Gods from the Sky (development)

New Idea for a NES, Development Thread

Gods from the Sky

Preface: I’d like to thank das for the NES idea and the background stories written for this NES.

Intro
A lot of us have heard legends from the past of aliens in starships arriving to our planet. They were treated as Gods and many have taught the poor Earthers some skills before leaving. After they were gone they remained on Earth in forms of memories, which turned into stories, stories that turned into legends, legends that turned into myths. Perhaps their visits were a fantasy or ancient authors. Perhaps the myths are now too twisted by numerous tellers to unravel the real events behind them. Perhaps we forgot much of our history to understand what we were and what we can be.
Nevertheless any historian who studies the ancient documents sometimes considers this idea that Earth was visited by some higher beings, who tried to help humans develop. Numerous legends are found across the globe of prophets and visitors that came from far away to teach the locals some of their knowledge.
We will not know the truth for a long long time it seems. However what if what had happened to Earth in the past were to happen again in the future? In another galaxy far far away?

Background
The background of this NES is as follows. The galaxy is a far less busy and far less inhospitable place than we on Earth think. Numerous planets gave life to humans and intelligent life spread throughout the galaxy. Nevertheless human civilization is tiny in comparison with the vastness of space. At the present moment the whole civilization is organised into a (Galactic) Confederation comprised of 100’s of habitable worlds. Upkeep of the present order takes away most of the resources so currently exploration is pretty much halted and is only undertaken by private firms and ships that just happened to be off course in the “Outer Territories”.
One of cargo ships suffered an accident in a meteor shower and drifted far away from its normal route. GCSS (Galactic Confederation Space Ship) “Alania” was forced to land on a planet and conduct repairs on the ground before they could lift off again. It turned that Alania uncovered a jewel. Very few planets in the known universe are as full of life, natural resources and general “heavenly” nature as “Alania” the planet. Captain of Alania made a few trips to the planet before reporting it to the proper authorities.
Confederation was quick to recognise the value of planet Alania. However first expeditions have confirmed that it was inhabited by poorly developed humans. The matter was complicated futher. Not only the planet was a property of local humans (recognising the prior claim acknowledged by every law in Galaxy), but also the locals became a responsibility of the Confederation. From now on the Confederation was responsible for local humans as an adult is responsible for a 5-year-old child he found in an abandoned village. As after 1000’s of years of evolution there was no clear answer as to how to develop a backward and aggressive population well the Confederation allowed various groups of people to do the task and maybe find a perfect solution. Various factions from private firms to religious fanatics are now allowed onto the planet to help locals find their way among the stars. Confederation set many rules for these factions and the most important one went:
“The locals can never be responsible for their actions and they reach a full maturity. NONE of the factions involved are to open the truth to them. When the moment comes the locals can enter our society as equals, until then they are not to know of our presence. “Do not harm” is our motto.” And thus various factions descended to the planet in hope of building a better world for the local children.

Game
Well you now know the background. Players act as heads of various Confederation guilds aiming at helping the locals develop. At least that’s the official reason. Confederation can barely afford to maintain stable presence in the area so factions are more or less free to do whatever they like. It is also possible to play one of the local nations if you really like. “Gods from the Sky” is essentially a Story NES. There is however a price list for the equipment and some projects you can build together with stats for every faction. Everything else is open to your imagination.

Game Mechanics
You know the usual. Updates are once a week and the turn time is 10 years. Complaints to the mod, update deadlines and orders are as usual. Update is however divided into two parts: “faction news” and “local news”. The map will show everything it normally shows in a “Fresh Start NES”, faction bases included (cities, routes, wonders and faction bases).

Confederation and Conduct
Confederation is a force that is supposed to maintain law and order. Confederation set a few rules for the factions that must be respected and will intervene if they are broken. Confederation may occasionally send inspectors to a faction base to check if they are reporting what is actually true. Unethical or rule breaking actions will be reported and perpetrators will be severely punished.
It is all right to perform genetic manipulations on animals in small amounts (but not humans).

Faction
You are free to make up your own faction. The mod will edit out what does not fit in the universe. As for technology level, think Star Wars, but without Star Wars specialities (light sabres, force, dumb clone soldiers). Don’t go nuclear or warmongering or the big bad boys from ConFed will be out to get you.

Faction Stats:
Faction Name, Leader, Background, Agenda
Faction Equipment:
Faction Income (Planet, Galactical)
Faction Missions (wonders) – prophet, vision, psycho, hypnosis
Other Info: law and permissions

Civilizations
Unlike normal nations in “Fresh Start” NESes, in Alania “nations” represent civilizations, or rather groups of culture. They can split, merge, divide, fight amongst each other, flourish or die. Examples of civilizations of Earth (to give you a better idea of the concept) could be Chinese, Arab, Western European, Indian, Polynesian, Mesopotamian and Aztec. Civilizations can and will be influenced by planetary factions and their stats are as follows:
Nation Name, info and background
Technology Level and Civilization Advances:
Mentality, Religion and Social Attitudes, Atheism %
Economy, Life Period (Golden Age?)
Army,
Awareness?, population,? Resources?

Civilization Traits:
Technology Level (Development Age)
Neolithic, Nomad, Bronze Age, Iron Age, Classical Age, Late Classical Age, Early Medieval Age, Medieval Age, Late Medieval Age, Early Colonial Age, Colonial Age, Early Industrial, Late Industrial, Early Machinery Age, Machinery Age, Information Age, Galactical Age
Some additional technologies can be listed if they make a big influence

Economy:
Devastated, Bankrupt, Poor, Functioning, Active, Flourishing, Rich
Life Period: Childlike(Tribal), Maturing(Growing), Stagnant, Golden Age, Developed, Decline, Dying

These represent extreme conditions of society worth mentioning.
Mentality:
Pragmatic/ Idealistic, Atheist, Religious, Aggressive/ Peaceful, Individualistic/ Collective, Open-minded/ Conservative, Expansionist, Tolerant/Converting

Religion (Faith):
Polytheistic, Advanced Polytheism, Monotheistic, Totalitarianism, Anarchism
Religion Traits: Peaceful, Exceptional (only our way), Racial, Aggressive, Seeking Balance, etc
Government types: Despotism, Ancient Republic, Monarchy, Theocracy, Democracy, Dictatorship, Socialism



Price List:
Weapons, ships, transport, robots, healing devices, specialists, droids, holograms + construction projects. Star Wars mixed with David Brin World.

Main base – free
Outpost- Minor defences, quarters, laboratory or etc, surveillance
Fuelling Base
Robots – walking droids, flying droids
Transport, atmospheric shuttle
Tanks or APCs
arms for 100 men
holographic unit,
autodoc healing device
DNA center (mutations) – exp.
Construction driods
Hypnosis gas, psi bombs
Battle droids, mining droids
Ships, mines etc.

das said:

One more book-based idea I wanted to post but forgot to, based on the works of the Strugatsky Brothers, especially "Hard To Be God."

It takes place on a different planet with human population still in the Middle Ages. "Progressors" - space travellers from an united, utopian Earth who are trying to influence local history in an effort to speed up progress, ever-so-slowly - are present in this world, they are engaging in various local intrigues, infiltrating positions of power in various states, but cannot openly interfere out of fear that it will disturb the progress of history on the said planet. However, the locals - some of them at least - aren't as stupid as was thought. That causes problems occasionally. (Note that this is a very very brief and oversimplified description of the book.)

The idea that I have, however, isn't a carbon copy of the Strugatsky idea, but rather is loosely-similar. That is - there still is a different planet with human population, they are in the Middle Ages (not neccessarily, ofcourse, we can start them in Bronze Age if we want). All countries here are NPC, ofcourse, and they themselves can decide to make war, sign alliances, expand, and so forth. The players are playing various progressor organizations.

Yes, various. To make it more interesting there will be different progressor factions present. They can ally with each other or oppose each other, and they all have off-orbit space bases (and helicopter pads in local Antarctica...). For some plot deviced reason they can't actually attack each other's bases - maybe something about nuke-like deterrents, maybe some international agreement. Each faction has agents that could infiltrate positions of influence, or even come to power in the various countries, tribes, etc. Those agents have to be equipped and trained, also special devices could be used on local-scale to, for example, evacuate said agents or mind-control some of the locals (to make it harder, mind-control will be very temporary and expensive to prolong). All factions supposedly have some sort of agenda and thus should try and push towards it. For instance, one of them could send military advisors (not technologic, albeit its possible to assist in development of various technologies) to back the Krebean Reich in its bid for unification of the Beran Sub-continent - but another faction, whose plans will be threatenedby the unification of the said sub-continent, could try to send assassins to kill of the enemy advisors and visionary Krebean leaders, or their own adviasors to reinforce Krebean enemies. Basically, its something of a war of espionage organizations, and I know lots of NESers, myself included, who revel in such activity more then in the conventional (domestic and military) orders. Sabotage, incitement of rebellion/war, etc - its all there. The idea needs lots of development, I know, but IMHO its worth it.

Confusing?

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Sounds cool. It's similar to a book I read about Spiders on a planet that have WWI technology and then a spacefaring race comes and trys to speed up their development to nukes so they can destory each other quickly so the space race people can take the planet. Unfourtnaley for them their development is speeded up too fast and they discoer the space farng race people and attaack them. Similar idea?

Unfourtnaatley my warmongering, genocidal tendencies don't allow me to do this.

I was afraid you forgot about it. Glad to see you didn't.

Similar idea?

Click to expand...

To a certain extent... My idea was that the players can try to develop them for the sake of their own agenda - whether it is progress towards a bright and happy future ala Strugatsky brothers or nuclear holoucast ala that book you mentioned. Or genocide.

Now for the rules:

It is also possible to play one of the local nations if you really like.

Click to expand...

But for the sake of the storyline, it should be "played" via mind-control devices and/or influential advisors.

Faction
You are free to make up your own faction. The mod will edit out what does not fit in the universe. As for technology level, think Star Wars, but without Star Wars specialities (light sabres, force, dumb clone soldiers). Don’t go nuclear or warmongering or the big bad boys from ConFed will be out to get you.

Click to expand...

No light sabres? Why not? And do you mean that there will be SMART clone soldiers now?

About nations-civilizations, IMHO you should add "diversity" and "unification" stats (amount of differences within the civilization group and the amount of separate nations respectively).

A suggestion about the time - IMHO here we should assume that our "progressors" are immortal and make it century-long, at first anyway, because otherwise it will be horribly drawn-out. Or maybe we should divided into ITs and BTs, like in my NES, so that we can get a taste of all periods of time AND so that it won't seem infinitely silly with the time (i.e. 100 years and nothing much happens)?

“faction news” and “local news”.

Click to expand...

I.e. news for each faction and news for each civilization?

No I didn't It was pretty much the only thing I really wrote this week.

Yes you will influence them, but your control will never be 100% and in this game of espionage you can never be sure who is doing what. In any case playing a local nation is only a possibility that players have, but few will take.

Yes! Smart and deadly like Minataur the Cyborg and the rest. No Light sabres and the rest of Star Wars rubbish General tech world is big enough to have things much more fun than sabres of energy.....

I am not too keen on immortality idea as immortal beings generally are much wiser and "better" than mortals. Extending a human lifespan to about 100 years is the best I can do....

I.e. News that locals know about and news that factions know about...

Now for some questions....
What type of equipment do you think factions should have? I gave a list.... what do you think?
Why would we need diversity? I added religions and social aspects only so one can know how to influence a nation. What do you think about those stats?

This sounds very interesting. I'll definitely look into joining this. Gelion, if you need any help with stats or rules or map or anything, I'm willing to assist.

I am not too keen on immortality idea as immortal beings generally are much wiser and "better" than mortals. Extending a human lifespan to about 100 years is the best I can do....

Click to expand...

Why? If we still have fukamization and the other things that make progressors what they are, then it should be 200 years if not more.

Regardless, I still think ten years is too slow. THEORETICALLY I don't mind it, but we will need a very commited mod.

What type of equipment do you think factions should have? I gave a list.... what do you think?

Click to expand...

I'm not a specialist on that, but your list seems fine. Only:

arms for 100 men

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What sort of arms? Human arms? Laser guns? Photon cannons?

Why would we need diversity?

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Well, Western European civilization has as of now achieved something of a hegemony due to high diversity - it created strife and hence progress. Um, I mean how diverse i.e. how many differences between different sub-cultures.

What do you think about those stats?

Click to expand...

No real problem with those.

Well this is quite unique idea , should be lot of fun. I reserve the blood-thirsty barbarians...

Here is a list of troop/vehicle types you could purchase as a faction that I can come up with off the top of my head:

Security Guards (lightly armed and armored men employed to provide basic protection to your faction's facilities, basic troop type)

Confederation Soldiers (standard infantrymen of the Galactic Confederation, armed with anything from basic gauss rifle to armor-piercing missile launcher, can be hired as mercenaries of sorts by your faction, advanced troop type)

Confederation Marines (infantrymen of the Galactic Confederation specially trained to execute ship-to-ship boardings and direct ship-to-planet landings, better trained and more versatile than regular Conf. Soldiers [though armed with basically the same weapons], highly deployable, obviously hirable by your faction, elite troop type)

Special Forces (very well-trained men trained to execute covert missions either on planet surfaces or aboard spacecraft, able to cloak via a special suit, can be armed with basic infantry weapons or more advanced energy-projection weapons, also carries explosives and other tools of espionage, can be hired by your faction for a very high price, covert/stealthy troop type)

Truck (large unarmed all-terrain vehicle able to transport either men or cargo, useful for transport purposes especially around your faction's base, transport vehicle type)

Scout Buggy (small lightly-armored all-terrain vehicle able to carry about 6 men, armed with swiveling gauss autocannon, useful for scouting, exploring, and basic surface transport, basic vehicle type)

Confederation APC (armored, tracked military vehicle able to carry a squad of soldiers, armed with a turret containing gauss autocannon, missiles and various energy-projection weapons, useful for more demanding combat and troop-transport purposes, advanced vehicle type)

Confederation MBT (heavily armored, tracked main battle tank armed with several gauss autocannon and a main energy cannon, perfect for most combat situations, heavy vehicle type)

Artillery (lightly-armored tracked vehicle able to launch long-range guided missiles, highly accurate, artillery vehicle type)

Note: Although all of the below droids can walk, none of them are humanoid, that would just be clumsy and inefficient. Instead, they take a more insect-like appearance.

Construction Droid (large walking robot equipped with a variety of construction tools, including manipulator arms, saws, drills, welders, etc., used to construct buildings for your base, construction unmanned vehicle type)

Mining Droid (walking robot utilizing mining equipment like laser drills, jackhammers, and mineral extractors, used to mine the earth for materials useful to your faction, mining unmanned vehicle type)

Scout Droid (man-sized robot with spiderlike legs, able to fly using spinning propeller-fans, unarmed, equipped with a variety of sensors, basic unmanned vehicle type)

War Droid (walking spiderlike robot about the size of a large horse, can be armed with a variety of weapons including gauss autocannon, energy-projection blasters, missile launchers, etc., advanced unmanned vehicle type)

Tank Droid (large, long, low-slung walking robot, heavily armored, armed with a turret containing gauss autocannon, heavy energy weapons, missile launchers, etc., heavy unmanned vehicle type)

Shuttle (large flying vehicle capable of atmospheric travel and sublight space travel, able to carry 20-60 people or several tons of cargo, unarmed, useful for transporting people across planetary surfaces, transport flying vehicle type)

Starliner (huge flying vehicle capable of faster-than-light space travel, also capable of atmospheric travel [althought the Shuttle would be better suited for atmospheric transport], carries hundreds of passengers or many tons of cargo, used to transport people or materials from Confederation planets to your faction's base, heavy transport flying vehicle type)

Confederation Fighter-Bomber (powerful flying vehicle capable of atmospheric and sublight space travel, armed with energy projection weapons, missiles, and smart-bombs, advanced flying vehicle type)

Confederation Gunship (heavily armored atmospheric flying vehicle propelled by hoverfans, armed with gauss autocannon, energy weapons and missiles, able to transport a squad of soldiers, advanced flying vehicle type)

That's all I can think of right now based on Gelion's list. Suggestions and comments are welcome.

This looks great. I need to take out a couple of things that are really "doubling" each other ... but ti looks great
Now I only need things related to mass hypnosis and influence....

If you play the spacefaring race no war mongering and mass colonization, genocide, repouplation, that kind of stuff?

You can do all that, but your efforts will be annuled by ConFed forces....
yes no mass genocide, colonisation, high-tech mass wars and so on. It is more of a game of inluence and diplomacy, however anything is possible in a limited sence....

Hmm, sounds a bit like the Xel'Naga from Starcraft. Raise an infant race, get totally wiped out by infant race.

Hmm..... i can see it now, the local humans overrunning the bases and attacking the Confederation Capitol and forcing them to sue for peace...

And why can't the galatic guilds do mass scale genetic modification on animals?

I'd join this

Me too! My pawns shall overrun all of the world!

Glad to see lots of enthusiasm for this idea... Incidentally, Gelion, its not only a game of diplomacy and influence, but also of espionage, which, judging by most orders that I receive and the proportion of various ingenious "destabilizations" and "incitements" in them, will be extremelly popular.

And why can't the galatic guilds do mass scale genetic modification on animals?

Click to expand...

Out of fear that they might create something very nasty. Do you really think the General Secretary of the Confederation never watched all those scifi movies where lab experiments of the kind go horribly wrong?

Btw, I'm confused - what did you decide with the map(s)? Also, the planet name could be changed - Alania sounds too... Alan.

Yes but it is a beautiful name for a virgin planet in Russian. Anyways Alania is a ConFed name for it. Who says the locals call it the same?

So... where do we move on from here?

Post the map, with the terrain, weather and all that stuff. Then we get to think where the first civilizations will appear (most probably) and what kind of civilizations. Ofcourse, their natural path of development will probably be "edited" by certain people.

Hmmm.... map I was hoping to use one of Espirito's maps, but I now find them a little small..... in short I need a map. I might find it, but it would be great if someone made a random map....

(http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=96856&page=1
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=106769&page=1)

Ask North King.