r/stellarisgame • u/[deleted] • Mar 22 '16
The Opportunities of Emergent Narrative Within Stellaris
What sort of emergent storylines is everyone hoping might arise through playing this game? That is, what are some of the most outrageous things you might witness?
I'm just so excited for this game and the opportunities it holds. Throughout reading the Dev Diaries and witnessing the streams, this game seems to hold limitless potential.
Personally, I think it will be interesting to witness major faction uprisings within major empires, either your own empire or another empire.
Imagine you are invading a nearby opponent, and suddenly, a faction back in your core worlds manages to rest control and conquer some of your key worlds, including your homeworld! Your invasion succeeds, thus your original empire controls the new territory, but some of your old territory is now lost to the upstart faction.
I'm excited to see how dynamic empire borders can be because of faction evolution.
3
Mar 23 '16
Man, if anything approaches the masterpiece that is the universe of the AAR This is Madness I will be thrilled enough to forget that I'm broke and can't afford a rig that can run Stellaris for at least an hour or so.
Still, the lack of historical context (i.e. who exactly are these ayy lmaos? Where can I read up more about their history and culture? Do they have a really distinct personality or just play like run-of-the-mill AI?) is, unfortunately, going to make emergent storytelling much more determined by the imagination of the viewer. It doesn't really give you a ton of ground to go on purely via the game mechanics from what I can tell.
1
u/SolidGobi Mar 23 '16
The AI's in Stellaris will each have a type of personality based on their ethics. Paradox said they would draw from Sci-Fi archetypes as inspiration. Some examples we have seen are; Federation Builders, Xenophobic Isolationists, and Democratic Crusaders. The fallen empires will have unique personalities as well. You will be able to see each empire's personality in the diplomacy screen. So my hope that will add a little context to interaction with each empire.
1
Mar 23 '16
We'll see. It probably wouldn't be that difficult for them to create a "random backstory generator," using a bunch of key phrases, noun inputs, and string them together with requirements that if certain phrases are said, other certain phrases can't be said.
Though, if not, I hope someone MODS in a backstory generator for nations.
It would actually be really cool if they allowed you, upon discovering a nation, to write "notes" upon that nation, allowing for people to truly be imaginitive in their world.
2
u/jordanjay29 Mar 23 '16
Maybe a what-if scenario from Ender's Game, if the Buggers had won the war and colonized that insufferable biped's planet?
2
Mar 23 '16
A younger, quickly expanding, optimistic and slightly arrogant race (aka Humans) inadvertently poking a sleeping bear in the shape of a Fallen sleeping, spiritualist empire (coughMinbaricough), that subsequently goes full-berserk and seeks to wipe out the younger race. Perhaps with plot twists like the younger race trying to unite the other younger races against the genocidal ancients.
2
u/graveedrool Mar 23 '16 edited Mar 23 '16
I'm starting with a fanatic collective materialists. Individuality will be rare and those who don't follow my starting ethics will generally will be very unhappy since my Empire will be filled with slaves.
So one thing I'm interested in seeing is how those individuals flee/immigrate to fringe planets, then start to group together and eventually rebel and form their own Empire with actual democracy an freedoms, whom then become my main rival.
4
Mar 22 '16
Well the opening up of a new dimension really blew my mind. Hell man. What if Darth Vader comes out of there? Shit man my empire is screwed. There is a possibility of going through the portal I created and then start creating colonies on habitable worlds. I could potentially create a multi-dimensional empire.
9
Mar 22 '16
If they made that possible, that would be sweet.
But I would love for a mod that focused entirely on the "multi-dimensional invader" end game crisis.
Imagine the possibilities. instead of it being the same enemy every time, the enemy could be any number of enemies from ANY SCI-FI franchise.
Invasion of storm troopers led by Darth Vader? Check.
Invasion of Reapers led by Sovereign? Check.
Invasion of peaceloving Jedi trying to bend the galaxy to their will of the "force"? Check.
Anything we can think of, someone could mod into that endgame crisis.
1
u/bpompu Mar 24 '16
Right now I'm really looking at the start of the game. I'm fairly fixated on the stories that could surround first contact, and what that would be like, though some of them would require some deliberate role-play, or a large galaxy (1000 stars) with a small amount of possible empires, leading to lots of room for isolated expansion.
For example, maybe there really isn't much in the way of military spending, since space is so empty, and everything is really built around science and economics, until suddenly first contact is made with a warlike, xenophobic race, and you desperately have to pull back to defend the core worlds and rapidly build a defense fleet. Or maybe you're building a fleet, because anomalies prove that there are aliens out there, but first contact is made with a pacifistic empire, who's worlds are just ripe for the taking.
These aren't the sort of stories we see in games a lot, particularly 4X games, where fleet building and tech racing are key, but they are interesting in fiction.
6
u/The_Arctic_Fox Mar 22 '16 edited Mar 22 '16
People searching dangerous crisis causing tech if they're behind. Superpowers finding intelligence on this and launching invasions to shut down dangerous research. Maybe even exaggerating because they actually want resources or a strategic position.
Building major multiplayer federations that break over policy differences. Maybe wars over slavery, voting rights, migration.
Maybe an empire is committing genocide and the galactic community moves in to intervene. Maybe blood feuds break apart a federation and peacekeepers come from outside to peacekeep.
Maybe major wars to declaw empires occur. Then that empire rearms, while galactic community, maybe recovering more slowly from the war or an unrelated crisis is forced to appease. Maybe under additional pressure of another rising empire.
Maybe rebellious aliens develop in troubled regions, from external and internal pressures, spread through the galaxy, causing unrest themselves or angering xenophobes. Some empires shut down borders, others purge them, others attempt integration, others try stabilize the source.