How long since a "What faction would you join" thread???

[Solver]

I consider Planet to be a failed experiment because of the cyclic spasms (Flowerings) as Planet achieves critical mass to achieve sentience and then crashes every 100M years or so. Of course, this could be the Progenitor's intent, but when the Flowerings exterminate almost life on Planet every 100M years or so that has got to be some kind of failure, or at least a faulty design. Even for the Progenitors 1 billion years is probably beyond what they can conceive, much less design for.

Good point. I need to play SMAX again .

[Dis]

okay I'm a little confused about the expansion stuff now. The aliens didn't create the planet did they? I thought the planet was completely independent of the aliens.

[Hydro]

My understanding is that Planet is a billion year old Progenitor project they call Manifold 6. The Caretaker and Usurper faction texts mentions a ‘grand experiment’ and the ‘Manifold Experiment’ in reference to Manifold 6, and that the Manifolds are key in the Caretakers and Usurpers struggle for galactic domination.

Unfortunately, it is a flawed experiment since the ecosystem spasms and crashes as it almost reaches sentience:

Sentient Econometrics
The fungus has been Planet's dominant lifeform since about the time of the Lower Paleozoic on Earth. But when, once every hundred million years or so, the neural net at last achieves the critical mass necessary to become sentient, the final metamorphosis kills off most of the other life on the planet. It is possible that we humans can help to break this tragic cycle.
-- Lady Deirdre Skye,
"Planet Dreams"

Note that the Lower Paleozoic was ~500M years ago when multicellular life first appeared on Earth, so these cycles have been occurring for quite a while. This also, by extension, states that the Progenitor civilization is very old indeed.

Also, it appears there are many Manifold experiments out there:

Secrets of the Manifolds
Kri'lan taught me of the resonance and how to feel it. After much training, I could see -- the very surface under our feet, Planet itself -- is a living, fluctuating nexus of energy, violent, beautiful and quite unstable. And I could also feel its cousins -- distant mirrors on the other side of the space-time continuum -- the far-flung Manifolds.
-- Prophet Cha Dawn
"The Betrayer and I"

Nothing terribly direct, but lots of hints and tidbits that form a compelling story!

Hydro

[Nabvrimn]

No to the hive, cult, and consciousness for reaasons others have described.

The other no for me is the peacekeepers. I have come to utterly despise the UN for its ineffectuality and corruption. The system Lal sets up on Chiron can't possibly be as bad as the terrestrial UN because of the absence of the general assembly and he does not allow himself to be bound by the planetary council, rather acting as an independant nation, but anyone that holds up the UN name as something praisworthy is not someone I want to be associated with.

The others I can live with I think.

If the Gaians have adopted a neo-pagan state "church" as some of the game text indicates I'd rule them out as well, but it's not really clear whether it's a state religion or merely the religion of the head of state.

The Beleivers I think I can live with as well. I'm a protestant Christian myself. It really comes down to where Miriam stands on replacement theology. If she holds to it I'm out. I think I can live with most other variations in doctrine.

The Spartans have the potential to be perhaps the closest match for me. I'm very fond of the notion of peace through superior firepower. Santiago's fascist tendencies trouble me, but really fascism is unfairly maligned. Eliminate the racial element and you're left with something like the system that served the Romans well for centuries. She really strikes me as more in the mold of Caesar Augustus than Adolf Hitler and a Caesar isn't necessarily a bad thing under the circumstances that prevail on Chiron.

Morgan is, again, troubling, but tolerable. He appears to run the ultimate company town, but he also runs a free market. To get those benefits he must allow competition. It's really not clear how the morganite economy works. A corporation run state is by defenition planned, but he must run an actual free market to get the benefits of running a free market. I don't understand this faction well enough to rule it out.

The University isn't running an ideology. The pursuit of knowledge is largely ideology independant. No reason to rule them out.

The Angels have an anarchist bent that is troubling, but there is clearly some sort of law or there could be no faction. The complete denial of intellectual property rights is also troubling, but this is a tempting reaction against decline of the concept of fair use in the moderrn world. Who knows. Based on the sucess of GNU it might even work.

The pirates again have no real ideology. I'm more of a ninja person myself, but I can deal.

The Xenobannannas are out because I think they taste disgusting.

[Hydro]

Originally posted by Nabvrimn
If the Gaians have adopted a neo-pagan state "church" as some of the game text indicates I'd rule them out as well, but it's not really clear whether it's a state religion or merely the religion of the head of state.

I think ‘dancing naked through the trees’ and the like are more characterizations by other factions of the Gaians. As I read Dee’s quotes they are firmly grounded in science with no fluffy pagan or new-age like elements. In fact, the Gaians are likely a tolerant society (-1 police; perhaps atheist or agnostic tendencies) and a guiding philosophy more than anything else. Venerating Planet is more about doing no harm (like in medicine) and not repeating the mistakes made on Earth. Of course, this philosophy evolved into more than this due to the situation on Planet…

Any faction can be portrayed as raging extremists or sympathetically - even more maligned factions like the Hive and Believers. For me that is what is appealing about the game.


Hydro

[CEO Aaron]

fascism is unfairly maligned

It's hard to malign an ideology which hardly exists. Scholars continue to debate what ideology really qualifies as fascist, because the creator of the term, Mussolini, didn't actually HAVE an ideology, he just spouted a bunch of crap to justify his military dictatorship, much in the same way that Hitler spouted anti-semitic rhetoric to divert attention from the minor detail that he had effectively uprooted whatever democratic traditions had stood before him.

Eliminate the racial element and you're left with something like the system that served the Romans well for centuries.

Rome may seem like a great place, but only when you don't look to close at the institutionalized slavery, 20 year term of military service, routine political succession via assassination, and general overall brutality that was the order of the day. The only reason Rome stand in the history books as an enlightened and advanced culture is because of the truly incredible barbarians that were just over their borders.

[Hydro]

Originally posted by CEO Aaron
The only reason Rome stand in the history books as an enlightened and advanced culture is because of the truly incredible barbarians that were just over their borders.

Rome also left us with some pretty spectacular ruins, which impressed those of the Dark Ages and even many of us today. The bias might be that only an advanced society could build such monuments. Of course, one has to overlook that there is blood in the mortar.

Hydro

[CEO Aaron]

A fair point, yet I think it's important to divorce the technological achievements of a culture with its civic merits. I mean, the Third Reich produced the air-cooled internal combusion engine, pioneered rocketry and built the first jet, but I think it's fair to say that few people here would choose to live in that culture.

The same could be said for some of the factions in SMAX. It would not take too great a stretch of the imagination to Zak performing biological experiments on prisoners and dissidents, and it's pretty clear from Yang's obsession with collectivism that anyone bucking the system won't meet with a very pleasant fate.

Certainly in the hands of a skilled player, these are powerful faction capable of dominating gameplay, the in-game equivalent of becoming a powerful and influential culture. And yet only a maniac (imo) would voluntarily subject themselves to their authority.

[Hydro]

I agree that what a society achieves may be a poor measure of the society itself (hence, the blood in the mortar comment).

That’s why I gravitate toward the SMAX cultures that reject the gross extraction of resources (human and natural), martial emphasis, or that that have a heavy emphasis toward indoctrination (with the understanding that all cultures indoctrinate – it is a matter of degree). These, in my opinion, represent the worst in humanity and are much more likely to have us end…well…badly.

That’s the point of this thread – what factions do the posters like or dislike. I’m not at all surprised the Hive and Believers are near the bottom, but am surprised at the number of folks that like the Spartans (a.k.a. - the blood-makes-grass-grow faction).

Hydro

[onehomerj]

Man the Lords believers is the only faction to join> work your way to the top bump off Miriam and turn it into your own free love cult! How good can it get!!!

[Darrell01]

Actually, with Biomachinery, you could achieve better than making a free love cult. My buddy read some sci-fi novel and told me about it. What happened was they put a direct link into your brain to the pleasure centers of the brain and "hit the on switch". The effect was so intense than if you turned it off, the person you did it to would demand it be turned back on and if they couldn't get you to do it, they would do it themselves. What ended up happening was the people would die of thirst and starvation (mostly thirst) because they wouldn't eat because of the effect. No... Pleasure begets more pleasure. Its a tragic and vicious cycle. Anyway, this is off topic a bit, but I'm posting anyway.

[Kataphraktoi]

That was in a Star Trek novel, i believe.

Actually that book made me realize the best method for torturing people;punishment sphere except using pleasure. They will tell you anything to keep it good(or stop)

Spartans are actually the most misunderstood faction, and also my idealogical faction of choice. They are not 'blood makes grass grow'. More similar to 1800s america, instead. Ingame santiago comment iirc; ''the god given right to keep and bear arms'''

[Hydro]

Originally posted by Kataphraktoi
''the god given right to keep and bear arms'''

Hmmm. I've always interpreted that as the right to a prosthetic.

Or perhaps to have your arms replaced with those of a very large and irritable animal with a (generally) brown coat and claws.

Hydro

[Kataphraktoi]

Are you trying to be cute or just unaware of what ''arms'' are?

[Whoha]

doh, didn't read before I voted, ah well.