I might as well pitch this idea while I'm here as well:
The storyline to the Delphi universe is absolutely massive. So massive, in fact, that it takes place over a span of nearly 250 years. This isn't even including the ~800 year backstory after the impeller engine is invented in 2097. From approximately 2800 AD onward, the events of the game galaxy unfold. This is obviously far longer than any player has the time to play, so I had a bit of brainstorm that should help with development and also make the game a far richer experience.
I'm going to divide the game into stories. I mentioned before releasing content in episodic format, but this takes it to a whole new level. Basically, as soon as I'm done crafting the working Delphi universe, I'll release it to the public. This will be the default stand-alone galaxy with basic working missions, factions, ships, and worlds. Side missions will be written and included in a small update, but for the most part, the default game world will be an unchanging place where you're free to do whatever you want. Even if you play for 250 years, the Enclave will still be fighting the NDC, the Pariah Combine will still be abducting victims from independent worlds, and the Centaurus Arm of the galaxy and all its horrors remains undiscovered. This is basically what Starfleet Adventures accomplished with its alpha release, except that there were no faction missions written into the game. I'm hoping to write a few non-universe-shattering minor faction missions that you can partake in, even to the point of full-on aligning with a particular group. However, your choices ultimately won't change how the universe functions, unless you decide to dominate every planet on the map.
Once each story is released, it will be added to the game by the use of the chär resource, which will let you choose a different timeline and background for each new pilot. You won't lose any functionality by playing without one of these stories selected, but each one will re-craft the universe to allow the story to happen.
Here, this is basically what I mean. This is the first draft for the different character profiles and why they require different pilot files entirely, as opposed to one pilot living 250 years and doing everything.
Default - No Storyline
• You start the game as a trader, simply running missions and making money and a name for yourself.
• The Enclave-NDC war is at a fairly stable stalemate, with neither side gaining or losing any appreciable ground.
• Side missions may include minor story arcs in which you defend independent worlds from the Pariah Combine, or participate in expeditionary missions for the NDC or Enclave, but these don't ultimately make any universal changes.
Chapter I - "Phoenix" (2852 AD)
• You play the role of an NDC officer stranded in an escape pod for months, revived over the course of a year and brought back to health because they think you may have information on the mysterious force that crippled your ship during a routine assault on Enclave battle lines.
• The Enclave-NDC war is at a critical boiling point, where each side stands ready to deliver painful crippling blows to one another, and its a sure thing that entire worlds will be ravaged if either front moves forward.
• A full mission/story structure exists in which you will unravel the hidden secrets buried both in enemy lines and inside your own mind, and the answers to your questions will ultimately force you to reconsider your allegiances.
• Side missions are modified to reflect the volatile game world, and many exist with a particularly high degree of difficulty, such as flying through battle zones to deliver medical goods to blockaded worlds.
• A major story arc exists on the side in which the Pariah Combine has amassed enough power to actually become a threat to both the NDC and the Enclave Colonies, and you receive the chance to strike at the heart of the cult and end their dominion of terror over voidspace once and for all.
• The results of your actions in this story will ultimately change the entire face of the galaxy.
Chapter II - "Delphi"
• You play the same character you did during Chapter I, but the events take place approximately twenty years after those of the first story. You have completed an illustrious military career following the end of the Enclave-NDC war, keeping the peace and assisting in a massive military push to restore order to the generally lawless region between star clusters known as "voidspace".
• The NDC/Enclave Alliance is fronting a massive interstellar colonial venture into the nearby Centaurus Arm of the Milky Way, after centuries-old telemetry reports from probes sent before the war confirm the existence of almost identical star formations as in the Orion Arm, offering a good hope for the discovery of either habitable worlds or even alien life.
• You assist in the assembly and launching of the "Delphi" colony mission - named after the religious sanctuary in ancient Greece where philosophers and kings sought counsel and wisdom - sent toward the Centaurus Arm to answer some of humanity's questions about the nature of the galaxy and the existence of life other than our own.
• The NDC and the Enclave are no longer at war; rather, they are tentatively allied and slowly undergoing a process of cultural inter-assimilation.
• Though this story arc begins slowly and peacefully with many logistic missions, things turn sour when a new faction rises up to try and stop the colony mission from going forward.
Chapter III - "The Black Void"
• You play an entirely different character unrelated to the first and second stories, as Chapter 3 occurs roughly 40 years after the launch of the Delphi mission.
• Contact with the Delphi has been lost, and you play a junior expeditionary lieutenant given your first command and ordered into intra-galactic voidspace to determine the whereabouts of the massive vessel.
• You make contact with the Shen'or, a hostile alien race that appears to overrun any planet or vessel they come across.
• You activate the Delphi's Interstellar Bridging Module to create a gravitational mooring point for impeller jumps.
• The NDC uses its military might to send an expeditionary force into the edge of the Centaurus Arm via the Delphi to combat the Shen'or in their own space.
• Through unknown means, the Shen'or find a method to cross into Orion Arm space, and a full offensive begins against the worlds of humanity.
• The 72 kilometer NDC super ship, Chrenari, is hastily crafted and assembled with the intent of eradicating all life on the Shen'or homeworld in the heart of a dying nebula. The nebula is absolutely massive, and particularly difficult to navigate due to intense gravimetric interference.
• A battle takes place over Shen'or Prime, the Chrenari becomes lost in the nebula, and a sudden change in the region's electron density makes it almost completely impossible to enter or scan. The Shen'or virtually disappear from the face of existence.
Chapter IV - "Decay"
• Many years after Chapter 3, around 3050 AD, the Chrenari's transponder beacon mysteriously reactivates and begins broadcasting a distress signal.
• You play a future NDC commander sent to investigate. The Centaurus Arm has become a vastly different place, where massive spontaneous star burnout has ravaged much of the region, and the entire starscape appears to be dying at an accelerated rate.
• The nebula around Shen'or Prime and the other stars it encircles has stabilized, and travel is once again possible through it. You must go in and find out what happened to humanity's greatest investment, and discover what is killing the region before it spreads to the Orion Arm.
• The finale of this story culminates in the end of the entire Delphi/NDC universe storyline, for better or for worse.
I know this is going to be a massive amount of work, but presumable once the universe is up and running in a working format with its usual standard missions, I can write whatever little changes are necessary for each storyline as I go. Basically, I'll turn the Delphi TC into a standard universe which will then have its own mods applied to it to create the circumstances of each chapter, rather then creating five completely independent TCs.
