@joshtigerheart, on Oct 24 2008, 05:01 PM, said in Open Source TC:

Hmmm, somewhat random idea. If we were to go with the three-way war and they're all human groups, I think it'd be neat if Earth itself was one of the things they were fighting over.

@jacabyte, on Oct 24 2008, 05:52 PM, said in Open Source TC:

We could have a situation where Earth had been lost to star charts and explorers, due to the fact that our sun isn't a very bright star and/or other problems (I.E. there was something on Earth that we became afraid of) and its not included in any of the governments. Could make an interesting storyline, searching for Earth...

I like these ideas. They remind me of Foundation.

In a three-way war between (former) Earth governments, I'd suggest two superpowers (hyperpowers?), and a conglomerate Confederacy of the second- and third-world countries who go a late-start into the space-age. In this way, the latter could be be technologically inferior (but numerically superior), without resorting to a tired cliché like being a backwards-thinking warrior-state to justify the trope, a la the Aurorans. They could very well be an up-and-coming power that the other two warring factions have only just begun to take seriously, as it slowly begins to outpace its peers. (personally, I'd feel that a government like this would be a real big fan of fighters and support craft, but thats just me).

Well, I guess we could have a game balance situation where more powerful and wealthy governments can afford to build a few large, destructive capital ships, with less powerful nations building large numbers of light-medium class ships, such as fighters and cruisers. That would certainly be interesting.

Alright, let's get a vote on the general scenario concept. After a reasonable amount of time and votes, or a lot of time and few votes, we'll go with whatever is the most popular.

Here's what we have thus far. Ideas can be mixed and matched too and some of these could easily be combined.

• Three-way war between three large, powerful nations. Could be humans, aliens, what have you. (JTH)

• Corporate warefare between two powerful companies with the governments too weak to really intervene. (JTH)

• Alien threat from beyond. (JTH)

• A TC where everything is part of a living organism, such as ships being cells, etc. (Tycho)

• Cold War-esque scenario, complete with at least one side having a super weapon. (Jaca)

• A degenerating pocket of humanity, isolated from the rest. (Werhner)

**Possibly including an alternate storyline from the non-isolated sect. (JTH)

• A strange universe where everything is a convulted mixture of who knows what, and only the player seems to notice. (Dr. Trowel)

• A universe threatened by a rampant A.I. and there's one big government and lots of "unworthy" frontier governments. (Werhner)

• A TC that takes place in cyberspace, where ships fighting with viruses and such, systems are computers, routers, etc, and planets are parts of a computer, like the file storage. (Werhner)

I'm reserving my vote as a tie-breaker, if needed.

I vote three way war with all human factions.

are we also doing a realistic time to tech setting?

I'm casting my vote for the three-way war (all human). The rampant AI thing could also be interesting, although not necessarily in the way it is originally presented.

+ approve, - disapprove, 0 neutral, asterisk if comment

@joshtigerheart, on Oct 25 2008, 09:05 AM, said in Open Source TC:

Ideas can be mixed and matched too and some of these could easily be combined.
+Three-way war between three large, powerful nations. Could be humans, aliens, what have you. (JTH)
-Corporate warefare between two powerful companies with the governments too weak to really intervene. (JTH)
+Alien threat from beyond. (JTH)
-A TC where everything is part of a living organism, such as ships being cells, etc. (Tycho)
+*Cold War-esque scenario, complete with at least one side having a super weapon. (Jaca) (maybe not at the beginning, but as progression of story?)
0A degenerating pocket of humanity, isolated from the rest. (Werhner)
0Possibly including an alternate storyline from the non-isolated sect. (JTH)
-*A strange universe where everything is a convulted mixture of who knows what, and only the player seems to notice. (Dr. Trowel) (not in that sense, but perhaps in a different way)
-*A universe threatened by a rampant A.I. and there's one big government and lots of "unworthy" frontier governments. (Werhner) (edit: what ~vIsitor~ said)
-A TC that takes place in cyberspace, where ships fighting with viruses and such, systems are computers, routers, etc, and planets are parts of a computer, like the file storage. (Werhner)

This post has been edited by Nonconventionally Creative : 25 October 2008 - 11:47 AM

I'm voting for a three-way conflict between human nations, with smaller independent and pirate/renegade states in hard to find/reach areas.

As a side note, we don't necessarily need to have one major storyline for each of the nations; we could have more, as Pace did with the three Arpia storylines. I say we write as much stuff as we can and still keep it good, since we've got a lot of good storyline ideas here that could work if we mixed and matched them.

I'm voting for the cold war, but it should probably escalate extremely quickly, so it's interesting.

@jacabyte, on Oct 25 2008, 11:48 AM, said in Open Source TC:

As a side note, we don't necessarily need to have one major storyline for each of the nations; we could have more, as Pace did with the three Arpia storylines. I say we write as much stuff as we can and still keep it good, since we've got a lot of good storyline ideas here that could work if we mixed and matched them.

I'm thinking that there could be branches here and there, some random, some player determined. Not a lot of branches, to keep things simple, and some might branch back together. For example, player gets an option between being a diplomat or a soldier. He chooses the latter and somewhere down the line there's a choice where he gets to pick who he attacks, but it just affects the next two or three missions. At some point there's a random branch where something big may or may not happen, such as a threat from beyond showing up or things going as normal.

Okay. I also vote that we never kill the player, unless he makes some kind of "wrong" choice.

Three way war with an alien threat from beyond and some crazy A.I.s.

i like the 3 way with humans... *could make a bad joke there, but ill let it be... * but id like more of a "humanoid" feel to a/some government/s... leave one or two as straight-line earth decendants, but thru time people have adapted to different climates, differing them in ways from the straight line earthies...

which would support a futuristic setting if we went there.

I'm not going to say anything for or against the ideas I threw out.

I'd tolerate the 3-way war idea, but I think it seems pretty ... unstable. I think there would need to be a pretty strong reason for why one of the nations doesn't adopt an 'enemy of my enemy is my friend' strategy and just turn it into a 2vs1. The best reason that comes to mine is something like the Cold War idea - each of the nations must possess some pretty strong weapon of last defense that makes some sort of MAD scenario possible. I'd vote against a three way war that isn't backed up with some realistic explanations. I think there is a reason why the US has consistently maintained only a 2-party system.

This post has been edited by Werhner : 27 October 2008 - 04:50 AM

@werhner, on Oct 25 2008, 02:32 PM, said in Open Source TC:

I think there would need to be a pretty strong reason for why one of the nations doesn't adopt an 'enemy of my enemy is my friend' strategy and just turn it into a 2vs1.

Because it's just a game?
One of them could have something that sets them off from the others - they could be aliens, or just humans that weren't normal humans.
The other possibility is that they are simply "geographically" distant, and all contact is affected by this. World history is all about geography.

@werhner, on Oct 25 2008, 02:32 PM, said in Open Source TC:

I think there is a reason why the US has consistently maintained only a 2-party system.

Except for the times when there were one, three, or four major parties...

Canada does just fine with a 4/5 party system. Its a perfectly dysfunctionally stable democarpy

@lnsu, on Oct 25 2008, 05:31 PM, said in Open Source TC:

Canada does just fine with a 4/5 party system. Its a perfectly dysfunctionally stable democarpy

blink blink

what does the fish have to do with anything?

Quote

Its a perfectly dysfunctionally stable democarpy

FREEDOM FISH! THEY GO WELL WITH FREEDOM FRIES!

Devil's Lake
(someone please get this topic back on track)