A few random StarCon fic ideas

[omorka]

Okay, so I posted this fic about my take on what potentially happens after the end of the game. I'd like to continue the fic (making it my little StarCon quasi-AU), with the idea being: how does the new Alliance clean up everything that follows from the end of the Second Doctrinal Conflict?

Problem #1: What do they do with the remaining Kohr-Ah (my assumption is that most of them left the galaxy like the endgame says, but a few of them were on planets or bases where they built their ships and couldn't leave) and with the Kzer-Za (I'm assuming a fair proportion of them stay)? How do you deal with a xenophobic race of thirty-foot predatory caterpillars who would just as soon rip your face off as look at you, not because they hate you or are particularly into violence but because they just can't stand the idea of other beings being in their space? When some of them are genocidal and can't admit you just won the war? I have this one partly written, and I have solutions for each faction; the issue is getting them banged out into final form.

Problem #2: What do you do with the remaining Ilwrath? They no longer have a fleet, having battered themselves into mutual total loss with the Thraddash, but I'm assuming they still have planetary colonies. The Captain has a pretty effective way of messing with their culture via the Umgah joke transmitter, but what do you actually do with them? I have a Pkunk-centric solution - the ones that they tried to kill are the ones who can save them, etc., plus I just like the Pkunk in general. That's actually probably easier to write than the Ur-Quan solution; I just need time to do it.

Problem #2.5: What do you do with the Thraddash? They're probably in the midst of a culture turnover, after the Ilwrath war (side note: boy, are the Ur-Quan going to be pissed about that when they find out that their Thralls are fighting after they told the Ilwrath not to do that). The Captain can't step in again, since they hate him after the theft of the Blue Helix. Is there anyone else in the Alliance that can?

Problem #3: Did all the Androsynth disappear off of the Dreadnoughts they were serving on, as well? If so, why didn't the Ur-Quan realize there was a problem and send a ship to investigate? If they didn't, then what does the Alliance do about the remaining Androsynth and the Orz? This seems to have an Arilou-shaped hole in it, but I'm not sure exactly how.

Problem #4: The VUX. Oh, my gods, the VUX. They Syreen hate them (although not as much as they hate the Mycon, now); the Orz think they're *silly cows*, which means they get attacked on sight; the Yehat aren't too fond of them, either; and they can't stand the humans. How do they get integrated into galactic society? Unfortunately, all my ideas for this one involve Admiral ZEX somehow surviving, and I'm not writing the usual ZEX-centric AU. Maybe there's another VUX pervert that they kept around because he was useful? I have an Utwig-based solution to the end problem, but I can't figure out how to get the VUX to the table to bring it out, without just having the Ur-Quan order them to do it.

Problem #5: the Crimson Corporation. The words "trustbusting," "anti-monopoly laws," and "competition" all spring to mind. The Melnorme must be involved somehow, of course.

I'm going to leave the Umgah and the Mycon alone for a while, as they're both too unpredictable (each in their own ways) to handle.

Not really looking for advice, here, just sort of taking notes on what I want to do and in what order.

Comments

[princejvstin.livejournal.com]

And you are assuming that SC3's events don't happen?

[awbryan.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's a given, I'd think. SC3 broke so many things it wasn't even funny.

[omorka.livejournal.com]

I put StarCon 3 in the same category of "didn't happen" as most people put Highlander II. The comment at 1:30ish in this video here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OugoUX2YqoY) is only part of the reason why. (Can I just say, I love zarla for recording all the plot bits from SC3 so the rest of us don't have to suffer through playing it again?)

[princejvstin.livejournal.com]

Regardless of how bad the storyline was, the gameplay (as bad it was to begin with) goes completely into the toilet in SC3 once you get a Doog ship.

[omorka.livejournal.com]

So I understand. I never played it that far. The puppets, the lack of a coherent storyline, and the poorly-coded combat turned me off early on (plus it wasn't on my computer - Mac gamer syndrome again).

[awbryan.livejournal.com]

Don't the Kohr-Ah solve themselves? I mean, all you have to do is put Alliance fleets orbiting any Kohr-Ah planets or stations. Any Kohr-Ah capable of doing so (and incapable of self-control) do anything possible to attack, and are promptly annihilated by superior firepower. You can hand any with sufficient brains or weakened reflexes to the Kzer-Za, whom they are now functionally equivalent to. Evolution in action.

It's not a very *nice* solution, but the Kohr-Ah are not very nice themselves. The Grim Reaper and his consort the Grim Sower are a very efficient team.

[omorka.livejournal.com]

The way I'm playing it, both factions of the Ur-Quan and the Alliance are all fairly low on ships, due to the Second Doctrinal War and the Second Ur-Quan Slave War both going on at once. And the Alliance doesn't know for sure where all the Kohr-Ah colonies are (I'm being optimistic and assuming the Kzer-Za are honorable enough to actually tell them). So it won't be quite that simple. On the other hand, the Chmrr seem to have lots of resources, so given enough time, the Alliance will have plenty of firepower (man, Avatars and Juggers are sweet).

[awbryan.livejournal.com]

Well, the Kzer-Za supposedly haven't even seen the Kohr-Ah in 20 kiloyears -- they went one way around the galaxy, and the Kohr-Ah went the other. So the Kzer-Za don't necessarily even *know* where all the Kohr-Ah colonies are... and I hardly think the Kohr-Ah are going to tell them; it would be a tactical advantage in the Doctrinal War, which I hardly think the Kohr-Ah are going to call off for something as minor as getting their asses kicked. (They didn't the first time.)

We'll need to scout the galaxy. If the Kzer-Za could be trusted, they could be used as scouts again... but is it safe to send them out to hunt the Kohr-Ah down? If they stay in their patrol zones, there should be no species except Kohr-Ah to shoot at... but how do you make sure they don't try to recall the many, many Battle Thralls and slave-shielded fallow worlds they must have left in the still-populated half of the galaxy?

[omorka.livejournal.com]

Right - while both subspecies would know where their homeworld is, and potentially any colonies established during the Sentient Milieu era, they wouldn't know about any of the others except possibly ones in this region of space near the Sa-Matra. (I'm assuming that the only ones the Kzer-Za surrender to the Alliance are their own, and potentially the homeworld.) As I mention in the next part of the story (under construction), the Kzer-Za understand that the Alliance claimed the Sa-Matra as its own and then chose to destroy it, thus winning the Second Doctrinal Conflict; the Kohr-Ah are not capable of seeing a non-Ur-Quan as the winner of a Doctrinal Conflict, and thus will forever see it as unresolved.

While I agree that their half of the galaxy must be brimming with Fallow Slaves, I find myself unconvinced that there are any Battle Thralls other than the ones we know of (now that we've met the Thraddash). I suspect that the Ur-Quan would be psychologically incapable of leaving any species free to roam around if they were not being closely monitored - and the Doctrinal Conflict was running so close, and was so much more important to them than their relationships with their slaves, that I can't imagine that they left too many ships in other quadrants - so I can't imagine that they would have left much in the way of un-slave-shielded species elsewhere. Either the Battle Thralls were a way of gathering reinforcements against the Chenjesu forces, adopted specifically for this conflict, or the Kzer-Za slave-shield their Thralls when they leave an area of space. For their own protection, of course.

[awbryan.livejournal.com]

No, you're right, the Ur-Quan would not have let their Battle Thralls wander unmonitored. I suspect standard operating procedure would be to destroy all Thrall ships once a quadrant is pacified; after all, the only reason for Thralls in the first place is that you need allies to continue the campaign. There may be other Thrall species serving as crew on the Dreadnoughts, but they either didn't bring Thrall ships to our quadrant, or the Thrall ships were all blown up in the process of...um... "recruiting" the Thralls known to the Chenjesu at the beginning of the story.

And if we have problems with the Thralls in *this* sector, imagine what the rest of the galaxy, with kiloyears of time under the slave shields to demonize each other in isolation, must think of each other... I'm thinking of the Balkans, here.

But those Thralls must still exist under their slave-shields. You can't give the Ur-Quan time to grab populations from those worlds (plus their own colonies) and crank any industry out; they'll try to find another Precursor ship and start a Third Doctrinal Conflict. Unless you work some kind of deal, the way the First Conflict ended...

Here's another question: if the Chmmr were able to figure out how to crack a slave shield, how do the Ur-Quan know that (in twenty kiloyears) no one else has managed that same trick?

[omorka.livejournal.com]

Here's another question: if the Chmmr were able to figure out how to crack a slave shield, how do the Ur-Quan know that (in twenty kiloyears) no one else has managed that same trick?

Because the Faz have not showed up to kick their shiny caterpillaroid asses yet. :-) They've had the longest to work at it, and they haven't done so; why should anyone else, who didn't have the benefit of the Milieu's technology? And, in fact, there's some suggestion that the only reason the Chmrr could do so is because they had the advantage of being slave-shielded with not only the advanced Chenjesu technology, but also some Precursor technology - the Mmrnmhrm themselves.

Another question: the original Ur-Quan knew about the Slylandro. Why did neither the Kzer-Za nor the Kohr-Ah come after them? Does the slave shield not work on gas giants for some reason?

[awbryan.livejournal.com]

You're assuming the Faz *can* kick their asses. The Melnorme can't -- I presume they would not have maintained their wandering for twenty kiloyears if they had found something that could stop the Ur-Quan.

Or how about this -- the Faz have been taking just as long *cracking* shields as the Kzer-Za have been throwing them up, leading to a massive alliance some reasonable distance (a couple of hundred years' migration time, say) behind the Kzer-Za advance... and all lusting for revenge against the just-pacified Ur-Quan. What do you do then? (This scenario assumes that the Ur-Quan didn't leave colonies behind to oversee conquests, and/or the Faz have consistently overwhelmed outposts before the alarm could reach the conquest fleet.)

On to the Slylandro! I had the same thought when I first played the game; the Ur-Quan knew exactly where the Slylandro were, and they were in the path of the migration... so why weren't they shielded? Two good arguments came to mind:

1) Gas giants are a LOT bigger than terrestrials. There's hundreds or thousands of times greater surface area to cover. The power requirements could be prohibitive. Now, the Ur-Quan being the Ur-Quan, they would have stayed and fixed this problem eventually, were it not for --

2) The Slylandro are not going anywhere. Really. They haven't left Source since before the Precursors' time. If they haven't invented spaceflight in the 250,000 years of their extant history, what are the chances they will in the measly few centuries it will take to develop and deploy a XXXL slave shield? Not worth even Lord 999's time to bother with.

(Of course, the Ur-Quan didn't reckon with the Melnorme, heh heh heh.)

Next question: those blasted Slylandro probes had to have been hitting the Ur-Quan fleets much more than our measly little one. What was their response? They couldn't fail to respond -- the probe's logic wouldn't allow it. Were they trivial for a Dreadnought or Marauder to destroy, simply becoming more resources for the battle? Were they just too focused on the Doctrinal Conflict to bother? (A logical thought -- the Ur-Quan were too busy to slave-shield the Zoq-Fot-Pik, even though they were right there.) Still, you'd think the Ur-Quan would show even a tiny bit of curiosity about some technology that ought to look vaguely familiar, from long-ago memories...