Original Faction Names and Logos

[Impaler[WrG]]

Actualy upon closer inspection of my Tec Tree Fold out, I have found the Eary "Archon" logo that Alinestra Covelia mentioned.

At first I though he had been refering to the Large semit transparent logo that apears over the City picture, but if you look more closly the Wrench like Archon logo can be seen on the Side of the university Building.

Upon closer examination of the other Pictures I noticed that the Morgan buildings are coverd with their Eariler Diamond shaped Logo too so both of these pictures must have been made before the Logo Changes were made.

The Peace Keepers though have their final logo so it would seem that the Hive/PK logo sitching happened before the updates to the University and Morgans or that the City Scape pictures were not all made at the same time.

Nice Eye Alinestra, sorry I doupted you at first you were on the money

[Illuminatus]

I just remembered some things which I spotted long ago. This is from system file. See how it uses old faction names.
#VEHICLECOLORING
95, ALIEN RED--NOT REALLY USED.
142, GAIAN GREEN
250, LABYRINTH BLUE ;This was 208. No longer any good?? jsc
62, ARCHON WHITE
241, MORGAN YELLOW
70, SPARTAN BLACK
219, CONCLAVIST ORANGE
227, KEEPER PURPLE

#ARMORCOLORING
95, PLASMA STEEL
233, SILK STEEL
88, NEUTRONIUM
70, ANTIMATTER PLATE

#ARMORCOLORING_TRANS
62, 30, 60, PROBABILITY SHEATH--color, beginning percent, ending percent

#VEH_LIGHT_DIR_MAP
6, 4, 15

#BOUNDARYPERCENTS
0, ALIEN PLAYER...NOT USED
50, GAIAN GREEN
60, LABYRINTH BLUE ;This was 208. No longer any good?? jsc
50, ARCHON WHITE
50, MORGAN YELLOW
60, SPARTAN BLACK
50, CONCLAVIST ORANGE
70, KEEPER PURPLE

[Illuminatus]

I also remembered that I found out some left out techs and facs - this is from the blurbs file - a last hour removed fac. Has anyone seen perhaps a lost icon for this? Actually when I think about it, it seems to me as it was originaly intented as blurb for stockpile energy (stupid).
##Mass to Energy
#FAC38
I hold a scrap of paper in the darkness and
light it. I watch it burn bright and curl, disappearing
into nothingness, and the heat burns my fingers.
Where has it gone? What has it become? I cannot shake
the feeling that I have witnessed a form of transcendence.
^
^ -- Commissioner Pravin Lal,
^ "The Convergence"

And a forgotten tech.

##Global Energy Theory
#TECH70
"Energy is the currency of the future."
^
^ -- CEO Nwabudike Morgan,
^ "The Centauri Monopoly"

And another one (I like the blurb text)



##Inertial Damping
#TECH24
Until now the battle had been proceeding smoothly: the enemy
was outflanked and had been driven from the reactor housing. But
against the reactor itself the matter cannon were strangely
ineffective. Rounds simply . . . stopped. In mid-air.
^
^ -- Col. Corazon Santiago,
^ "A Tactical History of Sparta"

[Illuminatus]

I also remembered that I found out some left out techs and facs - this is from the blurbs file - a last hour removed fac. Has anyone seen perhaps a lost icon for this? Actually when I think about it, it seems to me as it was originaly intented as blurb for stockpile energy (stupid).
##Mass to Energy
#FAC38
I hold a scrap of paper in the darkness and
light it. I watch it burn bright and curl, disappearing
into nothingness, and the heat burns my fingers.
Where has it gone? What has it become? I cannot shake
the feeling that I have witnessed a form of transcendence.
^
^ -- Commissioner Pravin Lal,
^ "The Convergence"

And a forgotten tech.

##Global Energy Theory
#TECH70
"Energy is the currency of the future."
^
^ -- CEO Nwabudike Morgan,
^ "The Centauri Monopoly"

And another one (I like the blurb text)



##Inertial Damping
#TECH24
Until now the battle had been proceeding smoothly: the enemy
was outflanked and had been driven from the reactor housing. But
against the reactor itself the matter cannon were strangely
ineffective. Rounds simply . . . stopped. In mid-air.
^
^ -- Col. Corazon Santiago,
^ "A Tactical History of Sparta"

[Makahlua]

I wonder if Global Energy Theory was left out because of Adaptive Economics? That tech allows the Planetary Energy Grid which defiently has a global imapct:

##Planetary Energy Grid
#PROJECT36
"The ancient Chinese had a name for it: Feng Shui. We call it energy flow. It is the
same thing, the same thought: energy is everywhere, but only a fraction of it is tapped
by humans for their purposes. Now the Progenitors have taught us that we can tap not only
our own latent abilities, but the latent abilities of the Universe itself."
^
^ -- Prophet Cha Dawn,
^ "Planet Rising"


And here's another fun one - I wonder what they'd been watching?

##Bioenhancement Center
#FAC30
We are all aware that the senses can be deceived, the eyes fooled.
But how can we be sure our senses are not being deceived at any
particular time, or even all the time? Might I just be a brain in
a tank somewhere, tricked all my life into believing in the events
of this world by some insane computer? And does my life gain or lose
meaning based on my reaction to such solipsism?
^
^ -- Project PYRRHO, Specimen 46, Vat 7
^ Activity Recorded M.Y. 2302.22467
^ TERMINATION OF SPECIMEN ADVISED

[Ancyrean]

Originally posted by Makahlua
And here's another fun one - I wonder what they'd been watching?

##Bioenhancement Center
#FAC30
We are all aware that the senses can be deceived, the eyes fooled.
But how can we be sure our senses are not being deceived at any
particular time, or even all the time? Might I just be a brain in
a tank somewhere, tricked all my life into believing in the events
of this world by some insane computer? And does my life gain or lose
meaning based on my reaction to such solipsism?
^
^ -- Project PYRRHO, Specimen 46, Vat 7
^ Activity Recorded M.Y. 2302.22467
^ TERMINATION OF SPECIMEN ADVISED

Actually, afaik the main theme behind the Matrix trilogy, that the world as we know it may in fact be just a neural-interactive computer simulation, predates the Matrix movies, maybe even by a few decades...But my memory fails me about who was the father of the idea or in what year it was put forth in what book or novel...

Still I bow (once more) to the intellectual effort that the guys making SMAC/X put into making this game, going through such a rich spectrum of true science fiction

[Impaler[WrG]]

Hail too that, let us all bow down to the greatness of SMAC!!

[Vev]

Are we all brains in a bottle?

[Impaler[WrG]]

Speaking of the Brains in bottles, though I cant say who the first author to pen the consept of our world being a complex computer simulation inwhich our brains are conected too.

I think Plato deserves most of the credit, his Alagory of the cave pre dates everything by 3000 years! The Matrix is simply a styalized retelling of the Alagory of the Cave with a few Judeo-Christian Messia theams. This brings up an interesting observation on the influence of anchient "Greek" knowalge on Cristianity.

The traditional view that the Greek knowalge was this great anchient achivment destroyed by the rise of Cristianity that resulted in the Dark ages thus leaving us in a much less perfect world then previously existed. This is only half true.

In actuality their were several mutualy oposing Greek Philosphies which developed and battled over more then a thousand years. The Pre Socratic Philosophers were closest to what we would call real scientists, rational, experimentaly driven and interested in spreading that knowlage. This Philosopy though was largly lost.
The Socratic Philosophers which included Plato were interested in purly philosopical things they found the real world messy and imperfect, they prefered the clean unspoiled realms of the mind and thus they divorced the mind from the body which is at the root of the Alagory of the Cave.
Another major group were the Pythagorians who were interested in purly mathematical constructs. They pioneared the conspt of the mathematical proof, the ability to prove a mathimatical postulation based entirely on thoughtfull calculations. Thus they did not belive in performing any real world experiments either. They also had tried to keep everything they discovered secret, they felt the "masses" were unfit to know of their discovers.

These 3 groups comprise the "Greek" tradition, the First though fadded in the time of the Greeks and was suplanted by the latter 2 long before the rise of Cristianity. When Cristianity did arise it assimilated as core values most of the Socratic and Pythagorean principles. This is in stark Contrast to what people are traditionaly told, which is that Cristianity rejected and destroyed the glory of Greek Philosopy. Just the Oposite Cristianity and the resulting Dark Age that resulted IS the legacy of Greek Philosopy. The "lost Glory of the Past" consept IS a Greek Philosophy Thus the whole premisse is self controdicting. Rather then lossing Greek Philosophy the western world retained it in the Guise of Cristianity for a Thousand Years!

It was not untill the Enlightenment began that the Pre-Socratic philosophies began to re-emerge. The Consepts of Science and experimentation now flourish in our modern world, Conservative religious eliments still represent a major threat though (the Conservative Cristians are much more dangeroud then the Muslim ones as the Cristians are in positions to bring down the modern Enligtenment at its sourse). Interesting how history repeats itself.

[Archaic]

*Goes looking through the graphics files*
Hmmm....anyone know who "BKTSP" is? He's marked the flags.pcx file with a tag.

There's also some interesting pics and comments in Icons.pcx, iface.pcx, interface.pcx ("Make this Redder -BR". There's a number of notes by him amongst the files, but this seems to be the only order to the artists.), monicons.pcx, and units.pcx.

[Maniac]

I don't think anyone has mentioned this yet: AFAIK the file fac37.wav in the FX directory is also an unused recording.

[Scytale]

although I read impaler's post I fail to see the connection with the other ones, except for the whole "alegory of the cave" thing; this is mostly a sci-fi forum, thus I have to point out that most of us don't give a flying "alegory of the cave" about greek philosophy. I am content with Yang's cheap aphorisms, and with the whole believer apocripha.

[Corellion]

The discussion had turned vaguely to who first came up with the idea of a matrix-type world (derived from the 'brain in a bottle' quote from SMAC). Impaler was pointing out that Plato's discussion of the Allegory of the Cave, in which an entire people is kept in a cave, unable to see anything other than the shadows of whatever passes behind them. The idea ties directly into "what if our senses are being fooled all the time" from the Matrix (which, in itself was an almost exact copy of some of Bertrand Russel's musings (or was it Descartes?)).

[Clear Skies]

Allegory, please.

And I think William Gibson was the cyberpunk mastermind behind a lot of the concepts that were cobbled together into the Matrix.

[gwillybj]

The University's wrench logo is also the pendant on Zakharov's right ear. It's hard to make out in univ.pcx. It's clearer in bbrd6.pcx on the SMAC CD.

Re the fac##.wav files: None of them are used. What you hear in the game are the mp3 files in the voices folder. And the numbers don't match between the folders.
fac33.wav is fac31.mp3.
fac34.wav is fac32.mp3.
fac38.wav is fac35.mp3.
fac40.wav is fac37.mp3.
fac41.wav is fac38.mp3.
Three wavs have no mp3: 11, 31, 37.
Eleven mp3s have no wav: 3, 7, 8, 11, 17, 20, 21, 22, 33, 34, 36.