Ten Years Already?!

It's nearing the end of 2008, and a crazy young child eagerly turns on his television set to the Discovery Channel. He's into a strange show called The Future is Wild, which he has on DVD but is about to see on television for the first time, having seen its airing on an electronic TV guide. What he doesn't realize is that his life is about to change forever, for alongside this airing is a feature on an upcoming game called SPORE, where the player is able to evolve a creature from a tiny cartoony microbe to a spacefaring civilization. As a creative sort, he is immediately enticed by this and sets out to buy it as soon as possible. It isn't a long or hard wait, for the game comes out on September 7 and he's able to buy it on the weekend of the 13th. Once he boots it up on his computer, everything changes...

In case you couldn't tell, that's the story of how I came to play SPORE. It's hard to believe that it came out ten years today, and that I'm still playing it to an extent (mostly I just wait for anybody to come back and turn Pokemonkab's objectively mediocre creations into equally objective masterpieces). Not only that, but it's still my favorite game of all time because of how much you can do, though there are other games that have and still threaten to usurp that title (recently Rimworld, Stellaris, No Man's Sky, and The Sims 3).

Sadly, the reason that it doesn't feel like ten years since I started playing is because the game has been abandoned since 2011, when EA focused on Darkspore, which in my honest opinion is unworthy of having "Spore" in its title. Coincidentally, that's also the year I  began Spore the Next Level, with its many eye-gouge-out-inducing Artemis Fowl crossovers and the foundations of the Revolution Universe (though that wouldn't come into being until 2013).
Although EA has since discontinued updating the game, it is still supported by the amazing MaxisBazajaytee (PRAISE HIM), the servers are still online (though sometimes feel like they're being held together by duct tape and bubble gum), and plenty of talented creators are still making awesome creations that deserve their place on the MPN list. Unfortunately, the MPN Adventures list is a mess since any adventure that gets at least one play gets on there, although I have seen a few good ones here and there recently. Contrary to popular belief, the game isn't dead yet!

What Could Have Been

Thinking how long it's been since EA left Spore to wither makes me wonder what it would be like in a parallel universe where Spore was supported to the present day. By now we'd be on Spore 2 or 3, and the original game would have gotten quite a few expansion packs. The one true expansion we did get, Galactic Adventures, was simply amazing and made the game so much better, so one wonders how good future ones would have been. Presumably, we would've gotten the promised Aquatic Stage that a few people still clamor for to this very day, 13 years after Will Wright's presentation at GDC. However, the possibilities of alternate universe expansions are as endless as the game itself:

• A Planet/Solar System editor like GA's Adventure Creator, only inside Core Spore (perhaps part of an endgame God Stage)?
• A recent browsing of SporeWiki for ideas mentioned a cut "Terraforming Stage" that has nothing to do with the Space Stage; rather, it's in between the Civilization and Space Stage and sees your species attempting to reverse the effects of climate change, pollution, and environmental degradation you produced trying to conquer the world.
• I've always wanted to have more exploration/depth of your solar system. Currently, it's always the same configuration (in no particular order): a yellow star with a barren world, a gas giant, a T1 world with a crashed ship, and a your homeworld with a barren moon (sometimes a strange Cube Planet). You always visit the T1 planet, scan said ship, go to a neighboring system, and leave your home system behind FOREVER. This is fine because there's not much there, but I've always wanted to have an intermediate Solar Stage where you explore neighboring planets, colonize them, and make your way to inventing FTL travel.
• Patches to fix various annoying bugs, especially the one where the oceans disappear on planets you've terraformed (I worked hard on that!) and an outfit-replacing glitch with the Hologram Scout and GA that makes it literally unusable.
• More exploration of planets. Although the Hologram Scout has always existed (though, as menntioned, GA makes it impossible to use) and GA let you beam down to certain adventure planets, I think it'd be cool to send away teams to any planet's surface with allied ships on "foot" or in a vehicle. You could even have extras who wear red shirts and get killed to prove how dangerous said planet is and what a terrible mistake you've made!
• More parts packs like Creepy and Cute and the infamous Bot Parts that add interesting and wacky ways to create new creatures.
• Something completely out of left-field that radically changes the game like GA did.

In conclusion, it's been a long ten years and so much has changed. Unfortunately, Spore hasn't been able to change ever since EA/Maxis abandoned it, and it's a shame because there's so much that could've been done to fix the game and make awesome new expansion packs. In two years, No Man's Sky went from terrible and boring to amazing thanks to post-release support; after two years, Spore was practically abandoned in favor of the inferior Darkspore... which I will always blame for "killing" Spore.

(Speaking of No Man's Sky, I'm not going to delve into the similarity between the pre-release hype and release day disappointment between the two games. At least not yet.)

In any case, let's wish a happy decennial anniversary to my favorite game, one that shaped me into who I am for better or worse.

Rimworld: The Great Chicken Cult, Part 2.5: ERROR ERROR ERROR

I hate to be the bearer of bad news regarding the Chicken Cult playthrough (even if nobody will read this), but I'll say it anyways: the 100+ mods I have for Rimworld have reached critical mass and rendered the save unloadable. On one hand, I had accepted that our inability to keep food preserved thanks to the Freezer of Doom being as hot and unbearable as the outdoors today (at the time of writing, of course). On the other hand, I did want to go back in and attempt to save the colony by having Scarlett and Willy start growing food, something I neglected for one reason or another.

In the end, mod incompatibilities and the permadeath mode I chose have forced me to end the playthrough prematurely. The sheer amount of mods have even made me unable to generate a new map to play on, which is why I will be resetting everything and heading into the unstable branch to take a sneak peak at 1.0 ahead of its inevitable release. As I mentioned last time, the Orassan and Ni'Hal mods have been updated so I don't get mod withdrawal, and there are a few other quality-of-life mods to look at. Never again will I gorge myself on so many mods, most of which I barely use anyways. I probably won't write a playthrough on this blog until the proper 1.0 release; this is just for me to start over and see what awesome new stuff is coming.

So what did happen to the Revenant Poultry Disciples? We'll never know for sure in actual gameplay terms, but here's what I think happened:

The Headcanon Ending

During the relative time and peace, the five colonists quickly realized they were in for a hard time, and packed up what they had and left Hell's Gate behind. Eventually, they followed the river to a temperate coast. There, they were able to rebuild and start growing food alongside what little meals and raw food remained from both the Freezer of Doom and their long trek through the mountains. From this new base, they were able to slowly recruit members thanks to Shadow's high social skills and spread their ways to their neighbors.

Years passed, and the Great Chicken Cult spread once more across Mirzam Al Saif, although the isolation of the bases and factions hampered the rate at which people and aliens could be won over. Once it did happen, though, the hundreds of disciples banded together in a concentrated effort to rid the planet of evil by killing the pesky pirates and forcing the local Ni'Hal purity brigades to realize the futility of their mass purging via forceful means. The original four lived just long enough to see their dreams become a reality; they died peacefully and were honored as the founders of a great new reality. By the time their pursuers from Ararobos V arrived over a century after their initial departure, they found the planet populated almost entirely by worshipers of poultry. Around that time, starships began leaving the planet to spread the ways of the chicken further, some even fitted with stolen Orassan wormhole modulators. The Age of the Chicken had begun...

(This may or may not be plausible; if anyone reads this, feel free to supply your own possible ending for the Revenant Poultry Disciples.)

Starbound Lore: The USCM, Old and New

Welcome to a new regular (I hope) series on this blog, where I share my headcanon and speculations regarding the lore of one of my most favorite games, Starbound. The game already has a rich and expansive lore in it, but sometimes some things are underdeveloped or fall through the cracks.

We'll start things off in an interesting way with something from mods, the 1.3 update, and the beta days of yore: the USCM.

The Good Old Days

I have been playing and enjoying the expansive Frackin' Universe mod (FU for short) for almost a year at the time of writing. In addition to adding things such as new weapons, planets, resources, and dungeons, a feature often not mentioned is that it (or some other mod it consumed along the way) adds back content that was cut from the game for some reason or another. The most prevalent are old dungeons, such as the atmospherically-pleasing Floran Hell (which is probably the only actual dungeon) and my personal favorite, the USCM Bunker.

Originally from Starbounder

Anybody who played the beta for prolonged periods will immediately remember this dungeon, filled with quirky robots, military personnel logs, pulse rifles, and soldiers who wanted to kill you for some reason. I fondly remember stumbling upon one on a frozen moon and not knowing how to go down it without removing all the platforms (I didn't know the "S" key would move you downwards). As I mentioned, it always was my favorite, and I was very sad when it was removed in 1.0 when the Terrene Protectorate was introduced and did away with the human lore and the USCM.

By now, anyone not familiar with pre-release Starbound will be wondering what the USCM actually was. The United Systems Colonial Marines was essentially humanity's military; other than that, little was described of it in the game's lore--so expect some speculation from here on out. It's reasonable to assume it was charged with protecting the human race and the planet Earth before the Great Tentacle Corruption destroyed the latter and exiled the former out into space. After that, it probably adopted an isolationist policy and set up penal colonies on remote worlds to deal with escaping criminals (who later rioted, killed the guards, and took control). These penal colonies also were untouched by the 1.0 update and kept around while the bunkers were removed, making things a little confusing.

As I mentioned, these bunkers were restored in Frackin' Universe or a mod it incorporated, but no changes were made to the lore surrounding them (in fact, an update in mid-2017 actually restored the old lore logs you could find) or interactions/relations with the Terrene Protectorate. I filled that plot hole in by still assuming the USCM was a military organization that later joined with the Protectorate to protect and patrol its space (i.e. Earth/ the Sol system), and everything was great... until v. 1.3 came.

Everything Changed When 1.3 Attacked

The inside of a derelict USCM freighter.

Version 1.3 made a major overhaul to the space aspect of the game by adding modular mechs, anomalies for said mechs to explore, a new navigation system, and breaking some very critical mods for my game. While I waited for these mods to update, I decided to take a look at some of the new stuff coming in 1.3 on the wiki. As it turned out, one change was that derelict USCM ships could now be found as anomalies... but they weren't the USCM from the beta. Now called the Universal Space Corporate Military, they were apparently a profit-seeking bunch specializing in weapons research and gaining resources through military means. After unprecedented mutinies (and subsequent exiles to prisons), financial losses, and a disastrous bioweapons project that was sabotaged by apes, it was disbanded many years prior to the start of the game and its former members turned to space piracy. 

Naturally, it's impossible to reconcile these profiteers with the gung-ho beta/FU-restored USCM of old for multiple reasons (although without FU, the new USCM works to a degree). After trying to see how they could be the same, I have recently decided they are indeed different... to a degree. Here's what I think happened...

A History of the USCM

As humanity began to use FTL travel and set forth from the planet Earth, an increasing number of corporations decided to use this new technology to mine planets for resources and profit, as well as trade with the other races inhabiting the galaxy. Unfortunately, these traders found themselves beset by pirates, both alien and human. In addition, corporate miners often needed protection from the horrific monsters occupying many resource-laden planets. The initial solution to these problems was to hire mercenaries to protect ships and miners, but eventually it became too expensive and started digging into profits.

However, some corporations did manage to get enough funding to start their own private militias, and these would eventually merge into the Universal Space Corporate Military, or USCM. This independent military service initially pledged itself to protect its sponsors and their assets from harm, whether from space pirates or aliens. Their starships were state-of-the-art for the era, and their soldiers had years of military background.
This continued for decades until the sponsor corporations went bankrupt or otherwise became less dependent on the USCM for protection. The hardy personnel of the USCM decided to strike it out on their own and become independent of Earth, even developing aspirations to expand humanity's reach beyond their home planet and the Protectorate. Like the corporations they once sponsored, the USCM became obsessed with the pursuit of profit and exploiting whatever their ships and soldiers came across, no matter how dangerous it might be.

After a few years of success, the USCM began to face serious difficulties with money and personnel. Disgruntled soldiers began to mutiny and turn to space piracy to do what the USCM could not, prompting the establishment of penal colonies  on remote worlds to both detain mutineers and keep everyone else in line. Around this time, the Miniknog took notice of the USCM and its nature, and began making preparations to eliminate it before it could threaten their interests. They decided to destroy it from within by entering into a research agreement to develop bioweapons to raid ships with. The final design, Project Parasprite, ended in disaster for the USCM as several prototypes "accidentally" got loose and killed everyone aboard. Finally, lack of personnel and funding prompted the organization's disbanding, though its abandoned starships and mutinied soldiers still can be found in remote systems today.

The wider galaxy assumed this was the end of this troublesome group of humans, but in fact it was an opportunity for them to turn over a new leaf. Surviving generals came together and proposed the foundation of a new USCM, devoted more to military service and defense rather than profit. Now calling itself the United Systems Colonial Marines, it pledged to defend all worlds and systems with a significant human presence. The new USCM managed to catch the attention of the Terrene Protectorate, and it wasn't long before negotiations began. Eventually, the USCM agreed to function as a security division of the Protectorate. While most high-ranking USCM personnel did establish a command post on Earth, the vast majority of the USCM's forces were deployed to bunkers and bases established on remote worlds, for rapid response and to allow it to continue functioning in the event that something happened to Earth.
This did indeed occur when the ancient might of The Ruin was unleashed upon Earth, crippling the Protectorate and killing untold billions. With the landscape of the galaxy massively changed, the USCM outposts became highly isolationist until USCM leadership could be located and devise a plan on what to do next.

Final Thoughts

That's my little write-up on the USCM and the reconciliation between its beta/FU and 1.3 versions. One notion I came up with is that the beta takes place after version 1.0, since the Protectorate doesn't exist and the USCM is the sole representation of the human race.

Regarding the lore itself, there probably are some things I overlooked and forgot about. I suppose that's okay since this was never meant to be the definitive account and just my personal speculation/headcanon. Feel free to make your voice heard.

Next time: Who actually runs the Letheia Corporation?