Here’s an idea I had that I fully intend to flesh out into a full mod in my copious spare time.
[size=150]The Heretics[/size]
An offshoot of the Order, the Heretics believe the holy will of the One True God has been misinterpreted. Other races are not intended for the One True God’s followers to simply kill; they exist to be converted to the path of enlightenment. (Of course, when that fails, let the killing commence - they’re fanatical, not stupid.)
I envision the Heretics’ ships as a mashup of Order tractor beams holding together hull bits from the other Great Powers, equipped with Order power generators and painted in the Heretics’ own colors. A quick-and-dirty example follows (this one happens to be a frigate):
Like their forebears in the Order, the Heretics possess radiation-based weapons; however, their weapons deal less damage on the front end and last a lot longer. They even have a couple of doomsday weapons that produce radiation that grows rather than decays over time. They will also have a special “mine” hull that will be part of the basis for their scenarios.
Happy to hear any thoughts that folks have.
(Geez Ace, aren’t you going to finish your active projects before starting new ones? Apparently not. Though the active projects are still ongoing, have no fear.)
I for one like the concepts of both the story AND the ship design.
Heretics though…feels like the wrong name/term for this race, simply because they still MOSTLY follow the Order’s beliefs…it kinda feels more like a different sect.
That’s just me though…and I REALLY like the ship design of that frigate.
Mostly I call them the Heretics because that’s what the Order considers them. Sort of claiming someone else’s derogatory term and making it your own as a thumbing of the nose.
The frigate is going to get a teeny bit more work, specifically in darkening the hull color a bit (I was shooting for a wine color and didn’t quite get there). I haven’t worked with the Order tractor beams before, so I expect there will be a bit of a learning curve there as well. But I’m glad the fusion of Order asymmetry and Great Powers hulls appeals to not just me!
Oh yes, I think that would be a most intriguing clash of wills. At the moment the Heretics are kind of sketchy, but as is my standard I am adding little pieces as they occur to me.
Well I like the enthusiasm, but I hope you have some patience, as I am still less than halfway through my biggest mod project, the Antares Expanse (http://positech.co.uk/forums/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=7077) and I am trying to keep the majority of my modding effort concentrated there.
But since the Heretics is not planned to be a particularly huge mod, it shouldn’t be an epic wait. Probably.
but WOULD the Order at large call them Heritics?..to me it feels more like the difference between Catholic and any other version of Christianity. By and large the “get along”
then again…I have no real right to say anything, they would because you want 'em too…which is your right since it’s your mod lol…good luck with it and have fun!
Not so much the Order at large, but the highest circles of power have determined that this new interpretation of the One True God is blasphemous - hence, heretics. Whether the rank-and-file agrees is largely irrelevant to the higher-ups. (A new sect that might draw followers away from the monolithic corrupt church? Well we can’t have that, now can we?)
Hey, it’s a fair question, no worries. I do like to keep my internal logic consistent. And I’d think that the creator of a sprawling epic like Union would be among the best checks on that I can find.
Ace you have NO idea how right you are about keeping that internal logic consistent…that REALLY helped me flesh out the Union ships/stories and even to an extent the modules.
and thanks for the compliment…it means more than you know. I assure you my work on it is NOT done… And IF I can find a way to work the Heritics into a Union story, with your permission, I’d certainly like to!
Absolutely. The Heretics would make for an interesting interaction with the Union boys and girls - after all, both forces have the habit of kitbashing existing GP technology into new ships, and since I can’t see Uni-T agreeing to convert to worship of the One True God, I think we know which side of the Union/Uni-T battle the Heretics would fall on.
Of course, there’s the small, niggling detail that the Union probably isn’t too gung-ho about conversion either…
would the antares expanse and the heritics be combineable? like would i be able to download both mods and play them at the same time? cause that would be awesome
when they are ready ofcourse
True enough…but you forget that we have one Vice-Admiral Carolyn Tornatore who is FROM the Order originally, and joined the Union Coalition with her OWN interpretation of the Order’s Sacred Texts. Moreover she’s a skilled diplomat as well…so while full conversion is unlikely there IS common ground between the Union and Heretics that could, at the very least, prevent the two from coming into conflict with one another.
One COULD even theorize that, because Tornatore was really the first being to leave the Order’s ranks (with a substantial number of subordinates) that she have indirectly inspired the leaders of the Heretics to make their own move…if this is the case she may be considered a kind of role-model/saint/prophet…which would go a LONG way towards keeping the peace.
This is just speculation and POTENTIAL plot ideas from my own head that DO NOT need to be the case…when dealing with crossover’s such as this I think it is EXTREMELY important that I take the other modder’s wishes into FULL account. The last thing I wanna do is write something that makes you mad or makes you say “my mod is not like that, that’s not how I want things to be”
But all the same it’s nice to know that if push came to shove came to full-scale fleet deployment the Heretics would have Union’s back against the galactic menace that is Uni-T…at least until the fighting was over.
There is nothing to stop you from pulling in multiple mods into your GSB install at a time. Thus it is trivial to set up battles with one modded race beating the hell out of another modded race (or the same one, if you are so inclined).
Now if you want to mix-and-match fleets, that can be done with some application of modding knowledge, but most mods (including all of my work) are simply not set up that way.
I like this idea a lot. While the Heretics’ interpretation of their scripture is virtually guaranteed to not match Vice-Admiral Tornatore’s (because of such conflicts are gripping stories made), I could see the Heretic leaders viewing her and her subordinates as worthy of respect and honor (probably of the “okay, we won’t kill you … at least without warning you first” variety). In fact, I could see an entire constellation of Order schismatics that all view each other much the same way, especially since the Order itself forms a common enemy. (If the Order were ever completely defeated, then the Schism Wars would probably make the rest of the Gratuitous War look like just the opening act.)
