"Eye of the Beholder" SP Game

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

Consciousness

I think I've found our Cybernetic Consciousness leader. It needed a woman, as well as black.

Look at what she (opera singer Marian Anderson)'s wearing. Perfect!

I'll throw some weird effect on her eyes, maybe alter her hair a little, and she should be good to go.

[Darsnan]

I think I've found our Cybernetic Consciousness leader. It needed a woman, as well as black.

Look at what she (opera singer Marian Anderson)'s wearing. Perfect!

Looks very promising.

I'll throw some weird effect on her eyes, maybe alter her hair a little, and she should be good to go.

Maybe give one eye an off-color, like its a synthetic implant (to go with the Consciousness custom of using implants)? Or as you said, maybe both eyes with a weird effect can convey that just as well.

D

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

Maybe give one eye an off-color

Both might be good.

I'm satisfied with her eyes, face and clothes-- now I'm giving her a haircut and adding spikes. She'll be ready soon.

[Darsnan]

That's you're. ...

I think you've signed up for a full time job here....

Wouldn't you agree that datalink entries ought to err on the terse and dry side? Not as terse as the originals, I hope, but still.

In that light, your lovely phrase "a veritable psychiatric leper colony" is too colorful.

Yeah, I've sort of been coming to the same conclusion, but from a different perspective: its a great catch-phrase, however in order to jimmy it into the description I had to take a sort of roundabout way to get there, which took a lot of real estate in the description. I'm going to leave as-is for right now, then probably update it/ drop it out of the description.

D

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

The Cybernetic Intellect

It just struck me- would Cyborg Intellect be better? Wait- I'm gonna take a minute to change that in the file before I post it. -Huh. that's what I put in there in the first place; I only have to rename the zip. No, I just named it Intellect. Getting senile.


I wanted an African name for her, so I did a little research.

I've named her Maarifa Angavu, the closest I found to Marian Anderson, which apparently means "skilled shining one", and that she's of Kenyan and/or Tanzanian extraction.

You can see below what all I did to her. It's a very striking portrait, and looks good in the game. However, I'm not confident that the green and blue of her eyes is different enough, or that she looks bionic enough.

As I noted in the p.s. joke down in the corner of this one, she's not young, her eyes are weird and that punk/rasta/haystack thing is going on with her hair- but there's something a little hot about her...

I had a terrible time getting a faction color that didn't disappear into the game background too badly or match anyone. (I just found out that the Academy's color is too nearly the same as the Peacekeepers. I'll have to do something about that. SIIIIIIIGGGHH.)

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

Say D, I'm doing the aliens next- can you tell me anything that'll help me get a handle on them visually?

I'm thinking of maybe leaving that sucker pink, or only tinted a little, and concentrate on his background, and maybe do something to that big green collar thing he's wearing.

I figure the Caretaker/Usurper schism may have happened so far back in history that ethnic differences have evolved. I'm not even sure that a little skin color change takes more than a few thousand years. But yer Autochthones were born Caretakers, right? So they might change clothes style, they might live in different-looking buildings, but they'd still be pink.

However, they could easily have very different lighting conditions in their videoconference room... What color is the sun of this planet?

[Darsnan]

It just struck me- would Cyborg Intellect be better?

OK, just a thought here. If Maarifa Angavu is an experiment, then I think the term "cyborg" fits better, as "cyborg" seems more like an experiment. However if she is a product of the Consciousness (i.e. a complicit direction) then I would use the term "Cybernetic" or "Intellect" instead, as these terms seem to imply agreement in this chosen direction: does my explaination in the difference between the two make sense? Rgardless, personally speaking I like the Cybernetic or Intellect implications/ applications better.

I wanted an African name for her, so I did a little research.

I've named her Maarifa Angavu, the closest I found to Marian Anderson, which apparently means "skilled shining one", and that she's of Kenyan and/or Tanzanian extraction.

Your doing an awful lot of the gruntwork in regards to the Factional backstories for me: this background is very good, and much appreciated!

You can see below what all I did to her. It's a very striking portrait, and looks good in the game. However, I'm not confident that the green and blue of her eyes is different enough, or that she looks bionic enough.

Taking a step back: looking at the Star Trek Borg, why they were way overboard in their cybernetic enhancements (i.e. almost every inch of their bodies were covered with graphical enhancements, just to make sure every viewer understood that they were mechanically enhanced humans -aka Cyborgs). This was an as-usual TV over-exhemplification of cybernetic enhancements. Looking at Aki-Zeta from SMAX, why I think she is also overdone in regards to the obvious physical silicon enhancements. Personally speaking, as the sciences advance, I think that our abilities to graft in artificial enhancements should also keep pace, and that their physical intrusiveness should receed over time. Therefore I think that the Cybernetic Leader pic should have a relatively subtle obtrusiveness in regards to their Cybernetic enhancement, i.e. just enough to let us know that she's "more than human" (which can very readily play into the social diplo for the Consciousness).

I had a terrible time getting a faction color that didn't disappear into the game background too badly or match anyone. (I just found out that the Academy's color is too nearly the same as the Peacekeepers. I'll have to do something about that. SIIIIIIIGGGHH.)

Actually I like the Academy color very much: it is perfect for a Uni Splinter Faction, as it is close enough to the Uni's that I can quickly identifiy it as such once I see the base graphics. I'd say go with it as it is. Once people have played the scenario lets see what the feedback is, and go accordingly at that point.

D

[Darsnan]

Say D, I'm doing the aliens next- can you tell me anything that'll help me get a handle on them visually?

Specifically for EotB: if you review the original descriptions of autochthone in this thread, then this should give you a very good idea of where this Prog faction is at. Or think "Lord of the Flies", but more organized. Does this define it for you?

D

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

OK, just a thought here. If Maarifa Angavu is an experiment, then I think the term "cyborg" fits better, as "cyborg" seems more like an experiment. However if she is a product of the Consciousness (i.e. a complicit direction) then I would use the term "Cybernetic" or "Intellect" instead, as these terms seem to imply agreement in this chosen direction: does my explaination in the difference between the two make sense? Rgardless, personally speaking I like the Cybernetic or Intellect implications/ applications better.

I was only thinking that as a splinter faction name, "The Cyborg Intellect" is exactly the right amount of different from "The Cybernetic Consciousness". You'd have to tell me the precise nature of the internal differences...

I'm *strongly* urging you to go with my name, though. Whether Maari is a experiment or what, it's a faction of people with bionically-enhanced intellects- and it's a catchy name.

Your doing an awful lot of the gruntwork in regards to the Factional backstories for me: this background is very good, and much appreciated!

That's you're.

I spend lot of time squinting at these people. Save Flammarion and Zhukov. many, many, hours apiece. The stuff about Prudence's family just came to me; I'm obsessed and stalking her, after all.

I'd been doing a pcx credits format where I gave the name of the new leader- and I got to Morganthau and had nothing to put down-- I figured I can't make him not a white male, but I can make him foreign, German, at least. And so on; you seemed receptive to my ideas, so I ran with it. No big deal. I'm a born collaborator.

Actually I like the Academy color very much: it is perfect for a Uni Splinter Faction, as it is close enough to the Uni's that I can quickly identifiy it as such once I see the base graphics. I'd say go with it as it is. Once people have played the scenario lets see what the feedback is, and go accordingly at that point.

You are a comfort, sir.

That's exactly what I've been shooting for with the colors

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

review the original descriptions of autochthone in this thread

Okay, then- put 'im in burlap. Simple. I don't know enough about the planet to put a landscape in the background, but I could probably manage a log wall, suggesting a cabin...

Okay, I think that's what I needed. I'm on it.

[Darsnan]

I'm *strongly* urging you to go with my name, though. Whether Maari is a experiment or what, it's a faction of people with bionically-enhanced intellects- and it's a catchy name.

Segwaying here: tell me whats the difference between "Inuit" and "Eskimo"? Is it the difference between what a people are labeled, versus what they call themselves? I still like my choices above.

That's you're.

Just trying to keep you gainfully employed. btw don't say that I didn't warn you!

I spend lot of time squinting at these people. The stuff about Prudence's family just came to me; I'm obsessed and stalking her, after all.

Enlighten this Believer.

D

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

Segwaying here: tell me whats the difference between "Inuit" and "Eskimo"? Is it the difference between what a people are labeled, versus what they call themselves? I still like my choices above.

Well, they can call themselves Sid, but that doesn't make it a good faction name. The fact that members of the '60s counterculture never called themselves hippies doesn't make them not hippies.

Isn't the ideal faction name, from your perspective as game designer, catchy as well as evocative and descriptive? Isn't different better as long as it evokes the original? Why else create splinter factions instead of, say, having CEO Morgan, etcetera, founding a new colony? Why even make it a new planet? Why even write a scenario?

Because variety adds flavor.

I came up with the "Intellect" part coming from exactly that thinking. Synonym, or something of the sort, for conciousness. I submit to you that Cyborg is as descriptive and evokative a part of the name as Cybernetic, or more so, and at least as catchy. The thing I most associate with the original faction is that they've wired stuff into their brains- the cyborg part, eversomuchmore than the 'the stuff is computers' part.

Plus it's catchier. And it's already in the pcx.

What exactly is your choice above?

Enlighten this Believer.

Oh, just the stuff about nine brothers and a boxer dad.

(Though, come to think of it, I didn't mention that he washed out as a profesional boxer before she was old enough to remember. He was a mill worker with a crooked nose and a square jaw. Prudence looks much more like him than her mother, though everyone has always told her differentlly. Her mother died in childbirth when Prudence was about eight, and all the pig men/boys in the house expected Prudence to do the cooking, even though five of the brothers were older. Daddy was really terrible at it, so she actually did- and, of course, all the cleaning. There was a sister, the baby. I don't know much about her, possibly because she was sickly- she may have died of something really young. Prudence runs her faction a lot like she ran her home; sometimes there's an awful lot of shouting, things may get thrown, and noses bloodied. Just cross her if you don't believe me. Her followers really adore her.

This stuff wrote itself (and more keeps coming). I've spent a lot of time squinting at Prudence, and now you got me started thinking 'bout her again.)

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

Are you talking, not about the formal Faction name, but the one-word/abreviation name they're generally referred to by? In that case, yeah, Intellect. Otherwise we're talking past each other- I don't follow your remarks.

Interestingly enough, I don't know if Prudence is Irish-from-Ireland, or like Miriam, the token American. I lean towards the latter.

I do know that as a little girl she was prettier. The most adorably bossy little thing you'd ever care to be ordered around by.

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

Autochthone

A few thoughts that hit me while squinting at this one for hours— half written with datalinks in mind, though not attempting to be dry enough, and not terse at all.

Progenitors are most likely herbivores. Both Caretakers and Usurpers, and we don’t know that the difference between them isn’t gender diversity or the difference between two individuals, have somewhat prominent tusks, some of which don’t look to be good for anything but show. They also have a splayed feature at the base of their necks that appears to be a rill. On Earth, these are traits of animals that fight for dominance a lot. Such species always engage in a great deal of display behavior, and have evolved physical traits to aid in it.

Omnivores like humans, apes, and pigs tend to fight for dominance, but exhibit less physical alteration to aid in dominance displays. In them, evolution usually stopped at whatever level of gender dimorphism the species possesses, mostly in the form of size, although male mammals are usually hairier, too.

Predators ain’t playin’ when it comes to violence, and thus do not evolve showy-but-useless features to display their virility, such as exaggerated coloration, inflatable throat pouches, or tusks they can’t use to kill.

Xenopologists who have studied the appearance of the Progenitors known to them are confident, barring some unforeseeable condition on the Progenitor’s world of origin, that they derived evolutionarily from a grazing species that lived in a herd-type social structure. This strongly implies that Progenitor society is always a dictatorship, and often not a terribly stable one.

Usurper leader Judaa Marr displays a distinctly different integument coloration than Caretaker leader Lular H'minee. The implications of this are difficult to assess without more information on Progenitor history and biology, and indeed, the lighting conditions in the respective factions’ comlink rooms. However, the dark hornlike structures that Marr displays so prominently emanating from his neck rill are very difficult to detect with certainty on H'minee. This possibly implies that the Caretaker and Usurper populations have evolved independently of each other for a non-trivial period on an evolutionary scale. Alternately, it may instead imply that there was at least an ethnic-level divergence between the populations already in place at the time of the schism, and/or that the Progenitor genome is more flexible than with dogs, and/or that there is a pronounced gender dimorphism, and/or that again, the lighting conditions are that different, and/or or that some un-guessable factor is in play. Xenopology approaches being a pseudo-science without more observational data to process.

All Progenitors observed to date have been seen wearing ornaments of no apparent utility. In this they are no different than humans.

***
The individual pictured below, to whom I’ll refer as “he” for convenience, may or may not not be as dominant a leader as Lular H'minee. He (let’s call him, in Caretaker naming style, Selar S’plorr- "Lular H'minee" sounds a little like "lunar home" to me, so "stellar explorer" for this one...) wears no ornamentation, consistent with the style of his faction, and his tusks are the same size, and even whiter- but his coloration is generally paler, with more highlights. This could be a sign that he is challenged less often, or more- it depends on how Progenitor coloration changes when they’re excited, if it does at all, and how long they stay flushed, and too many factors to asess or even know exist.

Or it could be the difference in lighting.

(I note that Lord of the Flies societies are known to turn on their leader.)

The horn/tentacle/hair structures on either side of Selar’s head are shorter than the ones on Lular. This could be another sign of lesser dominance, the way I was thinking until I looked at Judah Marr and saw he didn’t show them at all. So they’re not intrinsic to the species, or are flexible and arranged as a matter of style, like hair. If so, this is consistent again with my understanding of the style of the faction

As you can see below, for a change I only did what I went in intending to do to this portrait. Looking at it, you’d think I could draw, wouldn’t you? I swear it’s not something I’m good at doing on paper.

This is the first faction in this project in which I’ve gotten the faction colors and everything right before I did my cursory playtesting. The council logo moved a pixel when mouse-overed -which I don’t do for council logos- but it turns out to be the case that Firaxis did it. I fixed it, of course.

I didn't hue-shift everything I was gonna all at once or the same amount on this one. I wanted to try for earth tones on the bases, and I think they look great.

Those alien shields have got it all over the standard ones, hands-down. They've got a great look, and are infinitely easier to work with.

I hope the sky is blue on this planet, because that’s the color I’ve put in a number of the diplomacy landscapes, sometimes having gone to a little trouble to do so…
***

Can’t wait for you to get home and react to this, D. I’m gonna go play with Illuminatus in the meanwhile.


[Updated zip, thumbnail, and added current version of the portrait.]

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

New collar for Chavez

I was never quite satisfied with Chavez' (Let call hin Ernesto Perez) collar. As I wrote at the time, he looks like a laborer in that green button-up shirt, and I didn't want to mess with that. But the cheesy science fiction background I put behind him didn't stand out enough to really do the trick.

So I've altered his collar, rounding the tips off and raising it a smidge in back. I also darkened the shoulder strap of the shirt slightly and toned down his teeth. The changes are probably too subtle to say "future" loudly enough, but it's an improvement.

I'm gonna hold off updating the zip for a while, because I do that every time I change a few pixels and it's a waste of time.