What do you think happens?

[Dio]

What do you think happens to each of the faction leaders during and by the end of SMAC's official story?

Lady Deidre Skye: probably achieved transcendence with the planet mind after fighting with the spartans.

Sister Miriam Godwinson: Lives to end of game and decides to live out her life as a human rather than join the godhood. The thing that strikes me most about her ending is this: If you become a god, how can you worship or believe in a god? That probably means her religious group crumbles or is greatly reduced.

Academician Prokor Zakharov: He probably joins the planet mind after deidre.

CEO Nwabudike Morgan: Probably builds his interstellar empire and goes into retirement with some control over this empire.

Colonel Corazon Santiago: She is probably murdered by deidre's mindworms late in the mission years.

Chairman Senji-Yang: I am not exactly certain.

Commisioner Pravin Lal: Either he retreats from public view after he reunites the factions toward their original goal or he realizes the original mission is over after humans recolonize Earth (mentioned in one of the interludes).

What is your take on this?

[Buster's Uncle]

That's mostly how I see it, too.

[JarlWolf]

Its really debateable depending on which story you are following, fanfiction or the events of your game. But if we are talking of the originals,

Yang I think would go corrupt or his society crumble eventually as he, as would anyone, would grow tired and become more progressively corrupt or insane with absolute power.

If we are following certain stories, I think Lal (also due to his psyche profile) would end up mentally unstable/depressed and probably abandoned his mission and become a recluse.

Morgan would build his business up and try to live forever, though I could see something going wrong. And the likelihood of his unsustainable society surviving Planet's wrath is not likely I don't think.

Diedre would definitely be the type for transcendence, but I have a feeling Zakharov would try to become the dominant force in the god-mind and diminish Diedre's influence.

Miriam's very group would collapse or become very hostile to the idea of transcendence and would either collapse/be crushed or stay and become progressively more backwards.

Santiago would eventually have her faction splinter because her leadership is clouded by her own personal paranoia and certain issues with her would lose the trust of her followers, and I speak of this from a militarist perspective.

If Marr didn't initiate transcendence he would've been wiped out as much as H'mnee. I honestly think the both Progenitors would've been united against at some point if they posed too much a threat.

Cha Dawn would eventually fade into obscurity and fall from power as the Planet began to become more sentient, making him redundant and his followers lose faith in him as the planet seemingly attacked them as much as the others.

Aki Zeta would eventually join the god mind I am thinking, regardless of who is leader as she would find its the most rational choice, though I fear the AI she hosts would cause issues.

Domai is a mixed bag, I think he may have joined the transcendental movement but I also find he's more of a materialist in nature over an empath. He prefers material paradise for him and his followers over spiritual. He probably would've broke free from Yang and just kept his own small faction.

Roze I think would devolve into an underground group as security measures and other protocols factions have for security increase
and they'd probably be one of the biggest influences of trying to get the transcendental movement accessible to every person.

Ulrik is like Domai, he's a materialist just more so. I doubt he'd join the transcend movement, he and his followers would be content just surviving and living their carefree, plunder and pillage filled society.

Overall though it really depends on what storyline you take, what events happen in game, among other things.

[Dio]

Who made this warning label? It has some serious grammatical errors. WARNING! Voters and their choices would be showned! should become Warning: Voters and their choice(s) will be shown.

[uss1701jb]

I go by the fact that everyone kneels to me and I chop off their heads.     

As for the philosophizes, I prefer a mix of Yang, Deidre and Zak.

Y: Atheist
D: Environmental awesomeness
Z: SCIENCE

[Buster's Uncle]

Who made this warning label? It has some serious grammatical errors. WARNING! Voters and their choices would be showned! should become Warning: Voters and their choice(s) will be shown.

Something changed in the admin panel toaday, making it too hard to find the poll settings in a ten minute search.  I'm alerting sisko.

-Anyway, vote and you won't be able to see it anymore...

[JarlWolf]

I suggest you use the game implemented names too, like Hive/Labryinth because some people may be a bit confused as to what you are talking about.

As for my favourite ideal... I will personally say all of these do not cover my specifics to a punch well enough for me to choose one and perfectly identify with it.

But if we are merely taking it's ideal, not how its practiced and how its utilized and who leads it, then I believe I would go with the Human Hive.

My reasoning is that the Human Hive's core society is focused on finding the perfect society through social experimentation. Now how much and how far that goes is the big issue, and with the society that also means it should be open to some democratic options. I don't mind non democratic regimes IF the society is there and supportive. Yang is a good leader, but he's also somewhat weak: He lacks empathy and as a leader trying to find a utopia, a leader without empathy cannot truly find what the best option is as its lacking some of the core human characteristics, and that is love. Without love a society cannot function.
But none of these factions are perfect, I could nitpick at each one.


We take the ideal at its root. It's a communal society focused on social experimentation to find utopia that often uses meditation, group thinking and group based activities and cooperation to achieve its goals. Yang maintains that he must be the constant in this experiment and have control so that's his excuse for not having democratic methods, but that is merely an excuse to hold power and a corruption of his own ideal.

And if we are accounting leaders, Yang may be a weak, unempathic monster of a dictator, but he still does have the well being of his people in mind even if he does ignore their plights at times. And his system is supportive and there is services there to help people. Just it's clinical at best and only there to keep someone physically fit for working, less so for their own personal desires.

The society would still be disciplined, but its a society that has discipline and focus, a united group focus. It's not like Santiago's regime where its military discipline with a fascist dictatorship and barely any support for its citizens (and an inept leader to boot, even more so then Yang). Or Miriam's fundamentalist theocracy that suppresses and stunts society with religion.

And as for Lal, I respect Lal but his society is drowned in bureaucracy and and selfish individualism, individualism that does not necessarily encourage cooperation.

I don't agree with the blind pursuit of knowledge at the expense of people's well being and possibly societies, so Zakh is out of the question. It's not the same for finding the perfect society and its not a communal environment, they are individualistic researchers who at times can come to be envious and sabotage each others works. They are ivory tower intellectuals.

Morgan is dead obvious why I wouldn't join him. Unrestrained capitalism, or rather Corporatism is a blight upon humanity and is highly unsustainable to boot.

Diedre is an interesting case. I don't mind living with nature and adapting like that and I really respect her as a leader, but I disagree that total pacifism is what is necessary on this world as the world itself is dangerous and conflict is naturally going to happen, especially here.



In summary, voting for Yang because his IDEAL of a communal society of social experimentation has potential to turn into something really great. The problem is, is Yang himself to a great extent.