Video: "Tiberian Sun - The Best Post-Apocalyptic World in Fiction"

Blake00

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I like the way this guy thinks and have often pondered the same thing. Naturally most peoples favourite post apocalyptic universes are Fallout, Mad Max and Terminator and I sure as hell love those too but Command & Conquer 2 Tiberian Sun is probably still my favourite (although Fallout is starting to win me over haha). When I tell people Tiberian Sun is one of my favourite dark apocalyptic universes and they look at me surprised cause they've either forgotten it or thought of it as a scifi game. Red Alert 2 is prob my favourite in the series for gameplay but for me nothing beats CnC2 Tiberian Sun for atmosphere and universe. I loved all those night missions and green tiberian fields glowing in the darkness. I loved all the cutscenes and the actors involved (like Michael Biehn and the late James Earl Jones) even more! When all the FMV is assembled together they actually make a pretty cool cheesy retro 90s apocalyptic scifi film hence why you see people combining them all together as one big 'movie' on youtube. The fact that to this day we have more and more truly amazing fan mods (eg Twisted Insurrection, Shattered Paradise, Tiberium Crisis, Tiberium Resurrection, Crystallized Doom etc) coming out continuing the Tiberian Sun story shows just how powerful and immersive CnC2's world was. Hell it's dark apocalyptic world also inspired me to remake a Tiberian Africa scenario for Sid Meier's Civilization 2 which I'll be releasing soon! I really hope EA let Petroglyph remaster CnC2 one day!

 
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I'll confess: I have never actually finished either Tiberian Sun or Firestorm, so I completely missed the freakiest mutations until I briefed a friend almost this time last year on the Tiberium universe with these vids. But I do remember I was taken aback by how most of that was scrubbed in C&C3 in favour of a stereotypical "grey goo" scenario, although somewhat justifiable as the Firestorm GDI campaign explicitly states they've figured out enough of the Tacitus to fight back. (But I'll admit, those massive crystal fissures looking like they were literally splitting the planet apart had a frightful beauty all their own.)

I once had a fight with someone here that Red Alert was "always" campy and the Tiberiverse "always" serious (dude clearly never played RA1), but there's a poetic parallel between TibSun and RA2 in that the cutscenes are undeniably camp and yet (as I argued for RA2) cover over what can be a terrifying reality. It's only revisiting _x years later that I've come to appreciate that TibSun was (as this video and comments on the others affirm) a grossly underrecognized post-apoc story and the peak of Tiberium lore. I'd recently mentioned to Blake the OpenRA mod Combined Arms, and while its campaign story involves temporal shenanigans that pre-empt the catastrophe of Tiberian Sun, it's the exact sort of fanfiction masterstroke that loops all the way back to first principles and plausibly answers the most important question Tiberian Twilight never did regarding Kane's master plan: What was he seeking to gain from the Scrin that could possibly justify the near-extinction of humanity?
 
The biggest aspect of Tiberium Sun which was left behind by Tiberium Wars was the, if you may excuse the attempt to set towards a singular word, biological. Notable especially was the interlinking of gameplay and storyline that came about from the effects of the environment on strategy.

While Tiberium itself is a rather geological like thing, the mutative crystal was noted in its relationship with the organic environment. This was seen with the 'blossum trees' which were mutated to serve as the spreaders of Tiberium, both serving gameplay element in Tiberium Dawn as the maintaining of minerals to mine but also symbolized the relation of Tiberium with Earth's lifeforms, mutating it to its own alien nature, as Dr Mobius highlighted. While longer term effects were more in cutscenes in Dawn, that was of course in game through the negative effect of the subtance on infrantry and those cutscenes of the orginal C&C lay out the long term ground works of a thing that was going to mutate the planet to its own nature. Tiberium Sun showed a world reshaped by the myterious crystal, from the hounds to the vinehole monsters and toxic seas, all towards the human element of GDI focusing on settlements in the Artic away from the worse effects of Tiberium, to the settings own version of Dune's Fremen with the Forgotten whove mutated to the substance, to Nod's exploitation of these mutated humans for the development of cyborgs. Tiberium was not just a element of the setting; it was the heart and centre, to the point that in parts of Firestorm it felt that Tiberium itself was the antagonistic force for the GDI campaign rather than Nod and

Spoiler of a game storyline :
the cyborg ambitions of CABEL.


Since I spoke of the Fremen, itt should be reminded of the inspiration for Tiberium being the Spice Melange from Dune, specifically Westwood's own Dune II: Building of a Dynasty in terms of gameplay. While the economic purpose of the resource, for both story-line and gameplay purposes, are to be noted, it has to be reminded the ecological inquiry Dune's spice gave, particularly the relationship between spice and the great worms, as well as the tension between the desire of spice versus the holy vision to terraform Arrakis into green world, both come to set in God Emperor of Dune of that time as
Spoiler a novel's ending :
a greenish world till return to desert after the God Emperor's assassination.
Essentially, Spice and Tiberium relay a deep connective to the ecology of the settings they are in.

Of particular, I will like to reflect on Tiberium Sun, especially from its Firestorm expansion.

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This game places emphasis on Tiberium's biological effects, taking to form with the likes of floaters and on the trees taking their own. I also like to note how the environment is reflective in gameplay; similar to Total Annihilation (which had plant fires, meteor storms, blizzards and the effects of wind speed per different environments etch) and Emperor: Battle for Dune (tornadoes and the almighty Shai-Hulud, the sandworms), Tiberium Sun made used of the alienised environment to be as a danger to one's forces as the enemy faction where; heck the possibility for bases to face their doomsday from floaters if unprepared. As with Dune, concrete became important but in a less compulsary way, both for speed boost but also with walls to counter spread of vines which could eat a base (also concrete needed to guard base from Nod's flame tanks and, worse, mole APC engineer rushes). Overall, the ecology took a central stage to the RTS. There are RTS that may take the environment as mear scenary (WarCraft, StarCraft, as well as C&C Red Alert) or whom ecological effects are relative to some ability (Red Alert 2's, Earth 2150's and god powers of Age of Mythology when it comes to lightning storms for instance, being bought by player rather than of itself), in contrast with the destructive factor that comes from Tiberium Sun's ion storms, which effects not just danger to structures but also hinders radar and is fetal to airborn aircrraft, thus shifting strategy. Compare to the ion storms of Tiberium Wars, which were restrictive to cutscenes and the ability of the Scrin mining force.* I overall like strategic games which take account of such, which is why when it came to turned based games Alpha Centauri** remains ever the great piece it is.

*Credit due: I do really like the idea of the invasive alien force turning out to be a mining operation rather than a full on invasion force; gives a different element to the cliches around alien invasion to give a certain element, as it were.
**Speaking of, this topic reminds me of a video by Super Bunnyhop on how climate change is depicted in strategy games; link to below for interest.


Spoiler side-topic on Super Bunnyhope's video :
 
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