Bring back Earth

[Frances]

Gonna shoot another big idea here, since I've started looking at our lore more carefully.

I don't understand why Earth was destroyed. Really, I don't get it. Apart from it not being mentioned in Bay lore, and maybe for the sake of being edgy or unique. But even after sitting down and thinking about it for a while, I fail to see what exact positives this brings us. And on the flipside, it actually causes a few issues.

Issue 1: It's counter-intuitive, and overcomplicates the lore

The first thing a lot of people who don't read our lore do is create a character from a specific cultural background, say, "Igor the Russian bartender", or "Suresh the Indian xenobiologist". When asked to provide info about their background, they say something along the lines of "oh, I'm from Russian/India/whatever, 400 years in the future". At which point they're told that Earth has been destroyed, and they have to search our lore for their culture-specific faction, which they must learn eeeeeverything about, and which sometimes doesn't even exist. And the truth is, when there's a ton of different ethnicities that are all represented, that's a ton of (completely new, unique) backgrounds to learn about. Which makes playing anyone who isn't your generic space human from Biesel completely unknown territory, both for you and for anyone else involved.

That's not fun. The thing with Earth is that it's relateable: it's fun to play as someone from a country 400 years in the future, think about all the hurdles and challenges a culture might've faced over time, how it might've progressed. But to have to relearn everything about a culture from scratch, including new planets, settlements, cities, governments, etc - that's just too much. Especially when you have to do it for /everyone/. And space clones of nations are not nearly as engaging as the nations on Earth themselves, especially when we have to write about so many of them, and thus end up with so little time to give any of them true flavor or personality. Which brings us to our second issue:

Issue 2: We're going to end up with too many factions/space clones of existing countries

This is already a problem. We have 35 planets, 13 new nations, and 13 corporations. We don't need that many! No one will ever have the patience to learn about all of these! And this is in big part an issue caused by the destruction of Earth - all of the previous ethnicities need to exist somewhere, and instead of simply moving them to Biesel or another big planet, and making Earth 2.0 (which would be pretty boring, arguably - we might as well keep Earth at this point), we decided to give all of them their own little faction and planets.

Ideally, when creating a story, you want to put the focus on fewer, more detailed points. All we need is two or three big factions maximum. These are the big factions everybody needs to know about, and that can create our out-of-Sol storyline. Everyone else could stay back on Earth, with the recent history of Earth nations/cultures being an addition to what we know in the 21st century, rather than a completely new backstory we have to learn about every single one of them. And I'm not saying to off all of the tiny planets, and companies. It's cool that there's a research lab that mass-produces clones on planet Zykklon-B or whatever, and that there's a little company in Tau Ceti that manufactures general goods. But we shouldn't /need/ to know about that; there should be a clear distinction between what constitutes our main story, and what constitutes, basically, fluff.

Basically, it's like all the aliens in the cantina in Star Wars. They look cool, they probably all have their detailed backstory someone took the time to write after the films, but you don't need to know what each and every single one does to understand the plot of the movie. And our system should be set the same way.

[Gollee]

I have several series of books in which earth is not destroyed; ranging from billions of people in massive archologies that shield them from worsening weather conditions, while still being the largest political and economic power around; to another (By the same author) in which it is the political hub of human space, with a cleaned atmosphere, strict environmental laws and a massive amount of mechanisation.

The issue about putting earth back in, is that it being gone is central to a large amount of the lore, take out that pillar, and pretty much everything will need siginificant rewriting.

[Frances]

The issue about putting earth back in, is that it being gone is central to a large amount of the lore, take out that pillar, and pretty much everything will need siginificant rewriting.

I fail to see how that's the case, seeing as it's a pain to even find backstory about anything related to NanoTrasen or human settlements, and while I know that there's a big document that's been written somewhere, none of that has been properly communicated to the players.

Plus, sunk cost fallacy. In my opinion, this is actually at the core of a major, major problem. We can keep writing the flawed lore, but it won't get any better. Since the players don't know anything yet, this is actually the ideal time to fix the lore's major flaws, because very few people's backstories are closely tied to it. But yeah, if it's an issue, it should be fixed. And it's not a matter of "have we spent too much time on other stuff already to feel like fixing it?", it's "can we fix it?" And I believe that answer is yes.

Our core is that NanoTrasen operates in the Tau Ceti system, away from Sol, and that they're out there exploiting plasma and generally being a megacorporation. There's also settlements around Tau Ceti, some of which are pretty big (like, Earth big). Sol, Tau Ceti, and other systems are connected via warp gates. We move between planets quickly with the help of bluespace. There's also the Skrell, Unathi, and Tajaran, all of which we've made contact with in the past few decades.

Nothing in that indicates that Earth must be destroyed for this backstory to emerge. Humans could've turned towards space colonization out of the typical human desire to expand (to exploit resources, or whatever else). Much like we populated America from Europe, and turned it into something that's very Europe-like. It's even more believable due to all the resource shortages we're facing - Earth doesn't need to be destroyed to encourage massive waves of colonization.

[TishinaStalker]

See, I never entirely understood why Earth was turned into a giant ball of poison. I've always thought the same thing that it doesn't seem friendly to people that aren't aware of that. Not to mention that the distinct lack of Earth is pretty much what's causing all these weirdo planet lore apps. We've had an application for the European Union in Space, Britain in Space, and Communist India in Space. Then in the lore, we literally have AMERICA IN SPACE (See: United Colonies of America) which is 84% 'murrican population. The destruction of Earth hasn't really created any boon, and none of the Humans really seem to care that the planet they started on is dead. The thought of it is rather unsettling, and could be compared to a person not caring that their mother died. I've always thought that Earth should be kept unbroken, possibly getting by through terraforming (due to the melting of polar ice caps and other such situations such as Humans going over their carrying capacity [which can be resolved through trade]). Through the discovery of other species by space travel, the lines of countries and race would blur out to the point that it would only be something you mark for Nationality while for Race you would mark Human. The discovery of other species by space travel would be a real wake up call to Humanity on how they cannot allow the world to be held down by the silly notion of race because as Lincoln once said, "A house divided against itself cannot stand." It seems like looking through rose-tinted glasses, but at a point like that it's either Humanity sucks it up and works together or they get left behind by the species that don't let race stand in the way. I've honestly been looking to propose that this be done because this way, Terrans can still identify with a specific culture (as getting over the culture of one's country is something very hard to do), but at the same time, they'd identify as Human. In my personal opinion, the best factions in Tau Ceti to reflect this are The Republic of Biesel and The Republic of Elyra. Biesel was a massive cooperative Human movement while Elyra was also a massive cooperative Human movement, but amongst the Middle Eastern and African countries of Earth after they formed their own space program.

[Gollee]

At the end of the day, Frances, if you and Skull tell the lore team to do something, it will get done, you two, by virtue of rank, have the final say on anything in the lore. Even with Table's efforts, the lore team is disorganised, filled with arguements, and generally takes days to get anything done, because everyone believes they know what is best, and we are stubborn enough that we don't back down. If you really want the lore to start functioning properly, exercise some control over it; at the moment, Table is almost being sidelined because everyone is working on their own personal projects.

[Dea Tacita]

See, I never entirely understood why Earth was turned into a giant ball of poison. I've always thought the same thing that it doesn't seem friendly to people that aren't aware of that. Not to mention that the distinct lack of Earth is pretty much what's causing all these weirdo planet lore apps. We've had an application for the European Union in Space, Britain in Space, and Communist India in Space. Then in the lore, we literally have AMERICA IN SPACE (See: United Colonies of America) which is 84% 'murrican population. The destruction of Earth hasn't really created any boon, and none of the Humans really seem to care that the planet they started on is dead. The thought of it is rather unsettling, and could be compared to a person not caring that their mother died. I've always thought that Earth should be kept unbroken, possibly getting by through terraforming (due to the melting of polar ice caps and other such situations such as Humans going over their carrying capacity [which can be resolved through trade]). Through the discovery of other species by space travel, the lines of countries and race would blur out to the point that it would only be something you mark for Nationality while for Race you would mark Human. The discovery of other species by space travel would be a real wake up call to Humanity on how they cannot allow the world to be held down by the silly notion of race because as Lincoln once said, "A house divided against itself cannot stand." It seems like looking through rose-tinted glasses, but at a point like that it's either Humanity sucks it up and works together or they get left behind by the species that don't let race stand in the way. I've honestly been looking to propose that this be done because this way, Terrans can still identify with a specific culture (as getting over the culture of one's country is something very hard to do), but at the same time, they'd identify as Human. In my personal opinion, the best factions in Tau Ceti to reflect this are The Republic of Biesel and The Republic of Elyra. Biesel was a massive cooperative Human movement while Elyra was also a massive cooperative Human movement, but amongst the Middle Eastern and African countries of Earth after they formed their own space program.

 

I agree with this generally, Earth being dead is.... edgy. Humanity would simply not abandon our homeworld, we're always going to have a sentimental attachment to her.

[Guest]

Earf getting hit with KKVs, rather than full-blown nukes, is a better scenario than what you might think.

It's not a ball of poison. A lot of the atmosphere just doesn't (or didn't) exist, and the lore team's considering bringing Earth back as a relevant planet and assuming terraforming efforts went into making it semi-survivable. It's a T1 planet at best.

But also remember humanity was constantly wasteful and consistently leeched Earth of Her beauty and resources. If anything, Earth being returned to its natural glory is for a symbolic and political line of reasoning, as Earth no longer has any, or much of, resources available for the Alliance to even use to fuel their empire.

It'll likely not be the same as it was before the Great War. That much is clear.

http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacegunexotic.php#id--Relativistic_Weapons--The_Killing_Star

[Dea Tacita]

Earf getting hit with KKVs, rather than full-blown nukes, is a better scenario than what you might think.

It's not a ball of poison. A lot of the atmosphere just doesn't (or didn't) exist, and the lore team's considering bringing Earth back as a relevant planet and assuming terraforming efforts went into making it semi-survivable. It's a T1 planet at best.

But also remember humanity was constantly wasteful and consistently leeched Earth of Her beauty and resources. If anything, Earth being returned to its natural glory is for a symbolic and political line of reasoning, as Earth no longer has any, or much of, resources available for the Alliance to even use to fuel their empire.

It'll likely not be the same as it was before the Great War. That much is clear.

http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacegunexotic.php#id--Relativistic_Weapons--The_Killing_Star

 

Why do we need this at all? All that I can tell is we're trying to be "Edgy" and "Grimdark" it'd simply be easier for people if it existed in a "Normalish" habitable state. Once we go into space, There'd be absolutely no need for mining on the planet and it might even start to recover.

[Rusty Shackleford]

I'm actually okay with this. The only reason I pushed for a supervirus wiping it out was because it sounded better than simply nuking it. It would be nice to have Earth basically become Detroit Planet, and instead make Mars significantly nicer.

[Erik Tiber]

I was originally of this position. However, at this point, the Earth being bombarded is very central to the lore. Thankfully, this does not preclude us from having the Earth recover, or from having the majority of the bombardment be of orbital targets rather than surface ones. Devastating the Earth's extensive orbital infrastructure would still kill the billions that lived in Earth orbit, could still cause debris to rain down on the Earth and kill a few billion maybe, and would still dethrone the planet from its position as the largest economic power in known space.

TL;DR We can have the Earth's orbit be bombarded and keep the current lore mostly intact, while still leaving the majority of the Earth's population alive.

I also think it is a bit silly to have the colonies to bombard the surface in an act of blatant genocide when bombarding orbit then sending in a fleet should be sufficient.

State that Earth has heavy emmigration due to the shitty conditions, much of this emmigration is to Tau Ceti due to the discovery of plasma there, and bam, you now have a perfectly good reason for many people on the station to be from Earth.

 

Earf getting hit with KKVs, rather than full-blown nukes, is a better scenario than what you might think.

It's not a ball of poison. A lot of the atmosphere just doesn't (or didn't) exist, and the lore team's considering bringing Earth back as a relevant planet and assuming terraforming efforts went into making it semi-survivable. It's a T1 planet at best.

But also remember humanity was constantly wasteful and consistently leeched Earth of Her beauty and resources. If anything, Earth being returned to its natural glory is for a symbolic and political line of reasoning, as Earth no longer has any, or much of, resources available for the Alliance to even use to fuel their empire.

It'll likely not be the same as it was before the Great War. That much is clear.

http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacegunexotic.php#id--Relativistic_Weapons--The_Killing_Star

It really depends upon the serverity of the bombardment. Given over a century to recover, and using existing terraforming technologies, I think Earth would recover to a decently habitable state. It provides habitable land, moreso than many planets in known space. It is also culturally significant to an absurd degree.

 

I'm actually okay with this. The only reason I pushed for a supervirus wiping it out was because it sounded better than simply nuking it. It would be nice to have Earth basically become Detroit Planet, and instead make Mars significantly nicer.

I would also be totally okay with this. I think this would be best for the lore, and having Earth still be around gives us so many more opportunities than having it be dead.

We could even have it be overpopulated and still have it be space detroit and dethroned from its former primacy. First they would have to spend literal years building a fuckhuge laser array and then clearing orbit of a frankly unfair amount of space debrirs, then they would have to rebuild their orbital infrastructure from scratch. Then there's the billions of people who lived in orbit who are now dead. Earth would still be right fucked, without having to kill the majority of its surface population.

I agree with this generally, Earth being dead is.... edgy. Humanity would simply not abandon our homeworld, we're always going to have a sentimental attachment to her.

Exactly. Think of all the emotional signifigance a historical homeland has. Think of all the significance historical landmarks have, or the sites of historical events. The vast, vast majority of those are on Earth. The destruction of Earth would literally be up there with the discovery of agriculture as one of the most significant events in the entirety of human history.

[TishinaStalker]

TL;DR We can have the Earth's orbit be bombarded and keep the current lore mostly intact, while still leaving the majority of the Earth's population alive.

 

Why does there need to be genocide like this at all? Why would a species that is trying to become a super power in known space decide to billions of its people killed? There is a term for this, and that is conflict of interest. If anything, genocide by bombing Earth's orbit, the use of KKVs to kill swaths of its /own/ population, etc. just makes Earth an incredibly edgy and grimdark planet as has been stated on the thread so far.

[Gollee]

TL;DR We can have the Earth's orbit be bombarded and keep the current lore mostly intact, while still leaving the majority of the Earth's population alive.

 

Why does there need to be genocide like this at all? Why would a species that is trying to become a super power in known space decide to billions of its people killed? There is a term for this, and that is conflict of interest. If anything, genocide by bombing Earth's orbit, the use of KKVs to kill swaths of its /own/ population, etc. just makes Earth an incredibly edgy and grimdark planet as has been stated on the thread so far.

 

Currently, the KKV's are fired at earth, after earth fires some accidentally during a military coup, and wipes out millions of people, and a number of cities on inner colonies.

[TishinaStalker]

TL;DR We can have the Earth's orbit be bombarded and keep the current lore mostly intact, while still leaving the majority of the Earth's population alive.

 

Why does there need to be genocide like this at all? Why would a species that is trying to become a super power in known space decide to billions of its people killed? There is a term for this, and that is conflict of interest. If anything, genocide by bombing Earth's orbit, the use of KKVs to kill swaths of its /own/ population, etc. just makes Earth an incredibly edgy and grimdark planet as has been stated on the thread so far.

 

Currently, the KKV's are fired at earth, after earth fires some accidentally during a military coup, and wipes out millions of people, and a number of cities on inner colonies.

 

That doesn't answer my question on why there needs to be genocide between Humans. What kind of coup was this? What were they rebelling against? This doesn't seem to make sense. The wiki page doesn't even give a brief couple of sentence long explanation on /why/ that civil war happened.

[Gollee]

The Fall of Earth - The Great War

2314: Several of the largest inner colonies petition the Earth-dominated Alliance government for increased autonomy and decreased trade restrictions. Earth gives only token concessions to these colonies, causing widespread unrest which many colonial authorities refuse to quell. Several colonies refuse to enforce trade restrictions, causing Earth to declare martial law in these systems and send Sol Alliance fleets to restore order. Many of these fleets mutiny and refuse to follow orders. Within a month, the Alliance military is split along Earth and Inner-Colony lines.

A coalition of inner colonies form the Provisonal Government of the Alliance of Solarian Colonies (PGASC), which declares itself the legitimate government of the Sol Alliance. This event marks the beginning of the Great War.

Earth pop: 14.5 billion. Total pop: 26 billion.

2315: Following an initial period of confused fighting, the Earth forces withdraw to Sol and several nearby minor star systems, threatening to unleash Kinetic Kill Vehicles (KKV's) should PGASC forces enter the Sol System. The various colonial navies rush to manufacture their own KKV's. A cold war of sorts begins. Cut off from outside trade, the Sol system's economy begins to implode.

Although the majority of the war's fighting takes place in the inner systems, hostilities break out between the PGASC and many of the independent powers. With the majority of the PGASC forces focused on fighting earth, dozens of systems declare independence. Fully half of Alliance space is lost to independent powers and revolutionaries.

2316: Facing immediate collapse, the civilian governments of Earth attempt to negotiate a surrender with the Colonial forces. A number of Earth military commanders stage a coup, arresting prominent political officials and declaring martial law. Roughly a third of the Earth fleet remains loyal to the civilian government and mutinies. The occupied Alliance capital is destroyed in the resulting crossfire. In the confusion, some Earth KKVs fire at their targets. Entire Inner Colony cities and orbital installations are annihilated as a result of the KKVs, causing hundreds of millions of deaths. In retaliation, Colonial forces launch KKV's at targets throughout the Sol system, mostly on Earth. The entirety of Earth’s orbital infrastructure is destroyed due to bombardment and the resulting kessler syndrome. The new orbital debris ring is visible to the naked eye, and smoke clouds from the global firestorms obscure the planet’s surface for months.

This event eventually becomes known as the Holocaust of 2316.

Earth population: 5 billion. Total human population: 16.2 billion

Be aware, this occured after I stepped down, I am not incredibly familiar with the new Sol.

[TishinaStalker]

Alright... What exactly /is/ the reason of this "holocaust"? Was it to force Humanity to colonize other planets? What exactly was the goal when the lore team decided that Earth is literally being turned into a ball of fire and poison?

[Gollee]

Earth was using the Sol Alliance to extort the colonies for resources, and force them to have reduced import taxes from earth, crippling their economies, and trade between them. That started the war, then the genocide happened due to the accidental firing of earth's KKV's, which lead to retaliation, in it's worst form.

[TishinaStalker]

I mean what was the lore team trying to accomplish by making Humans destroy Earth? It certainly (at least in my eyes) doesn't seem very interesting, and all it does is to make Humanity's history more edgy and grimdark. I apologize for being blunt, but that whole explanation you just gave seems like it was just a dumb trade dispute that could've easily been solved through diplomatic action, instead of it ending with Humans deciding that they're going to blow up their /home planet/.

[Gollee]

I honestly don't know, it was destroyed due to nuclear war when Tool passed it off to me; dating from Apollo and Hellfire's reign. I left it pretty much as is, then it was changed to this under Table.

[Frances]

What I would like to know, is what exactly this specific scenario brings that's engaging for the players. Because I fail to see it; you have some faraway colonial dispute that's as old as history, and people already fail hard enough to care about real history, so you can't expect them to care about ancient history of a fictional storyline that's not really relevant to the storyline itself anymore (other than as an exposition device).

And if it does nothing good, then it should be removed. One of your tenets should be to keep things as simple and easy to understand as possible - complex parts of the lore that serve no purpose really need to be cut, because lore as it is now is a monster nobody can actually understand.

[Gollee]

I honestly don't know, it was destroyed due to nuclear war when Tool passed it off to me; dating from Apollo and Hellfire's reign. I left it pretty much as is, then it was changed to this under Table.

[Guest]

And I really don't see the "edginess" in international conflict. EarthGov fucked with the rest of Sol Alliance for being a damper on resources, it made the worst mistake it could ever make, and it paid for it.

I mean, think of what Earth would be filled with 100 years from now, assuming it didn't fall prey to nuclear apocalypse. It'd be filled with liars, cheats, and horrid people altogether because of how the culture has developed. Quite a few of modern day Americans are worthless wastes of space, time, and money today, why would that ever change?

It's not edgy at all that Earth ended up the way it did in our lore. It can be justified that Earth very well deserved that end.

By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion. Remember, O Lord, The Children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem who said, "Raze it, raze it, even to the foundation." O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed. How happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us. Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.

[Valkrae]

I highly doubt that Humanity would attempt to completely eradicate it's own home planet. It just seems.. far-fetched to me.

[Gollee]

If that home planet fired on them first, with city killers, they might.

[Valkrae]

At that point, My immediate reaction would be a quick-retaliation to take hold of the major Sol Alliance Government locations, and force them to surrender and adhere to my terms.

[Gollee]

During which time they could have launched another dozen KKVs.

Firing KKVs in response to millions of civillian deaths, while they are unaware of the coup is an acceptable level of escalation, especially when Earth still holds the lion's share of the military, making fleet action unviable at best, and idiotic at worst.