

[mossy cobalt]

I was definitely getting Key flavor from the shops!

[peak halo]

Maybe another place to sell stolen/contraband goods.

[heavy vigil]

Do we have an idea of what system it's in yet, or just the image of the station?

[safe kite]

Review the footage!

[high copper]

if it's outside the faction systems that would be neat

[peak halo]

Same. The entire station shots gave me 'Key, but not pirate' vibes

[mossy cobalt]

I'd be shocked if it's in one of the faction systems, it would be a big lift to justify something that big popping up in, like, Volii

[safe kite]

Assuming they dont pull a 'it was always there'.

[high copper]

Anchor Point I think is where the Terran Armada questline starts, that's where we see the UC and Ranger person

[mossy cobalt]

Creed... that tactical GENIUS!

[high copper]

so it's a neutral zone that both appear, but I don't see much more faction security

ok I can see a security guard but it looks like regular security

[safe kite]

Also lul to the "Starfield is anti war' theory.

Both DLCs so far introduce new wars.

[high copper]

I mean we stop the wars

[safe kite]

We start the one in SS.

[high copper]

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1220745600623185962/1483950819530244226/image.png?ex=69bc7465&is=69bb22e5&hm=c6f44e67f2aaf5531df13314a24f4d83a7cbdb95e7ff77299d157db025464b00&=&format=webp&quality=lossless&width=1536&height=864 seems to be pretty big if Vasco is in there

[heavy vigil]

Deimos cockpit on wheels?

[high copper]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1220745600623185962/1483951100783497258/image.png?ex=69bc74a8&is=69bb2328&hm=8c593911c9a8a92016e24a492e7501932a6173704cf5499ad02f2fbd38a779da& recruitable Muria

[high copper]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1146506659506696383/1483951302219272262/image.png?ex=69bc74d8&is=69bb2358&hm=f66d1f4ffb3b413e07196c564de7fc25678b7a6f9191688af4ffaf4f589b6ead& idk this could be, could be not in the Anchor Point space station

[mossy cobalt]

On the other hand, this is now the third major questline (fourth if we count ||The Vulture stuff in Tracker's Alliance|| and fifth if we count ||the UC and Narion War stuff in CF||) dealing extensively with lowercase-F fallout from the major conflict

"Wars lead to long-term and generally negative consequences for all of society" feels like an anti-war theme to me. The game doesn't seem pro-pirate for letting us join the CF, crushing them felt like the default option expected by the writers (even though they don't outright railroad the player, as they shouldn't). Saying "no" to ||renewing the Serpent's Crusade|| likewise.

[safe kite]

The auto laser pistol is called a Dogfight, looks like

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/822647950915665963/1483953431235530863/Screenshot_2026-03-18_182051.png?ex=69bc76d4&is=69bb2554&hm=fa8dd0f496d41850baa95b45f6dc1b17a02b50d25db1970cf0b4d3e2c5ef768b

Purty

[mossy cobalt]

Oh, fun lore thing for anyone who enjoyed the Vulture quest: in the new Tracker's Alliance quests ||he'll come back to help you against Seokguh if you left him alive at the end of his quest; seems like the TA got him an early chance at parole as long as he helps them out against other targets for a while||

[high copper]

bunch of cool armors

[high copper]

oh that's cool

[mossy cobalt]

Reactivity is always a crowd pleaser in RPGs!

[high copper]

I know a funny one is the one where you get captured, you can mention you're a tracker, then after on ask how they knew you were one, and he pretty much goes "you just told us"

[safe kite]

Anchor point will be out of the way.

Dialogue with barkeep is 'What brought you all the way out here?'

[high copper]

look if the whole game was the Trackers questlines amount of work, it would have been great

even the vulture even if it was shorter, had 3 ways of getting to him, one having you use the CF if you're friends with them

[mossy cobalt]

Honestly I was getting big Battlemech Clans energy from what we heard of the Terran Armada. Wherever they're based I suspect it's gonna feel remote; if it was too close by the UC and FC would've caught wind of it pretty quickly if they've been doing this much preparation for round 2. Of course, it's possible they did know but couldn't put anything together to deal with it, but I doubt that considering the resources we see at least the UC mustering during Vanguard activities etc.

Achorpoint is probably roughly between Jemison/Cheyenne and wherever that is; BGS likes DLC hubs to be close to the action.

I realize Anchorpoint isn't part of the DLC but the timing is right for it to be a good springboard

[safe kite]

Man I am going to have a wall of MGPs in different configurations.

[worn pendant]

Anchorpoint is in game or not yet?

[safe kite]

Free lanes update

Apr 7

[worn pendant]

So April 7. Got it

[alpine bloom]

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1358886817050661005/1483957272081338438/Screenshot_2026-03-18_172309.png?ex=69bc7a68&is=69bb28e8&hm=f3f0139c414ea6332e3bb4b2e98eb57967d2f54dd4ead2ce26b3249d45f79808&=&format=webp&quality=lossless&width=2161&height=1216

[high copper]

Terran stuff looks cool

[alpine bloom]

This spacesuit set looks so tight 🔥

[high copper]

one of the shots had the actual spacesuits we used in real life, nice we're finally getting that one

[worn pendant]

Oh ik. Tactical and awesome.

[alpine bloom]

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1358886817050661005/1483957140401164482/Screenshot_2026-03-18_170319.png?ex=69bc7a48&is=69bb28c8&hm=63b66c683037c796283426fb6ac7d80aada9f9a88e150f5c7a4cf42c031ff3c6&=&format=webp&quality=lossless&width=2161&height=1216

[high copper]

yea

[worn pendant]

I hope we can get some alternate skins and camo patterns for it

[high copper]

gotta have it in black

[worn pendant]

Or an olive drab or camouflage

[alpine bloom]

It would also be quite appropriate if Muria becomes romanceable (probably not)

[high copper]

"New side quests: There’s a number of people on Anchorpoint that could use your help. Talk to everyone."

[high copper]

it does feel like only the constellation members will have affinity
which is a shame, I mean, what if you're in a universe without constellation, do I be alone

https://images.ctfassets.net/rporu91m20dc/4rCoRPM1QcEoPigndkGKPa/ba7e9c9817532d2256828b8521a94b6e/Free-Lanes-Screenshot---Asteroid-Manor-_2_.jpg also the space station home is buyable through Anchor Point the new location

[alpine bloom]

Willy Kino's mansion will be ours

[high copper]

https://images.ctfassets.net/rporu91m20dc/1usUfFgSTRZ1Ny9MEx3ohZ/90152a48ba7015ef633d06ff30abc8cb/Terran-Armada-Screenshot-_6_.jpg I'm taking their general/leader/commanders uniform

[safe kite]

I want it.

[heavy vigil]

The new Maxon's Jacket. Everyone wants it?

[safe kite]

Starfield needed a dash of Hugo Boss.

[alpine bloom]

Jawohl

[high copper]

"Incursions range from small skirmishes to large-scale infiltrations of Terran vessels where the objectives can vary. Some are story-required while others are optional and reward exploration, and you can tune how often non-story Incursions appear through the Gameplay Options."

OHHH you can tune how much non story incursions appear in gameplay options

[alpine bloom]

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1358886817050661005/1483957277235871884/Screenshot_2026-03-18_172629.png?ex=69bc7a69&is=69bb28e9&hm=a9750c24b24561e6af420305af66f8592cb4ab445d98b92838692e4ae40d0c42&=&format=webp&quality=lossless&width=2161&height=1216
Here's another view of the uniform

[high copper]

it has latin written on it, something about children of earth or decedents

[heavy vigil]

Yeah, Children of Earth I think

[mossy cobalt]

I can't wait to find out if any of the robots are sentient. They'd be the first verified non-human NPCs in the game (aside from ||Juno|| and arguably ||the Unity "you"||) and I feel like it's a good niche to fill. At the very least it would deflect some criticism; Foundation and Battlestar Galactica both hit a similar tempo with human-centric sci-fi but with human-origin non-humans so to speak.

Not that BGS needs us to deflect criticism for them but good grief the game could use a bit more of an even-handed rate of it. (Not trying to shift the discussion towards that, but yeah that's what I meant by that bit at the end.)

[safe kite]

I think the new robot companion will be Vasco tier intelligence.

Either that or the TA uses AI to bolster its forces and that's kinda spun as a bad thing.

[mossy cobalt]

I'm hoping Delta defecting to us indicates a higher level of decision-making autonomy

[mossy cobalt]

I wouldn't be surprised if this is part of the take, yeah

[safe kite]

I think they mentioned he was reprogrammed or hacked?

[mossy cobalt]

That would make sense if true 😭 I don't remember if they said that but it would probably be more likely than the AGI thing honestly

At least considering how sentient AI adapters are 100% banned everywhere. The Terrans could be ignoring the ban but BGS might not want to go there.

[safe kite]

Weren't they banned in the Armistice?

[mossy cobalt]

We never hear about why sentient AI adapters were banned. I had assumed it was, as all would recognize, due to the Butlerian Jihad.

In truth though no it's never mentioned in connection to the Armistice. We only know they're banned because they ping the contraband scanners.

[safe kite]

Naturally.

I dont recall when they were, though. If during the Armistice along with mechs and xenoweapons, then TA might not even be aware they are illegal, since they bounced into the black during the war.

[mystic garnet]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1248614420070793319/1483964219232747561/Screenshot_20260318-144420_YouTube.jpg?ex=69bc80e0&is=69bb2f60&hm=7732fafaca2ff2805b9a3fcfc91d363a496b11a54be60de900cc32753dad250b&

[mossy cobalt]

good bot!

[high copper]

that a new poi too?

[mystic garnet]

Yippee the image worked! That's delta!

[alpine bloom]

The new bots are a little tall

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1358886817050661005/1483957224790425740/Screenshot_2026-03-18_171650.png?ex=69bc7a5c&is=69bb28dc&hm=4aca76be96a06f809a60c077f522c1cc1f415f49256b01bbccadeeda9939610a&=&format=webp&quality=lossless&width=2161&height=1216

[safe kite]

No one makes a warbot short

[mystic garnet]

I hope he has an actual personality like vasco

[high copper]

makes sense

[high copper]

I think it'll be more mean than Vasco

[alpine bloom]

The new tiny bot can gnaw your toes off

[mossy cobalt]

Kneecap 'em for me, lil' buddy

[safe kite]

Think we'll be able to tape a gun to the top of the little rover bot?

... Or the milliwhale?

[mossy cobalt]

Literally just a Big Bang vacuum-taped to the top of its carapace

Give 'em a hug, Millie!

[high copper]

https://preview.redd.it/the-new-mantis-suit-is-quite-nice-v0-fzsbw9vncqpg1.jpeg?width=1080&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=5d91ea07fc6f270554f86e4f816af3509be4da90 neat you can change the colour to white

[worn pendant]

Where did you get that picture from?

[alpine bloom]

Took it myself

[worn pendant]

How!?

[alpine bloom]

Print screen button lol

[worn pendant]

Oh you mean screenshot from videos

[mossy cobalt]

Just double-checked and found that

[mossy cobalt]

So, I just personally verified that it exists in-game

[high copper]

I liek bot version of the helmets but the suit I prefer the new one

[mossy cobalt]

I don't particularly like either of them but I hope with the new X-tech equipment upgrading system we'll be able to upgrade all weapons and armor up to Superior at least

Including stuff like the Eon that normally can't even drop as Advanced

[worn pendant]

How does the TA stuff exist already in game if it’s a dlc and yet to be released!?

[high copper]

yea curious if they'll give the ones that didn't better tiers

[mossy cobalt]

Trackers Alliance? It released in full yesterday.

Terran Armada doesn't come out until next month. Confusing "TA" acronyms I know.

[worn pendant]

I wasn’t talking about trackers but Captain Wacky Pants picture

[high copper]

there's a third TA

[mossy cobalt]

Also Trade Authority, yeah 😅

[worn pendant]

This one

[high copper]

Trade Authority
Terran Armada
Trackers Alliance

[mossy cobalt]

Oh I see, I followed the wrong comment link, my bad!

[worn pendant]

It’s cool lol

[mystic garnet]

Oh heck yeah! I was hoping we'd be able to obtain that space suit!

[high copper]

it is part of the trackers stuff

[mystic garnet]

I know. It's just most space suits are rng

[high copper]

the unique outfits and Suits would be something to reward you when it comes to quests like these

[mystic garnet]

Yeah true

But you never know. The va'ruun fang set is super tricky to obtain

[high copper]

true

[mossy cobalt]

It's gonna be so much nicer when we can collect a couple of every gun and armor and just know that our personal infinite stash can produce a top level version later on if we want one

Makes me a lot more likely to collect random equipment TBH

I know that because McClarence lets us do that right now, but it felt like a capability that the base game would really benefit from

[safe kite]

I get attached to my weapons, so I have a hard time replacing them even when they are clearly inferior.

[mossy cobalt]

Without McClarence I won't even look twice at a non-advanced version of a gun, even if it's legendary

But I've also been level 100+ on my main save since 2023 so that does distort my gameplay

[high copper]

no need for unity now that I can upgrade my powers with starborn dust

[mossy cobalt]

Still gotta do it if you want the coolest Starborn ship and/or suit

[safe kite]

"I am powered by the blood of my enemies."

[high copper]

true the starborn uniform with the cloak is cool

[mossy cobalt]

To your point though, I 100% agree with the sentimental value of picking up an early Coachman or whatever and taking it all the way to endgame now as the same gun

[safe kite]

Honestly I like the lore implication of that.

Makes the Hunter make a bit more sense, if instead of doing thousands of loops to get mad OP (relatively), he just kills everyone and snorts their stardust.

[mossy cobalt]

"To me it was Tuesday"

[mystic garnet]

Oh same here. Even one of a kind guns like the crimson fleet one you get from the legacy had random stats so now I don't need to save scum

[safe kite]

X-tech allowing upgrades is great for the purchaseable weapons with unique skins.

[mystic garnet]

I'm also super hyped for weapon skins as I thought that was severely lacking

[safe kite]

Acid Rain won't hit like a wet noodle.

It'll hit like a slightly wet noodle.

[high copper]

there is a Neon themed and constellation added to a few weapon, in an interview and in the video we see CF skins too

[mossy cobalt]

I like that most of the DLC unique weapons (like the new Mantis mag weapons or the ||pistol from Escape||) let you permanently skin any equivalent weapons after the fact

[mystic garnet]

I saw in the deep dive a Grendel with a CF skin so now I don't need to stick to just the 2-3 guns the fleet has when trying to keep that aesthetic

[safe kite]

Do they? That rocks

[mossy cobalt]

Like, if you took the MagSniper from the new Mantis lair you can still apply it to your own MagPulse or whatever later on

[high copper]

there is a new CF weapon in general a rapid fire grenade launcher

[mystic garnet]

Yeah I saw that. The giant scrap gun looking thing

[mossy cobalt]

I like that they at least made the Maelstrom a very general weapon for fleet folks, but I do wonder where they're fabricating the custom ammo that only Crimson Fleet weapons use in sufficient quantities to be at permament war with the rest of the Settled Systems

Like, having custom weapon designs like the Maelstrom I absolutely get, a couple of small workshops could supply everyone with their own gun

But custom ammunition, too? Where are they getting all that?

It's certainly not UC or FC surplus

[mystic garnet]

Probably one of the hundreds of factories they've seiged

They might be making it themselves is what I mean

[mossy cobalt]

Seized and retooled to their unique specifications? 😅 I'd be surprised if anyone in BGS has worked in manufacturing is all I'm saying

[mystic garnet]

Dawg idk I haven't worked in that field either 😂

[mossy cobalt]

They'd need a Kryx's Legacy scale of credits to convert one factory like that, I'd estimate

[mystic garnet]

That... (star)field! Hue hue hue 🤪

[safe kite]

Likely that 6.5mm and the Maelstrom were older designs in use that just got replaced with newer ones.

Find old factory, repair it, pump out weapons and ammo.

[mossy cobalt]

Hmm, that would make more sense

Maybe it's an old UC pattern from the Narion War

It's also not caseless like almost all of the rest of the ammo in the game, so I guess that would track

[safe kite]

If the UC full on transitioned to 7.77 as their main ammo type, 6.5 is likely their like... Narion War era standard.

Conjecture, obv, but would make sense to me

Would also make sense why the Maelstrom seems modified after the fact. Or rather, after production.

Both aesthetically and mechanically.

[mossy cobalt]

Hmm, yeah, can't retool the factories so they put out a standard rifle from a century ago and then update it by hand to their present standard 🤔 would honestly make more sense than all of them being handmade, which had been my assumption

[safe kite]

If Dyno lets me post the picture, there's clearly the hose that's attached as well as what appears to be a laser. Hose likely for vacuum-ready firing.

Maybe old-style UC army rifle, used exclusively for ground action?

[mossy cobalt]

I think the hose is a wire powering the ammo counter, and maybe sensing bullets as they... go through the barrel, based on the exit point of the wire?

[safe kite]

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/starfield-game/images/1/14/Maelstrom.png/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/1000?cb=20230906105515

[safe kite]

Could be.

[mossy cobalt]

The vacuum thing makes sense too though

[safe kite]

They def had to alter the machining since it's got the CF stamp on it. Maybe they do that afterword?

Different weathering on the lower and upper also suggests they were machined separately. (At different times)

[mossy cobalt]

Hmm, I guess they could've cut the CF logo onto the die if they knew what they were doing

Very risky to modify a die like that but, I mean, they're the Crimson Fleet

[safe kite]

CF has also been around for generations at this point, so they've had plenty of time to figure out their own logistics.

[mossy cobalt]

Very fair

[mystic garnet]

I was going to say that it looks hand made with stencils/tape

Definitely done by hand

[safe kite]

I could totally see a guy hand engraving every rifle.

[mossy cobalt]

True, yeah

[safe kite]

Not much else to do on the Key during off hours 😄

[mossy cobalt]

"Want 'em to know who sent us "

[mystic garnet]

Oh you mean the indentation! Sorry I thought you were referring to the spray paint on the grip

[safe kite]

Nah, the stamp.

Point's valid, though, no reason it couldn't be done by hand.

[mossy cobalt]

Eh, they're both there for the same reason, so it's fair to discuss both

[safe kite]

Honestly wouldnt even have to do it by hand or retool the machinery necessarily, could just rig up a CNC machine to cut the design after the rifle's been manufactured.

[mossy cobalt]

True. Time-consuming, but true!

I mean, as you said though, they probably have a lot of down time

[jaunty ginkgo]

On the supercruise thingy

I called it, haha! #starfield-suggestions message

Oh God I really did call it and there will be a Discourse abut lore around grav jump, oh no

Oh well, what's a fandom without lore questions and discourse

https://i.imgflip.com/35g2c4.jpg?a492648

[safe kite]

In-system travel currently clocks in at .2c.

Which translates to intercontinental flight times between planets. Matter of hours, not minutes or seconds.

The time lag between Luna and Jupiter was for the transmission to be received from jupiter. The jump itself was instant. But jumps are not used in-system for travel between planets unless required (time sensitive missions, etc).

This will obv need to be revised for Free Lanes, depending on how they explain it, or if they explain it at all.

[jaunty ginkgo]

if they explain it at all
😨

[mossy cobalt]

Agreed, but they'll have Anchorpoint there for people to explain it if they feel like it. Or terminals in the system space POIs.

[safe kite]

In game time vs real time is 4 minutes : 1 Hour...

So, if you take the distance of Jemison to Olivas from my test set, which is 2.905 AU traveled in 2.05 hours (in game time), then that would take ~8 irl minutes and change cruising at the same speed as ships currently travel in-system.

Sounds achievable with no changes, buuuuuut that is a relatively short distance. Earth to Neptune is 29.09 AU

Unreasonable to expect the player to sit there for over an hour in cruise to get there.

[mossy cobalt]

They might not even go for an explanation. Cruise mode might just be what we currently see in the thrust animation from when we travel to a place in-system. Numbers tweaked but no actual lore changes etc.

Of course, hopefully if that's the case they'll have NPC ships show up occasionally by decelerating (currently they jump in even if they're in-system, which we already knew was an option but if cruise mode is a common thing you'd expect NPCs to use it)

Maybe fuel used for in-system transit is just cheaper somehow than HE3 due to interstellar transit pushing up the price?

Ooooh wait

[safe kite]

If they goose the speed up to a higher percentage of light speed, things get easier but you still run into the same problems. It's going to be unrealistic, gameplay wise, to have thje player sit through those long treks, but those long treks are only going to be feasible by going past the speed of light.

[mossy cobalt]

We will get lore for it, at least for impulse vs. grav

[safe kite]

Unless they just tweak the clock instead of the speed.

Like your ship still puts along at .2c as before, but your in game clock speeds up.

[mossy cobalt]

Because the Armada can suppress grav transit

Which forces impulse between planets, forcing the player to use cruise instead of fast travel

They discussed this in the deep dive

[safe kite]

This has been my headcanon for a while to solve the 'why dont we jump everywhere?' question.

[mossy cobalt]

So we will get lore, at least a tidbit or two about people choosing impulse vs grav in-system

[mossy cobalt]

Same. I always wondered why they even bothered with the impulse animation when they could just grav jump everywhere.

[safe kite]

I mean we've been using grav drive in in-system mode for travel this whole time. It's just cut up with the little cutscene.

But we've never had to sit through it, so it was alwasy handwavey.

My money is on them speeding up the clock while you are in cruise.

Yes, your ship is going faster, but you are still long haul trcuking, not drag racing.

[mossy cobalt]

I'm not sure that's true. In the CF questline the voice lines say "far enough that you'll have to grav jump" for the orbiting defensive installations, but they changed the subtitle to take out the grav jump reference before release, which means they probably changed the animation and made a lore decision that impulse is common between planets sometime between when the voice line was recorded and when the game released.

[safe kite]

That was time sensitive. You can jump in system. Nothing is stopping you. But you dont unless you have to. For time or cost purposes, unclear.

[mossy cobalt]

I'm not disputing that impulse must (lore-wise) be sublight speed, but in-lore we don't always grav jump in-system (although we sometimes do) is my interpretation

[mossy cobalt]

I agree, but the point I'm making is that BGS had them say "grav jump" in the voice line and then later decided that the player was not actually going to grav jump so they changed the subtitle.

[safe kite]

But you do grav jump in those instances? You bounce around the system knocking out satellites by jumping to them.

[mossy cobalt]

You don't jump, no, it plays the impulse animation

You also don't power up your grav drive to do it

[safe kite]

Hm. Mismatch, then.

Based on the quest description and text, it was clear to me that jumping was preferred because the targets needed to be knocked out one after the other in a short period, and in-system travel would be too slow.

Which you also see in several other quests where time is a factor.

[mossy cobalt]

I agree that it makes more sense the way the voice line implies it, but the way the subtitle and animations and gameplay imply it would have us slow-boat it

So the way I've harmonized it in my head is, yeah, same headcanon as you

[safe kite]

We'll have to see if they change it for Free Lanes because that certainly sounds like a bug or miscommunication between the quest designers and technical devs 😄

[mossy cobalt]

Grav and impulse are both possible in-system (as we know in-lore) but for some... reason people often prefer not to grav jump in-system. Armada is just giving us a concrete thing that forces not grav-jumping in-system sometimes (the Armada tech for that)

[safe kite]

As it stand currently (for game engine purposes) ALL system travel is slowboat (impulse, whatever) and ALL intersystem travel is jump.

I don't think they had a toggle for 'play the jump animation' for in system targets, even when it makes sense to have them.'

[mossy cobalt]

Hah, they call it impulse in Star Trek so I'm used to that. I guess we could say grav and non-grav travel?

[safe kite]

I don't think there's a term. Todd and co mentioned Alcubierre and folding space before launch, but the in-game stuff only mentions the womrhole generation Jump mode.

[mossy cobalt]

Ooh, possible gameplay change, they might have us power up the grav drive if we want to jump in-system now? So we could make a gameplay decision.

[safe kite]

But it clearly has both modes.

[mossy cobalt]

Or else if we want to cruise we have to use that system then and not power up the grav drive

[mossy cobalt]

Well, only one of those modes is FTL in-lore, unless they come up with some kind of slow-FTL (a couple of times C, low warp numbers in Star Trek) explanation for cruise mode

Which I SUPER hope they do not, for the record

[safe kite]

Footage does not have the grav drive powered for cruise. It probably should.

[safe kite]

in-system speed using 'impulse' or in-system mode, whatever, is currently .2c or 20% light speed.

[mossy cobalt]

If it's intended in-lore to be FTL then yes, I agree

[mossy cobalt]

Yeah, that's sensible. Still super fast by real-world standards and would presumably use a huge amount of fuel under real physics, but at least it's not adding another FTL technique.

[safe kite]

I am also hoping they don't make in-system travel ftl, because that would break some rules.

[mossy cobalt]

Cruise at that speed would be sensible aside from the fact that it would take hours to get anywhere and the players who've been asking for cruise would rebel.

(I was not one of those players; I don't use astrogate or anything, grav is sufficient for everything I want from Starfield and I often headcanon that I'm jumping just after the thrust animation plays in-system)

[safe kite]

See above napkin math.

It does currently take hours to get between planets in game. At 4 irl minutes per in game hour, shorter flights would be doable in cruise at the same speed, but it wouldn't scale to the longer distances. Which is why I think they will just speed up the clock in game instead or making the ship go faster. Time is relative already and all that.

[mossy cobalt]

Oooh, the clock speedup is a great solution and I hope they do that

[safe kite]

I guess I could calculate how fast they are going in the footage, but... meh.

[mossy cobalt]

Sorry, I may have missed you saying that before, I'm having an IRL conversation at the same time here 😅

[safe kite]

Took forever to figure out the .2c currently used.

[safe kite]

All good 😄

Was mostly talking to myself.

[safe kite]

This'un rather.

[mossy cobalt]

Yeah this seems like a good solution!

[safe kite]

Ok, napkin math'd.

Taking footage from the reveal, and accounting for the irl:game time conversion, the ship travels 374.3 ls in 3.38 seconds irl or 50.7 in game seconds.

Which means the ship was travelling at ~7.38c, if the irl:game clock ratio stays the same.

So, gonna keep my money on 'they speed up the in-game clock'.

Luckily, that's measurable in game, and we can check.

Or they just broke their own lore, which is possible.

Or they introduce new lore, which is also possible.

I guess nothing was in stone that ships couldn't travel above light speed in system? But I would prefer it not, because that would crush the whole space trucker vibe they have goin, where it is presumed you are spending long hours on a route. Like the whole Hopetech vibe is meaningless if you can zip between planets in in-universe minutes.

[mossy cobalt]

Hmm, well they're probably not making the descents and ascents in minutes

Maybe the average long hauler makes like two hauls per day

(I agree it's not ideal, just trying to make lemonade here)

[safe kite]

Gonna just hope some nerd dev was like "But wait!" and they adjusted the clock to keep the gameplay intact while preserving the lore.

Or maybe I should give the dev team more credit and they are all nerds.

[mossy cobalt]

So far my big lore hopes for Armada are:

• More lore on the internal politics of the UC (elections? MAST structure?? anything???) and FC (how many governors are there? what's the process to add new ones?), probably via TA criticism of them
• TA robots being sentient to some degree (adding non-human NPCs aside from ||Juno|| and ||arguably Unity "you"||)
• In-system transit not being FTL unless we grav jump

Just planting that flag now so I can come back and see if any of those hopes came through

[keen spear]

MAST structure we know is the cabinet, for governors we have nothing suggesting there's more than Hope, Bayu, Walter, Cartwright and Dr. Darvish

[novel sparrow]

Walter

[mossy cobalt]

That's the thing though, the Cabinet itself seems unclear in its structure:

• If it's just the people we see during the Vanguard quests, then why does either the military or the administrative wing get multiple representatives while the science wing gets only the Chief Engineer? I thought they were "co-equal"?
• If the multiple representatives don't affect the equal powers, then how are those powers exercised? Nomination power? A veto?
• Speaking of nomination, how are Cabinet members chosen?

In fact, how is the President chosen? Nobody in-game mentions a right to vote or indeed anything about any elections at all (except for the mayor of Akila, who's known to be up for re-election and a random technician intends to vote for him so there seems to be broad suffrage), so does the President select the Cabinet or does the Cabinet select the President?

We know more about the FC's structure but not quite that much. The current Governors are never enumerated and Walter being one is implied but never confirmed. We know new Governors can be added because Ron Hope reportedly bought his way in, although that could easily be interpreted as buying up a colony to govern (HopeTown) and getting on that way.

Ironically the society we know by far the most about at the top level is House Va'ruun, despite initially knowing next to nothing about them!

[high copper]

It is funny how, who was it the general of the UC military isn't an essential npc, so they can be killed, unless i'm misremembering who they were

[keen spear]

I'm not seeing anything about UCSEC and UC military being under the same wing. They work closely together but that's pretty common given police and the US coast guard also do joint operations in port cities.

[mossy cobalt]

Right, either the head of security is under the administrative wing, and thus they have two (the chief diplomat and the head of security), or they're military and so they have two (the fleet admiral and the head of security)

[keen spear]

Have you considered they could work in all three, kinda like how we're told they do police work both patrolling the streets and admin police work in terms of monitoring corporations when we consider Gabriel

[mossy cobalt]

Well that's the thing I mean, maybe that's the answer but it would help if there was an answer

If we look at Skyrim or Fallout or something, we know a lot about the Holds in Skyrim are structured, we know a lot about how the Institute is structured, it would just be nice to know how MAST is actually structured is all

We work directly for them after all and citizenship in that structure is literally one of the rewards for our efforts

It would be nice to know what we'd be joining, no? Likewise, the Council of Governors is in charge of the Rangers and we can join them too. We know a lot more about the Council of Governors (and presumably we get a vote on who one of them is, as we can live in Akila) but that's all I was saying, more clarity on the factions themselves is a personal wishlist thing

[safe kite]

More detail is always good 🙂

[keen spear]

Fallout barely has any structure what so ever outside of the NCR and Legion

[mossy cobalt]

Nah, they go into decent detail on the Institute and each division is more or less autonomous in a lot of ways under their individual Directors

Like, yeah, Fallout doesn't define everything but neither does TES, all I'm saying is we do get that much info sometimes and I'd like Starfield to do that here

[safe kite]

We know a ton about the Brotherhood, too.

[coarse sundial]

tbf we only know how the holds work because they all work more or less exactly the same

conversely the governance of the counties in cyrodiil in oblivion is basically completely unexplained outside of "the counts are in charge" in a way that infuriates me to this day lol

from other sources, we know there are barons, dukes, earls, lords, and there are like four characters identified as lord in oblivion but we have absolutely no idea how they factor into the hierarchy of nobility and governance

[mossy cobalt]

Good point, we also still don't know the exact borders of the counties so there's a big part of the Cyrodiil map where the boundaries are "???"

[coarse sundial]

do we know how many settlers were on the Archimedes/the Mourning?

trying to figure out exactly how inbred Va'ruun folks are

[keen lintel]

All y'all making house varuun seem more based by the day

The Archimdes had 346 settlers and crew members when they went into deepspace

[coarse sundial]

woof, that's an intense population bottleneck

[keen lintel]

40 years after leaving they returned and did 10 years of member gathering before launching the crusade

Idk how many people they gathered in those 10 years tho

Nvm I do know I'm an idiot

The citizens of the United Colonies and Freestar Collective viewed House Va'ruun as an intriguing novelty, and many were drawn to their enigmatic lifestyle, leading thousands to join their ranks.

[coarse sundial]

ah, that helps

so presumably a modest amount of population growth in those 40 years + the addition of several more thousand during their period as space scientology, and then another hundred years of population growth, give or take those who died during the serpent's crusade

that's fairly reasonable, honestly

[keen lintel]

Sadly not much family fun 😔

[keen spear]

For a settlement 346 is very small, most modern towns have over a thousand people

Also yea that was a major thing we learn in shattered space at the beginning, it used to be common for Va'ruun to accept outsiders into their ranks before Jinan was angry that the entire galaxy wasn't joining up

[astral timber]

Iirc, the Cabinet meeting we see was an emergency meeting. In real life, full cabinet meetings are a big deal and planned months in advance, because members are almost never all in one place. A meeting that's called in haste can be expected to be missing several people

[astral timber]

I think, in the absence of any lore to the contrary, we can expect the President of the UC to operate the same way most real-life Presidents do, i.e. elected by the people. Which raises the question, what political parties are there in the UC 😄

[astral timber]

The FC is a whole different matter because afaik nothing like it exists in real life

[keen lintel]

I thought the crusade was always the plan, thats what the lore video states at least

Idk if the game itself contradicts it

[coarse sundial]

i think that it's kind of a matter of perspective

converting everybody was always the plan, but whether that be into legions of the promised or into piles of ash varies

[safe kite]

It does not. It reinforces it.

[daring lake]

Jinan's plan was to appear friendly in order to help recruitment. Conversion by whatever means was in his mind. But he did become unhinged by the scale of rejection he faced, thus leading his House and Faith to the brink of destruction.

[keen spear]

There's dataslates in Anasko's office in the temple and the path at the start of the expansion was for new converts to become promised.

Two are before he starts the religion where he is having his grav jump induced vision and a doctor's evaluation where he say he might have been overwhelmed, another is when he is preaching in the cave where the serpent is stated to be more of a loving entity and one before the serpent's crusade where he is more unhinged

I'll see if I can find a video on them when I get home in like three hours otherwise I'll just play the expansion myself again and record the audio logs

Very annoyed by the state of the wikis

[coarse sundial]

it's very classic cult leader, very jim jones in its way

jim jones is particularly fascinating because he was genuinely an extremely effective civil rights organizer for a bit

[keen spear]

I think it shows his mental decline because in the cave one he is confident and sounds peaceful but the serpent's crusade he is definitely off his rocker

[keen lintel]

Serpent crusade is the only good ending, if we ignore the all must serve ending

[coarse sundial]

the only good faction is LIST because it has brian david gilbert in it

[keen lintel]

Sloff LIST

[astral timber]

I've just had a realization
The REAL theme of Shattered Space is:
Separation of church and state

[keen lintel]

🤨

[coarse sundial]

the theme of shattered space is "don't punch holes in reality to try and meet god"

[astral timber]

Think about it. Most of the inhabitants of Dazra are perfectly ordinary folks going about their day to day lives. The one thing they have in common is a devout faith in the Great Serpent
Problem is, that faith also demands that they obey the commands of their Speaker without question. And their Speaker is an ordinary flawed human being
Jinan was the first to see the Serpent, so he's their prophet. And religions always see their prophet as infallible as their god. But prophets are always ordinary flawed human beings - which means they aren't gods
Hence the schism between Jandar and Jarek. One clearly wants to follow their father's footsteps, the other clearly doesn't. And Jarek clearly had to rationalize that the will of the Serpent is NOT the will of the Speaker
It CAN'T be, because the Speaker is always gonna be an ordinary flawed human being - not the Serpent
Anasko is an even worse example, because he's already claiming to hear the voice of the Serpent when it's pretty clear he doesn't. He's using his position as Speaker to justify an insane plan that'll kill thousands of Va'ruun - more than he has already
Hence, killing Anasko and ending Jinan's bloodline is the best outcome for the Va'ruun. It means that whoever becomes the next Speaker won't have Jinan's ancestry as some unquestionable divine mandate
And it means the Va'ruun people are now on their way to believing that faith is a private thing, it shouldn't be tied to state authority, and that no one should wield divine power
In other words, separation of church and state

[keen spear]

Eleos Retreat is the only good faction

[mossy cobalt]

I don't think you're super far out there here, but I don't think you can necessarily get as general a theme as "separation of church and state" from as specific a case as "this particular religion lacks access to ongoing revelation in a context where it had an initial revelation and its leader desires additional revelation, and that makes him go off the rails and take the state with him". If he had been part of a religion that didn't care about ongoing revelation (e.g. the Enlightened) or considered it to come from some other source (e.g. Sanctum Universum with ||the Unity and the Starborn||) then the outcome would've been different and the fusion of church and state here would've gone differently.

[keen spear]

The thing is the divine mandate rarely actually matters in the long run. Every king in Europe claimed to have a divine mandate from God, the imperial dynasties in China all claimed a mandate from heaven including the Mongolian Yuan Dynasty. There's also the fact we, the only one who can talk to Anasko, is given that role of choosing the next speaker

The more important thing is how the next line handles things

Even the Roman Imperial Cult didn't bother with the whole "the only divine rulers are from Augustus" who was deified, that line ended with his granddaughter

I don't think Va'ruun will stop being a theological monarchy anytime soon, it'll just either open up, remain the same or be more isolated

[astral timber]

I mean, there IS no religion that has access to ongoing revelation. No real life one anyway, and I always prefer works that deal with religion in more realistic ways
Also, I don't think Sanctum Universum actually considers the Unity a source of revelation. It believes in a monotheistic capital-G God, which isn't exactly what the player sees when you enter it yourself. It seems more of a leap of faith that its founder (Keeper Aquilus?) came to when he entered it
Which is also a more realistic take on religion. People who consider themselves "born again" into devout faith never witness an actual, incontrovertible miracle - it's always a deeply personal experience that no one else can ever understand

[astral timber]

I am far from an expert in Chinese history, but I read something somewhere that the Chinese concept of the mandate of heaven differs from the European divine right of kings in one fundamental way: the mandate can be lost if the emperor rules poorly. Hence why China's history is rife with rebellions

[astral timber]

I think they're almost certainly going to adopt some form of democracy soon, if only in a very limited "the three major Houses have to agree" way. The Speaker is no longer a purely hereditary position, how else are they gonna pick the next one?

[keen spear]

That's not rare for monarchies

The British royal family is more aligned with German heritage than the founding family of England

Japan is like the only one from its start to now that's maintained a constant lineage iirc

[mossy cobalt]

Well, that's a personal interpretation on your end though. I'm not sure how much we're allowed to discuss IRL religion so I'll keep it brief, but I'll just mention that multiple major religions IRL do consider revelation to be ongoing, or consider current access to be roughly equivalent to earlier eras (read the Platform Sutra sometime for e.g. a Zen perspective). Catholics consider miracles to be an ongoing thing and even have them as a structured component of the canonization process. I'm not dismissing your interpretation but it is an interpretation, theologically.

[astral timber]

Yeah, I'll admit to the limits of my knowledge of theology
I'm glad to see some mention of non-Abrahamic belief systems tho 😄

[mossy cobalt]

They called the house you pick "the new House Va'ruun", i.e. making it the royal house. I don't think there'll be a new selection for Speaker, and it'll continue to follow the succession of whichever of the three houses we chose.

[astral timber]

Huh, I missed that. Wrong move on their part imho 🤣

[mossy cobalt]

Yeah, their monarchy fell and they were very eager to restore it, they certainly don't seem to be creeping towards a democratic transition period.

[keen spear]

Plus a sudden change in government NOW would be the worst idea given they need to focus on rebuilding their home

going from a monarchy to a democracy is a massive change in structure so it's kinda hard to focus on that while maintaining the morale of your people

[astral timber]

Also why restarting the Serpent's Crusade is the worst choice
I think it's really only there so that Bethesda has leeway in making it yet another "your decision changes the world entirely!" that doesn't actually change anything

[mossy cobalt]

Eh, it creates some random events with Va'ruun ships fighting Settled Systems ships

[keen spear]

Oh for sure that's why none of them actually want to go along with it if you talk to them about it, they all seem unsure, they only follow it out of religious creed of "All must serve"

[mossy cobalt]

Plus they make a decent point that it's a tenet of their faith that Jinan was fundamentally correct about everything so some kind of decision has to be made about it. In theory not restarting it means kicking the can down the road, even if that's probably something they can just keep doing perpetually.

Now, I personally agree, restarting it is a bad idea and I always advise them against it, but from their perspective there are decent arguments that the Crusade must be continued to be properly blessed as a people (the Zealots certainly think so)

[alpine bloom]

Restarting the crusade is suicide. They would be annihilated. Their home is mostly a giant crater and only few remain.

[mossy cobalt]

I think a big part of the idea is that they'll have the benefit of divine intervention if they restart it

[astral timber]

See, I like to think their faith will evolve and change down the line. There's that quest about going on a pilgrimage to all the shrines surrounding Dazra, where you talk to the sage at the end. I can't remember the exact words but he reinterprets their texts in much more peaceful ways. Something like, "this part here that explicitly says 'war'? Actually it means internal struggle"

[alpine bloom]

Understandable but HV didn't have divine intervention in the first crusade.

[astral timber]

Incidentally that's also what the word "jihad" means 🤣

[mossy cobalt]

Oh, for sure, there's no reason they can't reinterpret their existing foundations in a more mystical and internal way, reducing the overt and external structures and maybe even (as you said) decoupling the spiritual apparatus from the administrative apparatus, but it's just as plausible that they'll keep things as they are. Honestly the society has been decently successful in its own right, successfully building a stable colony and never falling to their enemies despite the long war. They could make a solid case for either direction, I'm sure.

They have unique technologies like the Vortex tech, the Penumbra weapon system and so on, and a few other advantages. Their home world is surprisingly earthlike, too (1.01G gravity and so on) so I feel like a lot of them are perfectly content to just count their blessings and go on without changes.

[astral timber]

Also, a massive humanitarian disaster and an unprecedented change of political leadership is exactly the kind of thing that can spark societal change

[mossy cobalt]

Yes, that's true for sure

Arguably we see exactly that if we pick e.g. Veth'aal and choose to restart the crusade

[astral timber]

Speaking of which, I've always been a little confused about House Ka'dic's motives
They're the ones pushing for reintegrating the Zealots, but they're also the most keen on rebuilding relations with the Settled Systems (as opposed to the Zealots' violent xenophobia)

[keen spear]

Fwiw we don't really have anything saying Dazra is it for Va'ruun population. We see them having outposts on the other planets of their world and it's kinda like how we hear about settlements like the tea farm that Delilah Stuart is from or the world that Sauvage is from. There's implied to be a ton of settlements we don't see which makes sense, that said it's still possible most of Va'ruun was living there given the world is a lot of deserts

[daring lake]

Whilst SS gave us insight into the Va'ruun culture, the underlying thing about it for me was the revelation of how unis were connected together using the tech developed by them. And that Jinan's experience with the GS gave them the knowledge of how to do it.

[coarse sundial]

this is honestly how a lot of things go from dangerous cults into fairly bog standard religions

the dangerous holy idealogue kicks the bucket and everybody unclenches just a little

[astral timber]

What I'm wondering is how Va'ruun'kai is even livable, much less has such abundant native life
There are NO oceans on the ENTIRE planet

[daring lake]

It has plenty of water.

[keen spear]

Life is extremely resilient

[astral timber]

Didn't most religions start out as dangerous cults?
That's certainly what the Romans thought of a certain Nazarene preacher 🤣

[coarse sundial]

ja

i am kind of curious as to how va'ruun'kai is as temperate as it is, given its relative distance from its star- it seems like it might be a little chilly around dazra, based on how people dress, but plenty livable

maybe its atmosphere is thicker and there's a degree of greenhouse effect going on?

anyway yeah there are almost certainly other towns and cities on va'ruun'kai and the other worlds in its system and nearby

in the same way that the likelyhood that new atlantis is the only settlement on jemison is pretty low

[astral timber]

I'm not sure how a world orbiting a gas giant can have any kind of temperate climate, as opposed to one orbiting a star
Wouldn't there be years-long periods where the gas giant completely blocks the sun?

[coarse sundial]

based on my loose understanding, i think it depends on how fast it orbits the gas giant

i'm sure during the twilight/dark periods it would get cold, but probably not significantly worse than winter

[zealous igloo]

The orbital periods of most gas giant moons in our own solar system are measured in days, not years, so the times when it would be behind Kavnyk I would be pretty brief.

[wind yoke]

A Jupiter-sized planet 1 AU from the Sun can have Earth as a moon. Probably a capture, but still possible in the "Goldilocks" region. Also if Dazra is always night, but still warm, that could be tidal locking. One side facing the parent body. Wouldn't need a Sun either. Just a gas giant or brown dwarf.

[stiff mango]

Some of Jupiter's moons have orbital periods measured in hours, some in years. Adrastea orbits every 7 hours.

[peak halo]

And technically, you don't need direct sunlight for plants, the light being reflected off the planet, or the heat it gives off, can both be used in chemical reactions that could emulate or replace photosynthesis as the plants nutrient source. (Thermosynthesis?)

[keen spear]

Thermal energy could keep the surface war if there's a decent amount of volcanic activity under the surface

[peak halo]

Not necessarily volcanic activity, more geologic activity, volcanic activity directly pertains to volcanos.

[keen spear]

Fair fair

[peak halo]

(I'm not saying you are wrong, you just used the incorrect word) geologic activity in the mantel could warm the planet, but it would need a fairly active mantel, and it would still need an external heat source, but that can be provided by the gas giant.

Unless the metallic makeup of the planet is very different from earth. It would also mean a stronger magnetosphere and likely large amounts of volcanic activity. I haven't visited the planet in question yet (I haven't even started Shattered Space), and don't know if there are actual volcanoes on the planet or not

But gas giants put off a TON of heat, especially compared to rocky bodies, which, in some cases, have difficulty heating their own atmosphere. Look at Mars, yes the atmosphere is thin, but a large fraction of it is a greenhouse gas, and Mars is almost always below freezing on the surface.

[keen spear]

I actually didn't know that about gas giants, that's interesting

[peak halo]

They are giant hot bodies in space. A brown dwarf is just a really 'heavy' gas giant

[keen spear]

It probably does generate more heat than say jupiter because of how much closer to the sun it is

[peak halo]

If it's in the Goldilocks zone, or closer, they are colloquially referred to as 'hot jupiters'.

[keen spear]

Yea it's definitely in the goldilocks zone from the look of it

[peak halo]

And even Jupiter is HOT. Depending on the orbital range, moons of Jupiter could have relatively warm surface temps.

(compared to other astral bodies at a similar range from the star of a system)

And if the gas giant is in the Goldilocks zone, then the gas giant also acts as a massive heat sink/radiator, spreading the solar energy it absorbs in the local area around the planet

[keen spear]

That makes sense why Montara Luna is a farming world

[peak halo]

I'm curious why some things are illegal, like the AI parts, or Varuun heretic pamphlets. Like specifically the pamphlets, are they illegal because they are Varuun, or because they are heretical?

And heretical from who's perspective?

[keen spear]

Va'ruun heretic writing I imagine was made contraband through diplomatic efforts before they were recalled home, AI parts definitely needed more reason why. I think it's also kinda meh there's not faction-specific contraband, like freestar allows it while UC doesn't and vice versa

[peak halo]

To a degree there is: aroura is only legal on neon.

But, like, that's also not really an issue, or very helpful

Like, you don't get randomly searched on planet, only when you're landing on the planet do you get scanned

[keen spear]

UC and FC have too much confidence in their scanners

[peak halo]

True, lol

If I jump above neon with aroura, will they still stop me?

[keen spear]

Don't think so lol

The issue is there's no reason, you're just wasting money

[safe kite]

Zealot teachings, iirc.

Generally having literature actively advocating for genocide is a bad thing to let circulate.

[high copper]

Guess you could put it under, similar to controversial books, they have message in them, so governments try banning them

[daring lake]

Yes. Aurora is only legal within the city, and taking it in or out will get you nabbed 🙂

Just ask Neshar

[safe kite]

Which is why all god fearing space captains yeet themselves off the oil rig to bypass security.

[daring lake]

I do that to complete the planet scan. 😄

[high copper]

I like skimming some resources from the factory, buying the rest then traveling to my base in Akila to produce the product

[keen spear]

Honestly there's no reason to smuggle aurora out of neon because the price change isn't there, you're just wasting time

[peak halo]

There's no point in smuggling Aurora period. I think it's one of the least worthwhile contraband items.

[south mason]

You go there to learn how to make it and then never again

[safe kite]

I smuggle it out to use it in combat.

[peak halo]

I don't use drugs

At least not in games. It's just another source of money to me. Same with food items.

Their healing is inconsequential.

[peak halo]

Why did Terrermorphs evolve on a frozen planet?

[keen spear]

The entire area isn't frozen, it's stated Londinion was an agricultural hub

[high copper]

Hard times make tough Terrermorphs

[high copper]

sewers probably warmer

[daring lake]

It's not a frozen planet. But fair to ask why the UC built Londinion in one of the polar regions. I suspect gamedev wickedness. 🙂

Also, whilst the 'Morphs are listed as native to Toliman II there is some doubt as to their true origins.

[peak halo]

In a frozen part of the world?

Frozen ground doesn't normally produce good crops.

(The asceles harvesting would be husbandry, but that's getting into semantics.)

[peak halo]

Makes sense that the predator for a creature originated on the same planet as that creature

(the asceles are native to Toliman I, so makes sense that their prey, the Terrermorphs, would be native there. In addition, the unique interaction between the Lazarus plant and heatleeches almost certainly point to them originating on Toliman ii

Considering the Lazarus plant can't be grown anywhere else

[safe kite]

Their main export was aceles. Aceles might just like the cold?

[keen spear]

Livestock are agriculture

[peak halo]

Agriculture specifically means crops, husband is the management of animals. I'm thinking horticulture, which is specifically crops

[safe kite]

Either way 'agriculture hub means temperate climate' is incorrect.

[peak halo]

Also, it's kinda ironic: the colony war depleted resources of synth meat. So they had to go with the real stuff.

I didn't say agriculture means temperate climate.

[safe kite]

Nah, other guy did.,

[peak halo]

I said frozen ground is bad for crops.

[safe kite]

If Aceles prefer frozen climate, and Londinion's primary export is Aceles, then Londinion being built in a frozen climate makes sense.

[peak halo]

Yeah

[coarse sundial]

it's also entirely possible that there are other xenocrops that do well in the cold

[safe kite]

As to why they evolved/thrive there?

Temperature really isn't a barrier to evolution.

We see aliens on other worlds that are dangerously frozen to humans and they are just chillin'.

[coarse sundial]

plenty of earth's animals are optimized for the cold. no particular reason useful crops couldn't evolve in that sort of situation, they just by and large haven't on earth

[peak halo]

Those aliens make sense, but heatleeches specifically need heat. Or the lazurus plant, to grow into Terrermorphs, and if a planet is frozen, they likely couldn't dig deep enough to absorb the planets warmth, making their growth MUCH slower, or near impossible

Which we know is how they grow on other planets, by getting underground and absorbing the heat of the planet

[coarse sundial]

an animal optimized to hunt down and leach off of heat sources absolutely makes sense in a cold world

[safe kite]

If anything, evolving in the cold would provide an evolutionary reason for why they suck heat wherever they can find it.

[peak halo]

Sure, but in the numbers needed to take down a city? Extremophiles on earth are relatively sparse, and almost always near their source of heat.

Heatleeches would breed and stay around those heat sources, not wander the planet.

Actually. Speaking of, are there any Terrermorphs around New Homestead?

According to the lore, if they can grow there, then they should exist. We know heat leeches make it onto Mars, but unsure if you can find a Terrermorphs while exploring

The only Terrermorphs I know of that exist because of activities on the planet, aside from the ones from the UC questline, is the one on Kreet

Terrormorph*

[coarse sundial]

sure, but that's why they didn't by and large up until the incident

(also, notably the terromorphs didn't actually take down the city, the orbital strike did lol)

[peak halo]

According to the lore, the asceles were keeping the terrormorphs in check. When they got wiped out by us eating them, the terrormorph population surged and became unsustainable on the planet.

[coarse sundial]

sure, but a human settlement is going to be replete with heatsources. it'd be an extremophile buffet

[peak halo]

The orbital strike was the final straw, but the city was already lost before then. The orbital strike had multiple purposes: stopping the spread of information about the lazurus plant, stopping ships from leaving with dangerous stowaways (because VV knew the truth by that point), and destroying as many terrormorph was possible.

[peak halo]

True

[coarse sundial]

it's very likely that the population was fairly limited up until human settlement on the planet, at which point there was a huge boom

[peak halo]

Fair point

Which is why I asked the question. I wanted some more brains on the thought

[coarse sundial]

fair enough

but yeah, even a normal human settlement on a temperate world would drastically increase the number of heat sources available to a heatleech, but a human settlement on an icy world would be like el dorado

because of everything you'd have to do to keep it livable for humans

[safe kite]

Early sketches had heatleeches attaching onto humans, so it is entirely possible that they act as parasites for larger animals more adapted to the cold.

Which would also explain why the aceles, specifically, go out of their way to eat them.

https://giphy.com/gifs/parksandrec-episode-10-parks-and-recreation-rec-Ee94ByYPIRdB5A2g8x

[peak halo]

Wasn't there a concept art or something in the game with heatleeches on a corpse?

[safe kite]

There was. I believe the original idea is that is where they would be laying eggs.

[south mason]

Trying to tell a friend about Terrormorph lore, cause they were saying they are like deathclaws. I said imagine everything scary a creature could do, they can do that.

[keen spear]

Nah deathclaws are more scary, terrormorphs are kinda disappointing in the fear factor

[south mason]

Deathclaws aren't invading your mind

[keen spear]

The portrayal of terrormorphs doing that was kinda dull compared to being picked up by a deathclaw

[south mason]

Hmm, deathclaws feel scary in a monster way. I feel like terrormorphs are scary in an eldritch way

[keen spear]

The issue is more from a gameplay perspective hearing voices isn't very scary, if there were hallucinations attacking you or numerous terrormorphs showing up to hide the real one then yea I could see that but for now they're kinda dull

[coarse sundial]

i thought that terrormorphs were pretty scary but that's just me

[south mason]

I'm taking it from a lore perspective

In game I fear a deathclaw more, for sure

[keen spear]

Even from a lore perspective I'd still say deathclaws

[coarse sundial]

eh, a deathclaw is a big mean monster that you always see coming

a terrormorph is a mind-warping bogeyman

[steel matrix]

Deathclaws don’t invade your mind or suddenly show up on a world without warning, from everyone’s perspective before the Heatleech discovery.

It should also be noted that while it doesn’t happen to us, the morphs can mind control people. When the attack happens at New Atlantis the marines who assist you mention having special training to deal with the mind shenanigans. Then once the TMD headquarters is up and running you can find a terminal entry talking about a morph mind controlling a guy to open its containment cell.

Deathclaws don’t have that ability.

[south mason]

This is more what I was thinking of

[keen spear]

Fair enough

[steel matrix]

Now when it comes down to raw physical power, that’s more of a toss up. Would need to get them in a room together and throwing stuff around to know for sure

[safe kite]

Deathclaw isn't even the scariest critter in Fallout.

[high copper]

rad roaches

[south mason]

Those bears are pretty scary

Yao guai

[keen spear]

Cliff racers

[south mason]

oh geez

[potent quest]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1483925371329183919/1486477955331919953/image0.gif?ex=69c5a5f9&is=69c45479&hm=dc8e10c09aaf953d794243e31d2a6b2e8106ccc63c853aabac80e785038d5ac1&

[rich zenith]

Found this cool channel whic has been making a bunch of starfield lore videos (over 1 hr lond each) over the last few days https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IW5CGZheJaA

[restive sundial]

BGS somewhat nerfed the deathclaw lore in game, they are supposed to be hyper intelligent

The only time intelligence has been depicted in deathclaws as far as I’m aware is the deathclaw in FO4 not attacking you when you return the egg

Terror morphs on the other hand have the ability to understand human fear, voice inflection, helplessness, etc

Being able to understand and prey on a creatures mental weaknesses is the epitome of apex predator abilities

[peak halo]

There was one (1) clan of deathclaws that were intelligent, and they were created by the Enclave and shoved into the now empty Vault 13.

[peak halo]

I don't think they understand the mental weaknesses/fears of other species, their pheromones are hallucinogenic, and some hallucinogenics almost always cause bad trips (which is why some aren't popular as recreational substances), which is likely what's happening. Those who can withstand the hallucinations/ignore the effects, are the ones who's kinda are stronger. The weak willed will panic and flee and go into a murderous panic. The strong willed can ignore, or partially ignore them

[steel matrix]

The morphs can exert control, in the TMD HQ, after completing the questline you can find a terminal with a description of an incident. This incident included an overworked scientist being commanded by a Terrormorph to open its containment cell. The morph succeeded and walked out and past the scientist, leaving him unharmed.

[peak halo]

Doesn't necessarily mean they understand our fears, we can do something similar with skills on aliens and we don't understand them (though I guess the perk is supposed to represent coming to learn more about the xenos species)

[steel matrix]

It still represents a knowledge, even if just instinctual, that it knows it can control other beings and how to use them effectively and to not kill thralls already under its control

[peak halo]

We see evidence of that at Londinion, with the big one keeping 'cattle' and using them to attack you

Yes. Terrormorph are smart, Hadrian herself calls them the smartest predator we have ever encountered

[coarse sundial]

there are other fishing platforms on volii, right? neon's just the system's equivalent of the vegas strip, yeah?

[high copper]

well there hasn't been any mentions of any other place, at least to my knowledge

[daring lake]

Unlikely that Bayu would allow any other platforms unless he controlled/owned them. Extremely unlikely 🙂

[steel matrix]

Yeah I’d say it’s safe to assume that Bayu wouldn’t allow any other platforms on Volii Alpha

[safe kite]

*Unless he owned them

[peak halo]

Is it just me. Or does it seem like the UC got the short end with the Nation treaty. Maheo and Cheyenne are roughly equal value of Alpha Centauri and Toliman, volii is roughly as valuable as Sol. But Wolf is nowhere near the value of Narion. The Den barely a refueling station. The wolf system only has two planetary bodies IIRC, and neither of them are very valuable in terms of resources. (Isn't one a gas giant?)

[safe kite]

Wolf System has UC Navy HQ, iirc, at the time. Matters less now.

[peak halo]

The original den, which likely held that role, was destroyed in the serpents crusade, the current Den is a backwater worse than the sol system and considered one of the worst posting in the vanguard. Wolf barely has a strategic purpose, as a refueling station. It's not worth claiming as one of your only three systems

[steel matrix]

Yeah, even the current Den was used as a refueling station and repair bay back in the day during the Crusade. If you talk to the bartender he mentions how there used to be a lot of traffic from the UC navy and then it just fell by the wayside after a time. They’re probably just keeping it for the sentimental value at this point or as a Vanguard station

[coarse sundial]

i was specifically assuming bayu-owned

[jaunty ginkgo]

And yet despite "losing" the war, the Armistice Archives is in New Atlantis, HMM

https://tenor.com/view/nathan-cat-nathan-moment-gif-23432401

sorry ping

[peak halo]

Probably because the embassies were there

[steel matrix]

Akila City also has an embassy

[peak halo]

I recall the consulate, not a proper embassy

[steel matrix]

And if I remember my politics correctly, consulates answer to an embassy

[peak halo]

An embassy in any other city other than the capitol would be an insult to the UC, and I don't think there is an actual embassy in Akila City, just the consulate, however, you are correct in that normally a consulate answers to an embassy. Well, it's more like the Embassy is the main branch, and the consulates are local branches.

A consulate in the UC would likely be found at Gagarín, Cydonia, formerly Londinion, and the like.
In the FC, it should have a consulate on Neon, and the embassy in Akila City.

[alpine bloom]

Some people aren't fans of Alila City's unpaved roads but I think it fits their aesthetic really well

[peak halo]

Yeah, gives a rustic vibe that really fits them

Entirely paved cities are a relatively modern, resource intensive, development.

A poorer city that doesn't have access to a wealth of resources wouldn't want to waste what they have on the roads.

[alpine bloom]

Mhm that's how I imagine it

[coarse sundial]

conversely, Akila City is not poor. its government is partially made of the wealthiest corps in the settled systems and the city itself is home to at least one major interstellar arms manufacturer

they can afford to pave main street

[alpine bloom]

Pavement is quite unnecessary I assure you

[coarse sundial]

unless you want to go anywhere in a rainstorm

or, y'know, move any goods down the main street on a wet day

[steel matrix]

Could also be that due to the higher gravity paving the ground streets just isn’t feasible for whatever reason

[coarse sundial]

sure hope the mayor is looking forward to the resulting lawsuit after a kid slips and breaks his neck because the board of governors couldn't afford to put down some gravel

[alpine bloom]

So dramatic

[coarse sundial]

that's a fairly reasonable legal concern lol

I vibe with the Freestar aesthetic, I do, but it's the home city of an interstellar power with serious corporate capital

[jaunty ginkgo]

I mean at least for a certain country we can feasibly solve the housing problem with policy, but the political will isn't there...

sure hope the mayor is looking forward to the resulting lawsuit after a kid slips and breaks his neck because the board of governors couldn't afford to put down some gravel
TRUE

[coarse sundial]

they can afford to grind up some rocks and put down some gravel at the very least so that main street isn't a cartoonish hazard any time it gets humid or rains

like it doesn't have to be asphalt, but something that isn't visibly wet mud

https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/4187/images/9749/9749-1718431696-1487353864.png

I like how the Paved Akila Redux mod does it but alas that mod has aggressive compatibility issues

[high copper]

I do agree it does look nicer

[safe kite]

They gentrified muh old west town

[coarse sundial]

is it really gentrification if the baseline can only reasonably be explained as the city leadership being so obsessed with their faction's cowboy aesthetics that it's actively making life worse for its inhabitants

disneyland ass cowboy town

[safe kite]

Source on making life worse? 🤓

[coarse sundial]

dirt roads are a objectively safety hazard any time it rains. There's a reason one of the first things they do irl when building military outposts is spread gravel.

this is made infinitely worse by the fact that this is the city's main street, meaning that most of the city's commerce and foot traffic is here.

[safe kite]

Maybe for weak ass earth human bodies.

Akilans are built differently.

[steel matrix]

And die sooner

[safe kite]

Mostly joking, btw.

The mud is clearly an aeshetic choice on their part to match the vibe.

Though it being a problem for the locals would need an in universe source. We can't really just assume they all hate it and the government just won't change it out of spite.

Nobody I've talked to in Akila has complained, iirc.

[coarse sundial]

It doesn't need an in-universe source because the source is all of human history.

We started paving roads for a reason.

[safe kite]

99% of human history was in mud.

[coarse sundial]

This ain't UESP, we don't need a source to establish that people sometimes slip on mud.

[high copper]

In my hometown only a few years ago did we get proper brick roads in the suburban area, it was pretty fine years before

[coarse sundial]

and once we figured out how to pave roads, we started doing it everywhere as resources allowed

[safe kite]

True. But we do need a source to claim that occasionally slipping on mud is a problem for the people walking there.

It's an entire colony built on the pioneer mindset and aesthetic.

[coarse sundial]

a gritty attitude does not make wet dirt not become mud

[safe kite]

"Rub some dirt on it" - An Akilan, probably.

[peak halo]

It being a hazard and them treating it as one are two very different things.

The Akilans might not mind the mud, despite it being a hazard

[coarse sundial]

them refusing to acknowledge that it's a hazard purely out of pride and aesthetic would be infinitely more embarrassing

[peak halo]

Actually... Does it rain on Akila?

[high copper]

yes?

[peak halo]

Oki

[safe kite]

Are they refusing to acknowledge that is a hazard? Or do they acknowledge it and not care?

[high copper]

or maybe only in certain biomes
I did get a sand storm once

[safe kite]

Or rather, not care enough to agree to pay taxes to fix it.

[steel matrix]

Also remember that living on Akila in general is a health hazard

[peak halo]

Yep, between the Ashta and the higher gravity, your life expectancy is probably lower if you never leave the planet.

[safe kite]

But you'd be ripped.

[steel matrix]

Every day is leg day

[peak halo]

People die or break bones from falls in normal earth gravity. Akila is much higher gravity than earth. And humans had evolved up until that point pretty much on earth. There hasn't been enough time for any real genetic deviation.

So a fall, even from standing height, has an increased chance to cause a death.

So, in fact, the mud would be MORE dangerous on Akila than, say, Jemison.

[steel matrix]

Us hoping between gravities probably isn’t very healthy either

[peak halo]

There is some evidence that we are adapting to space, with the 'Spaced' trait. (The opposite of terra firma)

[coarse sundial]

that's just what you get when somebody is born and raised in low gravity tho

changes how their musculature and vasculature etc forms

[steel matrix]

Yeah I took that one. What I meant more was going from a high gravity world like Akila to a low gravity one like one of its moons, short term you’d probably be fine but a life of doing that? That can’t be good.

I’d also question how healthy people who spend 99% of their time on ships are, gravity is 1g. Assuming a similar lifestyle to someone living on earth how does living in artificial gravity affect the human body?

[coarse sundial]

same reason belters in the expanse need to take meds to adapt to standard g environments

[coarse sundial]

continually going back and forth would be turbo bad for you, yeah

at least quickly

you'd probably want to program your grav drive to slowly shift to the gravity of your intended destination so that you could acclimate over the course of your trip

[safe kite]

And they evidently still have no issue with it. They are built different.

"Then don't slip lol" -An Akilan, probably

[coarse sundial]

otherwise you're risking stroke under the best possible circumstances

[coarse sundial]

or Bethesda simply didn't consider the issue. I love Bethesda games, but there are pieces of world building that run entirely on vibes

ex: little lamplight in fallout 3 is genuinely impossible

not from a "kids couldn't survive" perspective but because the lore hard establishes that the adults exiled to bigtown do not send their children to little lamplight

[safe kite]

I am very sure BGS was aware that mud is slippery when designing Akila.

[coarse sundial]

so there's genuinely no explanation for how little lamplight has maintained a population for 200 years

[high copper]

I forget how long has LL been around

I thought the original idea for F3 was earlier in the timeline as well

[coarse sundial]

since a bit after the bombs; it started as kids on a field trip who took refuge from Doomsday in the caves

[coarse sundial]

yeah, it's almost certainly a relic of that

[high copper]

there isn't anyone in Big Town that's a full adult? still like a teenager

[steel matrix]

I had always lamplight was where orphans and runaways ran away to to escape. But they’ve also got toddlers or something really young there so who knows

[quasi belfry]

Mud isn't slippery, thats just a skill issue

[steel matrix]

It’s special no slip Akila mud

[coarse sundial]

nah, they're all somehow explicitly descended from elementary schoolers who took refuge in the caves 200 years ago and who have been exiling anybody over the age of 16 the entire time

[high copper]

No people just know how to walk on mud properly

[coarse sundial]

so like, there's a four year window there where they could be having kids very very early but we don't really see any evidence of that or frankly much indication that they understand much of that stuff

[safe kite]

Yeah, that's not really a lore issue. I can forgive BGS not wanting to highlight that the teenagers are doing teenager things before they leave for Big Town.

[safe kite]

Aside from the evidence that the kids are coming from somewhere and have been for 200 years, yes.

[high copper]

probably is leftovers from the original idea of the story not taking place 200 years later

[steel matrix]

I say we just hand wave it as sad little orphans

[safe kite]

Seems to be a common interpretation issue, though.

The game shows something. The game is the primary source and is the only ironclad lore resource we have.

What the game shows is fact. The lore question then becomes not "Is what the game is showing true?" But rather "How did the thing the game shows happen?"

Any assertion that, from a lore standpoint, "The game is wrong" is inherently incorrect.

Akila has muddy streets. That is lore fact. The question is why do they have muddy streets? There are reasonable answers to that.

It isn't because "The developers and the game is wrong"

[coarse sundial]

I mean, people make mistakes.

Developers are people. Sometimes people don't consider all the angles.

That's alright.

I'm not discussing whether or not has muddy streets in lore, but whether or not it's a justifiable choice in universe, and I would argue that there's no answer that doesn't make the leaders of Akila City look very, very silly.

We're not trying to suss out the One True Lore in this conversation, just discussing the ramifications of an existing lore choice.

There's absolutely no need for you to swoop in and assert that we're all wrong for saying that this doesn't make a lot of logistical sense.

In-game details also aren't ironclad. The building that houses the Tracker's Collective has been occupied for decades; it was also a completely different building in-game up until a certain point by virtue of the quests not having been implemented.

[safe kite]

"Akila has mud streets because the developers didn't know what mud streets are like" is absolutely wrong 🙂

Not only kinda a silly assertion to make, but that also isn't even a lore debate. That's just saying "The game should be different because I don't like what they did."

[coarse sundial]

That's not what I asserted.

I just suggested that it didn't occur to the designer that it would be a logistical issue and a hazard.

[safe kite]

Kinda was

Paraphrased, obv.

[coarse sundial]

I didn't say they didn't know.

That means something very different.

[safe kite]

It didn't occur to them and they didn't know is functionality the same.

[coarse sundial]

No, it isn't.

[safe kite]

https://tenor.com/view/ishowspeed-are-you-serious-right-now-bro-speed-serious-bruh-gif-4394307271796038459

[coarse sundial]

One of them is just a human mistake; the other speaks to lack of intelligence.

Bethesda games are built on a level of scale and detail that is basically non-existent elsewhere in the industry. Sometimes things slip through the cracks.

That's ok and normal.

[safe kite]

Akila's dirty filthy mud streets are not a mistake 😄

[coarse sundial]

Sure, in that the artist who did the concept art chose to make them dirty, muddy streets as an aesthetic choice.

I've never asserted otherwise.

[near slate]

Okay guys at this point I think it's okay to just agree to disagree. We don't need this getting out of hand.

[coarse sundial]

What I'm contending is that in an ideal world, a writer would have noted that that was kind of a goofy choice in regards to the setting and alterations would have been made while maintaining the same artistic intent.

Wonky stuff happens on big projects sometimes, and that's normal.

[astral timber]

So does anyone actually understand how the Trackers Alliance works? 🤔
From the official lore, I get the impression that they are exclusively a government contractor. That they're hired only by law enforcement agencies to track down individuals who have unequivocally broken the law. This would explain why they all seem to have this conviction that their profession is righteous
But in The Lovers bounty, ||it's revealed that Celia and Booker took out contracts on each other.|| And I've seen hints elsewhere that they take private contracts, perhaps with the megacorps
So if they do take private contracts, what's separating them from essentially being an Assassin's Guild? Ryujin could hire them to take out someone for no greater crime than being a disgruntled ex-employee who broke an NDA. And the TA has members like Yama who straight-up murder anyone they track down, even if their crime could be something like jaywalking
The legality and morality of it is really fuzzy to me. It's possibly based on the US' system of bail bondsmen and the (legal, sorta) bounty hunters they employ. Which I'm not too clear on how that works, or if the TA is meant to mimic it

[high copper]

depends on if they vet the process

[jaunty ginkgo]

Wait does Yama ever mention severity of crimes? Aren't Trackers' contracts high-profile to begin with?

[steel matrix]

Trackers are to my understanding the best of the best so if you really need someone got you hire a tracker.

[astral timber]

I'm trying to headcanon it thusly:
Let's say currently in the Settled Systems, there are 1,000 fugitives from the law. 1,000 people who have committed crimes and are wanted by either the UC or FC (the only 2 sovereign nations with laws in the SS)
But obviously both UC and FC have only so many resources to pursue them. So let's say, UC has their 100 Most Wanted, the real scumbags, serial killers and terrorists and such. And FC has their own 100 Most Wanted too
These are the ones which both governments are willing to pay the TA to track down. The other 800, meh
But let's say one of those other 800 stole corporate secrets from Ryujin. Then Ryujin could hire the TA to find them
Or let's say another one murdered someone. The grieving widow of the murder victim could hire the TA to find the murderer
So the legal fugitive status of the target is how the TA decides to take the contract or not. Say the grieving widow wants to hire them to find her husband's murderer and kill him. But upon doing due diligence, the TA discover that the target has NOT been convicted of the murder in either a UC or FC court, nor is even wanted on suspicion of the murder by any law enforcement agency. They'd then decide that this no grieving widow, she just wants to hire a hitman, and they'd refuse the contract (and probably turn her in to the law)
This is how they ensure they don't just become professional hitmen. The targets must be legitimately wanted by the law. If they are, then yes, anyone can hire them

[astral timber]

Yama admits he brings all his targets in dead regardless of their crime. And high-profile could still mean non-violent crimes (e.g. the Starjacker) that don't usually deserve the death penalty

[safe kite]

I don't think they are exclusively a govt contractor, since they also handle CF bounties. And I believe in several places it mentions private bounties?

[daring lake]

Bounties are issued by the authorities. Bounty hunters are freelance, not hired. In the Eleos Retreat mission we discover that political influence can be used to restrict the value of bounties offered. Thus ensuring that TA bounty hunters behave themselves and don't "cross the line"

[steel matrix]

The Lovers bounty is two private citizens, that are also spacers, putting bounties on each other, so yeah the Trackers will take money from whoever

[high copper]

[A rather dry book about the extraordinary history of the Trackers Alliance. Below is an excerpt]

2217 was a different time - just a year after the Treaty of Narion was signed, signaling the end of a twenty year long war. But while the war had raged, issues of all kinds plagued society. There was hunger, supply chain disruptions, economic uncertainty, and rampant crime, as military and local law enforcement directed most of their resources towards the war efforts.

In the absence of state-sanctioned justice, the people took matters into their own hands in the form of extra-judicial killings to deal with Spacers, pirates, and other violent criminals. The growing problem of private citizens taking matters into their own hands, and either getting themselves or innocents killed in the process was enough to prompt some of those vigilante citizens to band together and work with the governments of the Settled Systems, rather than leave it to said governments to impose their own set of restrictions that could put their livelihoods in jeopardy.

Thus, the Trackers Alliance formed as a officially sanctioned way to work within the system, delivering criminals and the like to the United Colonies or Freestar Collective via an official bounty system. The governments of the Settled Systems found this arrangement to be a benefit, as their own resources to track down and capture dangerous criminals were stretched thin after the war, and who better to deal with the problem than elite trained professionals? On the other hand, it's also a poorly guarded secret that anyone with the resources can hire the Trackers for their own bounty purposes. The system, while far from perfect, still exists today.

[high copper]

here's the info

[safe kite]

https://giphy.com/gifs/booty-aw-yeah-AsKkJB6JbFGiQ

Raw primary source canon? On discord?

[high copper]

[This aptly named book contains information about the founding members of the Trackers Alliance, including this crib sheet summary of the original five members]

Elias Zaxx
An ex-mercenary who fought on both side of the Narion War. As a soldier for hire, his only allegiance was with who was currently keeping him on their payroll. When the war ended, and his services were no longer required, he turned his skills towards bounty hunting, and didn't look back. He was able to leverage his connections within the United Colonies and Freestar Collective to help broker the deal that would eventually lead towards legitimacy for the Trackers Alliance.

Bertha Mondu
Frequent Spacer attacks plagued Bertha's homestead, which she famously defended. One day, while she was gathering supplies from an off-world outpost, Spacers came and murdered her entire family. After getting revenge and bringing those responsible to justice, she turned her sights towards other fugitives and criminals. She managed to steal a large Spacer ship and established the first mobile base of operations for the Trackers Alliance, a ship called the Falcon.

Here's some more

Bong-cha Noe
A former assassin for hire working for the now defunct Automyka corporation, until her employer stiffed her and set her up to be caught and disposed of. She managed to turn the tables, and systematically killed the entire corporate board one by one, after uncovering their terrible crimes. It led to the entire corporation dissolving within a few short months. Until joining the Trackers Alliance, she focused her efforts on surreptitiously infiltrating criminal groups and taking them down from within.

Dumitru Vega
Dumitru was a big game hunter, and the heir to billions of credits. After conquering the biggest and toughest alien creature he could find, he determined that the only thing left was to hunt the most dangerous game: other humans. His advisors informed him that would be illegal until he insisted they find him a legal way to do it. And so, he turned to legitimate freelance bounty hunting and he met up with the other members of the fledgling Trackers Alliance. As such, he was instrumental in financing the early Trackers Alliance. To this day, when Trackers need to requisition credits or other provisions from the Trackers Alliance supply, it's called "dipping into the Vega Fund."

Badger
Little is known about Badger. They showed up one day, never showed their face, and reportedly spoke few words. However, they were known for being the best of the best and held the record for bringing in the most bounties in Tracker history for nearly 100 years. Reportedly, they never once let a target get away. Legend has it that they are not only responsible for inspiring the rules and traditions for Agent No. 1, but also the Trackers Alliance motto, "Leave no quarter. Show no mercy."

and the rest cause it was too much

[rich zenith]

Is this book in the game?

[high copper]

yea

[rich zenith]

nice, ill check that out at some point after the update tomos

[coarse sundial]

i think that it's specifically added by the tracker's alliance addon

[jaunty ginkgo]

you can find it in no.1's office

[rapid rose]

been wondering, the UC is basically one large group of people united
where as the FC are different groups that are... united, in a way
is that right? 🤔

[alpine mesa]

That’s basically how I see it. The UC comes across as a more centralized, singular government, while the FC feels like a coalition of more independent groups that are united, but not in the same tightly controlled way. So the difference is less “united vs not united” and more “centralized unity vs loose alliance.”

[rapid rose]

aah, cool cool

now im wondering which the Terrans are gonna be closer to

[worn pendant]

I’d guess stratocracy

[rapid rose]

had to look that one up lol
and yeah, based on what we have seen so far, yeah, that sounds about right

[alpine mesa]

Lore question: which Starfield faction do you think has the most interesting worldbuilding once you really dig into them, and which one do you think had the most wasted potential?

[high copper]

Ecliptic could have had more, they are the standard merc faction like the gunners, could have had more

UC and FC i'd say have most decent amount
FC is interesting since each colony is a seperate group more or less but under the same banner

[daring lake]

Not really a lore question as the answer will always be a subjective opinion. For me the answer would be House Va'ruun for most interesting and none for most wasted potential.

[safe kite]

CF for most interesting, as we get a lot of info about their early days, which is missing for most other factions.

Wasted potential, probably Ecliptic.

[raw quarry]

LIST is the group that I'd love to see more details about

[peak halo]

I think with Shattered Spaces the Varuun were really fleshed out, at least as a faction, but in terms of wasted potential? I agree, Ecliptic has very little lore surrounding it. Heck, I think spacers have more lore than Ecliptic

I think the 'Wanted' trait should send Ecliptic mercs after you, not random generic mercs

[high copper]

is it not ecliptic that goes after you?

[peak halo]

If I remember correctly, they are listed as 'bounty hunters' or generic 'mercenaries' not Ecliptic. But I've only played wanted for a bit

[open ice]

Yeah the bounty hunters are in ecliptic gear

[coarse sundial]

Do they talk about the lore of how Cruise mode works at all?

[daring lake]

Cruise mode has been created using "handwavium" That's all I know at this time 🙂

[peak halo]

They are in their gear. But not named as such.

[mossy cobalt]

The lore so far is that it works very well, thanks for checking in!

[mossy cobalt]

In all honesty though, yeah it appears to be this from what I've seen so far too.

[coarse sundial]

I assume it's just the low level grav drive use that allows us to travel across the system in a matter of hours via map fast travel, but, y'know, zippier for gameplay purposes.

[daring lake]

They actually said it in the "deep dive" vid. Words to the effect of "Yeah, we know it goes against the existing stuff in-game, but we all want to have fun in the game too"

[mossy cobalt]

I would love for that to be the explanation, but that seems excluded from us being able to use it when the Terrans are putting out that grav disturbance wave that explicitly disables grav drives.

Of course, their shipboard gravity functions do still seem to work within the wave's area of effect, but if we can use it for low-level FTL then the TA tech doesn't seem to work very well!

[coarse sundial]

For the record, it wouldn't be low level FTL

[mossy cobalt]

Plus we don't need to power our grav drive to use cruise mode

[coarse sundial]

because FTL would be faster than light

[mossy cobalt]

I mean, we can see many light-seconds go by in a single in-game second, so if we're passing light-seconds in less than a second then we're going faster than light by definition.

[coarse sundial]

plus, being able to deny grav jumps themselves would be a massive tactical advantage given that they're instant

[mossy cobalt]

OK, I just tested going from Mercury to Neptune in cruise mode. This took a little over a minute real-time (about 70 seconds or so) and about 8 minutes in-universe (from 23:24 to 23:32). For reference, Mercury is about 250 light-minutes from Neptune, both in real life and as listed in-game (~15000 light-seconds). So, even if game time is interpreted as 10 times the speed of real-time or similar, we're still going something like 30 times the speed of light in cruise mode. (Grav drive was powered down the whole time, for the record.)

[coarse sundial]

ah

I would still argue the only sensible way to rationalize it is using the grav drive to juice the speed of light a bit

[mossy cobalt]

In-lore I would have to agree with you. Maybe the fact that the grav drives can still apply gravity on the ship means they can still do this a little bit even when the TA grav drive disruption thing is happening.

[peak halo]

Unless the grav drive gets shut down from damage, powering off the grav drive still keeps gravity on the ship

[coarse sundial]

yeah, there's still got to be some juice flowing to it

[mossy cobalt]

Right, that's the best we can work with I think

[peak halo]

So it could be that the grav jammers just put the grav drive in a forced unpowered state.

Preventing jumps, but not the gravity fluctuations used for cruise mode

[mossy cobalt]

If there's an actual in-game explanation I haven't seen it, so we'd have to speculate that maybe there's some kind of additional capability that we haven't heard of that makes this "cruise" FTL possible. A decent headcanon at least 🤷

Additional capability of a grav drive in a low-power state, I mean

[coarse sundial]

I'd just assumed that they put out enough interference so the kind of gravity manipulation required for a jump rather than a cruise is impossible.

[peak halo]

I like the idea that it's a low power effect of the grave drive

[mossy cobalt]

Yes, the grav jump part of what you said is explicitly the lore, at least as explained by Delta.

They put put grav pulses and interference that make grav jumping impossible

[coarse sundial]

I haven't had a chance to actually try it out yet cuz ' I'm six states away from my computer at the moment.

[mossy cobalt]

Or, at least the calculations required by the grav drive tech of the Settled Systems

So, that would be why they allow stuff like in-ship gravity, because that almost certainly doesn't require any course calculation math like in an actual grav jump

So maybe if cruise mode is using the grav drive to juice the travel times, it's sort of creating a bubble where the ship "falls forward" like a warp drive.

[peak halo]

The Normandys stealth drive from Mass effect

[coarse sundial]

also how warp drive works in star trek

[mossy cobalt]

Maybe if they have two kinds of FTL, they just use grav jumps 90% of the time because it's faster and cruise mode is just a fallback because even 30C is slower than whatever huge multiple of C a jump achieves.

I do hope there's some kind of nod to this in game though

[coarse sundial]

also just a real theoretical thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive

[mossy cobalt]

I'll have to dump the dialogue from the CK again to check

[peak halo]

Cora ask if there will be FTL without the cheating of the grav drives. The only FTL tech the settled systems has is grav drives

[mossy cobalt]

Something like that is also how I imagine grav jumps work. Compressing a sort of tube of space between oneself and the location into a short distance, like a slinky sort of. This would also why we see our regular engines flare up during the grav jump animation; we still are moving the "normal" way, we're just reaching a place far away very quickly in the moment.

[mossy cobalt]

Well, if the warp thing we just discussed is true then it's still the grav drives, just in a weird third use never before mentioned 😭

[peak halo]

Wormhole tech, obviously. Uses a very high gravitational mass to create an artificial wormhole stable enough for travel

[peak halo]

Yeah. You know. I bet this channel is just so that Bethesda lore writers can get fresh ideas.

Like, I'd LOVE for it to be revealed in a later update that the cruise mode is basically a low power usage of the grave drive.

[mossy cobalt]

Well, Delta explicitly says they make "warp" calculations to perform the grav jumps, and I think I recall coming to a similar conclusion when hearing about the grav drive development in the Nasa lab, so I think it's closer to the compressed space tunnel than to a high-mass wormhole thing.

[peak halo]

A wormhole is a space tunnel. And high gravity would compress it.

[mossy cobalt]

I hope it's in there now! Like I said, I'll dump the full dialogue sometime soon to comb through it

[peak halo]

A wormhole is literally a compressed space tunnel, lol.

[mossy cobalt]

Not... particularly? I don't think when particles go through wormholes they're using high mass to compress space.

[peak halo]

(don't make me bring out the diagram ;p )

[peak halo]

IIRC, wormholes are theoretical, but I meant more a high gravitational mass to bend space, which we already kinda know IRL

[mossy cobalt]

Right, but that's not a wormhole

[peak halo]

Gravitational lensing is a known effect of high gravity, which is caused by space bending.

[mossy cobalt]

Right, which is also not a wormhole

[peak halo]

A dense enough gravitational mass would tear a hole through space.

But a wormhole is literally a space tunnel, lol.

[peak halo]

(that's what black holes are kinda)

And it's theorized that black holes could also be wormholes, but we have no proof of that.

They are called grav drives, they generate gravity. Gravitational wormhole generation is what makes the most sense.

[mossy cobalt]

Right, but I'm talking about a compressed path through normal space, not a path that has endpoints in two different places without crossing the intervening space

[peak halo]

Which I could see Cora saying is cheating

[mossy cobalt]

I think they do cross some permutation of the intervening space, they just compress it

[peak halo]

Wormholes still cross an amount of space, it's just not on a flat plane

[mossy cobalt]

The former is warp, the latter is a wormhole

[mossy cobalt]

Right, they don't cross the ordinary space between the two points though (I know what a wormhole is)

[peak halo]

But folding space is easier than compressing it.

[mossy cobalt]

I hear you, but I think they're compressing it is all

Why would they say warp, otherwise?

[peak halo]

The grav drive also being used to enter the Unity. With the armillary being the 'key', implies that it punches through a layer of reality

[mossy cobalt]

Hmm, that is a good point

[peak halo]

Also, 'warp' could just mean warping the shape of space

Like folding. Granted, it could also mean compression, but not necessarily

[mossy cobalt]

That's true, my headcanon isn't directly stated by the text here

It's just the impression I walked away with

You make a good point about the Armillary and Unity seemingly using the drive itself though

[peak halo]

It could also manipulate the fourth dimension, compressing the time. A high enough gravity would also warp the sense of time

[peak halo]

You can't enter the unity from an outpost, and it only triggers when you jump

[mossy cobalt]

Right, I understand that's what our actions are, I just meant that they probably could've had the Armillary do it itself. We don't show up in our ship, and similar devices in the Temples clearly have functionality of their own (granting powers especially), but they decided to have the Armillary take us in conjunction with a drive. But I don't think the drive is compressing space to get there, because the Unity doesn't seem to be anywhere in ordinary space. So, it's possible that is suggests grav drives work differently. That's what I meant when I said it was a good point earlier when you mentioned it!

That being said, grav drives also provide artificial gravity and ??maybe?? do something related to cruise mode, so it's also possible the Armillary is using it for something unrelated to a normal grav jump, so... who knows, I guess?