Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri: Iterations

[Trenacker]

I'd be interested in seeing how Nwabudike Morgan, the arch-capitalist, is adapting to starting from zero.

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Nick Stepanovich has perceptively pointed out on his Paean to SMAC blog that Morgan's "solution" for Planet is to change nothing. Human civilization on Earth didn't fail, in Morgan's book. We consumed all there was to consume, and then we moved on. The system worked, it just had its malcontents and losers, that's all.

It might be easy to think that Godwinson would most appeal to the fearful, but I can see Morgan's slick "change nothing" advertising hitting home with the least-resilient. The same way climate change denial often arises not from scientific literacy or illiteracy but motivated reasoning: if you say that a problem doesn't exit, then nobody can reasonably lay on you any accountability to contribute to a solution.

Honestly, it'd be cleanest if the pirates killed Yudikon. He's made it abundantly clear that he's not interested in working with us, Lal/us aren't the sort to just shoot him, and I doubt that Struan is going to just pick up his people and go. If I recall correctly, though, most of the people who left with him were Overseer types, something we don't need, and doesn't mesh at all with who Lal is. Would be a trial managing them.

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As a point of clarification, Struan's is a company: Struan's Pacific Trading Company, sometimes called Struan's Asia-Pacific Trading House. (Nod to James Clavell and the Nobel House saga.) The faction leaders are Roshann Cobb, the Struan's Factor, and Dr. Aleigha Cohen, a neuroscientist.

What's Abbadon about? We've just got a deposed tinpot dictator bumming around the place, and he's the one advocating for us to hold to moral purity?

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Correct. You know who Vesper Abaddon is, but you don't know why Vesper Abaddon is, nor how Vesper Abaddon is.

We are used to thinking that great evil cannot yield great good and that pain and suffering often link directly back to personal animus on the part of the guilty party toward the victims. At face value, Vesper Abaddon's story seems to pose the question, "Can the ends ever justify the means?" I worry that's a little trite, but at certain points in our story, the readers have been invited to contemplate Abaddon's crimes in dialogue with (A) his stated motivations, (B) the condition of federal Carmel post-war, and (C) Carmel's collective approach to post-war justice and healing.

Vesper Abaddon should feel very, very incongruent.

In some ways, I have failed you because I haven't kept up with internal issues in your colony. Guan Biao and Planitzer, at least, should continue to be upset by you decision not to treat Abaddon as a prisoner, to say nothing of his privileged role in the colony's administration.

You made an offhand line about the Soviet Premier possibly being in one of the pods, and that'd honestly be funny as hell. More seriously, perhaps some sort of scientist or doctor; we're well stocked on asskickers right now, oddly enough.

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I will take you to The Edge™.

Raw supplies might be more efficient, but honestly, the most interesting salvage is something like the Skagway; a questline that rewards an advanced prize at the end. If you do go with that, it should probably be a noncombat thing, so as to not step on the Skagway's toes or trivialize combat too early. One of those giant super Former things would be neat, or some kind of high grade 3D printer.

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Because every science fiction story absolutely requires unobtanium harvesters the size of city blocks!

I would like to see the Reclamator.

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I'm anticipating making contact with Deidre and Zakharov after we laid the foundations pre planetfall

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Lal clearly has a soft spot for Lady Skye.

I feel like Zakharov would be very bitter about what happened aboard Unity. Lal's reputation as a Garland loyalist would surely not be pleasing to him. Depending on who you've gathered to you as helpmates, and his awareness thereof, that displeasure could be amplified significantly. I didn't explicitly put you in opposition to Zakharov. The original fiction, Journey to Alpha Centauri, tells us that Lal was tasked with monitoring Zakharov's conformity to Garland's orders during the Unity Crisis. If I remember correctly, Lal detected Zakharov's unauthorized incursion into the Unity armory. In this story, Zakharov's primary antagonist aboard Unity was Executive Officer General Francisco d'Almeida, who doubted Zakharov's ability to save the ship and declined to provide him with what he believed was sufficient and necessary resourcing to get that job done. The ship was more or less affirmatively dying by the time your part of the narrative got underway, so it's hardly as if Zakharov could fault you for rushing to the exits. However, I imagine he would look very dimly on your decision to pardon Captain Erkins, a Spartan.

On the other hand, Sathieu Metrion and the Tomorrow Institute were nominally comrades in the same fight. You can reasonably expect Zakharov to look favorably upon them. Your raw research output, notwithstanding your limited medical and scientific cast, would also probably make it easier for you to engage with Zakharov, even if just in a purely transactional relationship.

I'm a bit curious if alien ruins & artifacts are going to show up. I'd like to find some more sympathetic people & factions to talk with.

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I am very, very reticent to include aliens as active characters. I don't think most writers do aliens any justice. Instead, as in Star Trek, they feel mostly like exaggerations of specific human tendencies or cultures.

There are, however, many mysteries of Chiron to unravel. And I fully expect you to meet many, many more sympathetic people and factions.

 

[LuciDreamer]

Honestly I'm hoping that, among the salvage, we find some Old Earth memorabilia, to remind us of our roots. It would help reinforce Pravin Lal's identity and mission, after all! What's more motivating than having a physical reminder of humanity's storied past?

Think stuff like an entire case of Christian memorabilia. A few bibles; some sculptures of Jesus on the cross; maybe a nativity set piece. Maybe some reproductions (or genuine pieces) of famous artworks. Or maybe something more contemporary, like the entire discographies of Mariya Takeuchi, Tatsuro Yamashita, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Animals, and a bunch of other 20th century musicians. It'd be a shame for their music to die with Earth. And besides - I'm sure pre-21st century nostalgism is rampant in a world where the 21st century has been such a shitshow!

Movies. Movies would be a big thing to find. The first Walt Disney cartoon. The last Studio Ghibli animation. The Smithsonian's entire collection of archaic Newsreels, produced by ancient people, trying and failing to understand the world around them as it changed. Documentaries, old and new. Hours of historical accounts and fictional allegories to real-world events in media, to be consumed by the ever-curious citizens of Chiron, marveling in the chaotic cacophony of contradicting stories that make up the history of the human race.

Or, like, I dunno, maybe we'll find an entire three-years supply of Nissin-brand beef-flavored cup noodles.

As for factions, I'm really hoping we see Deirdre next. I just want to see how our society might change if we have a strong (presumably) Harmony-oriented faction as a close ally, trade partner, and friend.

 

[veekie]

Think we got the media with the datacore

 

[LuciDreamer]

oh right

 

[BoredStudent1414]

Depending on who you've gathered to you as helpmates, and his awareness thereof, that displeasure could be amplified significantly.

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In addition to pardoning a Spartan and including her as an advisor, we took in Malachi Ro and the Skagway which Zakharov sort of exiled, and Warm Welcome is basically over half warrior of some sorts as noted in the last update. Zakharov might not be happy about that.

 

[DarkLight140]

One thing I would like to see in the upcoming updates is a view of other factions' holdings. We have been turtling and building up industry, and for fairly solid reasons, but as we start expanding our reach and interacting with others I want to see what they've built, what they've prioritized, and how it differs from ours by necessity or by ethos. It's pretty early days yet and the kind of crazy divergent social policies and cultures Alpha Centauri factions are known for are just beginning; I want to watch them happen as close to firsthand as reasonably possible, instead of gathering rumors from people who happen to drop by and we drag a few paragraphs of data out of over weeks of interaction.

And who knows, if we get good diplomatic relations going with some factions we might even be able to affect their social policy choices. Build a different variant on some of these people one ambassador conversation at a time.


Salvage options have a lot of potentially cool stuff in them. Personally I would love to see any kind of additional aircraft; it's a long shot and we're unlikely to be able to replicate such things for quite a while but that kind of mobility and the associated projection of both diplomatic and military power would make for a situation where we can make a very serious impact over a huge radius- though it has its obvious weaknesses.

In addition to pardoning a Spartan and including her as an advisor, we took in Malachi Ro and the Skagway which Zakharov sort of exiled, and Warm Welcome is basically over half warrior of some sorts as noted in the last update. Zakharov might not be happy about that.

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Our population is massively combatant-biased but it's also notable in that the warriors are neither rebellious nor in charge, which is a very interesting and useful combination of traits. Zakharov is well aware that supporting a population of intellectual elites requires a significant number of non-elites, and he will doubtless having been making no few compromises of his own to balance reality with his vision. So, I don't think he'd look down on our maintaining a large military or an increasingly industrial-oriented colony as long as we maintain a high research output (number of labs is likely a direct counter for his approval) and it's visibly the educated elite issuing the orders. Being able to effectively keep the masses in line and producing useful work is, as I understand his mindset, a useful quality as long as it doesn't grow into its own purpose and divert better-used resources. Even something like employing a Spartan comes down to a question of whether they have been tamed into our minion (opinion++) or we're foolishly giving credence to their words and elevating a barbarian to a position of power instead of eliminating a rogue element (opinion--).

So ultimately a lot will, I suspect, depend upon how he perceives what we're doing. That comes down to information control, spin, and willingness to engage in both of those as much as anything else.

 

[Dmol8]

Is a prototype of a Genomic Processor on the Salvage Table? Or do need to go to the Research Table for that?

Cause having a biological machine made (in part) of the human genome that can process various forms of Genomic information on an individual level would help with healing if nothing else. And there will be plenty of else because the Human Genome will get other (ab)uses made by the various factions on Chiron/Planet.

 

[CyberFemme]

I'd like to request the Gaians as well, they've been a favorite of mine to play of late because they combine a largely benign philosophy with enough weirdness to be distinct, and I want to see what they've been up to.

I don't care for Yudikon, I'm divided overusing our resources to help. On one hand, denying the Pirates a base nearby is good, on the other I don't want the headache of trying to integrate his group. I say we keep our intervention to a minimum and focus on disrupting Pirate opps. Helping Yudikon:s faction is a happy side effect.
The Peacekeepers should focus first of making alliances with factions that are the least morally objectionable first. There are practical limits to our charity and we should formalize them in order to further social cohesion. The Paradox of Tolerance needs to be addressed and that policy formalized.

I like Erkins plan and I'd like to know more about them - having a summary post of the various characters could also be quite helpful and I've had some problems tracking who's who.
Metrion also interests me, I like how Warm Welcome now has representation for the Supremacy affinity as well as Purity. I'd like to get some Harmony representatives as well because I feel like it fits the Peacekeeper image to be a place like Babylon 5, where different cultures can come to trade and learn from one another. It could be cool if there was a specific mechanic that let the Peacekeepers pursue a triple hybrid affinity, where others were limited to double hybrids.

More Harmony representatives for the cryopods in keeping with my thoughts above.

As for salvage, I think a Monolith would be very cool to find. In-game they provide some excellent resources so they're clearly active and can be used to extract resources. It could be a great site for another outposts.

Alien Artifacts would also be really cool both for the tech, and for the sheer WTF factor of finding an alien data store and decoding it.

 

[LuciDreamer]

Metrion also interests me, I like how Warm Welcome now has representation for the Supremacy affinity as well as Purity. I'd like to get some Harmony representatives as well because I feel like it fits the Peacekeeper image to be a place like Babylon 5, where different cultures can come to trade and learn from one another. It could be cool if there was a specific mechanic that let the Peacekeepers pursue a triple hybrid affinity, where others were limited to double hybrids.

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Now that would be an ideal to strive for, but I wonder if Lal himself has other plans.

He strikes me as someone who is strictly Purist in his personal ideology - his veneration for the U.N. mission implies a sort of fondness for, if not Earth how it is, then Earth how it could be at its very best. Judging by his reaction to Roc, he's already pretty ambivalent to Supremacy, and might even find Harmony, taken to its inevitable conclusion, to be appalling to his human sensibilities. If he allows for either to take root in his civilization at all, he'll want both to take a backseat to his Purist ideals.

I wonder, actually, what'll happen once he forms that Planetary Council and makes himself the head of it. Obviously a supranational authority must represent the aggregate ideological makeup of all member-states, right? And yet, most of his peers probably don't share his affinity for Purity. And some of the ones that do might attract Lal's ire, one way or another. Once the affinities diverge and radicalize, I can see the entire organization splitting apart (again!) unless either a healthy equilibrium has been reached or one affinity has come to dominate planetary politics, whether through passive influence or... you know. War.

 

[CyberFemme]

Now that would be an ideal to strive for, but I wonder if Lal himself has other plans.

He strikes me as someone who is strictly Purist in his personal ideology - his veneration for the U.N. mission implies a sort of fondness for, if not Earth how it is, then Earth how it could be at its very best. Judging by his reaction to Roc, he's already pretty ambivalent to Supremacy, and might even find Harmony, taken to its inevitable conclusion, to be appalling to his human sensibilities. If he allows for either to take root in his civilization at all, he'll want both to take a backseat to his Purist ideals.

I wonder, actually, what'll happen once he forms that Planetary Council and makes himself the head of it. Obviously a supranational authority must represent the aggregate ideological makeup of all member-states, right? And yet, most of his peers probably don't share his affinity for Purity. And some of the ones that do might attract Lal's ire, one way or another. Once the affinities diverge and radicalize, I can see the entire organization splitting apart (again!) unless either a healthy equilibrium has been reached or one affinity has come to dominate planetary politics, whether through passive influence or... you know. War.

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I think that's an opportunity for character development for Lal then, because the old UN was a deeply dysfunctional beast and we should NOT be trying to emulate it lock, stock, and barrel.
Rather, we need a new underlying ideology based on the opportunities and limitations of Planet's environment. And Lal grappling with the reality of the situation and figuring out how to keep to the spirit of his principles rather than the letter sounds pretty good.

 

[Eldon]

Now that would be an ideal to strive for, but I wonder if Lal himself has other plans.

He strikes me as someone who is strictly Purist in his personal ideology - his veneration for the U.N. mission implies a sort of fondness for, if not Earth how it is, then Earth how it could be at its very best. Judging by his reaction to Roc, he's already pretty ambivalent to Supremacy, and might even find Harmony, taken to its inevitable conclusion, to be appalling to his human sensibilities. If he allows for either to take root in his civilization at all, he'll want both to take a backseat to his Purist ideals.

I wonder, actually, what'll happen once he forms that Planetary Council and makes himself the head of it. Obviously a supranational authority must represent the aggregate ideological makeup of all member-states, right? And yet, most of his peers probably don't share his affinity for Purity. And some of the ones that do might attract Lal's ire, one way or another. Once the affinities diverge and radicalize, I can see the entire organization splitting apart (again!) unless either a healthy equilibrium has been reached or one affinity has come to dominate planetary politics, whether through passive influence or... you know. War.

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A lot of this is true, Lal is a Purist by nature and ideology. But he also has a firm commitment to democracy, compromise and negotiation. Although he himself will push for and try to advance a Purist ideology he will also listen to the people and do his best to try to come up with compromises and solutions that make as many people happy as possible. And if that includes incorporating supremacy and harmony ideas he will.

 

[Crazycryodude]

The canon flavor text suggests that Deirdre and Lal ended up allied in a Green-flavored bloc by the mid game iirc so making compromise with Harmony is hardly out of character, but yeah Lal is definitely a Purist on a personal level. If you're feeling charitable he's a wide-eyed idealist, if you aren't he's a hidebound reactionary clinging to an irrelevant piece of paper that didn't even work how it was supposed to 200 years ago back on Earth much less here and now. His personal outlook is fundamentally backwards-looking, trying to recreate a somewhat tweaked but basically similar order to how things were back on Earth rather than the revolutionary transformations just about everyone else offers. The tug of war between his personal desire to just go back to the good old days and the harsh realities that 1) the Good Old Days weren't very good for a whole lot of people and 2) the way we did things in the Good Old Days make zero sense on Planet should be a very interesting contradiction to work through.

 

[CyberFemme]

The canon flavor text suggests that Deirdre and Lal ended up allied in a Green-flavored bloc by the mid game iirc so making compromise with Harmony is hardly out of character, but yeah Lal is definitely a Purist on a personal level. If you're feeling charitable he's a wide-eyed idealist, if you aren't he's a hidebound reactionary clinging to an irrelevant piece of paper that didn't even work how it was supposed to 200 years ago back on Earth much less here and now. His personal outlook is fundamentally backwards-looking, trying to recreate a somewhat tweaked but basically similar order to how things were back on Earth rather than the revolutionary transformations just about everyone else offers. The tug of war between his personal desire to just go back to the good old days and the harsh realities that 1) the Good Old Days weren't very good for a whole lot of people and 2) the way we did things in the Good Old Days make zero sense on Planet should be a very interesting contradiction to work through.

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Very much this, I was struggling to put into words what put me off about Lal as a character and this pretty much encapsulates it.

 

[Crazycryodude]

I have Strong Opinions about Lal being the secret reactionary in SMAC, even moreso than Miriam really. Miriam tends to get pigeonholed as "that crazy fundie lady lol religion amirite?" because she was written in the 90's and nerds who talk about video game philosophy trend overwhelmingly non-religious but I can't actually find myself disagreeing with any of her points. She's not a bible-thumping evangelical fighting the American culture war of the late 90's/early 2000's, she's syncretizing a bunch of disparate religions into a truly communal, compassionate gestalt that cares for its people. Her critique of Earth and why it failed makes more sense to me than Lal's for sure, and even if she wouldn't be my first choice she's a good person who won her colony pod by going amongst the damned and forgotten and saving them when nobody else would. Lal's kind of in charge just because he's always been in charge.

I think people gravitate towards Lal because he's the most similar to the current day order most comfortable English-speaking SMAC nerds live in, but the current day is centuries in the past by the time SMAC happens. Lal is the equivalent to a modern-day monarchist, a weirdo with an obviously outdated ideology that just wants to go back to how we did things centuries ago without really thinking about why the Good Old Days all fell apart if they were so perfect.

 

[JamesShazbond]

Lal's a Purist in the political sense; he's 100% dedicated to liberal democracy. There's no inherent reason that can't mesh with environmentalism, especially when the consequences of not doing so are "worms eat your brains".

 

[CyberFemme]

I have Strong Opinions about Lal being the secret reactionary in SMAC, even moreso than Miriam really. Miriam tends to get pigeonholed as "that crazy fundie lady lol religion amirite?" because she was written in the 90's and nerds who talk about video game philosophy trend overwhelmingly non-religious but I can't actually find myself disagreeing with any of her points. She's not a bible-thumping evangelical fighting the American culture war of the late 90's/early 2000's, she's syncretizing a bunch of disparate religions into a truly communal, compassionate gestalt that cares for its people. Her critique of Earth and why it failed makes more sense to me than Lal's for sure, and even if she wouldn't be my first choice she's a good person who won her colony pod by going amongst the damned and forgotten and saving them when nobody else would. Lal's kind of in charge just because he's always been in charge.

I think people gravitate towards Lal because he's the most similar to the current day order most comfortable English-speaking SMAC nerds live in, but the current day is centuries in the past by the time SMAC happens. Lal is the equivalent to a modern-day monarchist, a weirdo with an obviously outdated ideology that just wants to go back to how we did things centuries ago without really thinking about why the Good Old Days all fell apart if they were so perfect.

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Out of all the Factions, the Gaians strike me as the closest to 'good guys'. Their negatives to morale and police indicate that they're generally against trampling people's rights, and the flavor texts backs this up.

 

[JamesShazbond]

Out of all the Factions, the Gaians strike me as the closest to 'good guys'. Their negatives to morale and police indicate that they're generally against trampling people's rights, and the flavor texts backs this up.

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Then they send the worms to eat your brains for littering.

 

[CyberFemme]

Then they send the worms to eat your brains for littering.

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I mean, that's definitely the starwman argument that other factions make against them, but it feels pretty cartoonish.

 

[Crazycryodude]

Eh they definitely murder a bunch of people with mindworms, pretty regularly. But sometimes you need to send a boil of psychic horrors to lay eggs in the brains of your enemies' children, such is life on Planet 🤷‍♂️

 

[CyberFemme]

Eh they definitely murder a bunch of people with mindworms, pretty regularly. But sometimes you need to send a boil of psychic horrors to lay eggs in the brains of your enemies' children, such is life on Planet 🤷‍♂️

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I know canonically they use this against the Spartans but... that's kind of a given when you're facing someone whose troops are better equipped and trained and who would gladly subjugate you by force. Using PSI to bypass the Spartan advantages makes sense from a guerrilla standpoint perspective. And their pacifist tendencies means that they probably weren't the ones that started shit.

 

[aledeth]

I know canonically they use this against the Spartans but... that's kind of a given when you're facing someone whose troops are better equipped and trained and who would gladly subjugate you by force. Using PSI to bypass the Spartan advantages makes sense from a guerrilla standpoint perspective. And their pacifist tendencies means that they probably weren't the ones that started shit.

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I agree, but at the same time... using PSI weapons or mind worms against humans at all could & maybe should be considered an atrocity due to the horrible nature of the death that comes from it?

 

[CyberFemme]

I agree, but at the same time... using PSI weapons or mind worms against humans at all could & maybe should be considered an atrocity due to the horrible nature of the death that comes from it?

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That kind of depends on the use case. In defence against Spartan aggression? I can't find it in me to find much sympathy for the Spartans given that they're basically Nietzschean neo-nazis. That's on them.

 

[Trenacker]

Honestly I'm hoping that, among the salvage, we find some Old Earth memorabilia, to remind us of our roots. It would help reinforce Pravin Lal's identity and mission, after all! What's more motivating than having a physical reminder of humanity's storied past?

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Count on it.

In addition to pardoning a Spartan and including her as an advisor, we took in Malachi Ro and the Skagway which Zakharov sort of exiled, and Warm Welcome is basically over half warrior of some sorts as noted in the last update. Zakharov might not be happy about that.

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I think Malachi Ro was more like the cousin to whom you can't relate than the housemate whose guts you hate. Zakharov quite literally didn't know what to do with her. Ro may well bear more residual bad feeling than the Academician himself.

And who knows, if we get good diplomatic relations going with some factions we might even be able to affect their social policy choices. Build a different variant on some of these people one ambassador conversation at a time.

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Even something like employing a Spartan comes down to a question of whether they have been tamed into our minion (opinion++) or we're foolishly giving credence to their words and elevating a barbarian to a position of power instead of eliminating a rogue element (opinion--).

So ultimately a lot will, I suspect, depend upon how he perceives what we're doing. That comes down to information control, spin, and willingness to engage in both of those as much as anything else.

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I'm not absolutely sure of the meme, but I think this is where I say, "No, Lal. You are the Spartan." That's why Erkins joined you, isn't it?

Is a prototype of a Genomic Processor on the Salvage Table? Or do need to go to the Research Table for that?

Cause having a biological machine made (in part) of the human genome that can process various forms of Genomic information on an individual level would help with healing if nothing else. And there will be plenty of else because the Human Genome will get other (ab)uses made by the various factions on Chiron/Planet.

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I think you did this when you took the four Network Nodes early on. They helped with genetic sequencing to heal most of your sick and wounded.

I like Erkins plan and I'd like to know more about them - having a summary post of the various characters could also be quite helpful and I've had some problems tracking who's who.
Metrion also interests me, I like how Warm Welcome now has representation for the Supremacy affinity as well as Purity. I'd like to get some Harmony representatives as well because I feel like it fits the Peacekeeper image to be a place like Babylon 5, where different cultures can come to trade and learn from one another. It could be cool if there was a specific mechanic that let the Peacekeepers pursue a triple hybrid affinity, where others were limited to double hybrids.

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I see Warm Welcome going in the same direction myself.

As for Erkins, you've had her provide some autobiographical material already. Can you help me understand what you'd like a deeper dive to illuminate so that I can prepare something appropriate?

More Harmony representatives for the cryopods in keeping with my thoughts above.

I think that's an opportunity for character development for Lal then, because the old UN was a deeply dysfunctional beast and we should NOT be trying to emulate it lock, stock, and barrel.
Rather, we need a new underlying ideology based on the opportunities and limitations of Planet's environment. And Lal grappling with the reality of the situation and figuring out how to keep to the spirit of his principles rather than the letter sounds pretty good.

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I think a lot will depend on what one thinks the U.N. was really all about. I feel as it largely faded from American notice starting in 2003. I recall an organization that raised expectations to levels that far exceeded results and a lot of bodies piling up despite the presence of armed peacekeepers.

The canon flavor text suggests that Deirdre and Lal ended up allied in a Green-flavored bloc by the mid game iirc so making compromise with Harmony is hardly out of character, but yeah Lal is definitely a Purist on a personal level.

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I read the "green" statements by Lal and (I think) Zakharov as a fundamental acknowledgement that environmentalism simply matters on Chiron. The planet is alive. I don't think you're making the case for it, but I want to take this opportunity to declare that I don't think it meant either of the two were necessarily converts of Deirdre.

If you're feeling charitable he's a wide-eyed idealist, if you aren't he's a hidebound reactionary clinging to an irrelevant piece of paper that didn't even work how it was supposed to 200 years ago back on Earth much less here and now. His personal outlook is fundamentally backwards-looking, trying to recreate a somewhat tweaked but basically similar order to how things were back on Earth rather than the revolutionary transformations just about everyone else offers. The tug of war between his personal desire to just go back to the good old days and the harsh realities that 1) the Good Old Days weren't very good for a whole lot of people and 2) the way we did things in the Good Old Days make zero sense on Planet should be a very interesting contradiction to work through.

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I agree.

I have Strong Opinions about Lal being the secret reactionary in SMAC, even moreso than Miriam really. Miriam tends to get pigeonholed as "that crazy fundie lady lol religion amirite?" because she was written in the 90's and nerds who talk about video game philosophy trend overwhelmingly non-religious but I can't actually find myself disagreeing with any of her points. She's not a bible-thumping evangelical fighting the American culture war of the late 90's/early 2000's, she's syncretizing a bunch of disparate religions into a truly communal, compassionate gestalt that cares for its people. Her critique of Earth and why it failed makes more sense to me than Lal's for sure, and even if she wouldn't be my first choice she's a good person who won her colony pod by going amongst the damned and forgotten and saving them when nobody else would. Lal's kind of in charge just because he's always been in charge.

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That's how I would like to present Miriam. Did you get that Miriam from the flavor text, too? Her original faction bio (presented on the Firaxis website independently of the game) to me implied a more stereotypical fundamentalist, but if you never read that, I think it's possible to get a different sense of her.

I think people gravitate towards Lal because he's the most similar to the current day order most comfortable English-speaking SMAC nerds live in, but the current day is centuries in the past by the time SMAC happens. Lal is the equivalent to a modern-day monarchist, a weirdo with an obviously outdated ideology that just wants to go back to how we did things centuries ago without really thinking about why the Good Old Days all fell apart if they were so perfect.

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Great analogy.

That kind of depends on the use case. In defence against Spartan aggression? I can't find it in me to find much sympathy for the Spartans given that they're basically Nietzschean neo-nazis. That's on them.

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In this narrative, either the Human Ascendancy or the Holnists better fit the "Nietzchean neo-Nazi" villain slot.

 

[TaliesinSkye]

Lal is the equivalent to a modern-day monarchist, a weirdo with an obviously outdated ideology that just wants to go back to how we did things centuries ago without really thinking about why the Good Old Days all fell apart if they were so perfect.

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We've only got a limited view in the various quotes to work from in the game, but I think I disagree based on the 'As the Americans learned so painfully...' quote from Lal. I think he thinks about what went wrong on Earth a great deal. He has to, because to fix something that is broken you must understand it.

Where other factions believe the societies of Earth were fundamentally flawed in one way or another, Lal differs. He views the liberal democracies of Earth as worthy projects that were merely imperfect. Something that can be solved and improved. Something that can be made to work, if imperfectly then certainly better than any alternative.

I think Lal believes that a democracy that uplifts and protects and gives voice to every member of society is the only model of government he can morally accept, and so the flaws of every failed democracy of Earth must be the seeds to learn how to create a yet more perfect union on Chiron.

And if that more perfect union should fail, then Lal will hope the people of that day learn from his mistakes today to create a yet better democracy. And so on and on, like a phoenix from the flame would he see liberty rise as many times as needed to give shelter to humanity beneath her wings until the day the stars grow dark.

That's what I see as Lal's hope for mankind, and the legacy he would wish to leave.

 

[Secretariat]

Alien artifacts need an entire plot arc to do them justice, because incontrovertible proof of nonhuman civilization justifies a wholesale re-evaluation of humanity's place in the universe.

I think people gravitate towards Lal because he's the most similar to the current day order most comfortable English-speaking SMAC nerds live in, but the current day is centuries in the past by the time SMAC happens. Lal is the equivalent to a modern-day monarchist, a weirdo with an obviously outdated ideology that just wants to go back to how we did things centuries ago without really thinking about why the Good Old Days all fell apart if they were so perfect.

Click to shrink...

Lal's ideals -- more broadly, the ideals of the Enlightenment -- are three hundred years old as of 2020. As much as it may be under siege at the present, I think that the fundamental idea that governance is not legitimate without the consent of the governed is an idea that has plenty of life to it!