Reach the Stars, Explore the Void REBOOT : A Stellaris-inspired quest of research and exploration

I thank Stellaris and Beyond the Chiron Gate for inspiring this quest.


The galaxy is vast and full of wonders, awaiting minds keen, brave and foolish enough to explore and understand them.
As the newly promoted head of the research, development and exploration institution of a recently united humanity taking its first, hesitant steps toward becoming an interstellar species, it will be your job to discover, nurture and herd such minds
.
To you the duties of sending exploration to unmapped stars, to choose which avenue of research to pursue and forbid, to decide if the benefits of new technologies are worth the risk of putting them in the hands of the powerfull.

But before anything, how and why was humanity unified ?

[] Through the threat of imminent extinction

Climate changes, resource depletion, international tensions, the unleashed power of new technologies… Those who tough the 20th century had show the worst of mankind were wrong, for in the 21th, our species nearly destroyed itself with an endless successions of disasters.

But, unexpectedly, one such disaster was too much for both the powerfull and the masses of humanity.

Was it when the Great Plains became the Great Desert and the Great Lakes were reduced to a polluted sludge ?
When the Middle East and Europe were annihilated by nuclear fire ?
When the PLA robotic division AI became mad and turned Beijing into a graveyard ?
When the brainwashed victims of the First Memetic Plague filled the streets of Sydney with blood ?

Nonetheless, this shock was strong enough to finally make mankind unite despite our difference into one, shaky, federation, and barely, barely prevent global collapse.

Now, at the dawn of the 22th century, humanity has walked back from the brink of extinction to an unstable equilibrium.

As the head of the United Nations Research Initiative, your duties will be to develop the technologies needed to correct the mistakes of old, and find the resources needed to restore Earth

Features :

• Choose the disasters that nearly lead humanity to extinction, exchanging sheer devastation for political and technological opportunities.
• Deal with the concert of nations, ever-bickering, ever-hungry for ressources, but, for the first time in human history, truly united.
• Help humanity on the path to enlightenment

[] Through annihilation

Somewhere between the 19th and 21th century, humanity destroyed itself. Through nuclear fire, uncontrolled global warming or others, more exotic disasters, nations and societies collapsed.
Billions perished, countless priceless works of arts and culture were reduced to dust, and unmeasurable pains inflicted.

But humanity survived.

And humanity rebuilt, seeking to never repeat the mistakes of the past.

As the head of the Office of Technological Reconstruction, your duties will be to restore what was lost, develop the means to restore the wastes, and ensure that armageddon will not come again.

Features :

• Customize both the Apocalypse and the wastes after, creating new, unique paths of societal and technological development.
• Deal with the reconstruction of Earth
• Rebuilt a better humanity

[] Through blood and steel

The second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century will be known forevermore as the time of Blood and Steel, of almost ceaseless warfare, of trench running through the continents and of entire countries turned into craters by endless rains of shells.

From this bloodshed, emerged a winner. The last camp, the last armies, the final conqueror, having united every land and every seas through total warfare.
For a hundred years, the rule of this final winner had persisted, crushing every resistance and rebuilding earth.

Now, the work is done, humanity is united under one system, the wounds of war have been healed, and every human being has what they deserve.

What is left for the conquerors of an entire world ?

Well, reach for the stars.

And as the head of the Institute of Systematic Advancements, you will help them.

Features :

• Customize your own conquering system, by a victorious Black Army of Anarchism, the universal Japanese Empire or simply the most successful warlord in history.
• Deal with the boons and drawbacks of serving a system that triumphed through total warfare.
• Help conquer the stars themselves…or perhaps liberate them

[] Through a gift from the stars

Somewhere, in the long history of humanity, a gift came from the stars.

From it, came power, power enough to to turn cavemen into gods.
Power enough to ensure the Roman Empire would persist forevermore.
Power enough to let the Mongols turn the Earth into their pastures.
Power enough to allow the Zulus to crush the British Empire, and conquer Europe.
Power enough to unite Earth.

Now has come the time to reach beyond the sky, and find the source of the gift.

Such are your duties, as head of the Starseekers Order.

Features :

• Customize an uchronia caused by a gift from the stars
• Deal with the both familiar and alien politics of an humanity that followed a radically different path.
• Develop the Gift, find its source, pay its price.

[] Through shared resistance

They came from above, relentless, uncaring invaders from beyond with technologies beyond humanity's understanding.

They should have triumphed, they should have crushed us as easily as one crushed an ant underfoot.

They should have, but they did not.

Unified as one, humanity incredibly, impossibly, triumphed !

Now, humanity has rebuilt, now, humanity has learned from our foes.

Such an invasion shall never be allowed to happen again, and as the head of the Forward Defence Research Division, you shall ensure this.

Features :

• Customize the Invaders, and choose what humanity learned and took from these defeated monsters.
• Navigate a deeply scarred Earth, and deal with the twins siren calls of paranoid defense and revanchist militarism.
• Help make the choice between Safety, Revenge, Justice and, perhaps, ensuring no others species has to suffer what humanity suffered.

[] Through the intervention of a distant kin

Long, long ago, before the beginning of History, there were nations, ideals and wonders. All failed, all were destroyed, reduced to ashes.

But from this destruction, there were survivors.
Perhaps at the bottom of the seas.
Perhaps in hidden bunkers, deep below the surface.
Perhaps in colonies beyond Earth.

Those survivors rebuild through the millenia, until they could come back, until they could reclaim Earth.

And, through intrigues, brutality or, perhaps, saving us from annihilation, they triumphed.

Now, Earth is under the rule of a people both familiar and alien, human in bodies, but with tongues, cultures and mindsets utterly alien to us.

As the head of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, it is your duties to serve the interests of both overlord and subjects, and perhaps, help bridge the gap between two people isolated from one another for millenia.

Features

• Customize the Kin, their reclaiming of Earth and the new order born of this reclamation.
• Navigate the politics of an Earth ruled by our alien kin.
• Help resurrect a forgotten world, or create a new one.
  

And what sort of galaxy awaits humanity, as our species leaves its cradle ?

[] A Wild Land

The galaxy is unexplored and unexploited, full of natural wonders and strange, unperturbed vistas. Resources and space lie unclaimed… for now.
There are others exploring the stars, claiming the resources of the void, and in the lawless expanse of the void, many new atrocities, many new mistakes, can be made.

[] A Cold War

The galaxy is full of life, species and civilizations. And full of conflicts. After one such conflict, the galaxy is in stalemate, powerful empires watching each other, preparing their core territories for the next conflict, and sending agents in the vast border zones between each empire.
There are many dangers here…and much opportunities, if humanity can win the torturous games of galactic politics.


[] A Graveyard

The galaxy has been shaped by civilization beyond compression, planets and stars simple clay for their works. They build wonders beyond imagining, and weapons able to destroy the very fabric of reality.
And now the galaxy is silent, the great empires fallen, leaving only ruins behind.
The galaxy will tremble under the might of what mankind unearths, for good or for ill.

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This is a reboot of one of my previous quest, who failed mostly due to my lack of experience, which turned what was supposed to be a "Stellaris Research Department simulator" into a "Bureaucratic Empire Building simulator".

For the readers of my other quests, they are not abandoned, I have…simply a really hard time writing updates for them currently, and a new quest will probably help unclog my brain's pipes !