Project Anabasis Development Diary #1 - Sins of the Father

[MattAtlas]

Project Anabasis Development Diary #1
Sins of the Father

Premise

Hello, everyone! It’s time for the long awaited development diary that unveils the lore side of the setting we’ve developed for Anabasis. For starters, I want to apologize for this diary taking longer than I thought. We had to essentially group together and decide once and for all the general lines of what we were doing for the timeskip and the overall situation of the most important elements of the setting (megacorps, nations, starting area), which can be harder than expected when you have to get six or seven people on the same page. After that, I realized it was pretty hard to write such a monumental development diary. When you’re revealing something you’ve been working on for a full year, you can get kind of focused on small details and you want the delivery to be perfect. Okay, that’s all. Let’s get to the real development diary.

Firstly, the timeskip we have decided on is twenty years. Originally, this was supposed to be fifty years, mainly because in the beginning Anabasis was a story mostly about just a different setpiece of the universe, but I later decided to change it for two simple reasons. The most important is that the closer a timeskip is to a certain event, the more intimately it is felt by the characters, and the more it shapes them. A fifty year timeskip would have essentially turned the event we plan Anabasis around into little more than a lore memory, and I figured that it would’ve been not only far less interesting, but we’d be repeating the same pitfalls we’ve fallen into up until now. Additionally, writing fifty years’ worth of lore is a lot! Either we'd be spending an insane amount of time writing up lore to fill those fifty years with, or we'd have to leave a large amount of blanks in the interest of time.

One of the central aims with Anabasis’ setting is to give everything meaning. What I mean by that is that we want there to be a central thread that can be followed to understand why everyone is here – something that connects every character, intrinsically and unescapably, so that everyone feels connected to the setting. The gameplay mantra we’re following is that no character should be disconnected from the round. Similarly for the setting, no character should be disconnected from the main events of the setting. We want characters from different planets to be able to relate to eachother through their reason for being on the ship; something more compelling than simply “money”, something that gives everything we do a certain gravitas. In a twenty year timespan, this central thread has to be such a gigantic shake-up that it fundamentally changes the galaxy. We want to revolutionize the setting to be full of conflict and gameplay avenues, and that can only happen with a galactic change. 

All of this means that the sins of the father must come to an explosive conclusion.

The Second Interstellar War

“What have we done?”
– Unnamed Biesellite Aspirant over the ruins of Earth, 24XX

You’ve read that correctly: the central event that will fundamentally shake everything up is the Second Interstellar War. I chose something like this because the changes that our setting needs to become interesting are drastic and can really only be accomplished with international conflict shaking up the galactic order to a massive degree. The reality is that everything we have in lore is too static and too stable for us to really magic up any sort of other reason for things to deeply change to the level we want. 

The existing battle lines can be guessed by attentive article readers as this is something we’ve been building towards for a bit already. It’s important to mention that there will be no retcons to lead us here, everything that happens will happen canonically IC. This is also a good time to reveal that the final canon arc of the Horizon will cover the beginning of the 2IW and the Horizon’s involvement in the crisis, which will provide a neat avenue for any characters that you want to bring over to NBT2.

The 2IW will last for approximately twelve years, which means that Anabasis will begin eight years after the war. This is particularly relevant because in the setting we imagined, the reconstruction process has begun, but the galaxy as a whole still feels the raw scars of a war where a previously unimaginable amount of people have died over human greed. This is also where what I mentioned about timeskip length comes on – a fifty year timeskip would have left the characters too far removed from the second interstellar war, barring very specific exceptions such as particularly old characters (70-80+) and IPCs. With a twenty year timeskip, you as the player have the option of playing a character that participated at any stage of the war: born during, or born before.

These twelve years of war have seen no victor. The hegemons of the Spur sought to increase their influence and rule the Spur alone, but only ended up destroying most of what they held dear – no nation has been left as before. Earth and Biesel were destroyed beyond repair through weapons of unimaginable sin, and now stand in desolate ruins as grim reminders of a past that once was. All semblances of authority in Biesel collapsed, and it is now a system of pirates and mercenaries lording over the once-Biesellites that now remain in the various war-torn moons and planets. The Alliance reached the brink and tipped over, having been forced to retreat from its colonies to the Jewel Worlds, betraying its promise to Humanity and leaving them to fend for themselves as they try to salvage what is left. The Coalition buckled under internal pressure and finally broke through a bloody civil war, leading to the establishment of new nations, all eager to eke out their lordship over the ruins of the Spur. The Eridani Federation took advantage of external chaos to break free from the Alliance, and now remains as a photograph of a corporate order that is long gone, with corporate executives holding onto the grains of sand of a bygone age with everything they can, a futile race against time. Elyra is a shell of its former self, its collective identity traumatized by the longest and most bloody war they have ever seen, with a myriad of planets being reduced to ashes and its bloody fortune – Phoron – completely gone. The Empire of Dominia must reckon with its new existence under Priscilla after its own civil war, dealing with the remnants of its failed colonial past as it tries to survive in an unstable galaxy. All the while, the alien nations carve out their own empires out of the ashes of Humanity’s sins.

The clearest sign of the fall of the previous galactic order is the fall of the megacorporations. Under the internal pressure caused by the greed of its members, the Conglomerate broke, with the various megacorporations scrambling about to find a nation to hold onto so that they could survive. This was a doomed prospect as the devastation of the Second Interstellar War reached extremes, and by the end, only scraps of the original megacorporations remained, divided and fractured; never to reunite under a single banner. While their “successors” may retain significant power in some areas - such as Eridani - they no longer have a stranglehold on the galactic economy, and while some are interstellar, most exist only in specific regions of space to fulfill a specific economic niche, rather than dominating entire industrial sectors.   

To be clear, we are not crafting a grimdark setting – that is far from our intention. In Anabasis, you will play the part of people who, against all odds, try to eke out the best life they can in the ashes of a new galaxy – all the while, lamenting a golden past that was denied to you by the greed of higher powers. The old international galactic order has now been lost, and the galaxy looks nothing like it does before. Phoron fields have all either been consumed to craft the weaponry with which various planets were blighted, or destroyed in the wake of war, leading to the irreversible loss of most phoron technology other than the smallest kinds for even the most privileged. No nation is capable of war any longer, but there is no more trust, and so a cold war between most nations falls upon the Spur as a whole. Freelancer and mercenary companies have risen to fill in the void that the nations have left, some even ruling their own speck of the Spur… and that is where you come in, the crew of a humble freelancer ship in the ruins of Tau Ceti – once a shining symbol of Humanity’s technological progress, now a lawless land.

Regardless of the misery that has befallen your world, you – a freelancer or a corporate, nothing more than an ordinary person – are determined to carve out your own life, no matter what. The corporations and the old nations have taken your future away, but not your pride.

The Setting

“There has not been a just cause ever since the Dominians set fire to the galaxy.”
– Unnamed Elyran mercenary from Avarizia, 24XX

All names in this diary are placeholders, and not permanent.

The ship the game place takes on, the Blood Diamond, is a Solarian destroyer that was refitted in Valkyrie’s shipyards. Its motley crew is made up of anyone from any corner of the galaxy. Whether you have lofty dreams to carve your name across the stars as a freelancer or you simply want to carve out an existence for yourself, it matters not for Avarizia, the freelancing group that you answer to… as long as you pay the Tithe.

The Tithe is the central gameplay mechanic of Anabasis. Avarizia is kind enough to provide you – the crew – with a ship, the most basic of basic tools for you to work with, and a large web of contacts and contracts, so long as you provide a minimum return on their investment. The Tithe is the purpose of your voyage across the stars, your objective every month, and your sword of Damocles. For if you do not pay the Tithe, it will be your heads on the chopping block, and everyone knows it. You all know, however, that you are left to your own means, and you must fend for yourselves to reach this monthly payment. You will be paid in a percentage of the ship’s profits, assuming there is any left after paying the Tithe, that is, whereas the Captain is personally paid a large commission.

In Anabasis, player freedom is emphasized by virtue of the setting. Avarizia does not place much scrutiny on who it hires or why. So long as you can be useful to them, you can be hired. Similarly, Avarizia does not care about what happens on its ships so long as the Tithe is always brought in, and thus you can expect more meaningful and more liberal in-character conflict. Of course, you will all still need to work together, under the surely benevolent guidance of your Captain, unless you want to incur Avarizia’s wrath.

Not all crew on the Blood Diamond are freelancers, however. Avarizia often hires corporate contractors for very specific positions on its ships, often leisure positions or otherwise skilled workers that are unlikely to be fulfilled by reckless mercenaries, such as Surveyors – researchers of artifacts to sell for a profit – or some of its canteen staff. Freelancer crew have, however, never taken well to the presence of corporates among their ships. Most of Humanity still remembers the bloodshed that the corporations have directly or indirectly caused, and many of them think of corporates as unwilling or willing abetters in this misery.

Regardless of your provenance, you must all work together if you want to make it in this galaxy. The Blood Diamond’s starting equipment is dynamic and will depend on the current amount of money collected for the Tithe. The lower the money, the lower tier of equipment that will be spawned on the ship. Expect to work with the scraps if there is very little money left after the Tithe, and if you have amply fulfilled it, expect to work with better equipment… before it breaks or is sold, and Avarizia is not kind enough to replace it with an exact replica.

Most of this money will come from the contracts that the Blood Diamond will undertake, as decided by your benevolent Captain at the start of your shift. These contracts, graciously provided to you by Avarizia, can vary – from low-paying, but calm package delivery (so long as you don’t look inside the package) to high-risk, morally dubious recoveries of precise items from encampments by a well-paying pirate warlord. The Blood Diamond’s future, purpose, and morality are entirely up to you, the crew, who may be willing or unwilling participants in whichever expedition has been prepared that day to bring in some money for the Tithe.

Conclusion

“How can you guarantee that you’ll win?
– We must win at all costs. Or there will no longer be a Biesellite nation, Miranda.”
– Leaked conversation between Miranda Trasen and Ake Torvald before the start of the war

I hope you all enjoyed the presentation of the setting to come! Many things are, of course, missing. I know that many of you are likely clamouring to know the fate of the Scarabs, the rest of the Human factions, or the aliens as a whole, but those have to wait for now. Much of this lore is in progress and still needs to be worked on, and as for the alien nations, I personally won’t be the one writing about them – those development diaries will be done by their individual lore developers when they are ready. As always, if you are interested in helping any of this become a reality, please consider applying for the Development teams, whether that be Lore or code/sprite/map developers.

Feel free to ask any questions you have on the Discord or on the Forums. I will try to keep this thread updated with a FAQ.

[LynxSolstice]

Picking through the ruins of the First Interstellar War was a striking reminder of the ruins of the old and personally to me, was a fantastic background for the setting as a whole, so I sure hope we'll get a LOT of cool off-ship locations that harken to the Second.

[Sniblet]

The fact of a twenty-year timeskip alone is very significant to vaurca players, because it means that unless something changes, only the Breeders can still be alive. I'm comfortable replacing all my bugs, but I can't speak for others.

Edited 5 hours ago by Sniblet

[NerdyVampire]

1 hour ago, Sniblet said:

The fact of a twenty-year timeskip alone is very significant to vaurca players, because it means that unless something changes, only the Breeders can still be alive. I'm comfortable replacing all my bugs, but I can't speak for others.

I'm comfortable with that too