Racing the Darkness - An Alpha Centauri Photologue

[Trenacker]

Social Engineering
Planet's newest arrivals can be sorted into common sub-sets. Reductive, yes, but instructive, too.


Specials
Also called Augments or Perfects, these are colonists with significant generic or cybernetic features that perform measurably beyond a genius-level Olympian on Earth. Specialists are created on Chiron by factions with the requisite tools. The Ascendancy "grows" its Specials through a combination of selective breeding and intensive gene therapy. The University "builds" cyborgs by taking advantage of mind-machine interface. The Dreamers use drugs to permanently alter a subject's neural architecture. Gaian Specials commune directly with the planetary consciousness. Specials are the most productive members of each faction and excel in any role.


Talents
Individuals with high, or even exceptional educational and professional attainment. The archetypal colonist selected by their respective national commission for placement with the U.N. Mission to Alpha Centauri. All faction leaders are Talents. These individuals typically filled officers' billets on Unity or were among those specially recruited for their professional expertise, especially in the fields of medicine, engineering, and public administration. Talents usually comprise, at most, 10% of a faction's total population. Many factions, especially the Human Ascendancy, the Human Labyrinth, and the New State, afford Talents special privileges and except from them exceptional contributions in return. Talents are exceptionally productive and happy. Talents are suitable for any role.


Thinkers
Dedicated to a life of contemplation, usually aided by advanced mental techniques or psychotropic drugs. These individuals are comparable to the Mentats of Dune and receive intensive training to enhance memory, perception, and pattern recognition to eidetic levels. Thinkers often perform their analyses with the help of computers. Thinkers improve doctrinal research. A Thinker is not a scientist; rather, a philosopher or strategist who advises faction leadership. They can be exceptional administrators. Thinkers are highly specialized and are wasted in roles that do not exploit their unique abilities to the fullest.


Technicians
Those who perform skilled labor other than as part of faction administration, such as engineers, skilled laborers, and professional soldiers. Technicians provide significant boosts to faction productivity. Technicians are required to build certain types of Base Facility or complete a Secret Project.


Overseers
Persons who supervise citizen, convict, drone, and robot populations. Overseers are an indispensable tempering influence in factions that practice subjugation. They reside in a precarious social position. Overseers cancel Action Pool maluses arising from an excess of unfree subjects and reduce the probability of drone revolt.


Librarians
Individuals trained to find, understand, synthesize, and communicate vast quantities of data from a myriad of sources. Experts in the use of the Datalinks and Planetary Networks. Librarians improve tech research rates and increase a faction’s Action Pool. Most Librarians are scientists. Librarians have usually received surgery to equip them for mind-machine interface.


Citizens
Persons of ordinary mental and physical capacity who are generally accorded the full spectrum of rights and privileges afforded by a faction.


Drones
Unskilled laborers. Drones are a combination of prisoners, slaves, indentured servants, and anyone who has been nerve-stapled. (The nerve staple dramatically reduces cognitive, executive, and motor functions.) "Drone" is a pejorative term.


Robots
Artificial lifeforms designed to mimic human behavior. Robots do not suffer morale penalties and are not subject to the psychic afflictions suffered by their human creators on Chiron.

[Trenacker]

I have a subject that I’d like to put up for discussion. With apologies for the interruption of our regularly scheduled programming. Consider this the watering that ensures the garden will continue to bear fruit.

This is a long piece, so grab a beverage of your choice and tuck in.

Why does this game mean so much to us?
SMAC is uniquely excellent storytelling. I think its staying power in our hearts and minds is a reflection not merely of what were then (and in some respects, still are) innovative game mechanics, but the quality of the characters and ideas that Brian Reynolds put center-stage. Alpha Centauri has sometimes been called space opera, and Reynolds confessed to having written it while listening to the Les Misérables soundtrack, which he suspects may have infected his creations with unique passions.

When SMAC released in February 1999, the seven factions, their ideologies, and their leaders spoke directly to the particular anxieties of that moment in time. What’s more, they did so in ways that were both relevant and powerful. The Cold War was over, but the fresh tragedies of Rwanda and Yugoslavia were hard reminders that we had not excised all the flaws from our natures. Human cloning and the cure for cancer seemed just around the corner. New awareness of acid rain, melting ice caps, and deforestation raised urgent questions about whether we would soon push the Earth past its breaking point. The Internet was in its infancy, and we were sharing information and ideas at speeds and over distances that still amazed us. The world felt smaller, and “One World Government” came into the popular vernacular alongside older ideas like "Spaceship Earth” and “Global Community.”

Brian blazed some new trails. While he was thoroughly steeped in classic science fiction, he offered unusual diversity and subverted popular stereotypes. A feminist faction. The militarist was a Puerto Rican gang member, and a woman at that. The white male was a Russian. The mogul was a black African. All of the faction leaders were public intellectuals of a sort, and all had something insightful to say about topics beyond their professional ambits. They engaged in witty banter. And they could be played straight, or subverted. Was Deirdre Skye a committed conservationist, a deranged ecoterrorist, or a bit of both? Was there a kernel of truth in Yang’s disturbingly amoral beliefs about the extraordinary capacities of the human body and mind?

Reynolds also achieved the kind of brevity that is enigmatic. We don’t know much about the factions or their leaders, in the end. We have some pictures, some quotations, a bit of fiction that most players probably did not read, and a set of fictional biographies accessible only on the game’s obscure website. Enough to whet our appetites, but not to fully understand their motivations.

How should we think about Brian’s legacy as it pertains to this story space?
In 2014, I put the question to some friends of mine on a forum just like this own. What would the seven factions look like if Brian Reynolds had created them in that historical place and time, not sixteen or seventeen years before?

To help us, I offered three basic thought prompts to help sharpen their responses. First, what did the faction believe was the fundamental truth of the universe? What axiomatic claim was it making as the basis for new leadership of humanity? Second, each faction needed a particular take on why human civilization on Earth had failed. They should all be different enough that the factions would struggle to find common ground about which problems most urgently required solving on Planet. Finally, each faction must have a unique prescription for how to secure the future of the human species after Planetfall—one they were willing to fight, and if necessary, die for.

So how can you help?
In this space, I have put forth more than a dozen new faction ideas. Some of that has meant reworking Brian’s original seven. Two of the others, the Human Tribe and the Shapers of Chiron, are creations of old acquaintances on defunct forums (individuals going by the handles Thorn and Iron Talon, respectively). The rest, including the Dreamers and the Hunters, are my own designs. Let’s review.

The Original Seven

• Gaia's Stepdaughters, led by Lady Deirdre Skye, the Conservationist, wish to live "in dialogue" with the natural world around them. Skye believes that patriarchal structures led our species to destroy its original homeworld.
• The University of Planet seeks to pursue a program of unrestricted research. The Scientist, Academician Prokhor Zakharov, believes that everything is knowable through empiricism. He will not allow superstition or folkways to restrain the kinds of inquiries that could create the tools to make life better.
• The Human Labyrinth, also called the Hive, is dominated by Chairman Sheng-ji Yang, the Despot. Yang has established a rigid and highly repressive caste society. He is instructing proteges in the mental techniques and ethical precepts that he believes will uniquely merit them to be stewards of those in their not-so-tender care.
• The Centauri Monopoly, led by the Mogul, Nwabudike Morgan, seeks to achieve a planetary energy monopoly. Morgan has a seductive thesis: nothing went wrong on Earth; it simply ran out of resources. We should change nothing. In time, Planet, too, will be depleted of value, and our species will again turn its sights to richer pickings. Happiness is uninterrupted consumption.
• The Lord's Conclave wants to place faith at the center of the human experience. Sister Miriam Godwinson, the Prophet, asserts that there is special value in our species' religious inheritance, which contains an enduring set of historical lessons for right living that still apply today. Her followers value what can be experienced over what can be communicated to others.
• The Spartan Federation is a haven for followers of the Survivalist creed, which offers a big tent under which are clustered those who wish a life of rigorous physical and moral discipline, as well as many Social Darwinists. Colonel Santiago's vision is to hone a warrior society that will keep itself sharp through preparation for war.
• Commissioner Pravin Lal, the Humanitarian, leads The Peacekeeping Forces, which seek to enforce the principles of the United Nations Charter and so secure the rights and privileges that Natural Law tells us are the entitlement of every sentient being.

The New Kids on the Block

• The Hunters of Chiron, led by J.T. Marsh, the Hunter, live wild and free in a deadly new environment that challenges them to test the limits of both their mettle and their endurance. Marsh believes technological dependence sapped our problem-solving capacities. The Hunters are a meditation on the masculine ideal captured in the fiction of Louis L'Amour.
• Director Tamineh Pahlavi is a Supremacist. Her Human Ascendancy wants to force the creation of a new species uniquely suited to life on Chiron. Pahlavi is a proponent of gerontocracy: the "experienced" should lead. Relates to the human fear of mortality and replacement.
• Sergeant "Pete" Landers, the Defender, leads The Human Tribe, a collection of stowaways who subscribe to the vision of civil society propounded by anti-disassociationist cult leader Jean-Baptiste Keller. The Tribe seeks to build societies bound by shared blood and place, immune to the lures of ideology. This faction is essentially an "answer" to the atomizing effects of the digital age.
• Contre-Amirale Raoul André St. Germaine, the Aristocrat, has convinced his followers to trade a measure of social freedom for promises of security. His paternalistic society, the New State promises a place with purpose for every member. St. Germaine has taken his followers deep beneath Chiron's oceans to ensure that they are properly safe from negative influences. Inspired by a strange crossing of the problems arising from 9/11 and Jacques Cousteau.
• The Dreamers of Chiron, led by Factor Roshann Cobb and Dr. Aleigha Cohen, wish to look inward for answers, exploring the depths of the human psyche in an urgent search to understand what makes us succeed or fail. Cobb, the Dreamer, is an addict; Cohen, the Transgressor, is a Cleckleyan psychopath.
• The New Two Thousand, answering to Governor Oscar van de Graaf, the Empresario, signed terms with the U.N. that guaranteed them the right to split off from the Unity Mission after 5 years to attempt an experiment in independent colonization. Members have invested as stakeholders, although many are indentures. Van de Graaf proposes to form a society of individuals driven by their interest in real property. An homage to the cattle barons who "won the West" according to certain narratives.
• The Shapers of Chiron, led by Coordinator Shoichiro Nagao, The Monk, shall remark Chiron in Earth's own image as penance, and extend the promise of salvation to those left behind.
• The Memory of Earth, led by Commander Kleisel Mercator, the Cynic, believes that the best guarantee of survival on Planet is to unite against a common, external foe. Mercator is warning of an extraterrestrial threat. This faction is inspired by the idea that the end of the Cold War created political space for dangerous divisions in Western society.
• The Children of the Atom, probably misnamed, are led by Dr. Johann Anhaldt, the Mediator. Anhalt was among Earth's foremost experts in machine learning. Anhaldt proposes that the societies of "Old Earth" failed to trust machine intelligence, which he felt confident could have identified unexpected "trades" to avert war and other catastrophes. On Planet, his followers are following a settlement plan prepared for them by an Artificial Intelligence.
• The Watchers of Chiron are a collection of constables and convicts led by Commandant Sardul Singh, the Planner. Singh, a former prison warden, is of the belief that behavior is a matter of nurture, not nature, and seeks to create living spaces and conditions that will "cure" his charges of their anti-social outlooks.

So what's wrong with this picture?
You tell me! No, really.

Not all of the original factions were created equal. To this day, I think Corazon Santiago received the very short end of the stick when it came to quotations with deep meaning. Some of the most provocative material about the philosophy of Sheng-ji Yang is either fan fiction or informed speculation, depending on one’s perspective.

Played "Straight" or Subverted?
At some point, my story will ultimately need to determine whether to take certain moral turns with each faction. For example, is Zakharov a well-meaning, if deeply abrasive and self-aggrandizing, tinkerer who simply has no appreciation for matters of the human heart, or is he a man perfectly happy to play God among the ants, putting his own curiosity ahead of human considerations? Is Santiago a staunch individualist who refuses to be a burden to others, or a simple conqueror who mistakes bloody-mindedness for virtue?

My Take on the Backstories
In my story, Deirdre is as much eco-terrorist as conservationist. Zakharov is amoral to the point of evil. Yang is a despot deluding himself about the high-mindness of his aims. Morgan is exactly what he seems: a megalomaniac (and probably also living out his trauma as a person who was expected to live his whole life a victim). Miriam represents the best traditions of selflessness and grace for others. Santiago is a disciplinarian but not a tyrant. The Peacekeeping Forces are both bureaucratic and high-minded, but their aggressive impulses come from the right place.

The Hunters are nomads who just want to hunt the biggest dinosaur, and in the process provide a unique set of services to the other factions as scouts, merchants, and service-providers. The Ascendancy is a hegemonic threat to everyone. The Human Tribe just wants to be left alone, but is ultimately called to do righteous battle alongside the Peacekeepers. The New State is a less-bad version of the Hive. The Dreamers are a moral cesspit that beat out all others for cruelty but are too debilitated by their own debauchery to escape the reckoning that must come their way. The New Two Thousand is an unhappy obligarchy: van de Graaf, like St. Germaine, plays the paterfamilias, to the distress of all the other factions. The Shapers eventually bring on global catastrophe. Mercator is probably right, but nobody is especially worried. Anhaldt hides a dark secret--he's just the front for an Artificial Intelligence. As for Singh, he really means well, but his methods are rather questionable.

Cadet Branches?
There is a trope in computer gaming, at least as old as Command & Conquer, and beautifully executed in Sid Meier’s Civilization IV: Colonization, in which the same faction can be led by multiple individuals or played in ways that express different aspects of the same theme. Some of the factions I have rolled out, feel like cadet branches of the original seven. One could argue, for example, that the Hunters are a cadet branch of the Spartans that prioritize the physical adversity of adventure over war. The New State could plausibly be a cadet branch of the Labyrinth/Hive since both factions claim to need to physically isolate their followers from corrupting influences while segmenting society according to ability (utility). The Ascendancy is probably a cadet branch of the University; after all, genetics is a science. The New Two Thousand, inasmuch as it deals with the accumulation of things and their relationship to human society, could step right out of the Centauri Monopoly. The Shapers, with their roots (pun intended) in working the land, could be a cadet branch of the Gaians. The Tribe might just be a very particularized junior sibling of the Peacekeeping Forces.

Ideologies versus Themes
I think factions that offer very clear ideology are to be preferred to factions that are merely thematic. I think the Nautilus Pirates fell into that trap in SMAX, to their detriment.

Some of the new factions seem like they deal less with ideology or social organization and more with specific projects or fascinations on the part of their putative leaders. These include the New State (ocean exploration), the Dreamers (the mind as final frontier), the Children of the Atom (their "pet" A.I.), the Shapers (remake Earth), the Ascendancy (grow neo-Sapien), and the Restoration (previously unmentioned, but consisting of soldiers under Marcel Salan who want to return to Earth).

Asking Similar Questions
Several factions explore the same question of whether people are fit to govern themselves, or whether somebody (or something) else should govern them: the Hive, the Peacekeepers, the New State, and the Children of the Atom.

Backstories and Their Impact on the Quality of Faction Design
I fear that I have freighted Zakharov and Morgan in particular with so much backstory story, they are no longer easily recognizable as tropes. Zakharov has a personal fascination with longevity treatments that reduce the need for Pahlavi's character. Morgan's personal quest to avoid becoming anybody's puppet by buying his way to impunity is arguably very interesting, but far from his traditional role as Elon Musk-type provocateur.

In other cases, the backstory is something worth exploring. Van de Graaf's story in particular ties into that of Pahlavi (a former employee), Cohen and Anhaldt (former contractors), and Landers and Morgan (former adversaries). Landers has scores to settle with Van de Graaf and Santiago. Morgan knows to look out for van de Graaf and Cobb. Godwinson probably has strong opinions about van de Graaf given their mutual experience as high-level officials during the Second American Civil War. Lal could theoretically come in for a drubbing by everyone given his high-level role in U.N. policy-making prior to Mission Launch. Marsh and Morgan may know each other professionally because of their involvement in African war zones.

Sometimes, a faction with a rich backstory can go in a direction that opens up "space" for someone else. For example, if the Spartan Federation isn't all about conquest, then the Ascendancy can be. If the Morganites/Monopoly are all about bread and circuses and the dangers of one very rich person mucking up the global system, that makes it easier to have another faction, also inspired by Capitalism, that looks at the influence of property ownership on government.

[Trenacker]

Vietnam was the first war ever fought without any censorship. Without censorship, things can get terribly confused in the public mind. - Datalinks

Node suppression is the activity of tracing and punishing unauthorized speech on faction Network Nodes.

During the Frontier period, when factions were limited to a primitive intranet and leisure time was at a premium, node suppression was an ancillary duty of Base Operations to the extent it was even attempted. As the Planetary Network grew more crowded, however, all participating factions engaged in at least some node suppression as a security measure.

Each faction had its own unique methods of node suppression.

Offenders paid .05¤ per violation at Morgan Mines, 16¤ at Morgan Entertainment, and faced immediate severance of employment at Morgan Robotics.

For the incorrigible, University deans reset network permissions to "read only." A Tribal could be excluded from the nodes altogether by community vote and was assigned extra shifts on gate-, fire-, or wormwatch. The Peacekeeping Forces were more ingenious still: especially outrageous behavior was simply advertised to the full colony during the faction's regular Town Halls.

In the New State, armed "Node Trackers" enforced the faction's strict, terraced speech codes. Drones enjoyed considerable leeway to speak amiss, but higher ranks were liable to be court-martialed.

[Trenacker]

The court's determination was that our monopoly position would stifle innovation. They did not understand that only those who are already very powerful can afford the high price of failure. - The Ethics of Greed

Nwabudike Morgan enchanted those who met him. In their sealed reports, intelligence officers from five countries wrote with obvious affection for the "honest thief" who treated encounters with security forces like a game and supplied good intelligence in return for favors and freedom. Politicians felt the same. Trust-busting U.S. senator Valience Hill Taft (R-OH), no stranger to political entanglements with the world's richest man, captured the sentiment of most colleagues in his 2080 autobiography: "Morgan was willing to pay when he offended. If he stuck a knife in your back, you knew it was jeweled and that you could keep it." Unity Captain Jonathan Garland even gave Morgan, a confirmed stowaway, the liberty of his bridge.

Morgan's appeal was unique among his fellow faction leaders because it arose mostly from a lack of any axes to grind. His message was simple reassurance: anyone who followed him could expect a return to form. He was not proposing a radical reassessment of the survivors' relation to the soil. The faction did not plan to chop down the xenofungus so that its agronomists could plant a million palms. The morning would never start with enforced calisthenics. You could pay somebody to take your turn on watch. There would be no spectacular adjustments to the familiar social order. A priest was just a priest; a physicist just a physicist. The Centauri Monopoly wanted you to have a better life through hard work. No gimmicks.

The complete chaos of our departure from Unity is the perfect endorsement of free exchange between communities. Trade is an instinct. We took a crate because it was there, not because of what was in it. We knew that every object aboard would have a future purpose—a value. Not to us, perhaps, but certainly to someone else. And remember: that “someone else” was still shooting at us. - The Personal Diaries

Without a specific end in mind beyond mere accumulation, Morgan's people loaded their Landing Pods with whatever containers happened to be at hand. As one of the mission's commercial investors, Morgan understood better than most that U.N. quartermasters would have placed aboard few items that did not have some direct relationship to mission survival.  Lack of fuss helped them to work with greater speed. In the end, they landed with three times the material carried down to Planet by their competitors, and much of it immediately useful for base-building. The rest, they strapped down to the beds of Unity Rovers and dutifully hawked to their neighbors, swapping for what they wanted instead.

[MysticWind]

Metacommentary

Having skimmed through the archives of NetworkNode.org, and read others' fan sequel ideas (including played Civilization: Beyond Earth), I believe that the original SMAC was lightning in a bottle. It's just one of those classic works of '90s video gaming where everything came together, often by accident. And it's that cohesive, tightly-coupled nature of the game that makes coming up with new factions so tricky, and why that many find Alien Crossfire to be so lacking. The original seven factions (interesting that it was an odd number- it works out very well, as the roster isn't a set of dichotomies but more triangular multipolar relationships) all represented Big Classical Ideas. War and Peace. Environment or Economy. Religion or Reason. And uh, "Atheist Police State"/"High security state". It probably wasn't even originally intended to be like this- Brother Lal of the Keepers of Wisdom had more of a science bent, for instance. But what we ended up getting was a deep sci-fi work inspired by some great classical works of sci-fi. Mid-20th century and earlier works were all about big ideas of what it means to be human, what it means to live in a society, before the dross of modern genre conventions seeped in. In many ways, SMAC, like Star Trek: The Next Generation, could only have been created in the temporary respite of the '90s end of history. When Americans could loaf like Homer Simpson a bit in our placid bubbles, and dream up far future space operas shaped by Big Ideas rather than petty tribal affiliations.

The challenge is expanding upon that world. The problem is that when you have such a singular work, any attempts of expansion can only narrow its grand view. Even when the original creator is behind it, hence the disappointment of SMAX. (Behind the scenes, I'm not sure if the expansion was Firaxis at its best, either- I get the impression that its was rushed, and from what I've read, Brian Reynolds didn't even work on it.) But the problem with SMAX is that it creates factions that have much smaller concepts than the big ideas of the original. And in fact, that's why they are better thought of as splinters and separatist groups- the cadet branches, perhaps, of the original factions. The narrower scope of the expansion factions both reinforce the grandeur of the originals, and makes SMAX on its own a bit hard to imagine. Did all seven original leaders fall to the five new ones, and/or were wiped out by the Progenitors? Is the only chance of survival to be a hacker or a pirate? Just what the heck are the cyborgs about anyway?

There's only so many Big Ideas that one can come up with before you run into overlaps with the original factions. For instance, what about a faction based on Law? Well, Yang certainly cares about that, to a Legalist extreme. The Peacekeepers live and breathe the rule of law. And all of the other ideologies also have their own organizing principles around it. What about a faction based on Truth? Not only is that perhaps too similarly broad to organize a society around, that also exists in all seven as well. It's rather hard to hone in on the appropriate "scale" of concepts that new Big Idea factions can be based off of.

And, to circle back on the tightly-coupled nature of SMAC: the game has some great systems working beneath its hood. The Social Engineering traits are top notch, because they tie into every single stat attribute a faction has and can modify, the diplomatic relationships they can have with other factions, almost every aspect of gameplay. That's how the factions come alive in SMAC, even if you ignore all of the oodles and oodles of writing and voice acting. SMAC's stats make each faction distinct from each other. But this incredibly designed system is difficult to expand upon on its own. There's only so many agendas and aversions. There's no room for nuance or variation as in modern hyper-detailed grand strategy games. It makes modding in new factions difficult, because beyond the difficulty of maintaining good game balance (without duplicating any of the existing factions, mind you), you can only have so many traits to model new Big Ideas.

For instance, how could a faction revolving around Art work? Maybe if you had some of the culture mechanics that weren't introduced into Civ III then it could really shine. But without it, you're just left with something not dissimilar to Morgan Industries, because a Wealth-focused faction would have the time to obsess on Beauty and Aesthetics, right? Or maybe it's more philosophical and knowledge-based? In which then it'd look more like the University. Or how would you model societies that are anarchistic, all about Freedom, like many of the fan mods I've come across? How would you represent that, low or high Police, low or high Economy? Would it just be Morgan Industries but scrappier?

This might also be why SMAX factions are odd- they're based on the remaining game mechanics that went unrepresented in the base game, rather than story concepts.

What I'm getting at is that SMAC has enough statistics to tell stories with its own factions. But as fun as it is to make new factions, it's rather hard to make them distinctively different, because the mechanics don't support them.

These thoughts aren't necessarily in response to this project. This project does a fine job introducing new specific faction ideas for more nuanced, specific settings. So, something less Big Idea than the original. And I think that's fine- Firaxis themselves couldn't duplicate their original approach. I do think though there is something to be said about trying to come up with more factions that could embody more Big Ideas. And I do think the shortcomings of decades' of modders attempts at making good new custom factions can also inform the experience of creating new factions in a story. Because both in-game, or in-fiction, SMAC remains the same; there are frameworks that hold dear.

Played "Straight" or Subverted?

I think your take is fair, as the factions and their leaders have always been up to interpretation. Their morality, even their specific personalities, are up for debate. I think those are emergent properties that will arise organically in the creation of your story, as it might in a player's campaign. The only question is how you want to drive it, as this thread is more world-building than actual plot creation.

My Take on the Backstories

In this section you've explained your vision of the factions, old and new. It's all very fine, my only question is what scope you're looking for. The original SMAC's central tensions was having factions with diametrically opposed relations- but not purely so!- interact with one another. SMAX's story can be imagined as schism and rebellion from the original factions as Planetary development continued, plus the whole alien Manifold subplot. So what is your central idea of your setting? Do these new factions exist to serve as foils to the original? Or are you seeking to explore the ideas of these new factions in their own right? Maybe have them explore their own moral underpinnings in their interactions with one another, as the originals did? Or maybe play out the histories of Old Earth in a new world, with factions that haven't truly shorn off their connections to history? I think you can do all of this and the above, I'm just wondering if there's any specific intention behind it.

Cadet Branches?

I think it's fine to have new factions that feel like cadet branches of the original seven, without having them be splinters. Like I keep harping on, coming up with Big Ideas and representing them is difficult. (Just how could a society devoted to Art even look like anyway?) So it's natural for new factions to be more specialized than the originals. SMAX factions already do. Of course, splinter, insurgent factions also ramps up the intrigue, so maybe that could be fun.

Ideologies versus Themes

I actually think the Pirates have material to work with, they're just sadly underwritten along with the other SMAX factions. (I think the Cyborgs are the worst- they take a whole new sci-fi concept and are completely unelaborated upon. They're neither hostile assimilationists nor enlightened ultra-rationalists. They lack the transhumanist and/or cyberpunk themes of other sci-fi. They're just University with less emotion. They're boring.) But the Pirates have a latent Green nature ("protecting Planet's seas") that almost every interpretation ignores. They're Greenpeace of the future. They're Skye meets the Spartans meets the anarchist fan-modded custom factions. There's a lot of material to explore in piracy. Like the Data Angels' hacker-based society, there's something inherently parasitic or at least externally-dependent about the faction, but it's something that can be worked with. There's probably moral questions that can be brought up too- is it right that the Pirates believe themselves protectors of the seas while ignoring the land, and hypocritically benefit from stealing the wealth created by the landlubbers who amassed it by exploiting the seas? And piracy is a lifestyle/economic mode that entire nations have been built on.

Asking Similar Questions

On the note of who should rule, in a sci-fi context, the themes explored in the first two Deux Ex games would probably be helpful, especially the endings. Should a cabal of well-informed elites rule? An A.I.? How about smash it all and return us to the glorious tech-less Dark Ages? A new fanatical inquisition? Cybernetic hive mind?

Backstories and Their Impact on the Quality of Faction Design

You have your own idiosyncratic take on the original factions, and I think you should stick to them if that's your vision. It's as original a creation as your new faction concepts.

And your thoughts on the dynamics between the factions, both personal and ideological, also make sense. I think it all comes down to what path you want to blaze.

[Trenacker]

Thanks for engaging, MysticWind. I am always excited when I see that you’ve made another post.

You’ve said quite a lot, most of which I heartily agree with, so I’m going to try to focus my reply to some of the aspects of your remarks I found most interesting.

You are certainly onto something when you perceive multipolar, not just bipolar, relationships between the various factions. Both the Spartans and the Hive are at odds with Lal’s preferred way of life. And despite the set-up for conflict between Deirdre and Morgan, it is Zakharov who fulminates against the Gaians in the game’s own media. Your point makes me wonder if I have been too harsh on myself for creating new factions that don’t necessarily have perfectly dyadic pairings (e.g., the Dreamers, the Ascendancy). In fairness, I guess it must be said, too, that factions concerned with big ideas (say, the Lord’s Believers) rather than specific projects (e.g., the Human Ascendancy) would have more rough edges to snag on other ideologies.

And I think, after today looking at some of the original quotations, I must admit that Reynolds and the design team gave the leaders a good deal of texture, sometimes at the expense of losing focus, which is not necessarily good or bad. I was a bit concerned that Director Tamineh Pahlavi should have something to say about robotics as well as cloning, thinking it might be casting her arms too wide and horning in on the Luddite philosophy of Warden J.T. Marsh, but Commissioner Lal has arguably even more to say in-game about ecology than he does about democracy or information, supposedly his faction’s raison d'être.

Fascinating that you spot the relationship between the original seven factions and “Big Classical Ideas” with world-historical heft, while I most appreciate how much a product of their time they seemed to feel, both then and now. The major “Big Ideas” I or others came up with that didn’t seem covered by the seven original factions were: the secrets of the human mind (Dreamers) (although it could be argued that Yang could always have ended up there), the demise of civil society (Tribe), the morality of life on the frontier (Hunters or New Two Thousand, depending on how one counts), crime and punishment (Watchers, if we say that Yang, while a disciplinarian, is not specifically interested in correcting antisocial behavior), the secrets of the deep seas (New State, originally called The Beneath), and criminality (Promise-Keepers), which didn’t really result in a functional faction concept.

I think Lal would need to grapple with both law and truth. Somebody interested in the “free flow information” would eventually need to confront what information overload does to a democratic society. The Janus face to the Peacekeepers in that regard is the New State, although it could be Yang, played broadly as a gatekeeper between himself and his subjects.

To model “freedom” for the Hunters, I went with a nomadic society that doesn’t build traditional bases. No idea how one would incorporate that into even a sequel from a balance standpoint.

This endeavor is more world-building than linear story. I’m not going anyplace per se, just enjoying the journey as I dip my toes every day into a world I have come to love. As a kid, I collected roleplaying game books and illustrated encyclopedias purely to go on mental peregrinations.

I guess what I’m looking for is critique from folks like yourself. Which new factions speak loudest to you? What “takes” on the originals do you think are most intriguing?

What gets me about the SMAX factions is that there was a petty active web community around Alpha Centauri after game launch. The developers of the expansion consulted with them for at least some of the new techs, although I’m unsure of whether they did the same for the factions. Three years ago, I got to ask Brian Reynolds a question on the Pean to SMAC blog. I was curious whether he’d left any factions on the cutting room floor when shipping the original title. He told me that there were seven, start to finish, which I found mind-bending.

When I ran an Alpha Centauri matrix game (think a Sufficient Velocity grand strategic roleplaying game), the Tribe and the Shapers were by far the two standout player-created factions. But for each of those, we got a dozen people wanting to play just another cult that was going to plug everyone on Planet into a machine mind.

[Trenacker]

To be a Survivalist is to live out the proud pledge not to burden others. The traditional role of government is inherently problematic for Survivalists. If I don't require as many services, it is not necessarily to bind me by as many rules. - Planet: A Survivalist's Guide

Santiago's Holnist allies were shocked by her intention to create a well-ordered society in which asceticism was among the highest virtues. The Spartan faction was soon roiled by civil war.

The memory of Holnist outrages aboard Unity had a long half-life for their surviving victims. The Tribe considered itself to be in a permanent state of vendetta with Santiago and her followers. Oscar van de Graaf likewise convinced the stakeholders of Terra Nova to pay considerable bounties for Spartan prisoners, whom the faction set to life terms of hard labor. The Peacekeeping Forces placed the last Spartan on trial for crimes against humanity as late as M.Y. 83.

Santiago's evolving ideology seemed to validate the general consensus that the Spartans remained an imminent and unrelenting threat even after achieving their stated goal of seizing the means to build an independent colony. Like Nathan Holn before her, Santiago produced a self-contradictory set of precepts to guide her people. The Spartan Creed stated that "the true warrior does not pursue violence against the unprepared," and warned Spartans never to shame themselves by joining battle with adversaries of blatantly inferior quality.

Yet the same document also said that the Spartan "strikes at the enemy wherever he or she finds them." Spartan society was divided between citizens and helots. Active soldiers and retired veterans belonged to the former class. Prisoners and those unable to fight were remanded to the latter. The Creedo taught that subjugation and labor were fitting punishments for those too weak to defend themselves or others--a condition for which they were held morally culpable.

[Trenacker]

It is well for designers to remember that their weapons will only sometimes be used as intended; more often, soldiers will find that they must apply shovel as hammer. Some of the most fearsome weapons ever put to war—the tank-killing German ’88 or the man-shredding Ontos—began their careers with very different roles in mind.

The AT-RDV, All-Terrain Rocket Delivery Vehicle, was a prototype self-propelled artillery car built and operated by the Human Tribe during the months-long Battles of the Slowwind. To build the AT-RDV, Tribal mechanics combined components of a fire-gutted Unity combat car and two Unity Rover kits. All work was performed under tight secrecy in the interior machine shop of the Tribe's second Landing Pod, the John Brown.

Three rear-mounted launch tubes fired two-stage cluster rockets. Each warhead, which broke apart at a maximum height of 2,000', released 8 bomblets equipped with chaos charges fused for contact-explosion. The three launchers fired in tandem, one rocket at a time, from revolving magazines. The AT-RDV's rear cargo deck incorporated slide-out racks for one full replacement barrage, pre-indexed into speedloaders. A small mid-body fighting compartment gave the car's eight accompanying artillerists a reasonably well-protected (and slightly elevated) position from which to serve as many as four machine-guns.

Battlefield experience demonstrated the AT-RDV's unsuitability for its intended purpose, reduction of the Spartan mountain fortress of Xerxion. The AT-RDV was withdrawn from active service and reequipped in M.Y. 5 to be able to deploy anti-personnel mines in lieu of the original chaos payload. In M.Y. 6, the field-deployed AT-RDV was overrun by a mindworm boil.

[Trenacker]

Information is power. I cannot learn except in dialogue. The secreting of knowledge is an act of tyranny, camoflaged as "proprietary research" by Morgan's overseers and "prudence" by Conclave synods. On a world about which we know so little, it is also tantamount to murder as surely as if one has pulled the trigger of a gun. - Opening Remarks to the 5th Congress of the Academy of Planetary Scienes

Tenured faculty of the University of Planet received a fixed annual energy stipend with which to fund their ongoing research.

Instructors, recent graduates, and tenured faculty seeking a more generous energy allotment, were required to appear before a tenure committee every three years to defend the value and pace of their output. The committee handed down recommendations that faction leadership usually applied without change.

The defense was notoriously demanding. Approvals skewed markedly in favor of the STEM fields. The average time from award of a Ph.D. to that of tenure from M.Y. 10 through 70 was nine years. About half of tenured researchers who chose to come before the committee appealing for increases were rejected each time.

The University population in M.Y. 72 included 4,720 tenured positions out of more than 20,632 total members of the academy and another 25,006 students below the doctoral level. Among those with tenure, just 82 were social scientists.

Career came before virtually all other considerations in University life. A researcher's wealth, matching prospects, and place of residence were closely correlated with their field of study. Auxiliary staff were even less secure. They and their families were traded like favors between bases.

[MysticWind]

Among the supreme ironies of the UNS Unity is that while the industrial warzones that built the vessel were heavily-policed regions where security perpetually operated on “shoot-to-kill” rules of engagement, the mission’s own armory was relatively light in lethal armaments. Though alien megafauna was a concern, limited amounts of heavy weaponry was present in comparison to the overwhelming abundance of nonlethal arms. Some of this dated back to ancient bureaucratic decree- following the heavy bodycount of the “Years of Flechettes”, in the 2030s the U.N. resolved to take a softer, if no less firm, line against malefactors at its space elevator sites. U.N. Security Forces outfitted in new kit stressing defensive capabilities and sporting state-of-the-art less-than-lethal equipment. From electric prods to riot gas grenades, from tranquilizer shredder pistols to shock batons, this new array of sub-lethals became standard peacekeeping weaponry, and thus was also carried to the stars by Unity.

The vast majority of the nearly nine thousand U.N. Security Forces personnel aboard the ship possessed experience from other services. These included former U.N. Peacekeepers and U.N. Marines to veterans of national and multinational militaries, to the scant former corporate security contractors "gone public", and even rumors of ex-survivalist defectors. A lesser-known service quietly represented within the Security Forces was the United Nations Special Operations Coalition, a black ops unit of the U.N. Intelligence Cell tasked with numerous antiterrorist initiatives involving the Alpha Centauri mission. Preventing attacks on the space elevators, protecting orbital and lunar training facilities, rooting out infiltrators among the crew- the UNSOC was a sharp, serrated dagger the Secretary-General could wield in times that called for a specialist touch. Unique among similar black bag groups, the UNSOC was intensely trained in nonlethal weaponry, and called to employ such measures whenever possible. This mandate from the Secretariat was less motivated by humanitarian ideals or mercy, but rather a desire to capture live targets whenever possible, so as to better serve the interrogation staff at the Intelligence Cell.

Right- Standard UNSOC Space Elevator counterinsurgency trooper, circa 2045

Developments in the materials sciences further enhanced security doctrine. After over half a century of lackadaisical investment, in the 2050s breakthroughs by Togra Labs chemical engineering researchers finally resulted in a new generation of quick-sticking adhesive tacky materials that could be used in sub-lethal combat, which they quickly trademarked as StickyFoam. Essentially chemically reactive aerogel laced with Buckytubes of incredible tensile strength, StickyFoam was used to disable individual assailants all the way to rioting mobs and enemy vehicles by freezing them in place. Togra StickyFoam cannons were even mounted on armored vehicles of private military corporations during the Badlands campaign of the Hypersurvivalist Wars, in which they were a key asset at immobilizing Holnist vehicles.

Battle of Bridge City, wherein ARC private security Jaguar-class weapons platforms defeated Holnist forces piloting stolen U.S. military equipment. Note the use of the ‘foam and fry’ tactic of launching RPG rounds at immobilized units, the use of Togra coloring on the ARC vehicles (a stipulation of their corporate partnership).

Despite their use at a grand scale, only a handful of prototype personal launchers were brought along for the trip. Mission leadership balked at the possibility of flooding entire corridors with foam. Despite this, StickyFoam did see rare instances of use during Planetfall. These cases were usually as a stopgap fire extinguisher, a dicey operation as their precise chemical use did lead to the damaging of irreplaceable machinery. The few combat instances of StickyFoam during Planetfall were almost exclusively used against armored adversaries, including one defensive action that successfully held a hijacked CMC-300 suit in place for no less than seven minutes before its rebel operator was able to reboot the napalm projector systems and burn through the hardened aerogel.

Left- Crew member dressed in environmental suit as impromptu fire protection prepares to enter conflagration. Right- Extracted helmet cam footage of the late Cpl. Jaydo Watkins, U.N. Security Forces, Battle of Forward Surgical Bay E.

Two other major types of sublethal weaponry that were en vogue on Earth at the time of the mission’s launch but went unrepresented on the ship included microwave emitters and precision combat waterjets. While directed energy active denial systems had been used by American military and law enforcement forces since the beginning of the 21st century, the high power expenditures, and bad institutional memories of New Los Angeles City Guardsmen and NLAPD officers indiscriminately firing microwave beams into crowds of starving rioters, made them prohibitively expensive for interstellar security. However, knowledge of such weapons were preserved, and later saw use on Planet after technological advancements made energy weapons commonplace.


Watchers of Chiron Juggernaut-class social stability enforcement platform performs sentry duties outside of Bentham’s Blockhouse during the drone riots of M.Y. 91

High-pressure water jets had been used for industrial precision cutting since the 1930s. By the end of the century, weaponization of the hydro-technology enabled the staunching of dozens of protest movements and rebel insurgencies throughout the colonial empires. On the lowest settings, these water jets resembled traditional water cannons for crowd dispersal. On higher settings, they could cut through layers of metal, utterly destroying enemy vehicles and structures. Like masers, water jets too were severely resource-constrained, making them a non-starter in the water-scarce theater of space. However, they later became a novel armament employed by the aquatic factions of Chiron, whose militaries were primarily operated in or near water.

Fragmentary footage of a Nautilus Pirates Manta-class amphibious shagokhod during a shore raid. The blue "lensing" effect is not merely cosmetic or for psychological effect, but rather light from the synthetic crystal focusing the stream.

[Trenacker]

A Hunter 'Thumper tank prepares to stimulate a fungal bloom on barren ground. [1]

The purpose of every profession is to reduce complicated problems to a matter of routine. In the land of men whose business is to segment and prescribe, the most supreme threat is the one your opponent has not imagined. - The Small Book

The first reported atrocity on Planet was perpetrated in M.Y. 5. At the Oracle, defending Saber Corporation mercenaries modified a Unity supply crawler to deploy nerve gas pods against incoming Pilgrim Regulators.

Chairman Sheng-ji Yang was proud of those who took up arms in defense of his kingdom. He memorialized them in miniatures put on public display to inculcate appropriate feelings of gratitude and general patriotism. Over time, he became an accomplished artist, capable of incorporating such details as the homemade grenades clipped to the belt of the loader in the piece featured here. Many of the explosives were too bulk and irregular to be pitched in the traditional manner and would be used as mines instead. Mess tins were a common casing. The large versions, issued to graduates of the mission's Martian Survival Course, could carry nearly 3kg of explosives and shrapnel.

Separately, Hive Security perfected the tactic of using man-pack mortars to launch knock-out gas at prospective targets. Although in theory this made it easier for them to take their victims as slaves, they rarely did so, executing incapacitated targets instead. Yang was keen to couch his reasons in terms that implied ruthlessness, but the Hive lacked food resources and could not have fed the prisoners it took.

Deviator weapons were always subject to focused fire. This tank is protected by skirt-mounted cope cages, counter-measures projectors, a laser-reflective coating, and the four long-range acoustic devices mounted at each edge of its rectangular hull. These weapons could broadcast at volumes up to 200dB, providing highly effective area defense against both enemy soldiers and incoming rounds.

Dreamer commanders began receiving "deviator" weaponry around M.Y. 170. Such fighting platforms consisted of an anti-personnel projectile launcher configured for wide-area spread. Deviators fired gas-injected membranes of sodium alginate and calcium chloride that released a somnacin-derived compound as they burst or dissolved. Without activation of a secondary device, the victims would merely hallucinate to the point of temporary incapacitation. However, if the operator utilized a directional speaker, and provided they were capable of speaking the Ur-language recovered by Dreamer neuroarchaeologists, they could exercise strong powers of suggestion over the afflicted. The Dreamers used Deviator bombardment to reverse pending routs of their notoriously shaky militia. (Once the original Saber Corporation mercenaries contracted to Roshann Cobb were no longer combat-effective, the faction's fighting ability sank to a dangerous low point.) [2]

[1] The Thumper was a unit in the Westwood Studios computer game Dune 2000 capable of attracting the sandworms native to the desert planet Arrakis.

[2] The Deviator Tank was a unique House Ordos unit in the 1992 Westwood Studios computer game Dune II and derivative titles. The Deviator had the same capability to temporarily convert enemy units described here.

[Trenacker]

Tribal solar collectors used variable-geometry mechanics and could quickly retract into protected shelters in the presence of danger.

At the very edge of the Uranium Flats where sand meets sea sits Elektrichestvokupol. Encroaching Hivemen forced the University of Planet to abandon its cherished megaproject at the eleventh hour. Zakharov's fighting strength was almost entirely devoted to the Spartan front. An under-strength company of University Enforcement at the power station withdrew even before evacuating plant staff. Yang's drones retrieved many of the defenders' discarded smart rifles, happy to replace their inferior hand weapons.

Yang's laborers swarmed the plant within hours of its capture. Upon discovering that they lacked the infrastructure to keep it operational, they dismantled and carted off the moveable machinery. The plant's fuel rods had already been irradiated during low-power testing; its new owners wisely left the reactor in SCRAM condition. The damaged shell of the reactor complex, called the "sarcophagus," stands a monument to their victory.

The Centauri Monopoly raised hundreds of wind traps in congenial locations across their territories. Morgan assured his shareholders that the huge and obviously vulnerable filters offered economies of scale.

[Trenacker]

Ye shall run every path, and cross every water. - Datalinks

Members of the Conclave's Parke Expedition look out across the High Spires. The towers of Koppernigk Observatory are visible just above the horizon.

Sister Godwinson ordered Major Vinchenson Parke to create a natural inventory of Planet's largest and tallest mountain range. To assist him, the faction spared no expense. Working with Morganite victualers, Parke equipped more than two hundred people to his precise specifications.

At the uppermost altitudes, climbers wore fully-pressurized suits to assist with breathing. The thick outer garment protected against UV light exposure.

Mechanical mules transported the expedition's best-known accompaniment: heavy-duty wind shelters reinforced for gale-strength conditions. The dome-shaped inventions bled waste heat and so prevented snow accumulation that risked trapping their occupants. Run-off from this process provided drinking water.

Like climbers of an earlier era, the Believers used recoilless rifles and lasers to tame the deep snowpack.

[Trenacker]

A policeman, while taking a bribe from me, once asked why I had arranged for the execution of a competitor. I told him that it was for the same reason the government maintained the Homelands. He, of course, did not understand. - The Ethics of Greed

From time immemorial, violence has gone in the footsteps of money, either to take or secure it.

Neighbors who refused to purchase power from the Morganite grid were entitled to live in the dark. Morgan Base Operations called it "unscheduled disconnection."

Corporate Security troopers received a .015% share of all non-faction energy put on-grid and a bounty pegged at .050% the value of competitors' assets eliminated.

[Trenacker]

A Conclave loimós, sketched after firing a shoulder-launched anti-tank guided missile. The Stickyfoam projector and combat claw are a classic pairing for this melee fighter.

Powered combat exo-frames were already in widespread use on Earth when Unity left the Lunar Cradle in May 2071. The United States first field tested their prototypes in the Indo-Pakistani Nuclear Exclusion Zone performing decontamination. Communist China proved the technology's suitability for urban search and rescue.

Nuclear-powered artificial musculature propelled the suits at loping runs of more than 70kph. Proficient operators bounded two-story buildings, confident that they would land upright thanks to the onboard gyroscopes.

Operators such as the U.S. Army, Soviet Military Air Forces, and People's Liberation Army used a mixture of smart guns, autocannons, microlasers, man-pack missiles, and drones. On Chiron, military technology lagged generations behind, notwithstanding the concessions that had to be made for flame or Stickyfoam due to wormthreat. Several high-grade suits made it aboard Unity only for their early possessors to struggle with upkeep and repair. Grenade launchers were therefore a simple favorite, but shortages of other-than-sub-lethal ammunition meant that they usually fired homemade shotgun rounds, smoke, or irritants. Factions that had gone aboard Unity armed--Spartans, Tribals, and Charterists--were less constrained, but even their weapons were of an older vintage: 7.6mm UN-standard hand and 9mm impact models.

In M.Y. 17, Governor Oscar van de Graaf famously felt himself on the receiving end of too much attention from the Centauri Monopoly's Corporate Security. The New Two Thousand assaulted Morganite strip mines with a pair of Cadillac-Gage Wakíŋyaŋ Powered Combat Suits. Rather than rely on their 5.56mm chest-mounted anti-personnel pods or single 2.6" light anti-armor weapons systems, the 9' tall attackers deployed backpack-mounted pile drivers that successfully collapsed the enemy's drifts.