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Author Topic: The Alpha Centauri (SMAC/SMAX) thread  (Read 48296 times)

Karlito

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Re: The Alpha Centauri (SMAC/SMAX) thread
« Reply #270 on: June 24, 2013, 05:45:47 pm »

There's also the fact that in a supposedly democratic society, Pravin Lal is the eternal leader.
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Vgray

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Re: The Alpha Centauri (SMAC/SMAX) thread
« Reply #271 on: June 24, 2013, 05:49:23 pm »

Maybe people just like him that much?
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MetalSlimeHunt

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Re: The Alpha Centauri (SMAC/SMAX) thread
« Reply #272 on: June 24, 2013, 06:09:32 pm »

The difference between democracy and autocracy in a society of functional immortals is questionable. Eventually, you are going to find the person whom is objectively the best available leader. The kind of person who gets legendary status in our time. Somebody it would be irrational to depose.

Pravin Lal survived the fall of Earth, and he thrived as he did so. Given that he sets up the only body on Planet which tries to unite the factions into their original purpose, an act that can succeed in a diplomatic ending, I'd say he is a very competent individual. And the only thing he does which is particularly concerning is keeping the genetic material of his dead wife around in hopes that one day the ever-accelerating technology that is arising on Planet might let him bring her back.

Sure, you can vote against Pravin Lal....but why would you want to?
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Loud Whispers

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Re: The Alpha Centauri (SMAC/SMAX) thread
« Reply #273 on: June 24, 2013, 06:57:39 pm »

Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I admit that my view of miriam is based on research quotes and the fluff story of when they were on the ship so I might be missing something.
But... Miriam is fervorously religious which is the first thing that annoys me. Secondly, They're on a hostile world that is just growing more hostile and she wants to inhibit science.
And I'm of the more pessimistic world view that humanity is screwed unless we start improving ourselves, be it genetic manipulation, selective breeding or some alternative that just has not appeared yet. Otherwise we will probably blow ourselves up or do something similarly selfdestructive.
Ey, nothing inherently bad with being religious. Deidre's religious, and just look at the fine genocidal hippy she turned out to be.
But seriously, not just is it a hostile world - it's a god. If you're not believing after that, well, you might be human.
Miriam doesn't want to inhibit science, her very opening quote:
"...evil lurks in the datalinks, much like it lurked the streets of yesteryear. But it was never the streets that were evil."
If I got it right anyways. Essentially it means that knowledge and science - none of these are evil. It is the people who are the ones who create the evil, so it is the people who should be inquired [or to be more specific, nobody suspects Miriam's inquisition].
The self-aware colony, the sentient "homunculi," the question of whether or not transferring live matter is transferring you or a copy of you e.t.c. prove just how no one else but her is looking at these discoveries with restraint, caution or morality.
There is a reason why the University get more drones, that is because they grab random people and experiment on them.
Miriam is more than capable of ruling over her people ethically, as she is the only ethical leader who has the conviction of someone like Sheng-Ji Yang or Nwabudike Morgan.
And ironically, the people who sought to change the human body died much sooner than all the other factions because they gave away their human morality to do so "is life so fragile" anyone?
And lastly - it's possible for all factions to reach transcendence. But to first reach so, they have to be able to also hold off planet's forces, as well as Deidre Skye's forces.

Besides Sheng-Ji Yang, the Believers would be the best to do so. The University become reliant on technology, and where it succeeded in destroying other people - it failed to withstand the onslaught of the mindworms.
How do the mindworms attack? With fear. And how do you kill people whose only fear is God?
Miriam could have done it if she wasn't likely blown up by several trillion matter transported shard missiles by Zhakarov. I may be wrong on this, but I'm not sure if any other faction leader was ever concerned about whether or not they condemned one of their followers to death by giving them any order.

I think you missed out the Gaian-University war. There's one tech where Zak is enraged at Miriam's research and vows to destroy her and the mind worms.
Miriam's the Believers leader. I included the Gaian-University war at the end, but that most certainly happens after Zhakharov neutralizes the threat of the Believers.
Did my research blow minds? I do hope so, it did for me anyways :P

Note that Miriam does not represent a religion ideology, she's not helping people in needs or anything that every religions are teaching, but in the game she's representing those that are using a religion as a pretext to gain power and control.
U
wot
m8
At 26 she brought peace to the middle East
She's the believers' believing beast
You say she's religiously medieval
Bringing fundamentalist upheaval
Yet she's the only one who stops evil
Thanks you based Miriam
Take us to this planetarium

[Seriously, she was sent to stop violence, which she did. Then everyone started worshiping her as messiah when she didn't mean to appear so].

She's the only faction leader who you can find is straightforward and truthful, even Lal is guilty of a bit of secrecy.

She's basically space Jesus, and she fulfills her religious teachings - she isn't just a speaker. Christianity likely arose as an ethical improvement from Judaism and Paganism, as neither were the best for their time. In the same way, the conclave looked at all of Earth's religion and said 'we can do better,' creating Moral Miriam's school of thought.

Because in the end if they really cared about leading humanity into survival, they would have united their strength and their different ideas to all work together (that was the actual goal of the Unity project before Garland was shot, not the merging into a single mind like some faction prone but all those concepts working along as some kind of new UN).
With exception to Morgan, everyone on the Unity project before and after they split up believed they were saving humanity, and afterwards believed theirs was the only way to save humanity.
Except Morgan, Morgan lives for greed - literally. And that means he'll fight for humanity's survival as long as it lets him continue being greedy.

Also I think it's likely Miriam was the one who killed the Morganites, judging from her very specific quote about: "The Morganites fear what cannot be bought, because a trader cannot comprehend something that is priceless."
Just that nothing really violent is evident from that, just disdainful. So I'm going to judge that is making her the likeliest cause, on the level with Data Angels. Both have good probe teams too, so it makes sense.

Robsoie

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Re: The Alpha Centauri (SMAC/SMAX) thread
« Reply #274 on: June 24, 2013, 08:33:00 pm »

I don't have the same experience with Miriam because i'm not talking about her appearance in the in the books.
The same as all leaders, her agenda in the game is not really having to do with anything even remotely good : there's what they say in the quotes, and what they really do. And what they do is more than often rather ugly.

You can't really compare the books character with the actual game character, as i mentionned with Lal, the book portray him as a good man overall, that's not exactly what he can be in half of the games i played :)

A bit like Gandhi that had nothing in common with Civilization's version of Gandhi, that has been a mass murdering tyrant in most of my games.
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Felius

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Re: The Alpha Centauri (SMAC/SMAX) thread
« Reply #275 on: June 24, 2013, 08:36:45 pm »

Yet, in game the Believers not only get a research Malus, they are ridiculously over aggressive. Sure sure, "stopping evil", but given Miriam loves her crusades gameplay-wise, it's generally, in the best case, the imperialistic "let's invade them to stop their internal evil" kind, which is, at best, quite suspect.
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Loud Whispers

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Re: The Alpha Centauri (SMAC/SMAX) thread
« Reply #276 on: June 24, 2013, 08:43:01 pm »

I don't have the same experience with Miriam because i'm not talking about her appearance in the in the books.
Nor am I!

The same as all leaders, her agenda in the game is not really having to do with anything even remotely good : there's what they say in the quotes, and what they really do. And what they do is more than often rather ugly.
What's her agenda to you?

You can't really compare the books character with the actual game character, as i mentionned with Lal, the book portray him as a good man overall, that's not exactly what he can be in half of the games i played :)
The AI is the same for all the factions, don't forget. Their canon characters wouldn't act like their AI characters if the devs could code a decent imitation of a sentient human being.
As it stands, we're not there yet :P

Yet, in game the Believers not only get a research Malus, they are ridiculously over aggressive. Sure sure, "stopping evil", but given Miriam loves her crusades gameplay-wise, it's generally, in the best case, the imperialistic "let's invade them to stop their internal evil" kind, which is, at best, quite suspect.
Given the way she talks to Zhakarov, she isn't just worried about the other factions being evil - she's worried about them killing off humanity. Same wavelength of planet, almost.

Felius

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Re: The Alpha Centauri (SMAC/SMAX) thread
« Reply #277 on: June 24, 2013, 08:54:14 pm »

The AI is the same for all the factions, don't forget. Their canon characters wouldn't act like their AI characters if the devs could code a decent imitation of a sentient human being.
As it stands, we're not there yet :P
Not quite, actually. Each of the leaders has its own AI personality, and Miriam's is one of ridiculous belligerence, where you either have to keep bribing her heavily or she will declare war against you. Even if you can crush her.
Quote
Given the way she talks to Zhakarov, she isn't just worried about the other factions being evil - she's worried about them killing off humanity. Same wavelength of planet, almost.
It's the kind of thing that if she is proven right, yeah, you could call her justified, but if she is not proven right she can be worried as much as she wants, she'll come over as a belligerent imperialistic nut-job, unless the other side are doing things outright like throwing planet-busters around, but that's enough for all nations to declare war against them.
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MetalSlimeHunt

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Re: The Alpha Centauri (SMAC/SMAX) thread
« Reply #278 on: June 24, 2013, 09:15:19 pm »

Yet, in game the Believers not only get a research Malus, they are ridiculously over aggressive.
As for the research penalty, it doesn't prevent the Believers from adopting technology, it just takes longer. I believe the game says verbatim that this is because they are cautious of new technology.

This might seem unreasonable with fusion power, but what about grey goo and post-human AI? Humanity has to exercise extreme caution with nuclear weapons because they have the potential to destroy us, and this is a potential extinction that we still control. But by the time of Alpha Centauri? The factions are putting guns to humanity's forehead that can pull their own triggers. And not just that, but remember: humanity in SMAC is closer to extinction than it has ever been. Earth is gone and the only living humans are a couple million desperate colonists on a hostile alien world. It would not take much to render the situation unrecoverable.
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MetalSlimeHunt

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Re: The Alpha Centauri (SMAC/SMAX) thread
« Reply #279 on: June 24, 2013, 09:39:03 pm »

Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
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To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason, and whose philosophy consists in holding humanity in contempt, is like administering medicine to the dead, or endeavoring to convert an atheist by scripture.
Quote
No Gods, No Masters.

Niveras

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Re: The Alpha Centauri (SMAC/SMAX) thread
« Reply #280 on: June 24, 2013, 09:59:07 pm »

As I recall it's kind of a dual thing. Everyone living on the planet is part of the planetmind, but they can separate "themselves" and live as an individual human in an individual human life, until they die and they "re-up" into the planetary consciousness. The planetmind is an amalgamation of everyone, just that the leader who completed the project is the "dominant" personality.

I wish I had a save close to transcendence, or that I could find the transcendence epilogue to know for sure.

Oh, here it is:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

So I guess they're not really part of the planetmind (I wonder where I even got that idea from, since it isn't implied by this epilogue at all), but the humans really aren't "human" anymore, but "transhuman:" humans improved by technology outside of the basic genetic evolution. Whether they continue meet our current definition of human enough to say that humans aren't extinct is a matter philosophy.
« Last Edit: June 24, 2013, 10:07:03 pm by Niveras »
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Vgray

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Re: The Alpha Centauri (SMAC/SMAX) thread
« Reply #281 on: June 24, 2013, 10:03:18 pm »

I thought that was just people who decided not to Transcend and join the Planetmind?
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Robsoie

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Re: The Alpha Centauri (SMAC/SMAX) thread
« Reply #282 on: June 25, 2013, 02:26:27 am »

Currently running a game as Miriam, and my best pal is ... Zakharov
Sure it's different from the book stories  :D

Now Santiago, she's been really nasty, faking being friendly but she backstabbed me twice and we got into a vendetta, with Zakharov and Deirdre backing me up (well Zakharov backing me up in spirit because he's on a whole other continent and i have yet to see any ships from him).

The war concluded into a cease fire requested by Santiago after
I conquered 2 of her bases in a fast assault from many side but Santiago took them both back with powerfull artillery wearing down my troops, then after discovering air doctrine in the middle of the war, i hammered with several needle jets (i currently have complete air superiority as none else yet have any fliers) Santiago main base and took it with 2 fast laser rover that finished the last defender (needle jets speed and coverage are very efficients at hitting a base fast and hard before it's reinforcing).

It was then she decided to get a cease fire, that i agreed as she has so many bases that i'm not sure a longer war would still be at my advantage, even with the needle jets (no idea if she's near to get them herself, would be very dangerous).

I feel Santiago will be my side Nemesis for the whole game, as she's still owing a bit more than half that continent, too bad Zakharov is so far away, hopefully that's going to get better once the race to the sea enter the colonisation phase.

Still like that game so much, the AI "personnalities" really makes it work, even if they can sometime go really crazy.

I have been using the unofficial patch from there :
http://www.civgaming.net/forums/showthread.php?t=7511

I have recently learned about an update to this (excellent) unofficial patch :
http://apolyton.net/showthread.php/197946-SMAX-unofficial-patch-PLUS
But never tried it yet, anyone used it ? Does it introduce some problems ?
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Sharp

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Re: The Alpha Centauri (SMAC/SMAX) thread
« Reply #283 on: June 25, 2013, 03:36:30 am »

I'm pretty sure it's hinted that Miriam "raptures" herself and remaining followers with a psi-gate.

Anyway the game is pretty good at portraying everyone as villainous, even Lal I think does some information censorship.

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Loud Whispers

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Re: The Alpha Centauri (SMAC/SMAX) thread
« Reply #284 on: June 25, 2013, 05:00:09 am »

I'm pretty sure it's hinted that Miriam "raptures" herself and remaining followers with a psi-gate.
That's something I never considered.
The Believers were likely the first faction to return to space.
If this isn't her criticizing someone else's faction... Miriam, facing likely defeat, flung the survivors of her faction into space, fate unknown.

And yeah, it's definitely certain that Assassin's redoubt was destroyed by minworms. The Neural Amplifier is supposed to protect against the exact same images used to describe the horror of a mindworm attack. Considering this is also Santiago reading to children from a story book and the later use of violent Cyborgs right before the fall of Assassin's redoubt, Santiago was preparing warriors to fight mindworms.

Yet, in game the Believers not only get a research Malus, they are ridiculously over aggressive.
As for the research penalty, it doesn't prevent the Believers from adopting technology, it just takes longer. I believe the game says verbatim that this is because they are cautious of new technology.
With caution and ethical research, they wouldn't still be as penalized for their research as they are - after all, all other factions have no advantages of disadvantages to research whilst Zhakarov is simply better for having no ethical constraints.
I think it's more than that, as it seems likely that under Miriam's theocracy the scientific method has been largely abandoned, or perhaps they simply do not understand it as well as the other factions, as the Believer's talents take on philosophies instead of science. So her faction's technological advances come about from stealing other people's data or else every now and then they get an Isaac Newton who makes a bunch of equations and assumptions and they acquire science. Either way, they then also have to employ the technology, and the Believers also are very cautious here, the first 5 years after planetfall they do no research so its possible that they take time in ensuring that they're ready to bring whatever technology they've just acquired into their lives.

What do you guys think, which faction could survive Planet's awakening?
I'd go so far as to say Zhakarov and Sheng-Ji Yang could probably get humanity to transcend without planet, given enough time.
And why does Earth
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
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