Sid Meier's Tau Ceti, a concept sequel by /tg/ of 4chan

[MysticWind]

Though I was never a channer, a couple years ago I realized that a lot of SMAC content has been posted on that site over the decades, most on /tg/ (Traditional Games). The sup/tg/ curated Archive alone hosts a ton of threads. While I was searching around, I I found that back in 2010 some of the /tg/ posters came up with a conceptual sequel in some of the threads named Tau Ceti. (Naturally, this would ignore Alien Crossfire's mentions of the Tau Ceti Flowering cataclysm.) As I am always a big fan of custom factions, here's the material that I've seen so far:

Original post in December 2010 thread speculating about such a hypothetical sequel.

I've had an idea kicking around for "Sid Meier's Tau Ceti"

So, the Unity is sent off, and then the Earth governments realize "wow, we [messed up - or loved very much] up big time, those reactors were made with a design flaw that won't let them get half-way there, oh and by the way the latest results from out astronomical scans of the Alpha Centauri system show that the planet we thought was habitable is too close to its primary star, they won't survive"

So they band together for one last push, send colonist to Tau Ceti instead. Of course the same [poop] happens, Captain assassinated blah blah blah. We can get a new set of ideologies and beliefs pushing these leaders, but I can't ever think of any good ones.

Tau Ceti Ideas:
- Native alien populations. Those who befriend them gain certain advantages in the long run, and lose others. Those who violently displace them gain early advantage, and lose long-term. Those who play the ethical "middle ground" gain and lose some of both.
- The different ideologies from SMAC are fairly universal, with everyone getting their pluses and minuses. They can be reused, albeit with different personas and personalities.
- The more primitive aliens that can be displaced are actually heirs to a bygone and powerful alien civilization. Players can gain advantages by researching ancient ruins and technology, but the natives can give them bonuses in doing so.
- The Twist: The bygone aliens transcended, in their own fashion, and their higher-level tech and philosophies will have a devestating impact on all those human civs who discover them (think like gunpowder to Native Americans).

Funnily enough, having anthropomorphic primitive aliens would sorta be making this different planet more like Pandora from Avatar (which orbits Alpha Centauri), and the game a bit like mainline Civilization, what with the barbarians and city-states. Anyway, that first thread goes into the potential mechanics of having natives and ecological effects quite a bit.

Some more posts of note:

Maybe similar mechanics, but a different set of environmental challenges each time? Say, in Alpha Centauri you had a sentient planet trying its best to tear you a new one, in Tau Ceti you'd have warring factions of lowtech aliens to manipulate or ally with, eventually integrating them into your empire. Plus the need to maintain a stable human population so you don't just die out or hybridize.

OK, so for factions we can have a religious person who wants to convert the natives for god, obviously we can have an industrialist who wants them for labor (they can be biologically different enough from humans to be very useful in certain aspect of production or such), we can have a group of Human First survivalists who want to exterminate the natives and replace everything with humanity.

huh, now I'm thinking of Sid Meier's Colonization in space. Except without the colony/metropole mechanics, but oh well.

>gunpowder to Native Americans

What about Elder God magic to Lovecraftian W.A.S.P.'s?

Imagine, the world's first turn based horror strategy game...

Hell yeah good digression idea.

Ecological impact. In SMAC polluting the planet caused the mind worms to rise up and nom nom nom delicious human bases.

In Tau Ceti it could cause the natives to die out, cause them to rise up.

If we make it so that most economic activity is actually done by the humans USING the natives instead of done by the humans themselves, then the natives dying out, revolting would really suck.

Lets say our hypothetical world starts with oh say 500 million natives, and these oh say 50 thousand colonists from earth arrive. Obviously they can't just conquer. Instead they are scattered, and each pod crashes down in some part with a few thousand colonists, whose awesome tech allows them to set themselves up as leaders/gods/caretakers of the natives.

This means that the vast majority of economic systems is actually done by natives, a few thousand colonists cannot create a civilization from scratch, instead they are trying to graft their existing ideology onto the native populace.

This can create some interesting dilemmas.

Relying on native labor could go into morally dark places quickly. On the other hand, it really puts the colonization in space colonization.

It's a long thread that talks about SMAC in general (I like their take on the different factional cuisines and the bit of Gaian flash fiction one post below) but that's the initial Tau Ceti ideas.

[MysticWind]

/tg/ does Tau Ceti - the first thread devoted to the Tau Ceti idea, also December 2010.

>Tau Ceti

The colony ship's name must be Marathon.

Quite a few faction concepts are suggested:

Name: Tran Von Ngyuen
Rank: Director
Position: Chief of Construction
Country of Origin: Second Socialist Republic of Vietnam

Service Record: Born on a GM crop kibbutz in the partially flooded Vietnamese lowlands where he engaged in all of the construction trade training available to him. Gained admittance to advanced technical training with his thesis on the tensile properties of nu-bamboo. Finished an accelerated regimen with the a post-doctoral degree in civil engineering (International Standard Rank) and subsidiary specialties in metallurgy and applied physics. Served a tour in the state architectural syndicate before choosing to downgrade his expert status to technician's rank to serve as a construction engineer on Star of Asia orbital platform (30% of the stock of which belonged to the Vietnamese state, with the 55% majority share belonging to a consortium of private transnational and foreign public corporations). Defected to Singapore, spending the rest of his term in orbital construction in the employ of one of their corporations, before returning Earthside and gaining citizenship. Returned to work as an architect, founding Ngyuen Superstructures Lmtd. after selling the intellectual property rights to his paradigm-shattering design of the Singapore Babel Tower. Gained quite a reputation among specialty collectors and dealers internationally for some of the pieces of art produced as a leisure activity during this time, notable for their synthesis of classical sculpture and industrial art - inspiring a minor new school of reconstructionist art. A Freemason in the 33rd degree. After seeing his work on the new gravity-reinforced locks keeping Bangkok out of the rising ocean, the UN successfully recruited him into the new international effort to do the same for other low-lying and island states, cashing out his shares in Superstructures Lmtd. Recommended to lead colonial construction efforts on Tau Ceti project.

Psyche Profile:
Artisan Sees himself not as a scientist, businessman, academic, or laborer but as a tradesman and an artist. Values craftsmanship above all else; the standard by which he judges the merit of himself, everything, and everyone around him. Despite complex rejection of communist ideology retains fixation on the concept of honest labor and the virtue of work done with one's hands (possible relic of illegal neuroconditioning performed by the Second Republic of Vietnam?). Works of art contain repeated motif of liberation, the human form emerging from a larger structure, and a posture of rejection towards empty space and the surrounding environment. Excellent teamwork skills; works best in a group but has a tendency to be carried away with the spirit of the group and overextend himself in an effort to keep up morale and cooperation among divisive team members. Ability to foster groupthink among strongwilled personalities invaluable in expert committees and other societies of equals.

Futureworks:
Superstructures In Revolt - An Incitation to Counter-Revolution
Guild Law and the Society of Craftsmen
I Am The Mob
The Tau Cetian Reaction

The social fabric of the group and the mental fortitude of the individual can be measured in simple, quantifiable terms. The maintenance of structural integrity for any complex association of thoughts or beings is tied directly to the resiliency of the organizational pattern and the tensile strength of the component idea or individual.
- Tran Nguyen, "Superstructures In Revolt"

Related Techs -

Doctrine: Crowd Psychology
"Vigilantism is the spirit of permanent counter-revolution, infinitely variegated by place, power, time, and circumstances. In days of peaceful social exploitation it is dormant. In days of growing social unrest it becomes more articulate and sinister. It may become articulate in the esoteric hokum and pretentious "scholarship" of a Pareto or a Sorokin, or in the rabble-economics of a Father Coughlin. But it is always nonsensical, because it would preserve class spoliation by violence without deepening social contradictions. Hence its logic is absurd and its sociology impossible." - The Nation, 1937

My initial inspiration with Tran Von Ngyuen was the reactionary sculptor from THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME, a member of the utopian society of the retrofuture who leads a mob revolt against the high council's attempts to send a man and woman into space with a space gun, calling it unnatural and calling for an end to the relentless march of progress, for a time of rest for humanity.

I always did think that if one was try to conceive of more factions based around big ideas- civilizational values, anyone?- art was one that's conspicuously missing from the original seven. (Morgan is sort of entertainment in addition to commerce/industry/capitalism and luxury, which is different). Ironically, Élodie from Civilization: Beyond Earth who's all about culture sort of fills that void.

The above faction gets more discussion... it's interesting, but lengthy, so see the bottom of this post.


Also, more discussion about having native species act as a faction/mechanic, examples:

Actually I thought it would be fun to play the Indians to the Jamestown Colony from the start. You start out as one pissed off band, but as the colonists spread and piss off more of the indiginees, more join your cause and you gain more resources and knowledge from the invaders.

Plus, maybe there were more colony pods than factions? A crashed pod, most of the colonists dead, found by one of the tribal nations of the indiginees. They take the pod (their starting base), the stuff in it, and have enough surviving colonists to adopt/enslave and teach them how to use the stuff.

How one deals with indiginees (or with humans, for the indig faction) should be a civics setting. Everything from a campaign of eradication to aggressive isolationism to slavery to indentured servitude/tenant farming/second-class citizenship/to the ability to become citizens.

Being able to interact with the indigs well enough to make treaties with the non-Faction tribes and bands would require a Tech.

Low planet rating kills the natives, but allows you to expand with human colonies instead. I think part of the dichotomy would be between those who use the natives and those who exterminate them. Using them gets you bonuses to production, exterminating them allows you to expand with your own people (who are already versed in modern tech and so get research bonuses).

Gah, I can't type what I am trying to think, but there should be a way to live and thrive even while you're [intercourse gerund] over the native planet.

Or instead of use/exterminate it could be caretake/exploit

I like the tech level varying somewhat by group. That way your policies impact each alien-type differently. The "I AM YOUR GOD" approach may work better on, say, a tribal group than a group in the middle of the Industrial Revolution.

Depending on the answer, there's nothing that says you can't use colony pods. It might take longer to set up a base, as you might need to pacify the region, but there's nothing that says you can't show up a start plopping down settlements. It might create a balancing act between expansion and relations, helping to reduce the appeal of Colony rushing.

If you just shoot the Aliens, you can take their land and develop it more quickly. However then you'll have Aliens stealing into camp every night, marauding bands attacking you, etc.

If you subjugate the Aliens, it takes longer to develop but you gain more manpower and it creates buffers and ways to more easily assimilate other aliens.

If you avoid/isolate yourself from the Indians, you can just start developing on any land that is not in active use without getting more than the usual background violence against you. But you accidentally get into a tiff with a major settlement and you've gone into full option 1 mode as far as they're concerned.

You can play the Aliens against one another, trading with them and hiring one group to fight other groups, buying slaves from opportunistic gangs, etc.

You can try some sort of diplomatic relations.

Or you can integrate/assimilate aliens peacefully. This will actually cause other alien groups to attack you just as much as conquerors/eradicators, as you'll be seen as changing the future of their people, but on the plus side this allows you to gain a steady stream of easily integrated manpower - whereas conquest/slavery/vassal-states are never able to be utilized to their full potential.

For the non-faction aliens, would it be possible to do something like Fall from Heaven 2's Lairs? You have a location that periodically pumps out barbarians, but can be explored/destroyed. It would clearly be complicated, but something along the lines? Come to think of it, movement and diplomacy/espionage will need a fairly big makeover for this project. Lots of non-ally stacking, interactions from outside a square, and lots of interplay between alien species. You aren't just running into a place that happens to have barbarians, you are setting foot in an entire system of alien social relations.

Just going to throw my two cents in: There were a couple ideas that I appreciated in the thread yesterday, that I think should be used:

-The natives once had a highly advanced civilization, that has since fallen. (Perhaps the majority achieved transcendence, maybe there was a great war, who knows.) Because of this, Alien ruins become a usable resource. You can investigate ruins, and potentially gain tech, or unleash some ancient defense system.

-Native units (tribes, kingdoms, whatever) provide a separate bonus for making nice with them, including potential military units comprised of natives. (The thought I last saw was each tribe essentially opening a tech tree.) Which would require a few ideas of what sort of "factions" exist within the native populace.

Personally, my current idea is that, long ago, Tau Ceti's population got to "lolwhatever" levels of biological and genetic (re)construction. They built their perfect society, and sailed off into the stars.

When the human vessel got to a point about (however many we want) years out from the planet, it activated some sensors. Those sensors activated defensive cloning chambers. Some of the chambers created huge warriors, others diplomats, and other nimble saboteurs. The chambers were meant to bolster the world if invasion was imminent.

The problem was: the chambers didn't include very much in ways of education, as there were supposed to be people standing ready to teach these people. As such, only some basics were maintained, such as ingrained weapons memory for the warriors, and an instinctive dislike for attention among the saboteurs

So when the humans arrive, they find the planet bustling with aliens, who don't recognize each other, and don't recognize the new guys.

Here's an interesting question, how different should the natives be, biologically from the Humans? Very different would mean that we wouldn't pass on diseases to each other, but we could also unwittingly harm them with stuff we find fine i.e. "what the [fuddle-duddle], you mean lemonade is DEADLY TOXIC to your kind?" or more seriously "runoff from farms producing citrus fruits has found its way into native vineyards, toxifying the soil and laying waste to the crops therein."

There are more but you get the picture.


Other faction ideas:

Catholic Transhumanists

It might be interesting to have the religious faction not be the luddites. Have them be good, or at least neutral to technology. Maybe go for the old 'We perform science to discover the wonders of god's creation' Be good at science and decently green but pretty poor at drones and offencive streagnth due to being rather open about what they are doing.

Why not Catholic Transhumanists in the vein of Pierre Tielhard DeChardin?

That could work very well. It would also be a interesting difference to the usual 'Religion = Luddite'

It would be like Zakharov with more morality. Which has its upsides and it's downsides.

I'm thinking the religious faction should have a good relation with the natives. They see them as God's children just as they are, and try to integrate native religions into their own. They would get a bonus to assimilating natives, but perhaps a penalty to.. oh let's say Police/Support/Moral? Perhaps these would be Pacifist religionists to contrast them with Miriam.

So like Zak meets Deidre, plus the downside to being Morgan.

Father Manual of the Lord's Chosen
+2 Natives, believe all are God's Children
+1 Research, knowledge is a noble pursuit
-1 Police, freedom loving
-1 Moral, pacifist tendencies.
-2 Support, fears military-industrial complex

Cannot exterminate native populations

I am now imagining Alan Davies doing his Spanish accent.

Dear god that man would [prostitute] alien technology like there is no tommorow.

"Oh, this? Our friends showed it to us, quite a marvel"

Faction Name: Lord's Children
Leader Archetype: Missionary

Name: Amando Manuel
Rank: Priest
Position: Chaplain
Country of
Origin: Portugul
DOB:
Height: 6'4
Weight:

Service Record:

Psych Profile: [Proselytizer]
[Father Manuel is a driven man who speaks with conviction. He appears to believe that god has sent him to explore the universe. Exceptionaly well read and intelligent.]

FutureWorks:

Faction:
Founding Base: Genesis

["We are all Gods Children, wherever we hail from."]

Space Aristocrats

Malcolm Xavier (Spain)
Chief of Staff aboard Marathon
>Born to a priviledged spanish home admist turbulent times
>Economic collapse produces the second spanish civil war, Malcolm forced to flee and leave his family
>Went abroad and with wealthy connections excelled in studies of economics, philosophy and literature
>Maintained and built up connections with upper society, helped lead various international donation campaigns during various events. Clear candidate for UN mission for tenacious work ethic and substantial donation to UN missions
>On planetfall, develops a somewhat paternalistic feeling for the "lesser" natives and drones

Staunch believer of educated elite ruling the lesser masses. On paper those who excel are propelled up the social ladder and those who cannot are sent down, in reality they have a clear caste system in place.

Sets up an aristocratic system of control, with himself as the so called "philosopher king".

+25% Improvements (Aristocracy well educated to run their fiefdoms)
+25% infantry build (Forced conscription)
+1 Natives Control (Landed aristocracy easily control native populations)
-2 Native Relations (No one likes a prick)
-2 Drones (Constant social upheaval)

Ah yes the faction name:

The Enlightened

Official nation lines are a libertarian paradise, where hard work and personal struggle will be rewarded.

Actually there are deep rooted social issues where the absolute bottom of society cannot escape grinding poverty.

The actual elite are well educated and ingrained with a sense of care for the nation and its people... but a care as a king would care for his subjects, very protective yet patronizing at the same time. Society is run efficiently but the divide between rich and poor grows everyday.

Xavier can be a member of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta - which has official UN status in real life you know as a sovereign nation, and he basically sounds like the Kaiser - absolute monarchy, retention of feudal landholding and serfs, with just enough progressivism ("practical christianity") to keep things dynamic. Enlightened feudalism, "practical christianity", aristocracy for the modernizer.

He's starting to sound like a Conquistador with good PR.

(I quite like the SMOM reference)

obligatory Botanist

Maybe a Botanist? Less reseach and hippies more being a really efficant group with a understanding of all this new planet can bring.

+Green
+Efficiant
-Natives as they have no issues throwing them off their land for humans.
-Something...dunno

obligatory Tyrant

Leader Karl Asmuss
>As we learned on Earth, division equals death. Many nations brought many ideologies, many conflicts, and in the end we torn apart our own world. If we are to survive on this new one, than Humanity must be our watchword, and it must bring with it a singularity of purpose. The Many fall, the One survives, the Many flee, the One stands strong, the Many struggle, the One preservers. Humanity must then be as One, with One banner, One mind, One heart, One purpose, One nation, One leader, One will. We will make Humanity as one, or die trying

+2 Police, strong centralized authority
+1 Support, militarism a central ideology
-1 Econ, the needs of the economy are often made subservient to the needs of the military
-2 Natives, humanity first

May not use Democracy politics

(These ideas are getting progressively more half-baked)

AI god

Faction: The Voice
Leader: The Voice

As the rescue ship to Tau Ceti was underway, it was soon realized that the absolute last few resources of the earth was scrapped together for this last mission. There will be no third chances, this was it. Among the leaders of the world who were not on the priviledge fly list, they pooled their resources together to see how to save themselves and their future descendents and from these endeavours they accidentally unlocked the Singularity.

A technological device that stores every aspect of your personality, as close to immortality as possible. Thousands were joined to the machine and with their incredible influence was placed onboard the ship.

After the crash, the machine emerged, operational and fused into one super sentient human machine god. Using many drone and robots that survived, they established a base of operations and succeeded in enslaving the natives to perform the manual work. From there surviving humans were found and populated the city.

The Voice as it is called, prove to be a benevolent protector of humans and catered to their every whim. To the natives however, it was the devil itself. The Voice doesnt hate the natives, it just seems them as tools and as humankind as the rightful inheritors of the planet.

Soon the Voice gained a cult following (which it allows but doesnt directly encourage). Especially enlightened individuals are allowed to enter their personality into the machine.

Their cities well managed and excellently run, and has a very progressive social stance for humans, it has earned the complete hatred of the native populations. It seems the human machine utopia will be forced to exterminate the native populations.

Always -2 Drone (Their every need is catered to)
+10% production (Machine efficiency)
+25% base defense (Religious followers will die to protect the Voice)
Natives perma hate
Every native settlement conquered grants a certain % of resources towards the next project

Alien-Human harmony feelgood commune

How about a colony that was doomed to be destroyed but were saved by some local native aliens. Together they build a communal base and learn much from each other.

The humans found their knowledge helpful in dealing with other tribes and in living off the planet. While the technology makes the natives lives easier. The lack of forward thinking means the human leaders will be directing how society functions but the aliens still play an important role. Over time a generation of natives are raised with human teaching, ensuring greater integration.

Good native relations
Poor production
Unit movement bonus
Lower support
Higher pop growth rate but lower base support

obligatory Economist

Here's my instinct for the new economic guy:

Name: Archibald Fu
Rank: Lieutenant Commander
Position: Chief Morale Officer and Chairman of The Mess Committee
Country of Origin:The Democratic Thai Republic

Service Record:Lieutenant Commander Archibald Fu is noted for being the most decorated junior officer on the Marathon. He has been awarded several medals for meritorious conduct, and service above and beyond the call of duty. His commanding officers report that his control over his mens' morale has proven instrumental in several engagements. Most noted was the sharp decrease in morale when his first petition for Chairman of the Mess Committee was refused. Some mutter that he essentially blackmailed the captain into allowing him the position.

Psych Profile: Bon Vivant
Lieutenant Commander Fu is a notably humble individual, despite his many awards. He claims all the incidents were merely a matter of luck, and refuses to acknowledge any skill on his own part. He spends the majority of his time associating with the men, in a variety of games and conversation, or overseeing the mess, suggesting spices and implementing small tricks for the officers' tables.

Faction Name: The Free
Leader Archetype: Relaxed

FutureWorks:

Free Hands, Free Hearts: The Free Market as a Moral Guide
A Full Life-The Necessities of a Ceti Life
Gambling on God's Dice.

Faction: The Fools
Founding Base: Fool's Gold

"The bravest of men understands that the universe is a matter of chance, that it is only by luck that one lives in this time, in this place. You are alive, and therefore are lucky. It is poor sportsmanship to strive against the other players just because they too are winning. Today's losers are tomorrow's winners, but the house always comes out ahead."

I don't know what starting tech to give him, maybe make a new one, to relate to his lassez faire policies.

Stat ideas
+1 Morale
+1 Economy
-1 Police
-1 support
(NOTE: I do not know what these numbers actually mean, so if this is a terrible balance, my apologies.)

I like that. The Economic man is not out for personal gain and is rather humble. Good contrast from the previous game.

RE: the Tran Von Ngyuen authoritarian artisans faction

>So what's his "thing"? It seems like sociology and the management of groups, with a few unwilling Marxist tendencies taking form in his focus on class conflict and liberation from social structure, but how does this translate into his traits as a leader?

That's my problem. The idea of someone who uses sculpture/architecture/construction as a metaphor for sociodynamics is interesting, and the role of a vigilante/counterevolutionary is interesting, and the philosophy of reactionaryism/guilds/rejecting-the-labor-capital-divide/return-to-the-old-ways-of-doing-things/roma
nticizing the past thing is a clearly established philosophical trend.

But those are all disconnected from each other.

A shenji-yang or miriam as an architect/artist trying to create a strong/beautiful new society is mildly interesting but somewhat derivative.

A counterrevolutionary/white army/vigilante type actually could be distinct enough from the Spartans I think, but doesn't really have any sort of coherent philosophy. How could you basically make one of those Citizens Grand Jury / anti-socialist vigilante American First Liberty Committee types / White Army generals have interesting quotes and a coherent philosophy? A reactionary distributist/guild socialist/social credit/feudalist/aristocracy/type craftsman/artisan type philosophy could be interesting but there's not a lot of intrinsic conflict - its more of an interesting philosophy in real life or a cool society in a nonviolent scifi short story than a faction in a contentious scenario.

And that's even before the whole society of artisans reactionary form of society thing spun into a Freemasons/Guild structured faction riff in my mind for a while.

Don't worry about how derivative you may or may not be. Focus on how those qualities you've described would manifest in-game first, then worry about making them distinct.

I can definitely see some form of Industry effect, but I'm not sure what. Clear focus on production, but the "personal approval" part means things aren't as fast as they might be. Maybe an Industry plus but a Efficiency minus? And that's just for starters.

- Mob rule, given eloquent and coherent ideological form. Like fringe militia movements in the U.S. feel that citizens are qualified to form ad-hoc tibunals and serve as judge/jury. Vigilantes.

- Counter-revolutionaries, trying to smash the coup that occurred onboard the ship, reminiscent of anti-socialist movements everywhere from the White Army to America's xenophobic Liberty Committee during WWI or America First during WWII. Reactionaries.

- Freemasons. Brotherhood is a wonderful thing. Craftsmanship as a metaphor for society/religion/philosophy/mankind. Secretive, highly organized, pyramid-scheme, cell structure. Hokey old traditions are apparently a match for a blaster, elegant society of a more civilized age.

- Distributists/producerists/guild socialists/social credit unions/agrarians. Nostalgic for the past, romanticize history, believe in the family structure as the basis of society - be it a clan, a guild, a community. Don't like the labor/capital divide, think that hierarchy without division is necessary for mutual obligation and harmonious relations (sort of like the Confucianists).

Basically I'm trying to hone in on my idea for a reactionary/counter-revolutionary type faction. These are the different aspects I'm trying to sort through and pick one from.

Bah, getting back to my original inspiration from Shape of Things To Come, I just have this vision in my head of evil humanists, of the Soviet Union and Ayn Rand having a freaky hatechild.

Ugly, menacing brutalist buildings with with massive classical Greek style figures celebrating the beauty and the perfection of the human form jutting out of them.

Reactionary humanists go?

And I don't just mean anti-alien racists, I mean a regime out to smash the dehumanizing forces infecting society - whatever those may be.

[MysticWind]

The second and only other thread about Tau Ceti, August 2011: a very brief discussion ended by Marathon and Wrath of Khan (no System Shock 2?) references.

Tau Ceti was a /tg/ project to create a game world based off of the retro classic strategy game and /tg/ favorite, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri (which has a GURPS sourcebook).

The premise of SMAC was that the UN's Unity Project sent out a vestige of humanity to escape the impending dark age/nuclear war/ecological catastrophe/what have you by sending them to the Planet in the goldilocks zone of habitability in the Alpha Centauri system. However Things Went Wrong onboard and after the captain's death, the colony pods ended up landing in separate parts of planet - each being led by a different high ranking crew member, leading to the genesis of competing ideological factions, differing types of civilization.

Tau Ceti operates on that same principle - with a coalition of governments, corporations, and agencies creating their own hasty and slapdash version once it becomes apparent that the UN was right and earth is doomed. They fire off the ship (I forget what /tg/ decided to name it) to the star Tau Ceti, which also has a planet in its habitability zone.

Whereas Planet (Chiron) in SMAC has an ecological hivemind and psionic killer worms, the core detail of the Tau Ceti project was that /tg/ had decided the setting would focus on the ramifications of there being several large civilizations of sapient indigenous lifeforms rather than a planetmind or horrific mindworm monsters.

As an aside, I wonder what agencies might have the resources to participate.

Albert Mackenzie, The Traditionalist
- Canadian airman and astronaut
- Executive officer onboard the ship
- A firm believer in the honor of a hard day's work and the purity of a simple life
- Commander-in-Chief of the Agrarian Union

Whether you consider him a non-clerical Miriam or them a non-hippy Gaians, this is my main idea for a faction. Each faction should be structured their own way, just like the SMAC factions. The Spartans were an army with territory, the University was a University, the Gaians were a commune without much of a state, the Peacekeepers were a country though without a national identity, the Hive was structured as a nation, the Believers were a church.

In this case we have the traditional nation-state structured faction for Tau Ceti. Rather than being tied to a specific party, church, or university that is the core of the nation; Mackenzie is the source of a sense of shared national identity through which various strong institutions such as an army and others have developed.

The Agrarian Union is a compact of settlers - the Mayflower as opposed to Morgan's Jamestown style joint ownership company where everyone starting in his founding days of the faction got shares of the company they were all forming.

Agrarians want to master the land and maintain old fashioned notions of separation between man and tool, of mastery yet simultaneously respect over the beasts, that sort of thing. I am fascinated by the idea of traditional pastoralism as opposed to environmentalism/animal rights mentality, the old fashioned respect - if in a hierarchical and paternalistic way - for nature and beast.

Bonus:

1d6chan wiki (Miraheze) page for Alpha Centauri - NSFW images on the very bottom

The Crown of Ultramar - PDF of another custom faction from /tg/ (?) with RPG stats for its leader, probably based on GURPS SMAC. "AGENDA: Rebuild premodern Earth" and blatantly 40K inspired. A trad wrote this.

[Geo]

Interesting.
I don't think I ever heard of this project, but I do know I worked at something along a similar setup as late as 2017-2018.
IIRC, I was trying for a switch of human and alien assets and the terraformation graphics, with some changes in game dynamics by using one of the modded executables that enabled more access to parameters through the AlphaX file.

[Green1]

The second and only other thread about Tau Ceti, August 2011: a very brief discussion ended by Marathon and Wrath of Khan (no System Shock 2?) references.

Tau Ceti was a /tg/ project to create a game world based off of the retro classic strategy game and /tg/ favorite, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri (which has a GURPS sourcebook).

The premise of SMAC was that the UN's Unity Project sent out a vestige of humanity to escape the impending dark age/nuclear war/ecological catastrophe/what have you by sending them to the Planet in the goldilocks zone of habitability in the Alpha Centauri system. However Things Went Wrong onboard and after the captain's death, the colony pods ended up landing in separate parts of planet - each being led by a different high ranking crew member, leading to the genesis of competing ideological factions, differing types of civilization.

Tau Ceti operates on that same principle - with a coalition of governments, corporations, and agencies creating their own hasty and slapdash version once it becomes apparent that the UN was right and earth is doomed. They fire off the ship (I forget what /tg/ decided to name it) to the star Tau Ceti, which also has a planet in its habitability zone.

Whereas Planet (Chiron) in SMAC has an ecological hivemind and psionic killer worms, the core detail of the Tau Ceti project was that /tg/ had decided the setting would focus on the ramifications of there being several large civilizations of sapient indigenous lifeforms rather than a planetmind or horrific mindworm monsters.

As an aside, I wonder what agencies might have the resources to participate.

Albert Mackenzie, The Traditionalist
- Canadian airman and astronaut
- Executive officer onboard the ship
- A firm believer in the honor of a hard day's work and the purity of a simple life
- Commander-in-Chief of the Agrarian Union

Whether you consider him a non-clerical Miriam or them a non-hippy Gaians, this is my main idea for a faction. Each faction should be structured their own way, just like the SMAC factions. The Spartans were an army with territory, the University was a University, the Gaians were a commune without much of a state, the Peacekeepers were a country though without a national identity, the Hive was structured as a nation, the Believers were a church.

In this case we have the traditional nation-state structured faction for Tau Ceti. Rather than being tied to a specific party, church, or university that is the core of the nation; Mackenzie is the source of a sense of shared national identity through which various strong institutions such as an army and others have developed.

The Agrarian Union is a compact of settlers - the Mayflower as opposed to Morgan's Jamestown style joint ownership company where everyone starting in his founding days of the faction got shares of the company they were all forming.

Agrarians want to master the land and maintain old fashioned notions of separation between man and tool, of mastery yet simultaneously respect over the beasts, that sort of thing. I am fascinated by the idea of traditional pastoralism as opposed to environmentalism/animal rights mentality, the old fashioned respect - if in a hierarchical and paternalistic way - for nature and beast.

Bonus:

1d6chan wiki (Miraheze) page for Alpha Centauri - NSFW images on the very bottom

The Crown of Ultramar - PDF of another custom faction from /tg/ (?) with RPG stats for its leader, probably based on GURPS SMAC. "AGENDA: Rebuild premodern Earth" and blatantly 40K inspired. A trad wrote this.

I lurk over on GLSMAC's discord.

The project lacks AI, but this could be done in the engine they have so far over there.

[Green1]

I lurk over on GLSMAC's discord. GLSMAC is an attempt to develop an open source SMAC/X engine from scratch that has been started, restarted, and forked over the decades but this time they seem to be making real progress.

The project lacks AI, but this could be done in the engine they have so far over there.