Thoughts and Ramblings

I recently finished the Azdgari string in EV Override, and I've found the Azdgari culture in general very interesting, although I'd like more data on it. Well, a good creative person makes their own data! So I sat down to think about the Azdgari.

First, what we know;

They're a nomadic culture.
They obtain most of their resources from raiding other cultures.
They don't use industrial manufacturing techniques!
They believe in Speed Above All Things.
They're cheerful, if not a little crazy.

Why they're nomadic may be lost in the depths of time - but in the Strand War, it's clearly a lot safer for the civilian populace to be mobile. The Zidagar turned the Azdgari homeworld into a toxic mess, but the Azdgari had already left. Gadzair, possibly the homeworld of the Strand race, was pretty much destroyed some long time earlier.

This causes in part the second two points. If they're nomadic, it's harder to have fixed resource extraction points, and harder to mobilise a significant workforce to form an industrial factory line (and why would they want to? Where's the fun in doing the same thing all day every day?)

Since cottage industry means that every ship they make is going to be somewhat unique, their ships will be somewhat harder to repair - modular parts would be hard to install, after all. This may be one reason why Azdgari ships are designed more to avoid damage than to absorb it.

Azdgari mining industry would probably be more likely to consist of mobile asteroid miners than anything planetside, and they could also have mobile "craft ships" where things can be manufactured while avoiding enemy attack. And they definitely need some kind of bulk freighter, for evacuating personell - remember those "evacuate personell from <travelstel>" missions? They do it a lot, and they can hardly rely on the Miranu or people who don't fly Azdaras all the time (this could also double as a transport for ground troops - those raids on enemy worlds need ground support too!).

What are your thoughts on the Azdgari?

All good points, but the Azdgari do have ONE planetside mining site. It is on the east side of Azdgari space and has only two jump points, although the name of the planet and system escape me at the moment. The reason they have it is probobly becasuse of two things: 1) it is remote and thus difficult to attack without prior confrontation and 2) the low number of jump routes make the position easily defendible from all but the strongest attacks. And while the Azdgari don't use conventional industrial techniques they are highly industrius, it's just that they can't make enough of their top-of-the-line products to go around. And in my opinion the Azdgari's tendancies for raiding are something of a poetic justice for the other strands, the Zidigar drove off the Azdgari, and poisoned their 'home'-world, while the Igazra did nothing. All that happened was the consequence of actions long ago. One wonders how a race so mischivious as the Azdgari could have reasons to cast out members of their societty into the strandless class however....

You're right, they do - Toiy in the Toi system. I'd forgotten about that. As for the Zidagar wrecking the homeworld and the Igazdra doing nothing, well, the three Strands are at war - probably the only reason the Igazdra didn't do it was because the Zidagar got there first.

As for the Strandless, it's the repository for anyone convicted of a major crime, or who doesn't fit into Strand society - and while the Azdgari are merry hell-raisers, I'd say they do have a definite culture. If someone was solid and boring in Azdgari culture, it would bring the rest of them down - and they can't have that! Out the offender goes.

Shade, on Dec 4 2004, 10:58 PM, said:

You're right, they do - Toiy in the Toi system. I'd forgotten about that. As for the Zidagar wrecking the homeworld and the Igazdra doing nothing, well, the three Strands are at war - probably the only reason the Igazdra didn't do it was because the Zidagar got there first.

As for the Strandless, it's the repository for anyone convicted of a major crime, or who doesn't fit into Strand society - and while the Azdgari are merry hell-raisers, I'd say they do have a definite culture. If someone was solid and boring in Azdgari culture, it would bring the rest of them down - and they can't have that! Out the offender goes.
View Post

**I've always found the Adzgari interesting for some of the same reasons. Of all three of the strands they always seemed to be the most oblivious and distant- their territory is stretched thin around the back of the galaxy and there doesn't seem to much continuity amongst their military powers.

That said, they survived because of those things- they're almost like the rogue Strand that is barely one, almost like the strandless with respectability. It seems to me that they'd also be virtually impossible to conquer- even if their borders were pushed back, I'd imagine they'd just move into other territory to compensate, in this case, Zidagar and Igadzra worlds. Damn, that'd be a good plug-in.

Hmm..

_bomb

**

Yes - it does say somewhere or other that they have, in the past, relocated to different sections of the galaxy for "decades at a time".

And if you make it, I will play it! There's Reign of the Voinians, and Reign of the UE, but aside from a few things exploring the Council and Crescent Station, the Strands seem to be left almost alone by plug-in makers. I thought about doing something myself, but I don't really have the patience, or the time these days.

One has to wonder - what would the Council do, if the Azdgari started majorly tipping the balance of the Strand War in their favour? Send fleets? Aid the other Strands technologically? Whoever, or whatever, they are, they definitely have a lot of clout in the Crescent - after all, the Azdgari built and mantain Crescent Station for them (which may be the Azdgari's only truly permanent location!).

And I think Captain Skyblade / Kyle Katarn / whatever his name is did some Azdgari ships, back in the day - I've got them on my HD somewhere ... for that matter, does anyone know what happened to Dreamwave Studios?

Shade, on Dec 8 2004, 07:24 AM, said:

...One has to wonder - what would the Council do, if the Azdgari started majorly tipping the balance of the Strand War in their favour?...View Post

It's inconceivable that a three-sided fight could continue for centuries, effectively as a stable system. You'd surely find that one side would get unlucky, lose a planet or two, and the victor would use the resources they gained to expand further and further.

Since the three strands remain effectively balanced - at least until the humans start influencing events - I think we have to assume that the Council are behind this. Probably not through the introduction of new technology though, since this would eventually make the warring nations as powerful as the Council. Also, wouldn't it tend to make their technologies converge?

In the three-sided war, perhaps the Azdgari themselves are the stabilising influence? The Zidagar can't concentrate their forces against the stolid Igadzra because the Azdgari tend to flow into any power vacuum. They are always there, at the edges, ready to exploit the weakness that would result if large numbers of ships were moved to the front lines.

VoinianAmbassador, on Dec 9 2004, 02:23 PM, said:

In the three-sided war, perhaps the Azdgari themselves are the stabilising influence? The Zidagar can't concentrate their forces against the stolid Igadzra because the Azdgari tend to flow into any power vacuum. They are always there, at the edges, ready to exploit the weakness that would result if large numbers of ships were moved to the front lines.
View Post

Similar reasoning could apply to any of the three sides. Each has strengths and weaknesses that can, with the proper strategies, be exploited by one side or another to strong advantage. With all of them there, though, all of them are continually being canceled out by one another. The system may be chaotic, but there might be an underlying order that keeps perpetuating it.

As to the Strand War in general: Do we even know why they're fighting? What is the motivation? More planets? What's on those other planets that's so essential? More resources, and thus more ships to take more planets and finish the war? But then we're back to the original question: why are the Azdgari, the Igadzra, and the Zidagar fighting in the first place?

I like the Council idea. Or maybe the war's been secretly put on by the Miranu as a means to strengthen their arms and medical industries.

the Azdgari obviously live for speed. why they would agree to construct and maintain a station in kade would be some insideous agenda of the Council. more than likely all the council style stations are an interconnecting network of locks to keep some evil overlord trapped in a pocket of hyperspace and interdict any possible jump vectors he might use to bring his citadel of pandemonium into known space. Can you say trifold attractor? The particle that prevents the jump to hyperspace.

if some madman ever blows away crescent station, the crescent could be overwhelmed by some insidious force. The Azdgari are obviously on the front lines.

you got to cheer for their bravery against such overwhelming odds.

This post has been edited by seanrobertmeaney : 09 December 2004 - 10:46 PM

Unfortunately, there's a problem with that hypothesis - notably that Crescent Station is not an absolute barrier. It blocks the one stable jump route out of the Crescent, but only in one direction - aliens can come the other way. One of the Zacha, Miriida, is one. There are also presumably unstable jump routes leading out of the Crescent for those with a lot of courage and not much sense.

I suppose the Miranu could offer you a large amount of money to take some unstable jump route out beyond the Crescent, and then you could take the one back into Kade. This could be achieved plug-wise with one-way links, although I forget exactly how one does that ...

As for the Strand War itself, I'm inclined to believe it's being secretly orchestrated by the Council for whatever reason. As has been pointed out, the three Strands are very much equal in most ways, and this wouldn't occur naturally.

Shade, on Dec 8 2004, 07:24 AM, said:

Yes - it does say somewhere or other that they have, in the past, relocated to different sections of the galaxy for "decades at a time".

And if you make it, I will play it! There's Reign of the Voinians, and Reign of the UE, but aside from a few things exploring the Council and Crescent Station, the Strands seem to be left almost alone by plug-in makers. I thought about doing something myself, but I don't really have the patience, or the time these days.

View Post

**Nor do I. But if someone was interested in handling all the basic logistics (i.e. coding and testing, neither of which I have any sort of affinity towards doing ever again) I'd definitely write it.

_bomb

**

I'll do it, but I'd have to write the plug-in. I'm currently doing a plug-in which involved all governments, although I doubt I'll put Kade/Council interraction in. There's enough planets to take over in this galaxy without making more.

I have to say that the whole strand thing is pretty interesting though. I once made a plug for myself, just playing around (about 30-40 missions I think) where the Igadzra take over the Crescent. They got all the way up to the Zidagar system before I gave up, mainly because it wasn't releasable. I was treating the Igadzra like humans instead of putting character traits in them, making it unrealistic. I wouldn't mind doing it again though, although a plug-in working for the Azdgari would be hard. After all, when do they ever attack anyone except to raid?

--gav

I always liked the Azdgari. Cool ships and I always had a thing for speed in EV. I did not do their string first, though. This was mainly becuase I found out I couldn't get one of their crusiors (legally). I chose to join the Zidagar at first. I really like there little beam weapons. But I'll be sure to fight on their side sometime.

Shade, on Dec 8 2004, 07:24 AM, said:

And I think Captain Skyblade / Kyle Katarn / whatever his name is did some Azdgari ships, back in the day - I've got them on my HD somewhere ... for that matter, does anyone know what happened to Dreamwave Studios?
View Post

...

Wow, I thought that old Azdgari set of ships had vanished off the face of the planet years ago. I'm quite happy to hear they still linger about.

I had Dreamwave taken offline many months ago due to serious time contraints (mostly called "college"). I still think of operating a similar site constantly - perhaps under a new name - whenever things cool down a bit. As you may or may not heard, the iMac that I had all my Dreamwave and 3D / graphics files on finally died awhile back, so I've been forced to return to the world of Windows. If ever do get around to starting a new site, it will be from scratch.

-Cap'n

-edit- Ah yes, I might add that I've also found the Azdgari to be the most fascinating race in Override. From the little I've learned about them through their missions, I also tend to support them more than I do any of the other Strands. Yo Bomb, you really should consider a plug.

This post has been edited by Captain Skyblade : 02 January 2005 - 05:28 PM

Jee, before I read all of this all I thought of the Azdgari was they are a friendly race but do renegade type things like raid and pillage.

I wonder what would happen If you demanded tribute from Council station.

They would proably come out and defend themselves, like any other planet until you kill them all and then control the planet.

You fight an ungodly number of defense-fleet Crescent Warships, and get a pitiful amount of tribute to boot.

For the theory of the origin of the Strand race, I forgot where I read that all of them may have at one point been one race but have evolved seperately. Several evidence may point this possible outcome, the description of Gadzair, that a forgotten war that ravaged this planet might possibly have been their original homeworld. Another clue, every Strand homeworld, is in a system that is exactly 3 jumps away from where Gadzair is located, and finally all the names of their race Azdgari, Igadzra, and Zidagar are all anagrams of Gadzair, it all makes you think.