>I plan to live forever, of course, but barring that I'd settle for a couple thousand years. Even five hundred would be pretty nice.

>>713972341 (OP)
Nwabudikei Morgan was my rolemodel growing up.

>What do I care for your suffering? Pain, even agony, is no more than information before the senses, data fed to the computer of the mind. The lesson is simple: you have received the information, now act on it. Take control of the input and you shall become master of the output.

>>713973158
>AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

is alpha centauri better than civ 4?

Wish Santiago was better developed as a philosophy instead of just being the game's attilla

mary had a little lamb little lamb little lamb
mary had a little lamb whose fleece was
white
as
snow
-- Assassin's Redoubt, Final Transmission

>>713972341 (OP)
He is so based I can't help but pick him.

>>713973543
Gameplay-wise, not really.
Soul-wise, 400%.

>>713973543
Civ 4 will forever be the king, but AC will always be right at it's side.

>>713973158
Prove him wrong

>>713973543
It does some things better and some things worse. I still play both.

>>713972341 (OP)

>>713973707
Read the supplementary lore.
She's the result of the American collapse.
A ruthless survivor of the underclasses that was to be abandoned with earth like they were abandoned on earth.
She and her followers forced their way onto the ship, to survive.

>>713978273
None of that has any greater philosophical exploration in game
The fact that they're survivalists or built around the idea that violence is an expected aspect of nationhood, the supreme authority from which all other authority is derived, barely exists its all just larping as a modern, political military

>>713973707
It's probably the worst faction. Why the hell would libertarian-leaning(?) militants particularly hate the University over the Hive or Peacekeepers?

>>713973837
I still don't get it.

>>713973158
>>713977802

>>713978767
The divides caused by technology collapsed the USA and destroyed the world.
They had to relearn primitivism because of it.
They know the end result of the silicon valleys.

>>713978273
>Latina leads her armed followers somewhere they weren't invited
holy based

>>713978767
They shouldn't hate anybody particularly imo
Hive-Peacekeepers
Industries-Gaians
university-believers
should be the rivalries while santiago is the general link between them all as the core violence that promotes and allows all their ideologies to exist.
As for why the devs picked university? Probably some meme about jocks hating nerds or maybe some idea that rule by intelligencia is somehow especially abhorrent to the warrior class. Possibly primitivism except santiago doesn't espouse anything about being a luddite at all, she's completely in favor of combined arms tactics which requires technological advance

>>713973543
In 10 years people will still be quoting Alpha Centauri, whereas you'll never hear a line from Civ4 that means a damn to anyone.

As a game it's fine, but definitely not better lol.

>>713973543
yes. civ 4 wasn't original

>>713979204
Yeah, that would make a lot more sense and create an interesting dynamic where the most militaristically inclined faction has no natural enemy and would just tend to get bribed into others' conflicts.

Apologize

>>713973707
You can tell they had no idea what to do with her. Pretty much every aspect they could have used to define a militeristic right wing faction was covered by the Believers. Miriam's people are even better at fighting, all things equal, and they have the anti-material, trancendental world view that any fascist or monarchist faction would require. Hive has life, University has knowledge, Believers have god, Spartans have....
Other than that, the only identity the Spartans DO HAVE that the Believers don't is isolationism (as indicated by their AI behavior), which makes no sense when the main purpose of military strength is to let your faction expand.

>>713980356
We must dissent

>>713973850
>>713972734
>>713972341 (OP)

https://vocaroo.com/1iU95Bcsusxy
https://vocaroo.com/1euTsu9uIZ5b
https://vocaroo.com/11DUCFmjSL6h
https://vocaroo.com/102rQD33p5jK

Men of culture, we meet again

>>713980703
hold i need the magnifying glass for this meme

>>713980356

>>713980356
>apologize
Absolutely not.That redhead cunt can dissent all she likes - I'm communing with the planet and ascending to the next stage of human evolution.

>>713980356
>Space Christians
why did they omit Jewish and Muslim peoples?

>>713972341 (OP)
So /v/ is capable of liking black characters?

>>713980398
I almost feel like that's the point of Santiago, that the right to bear arms and survivalism/militarism isn't a good enough philosophy to build a faction around when everyone else is basically doing the same thing (surviving on a hostile alien planet fighting six other ideologies), just with more complex motivations
Which is a problem because it's still not very fun to play the designated jobber faction from a flavour perspective in a game that's huge on flavour
At the very least I'd still put her above the Crossfire factions

>>713973158
evil with chinese characteristics

>>713980901
>Will we next create false gods to rule over us? How proud we have become, and how blind.

>>713973707
Something like Starship Troopers (the book) might have worked.

>>713981085
everyone likes some nigger

>>713978770
They used a psychic weapon to drive everyone in assassin's redoubt insane.

>>713979915
Yep. If they're about survivalism then they're nice and isolationist if they're about violence and citizen excellency as a philosophy in of itself then they have natural reasons to hate on all of the factions.
>might makes right
>as in it is the obligation of those talented at violence to create systems of civilization and justice as both the most sensible and moral solution
>violence is an inherent part of life, something all society must participate in simply to avoid nature's chaos reclaiming them
>the natural conclusion of unchecked thuggery is thugs dying anyways, it makes more sense for the warrior to protect the farmer to enjoy the fruits of his labor
>the warrior is still the most important part so naturally he gets the greatest say in government
>but as technology advances who is able to become a warrior becomes a wider and wider pool naturally pushing towards more democratic systems
>a meritocratic system, favoring Democracy and Planned to ensure that every child born gets the chance to be a franchise holding individual makes morgan hate them
>importance of the citizen and civ over nature makes gaians hate them
>stoic view on society, the leaves of the tree and the trunk are both equally important for the tree's survival, you cannot simply separate mind from body as Yang suggests makes hive hate them
>rejection of universal suffrage, that only those who make it through the agoges (regardless of what career they later hold) can vote and that the strong protect the meek with the expectation of obedience as the social contract makes Peacekeepers hate them
>Valuing practical power over theoretical knowledge, placing the physically effective (if brutish) leader over the ivory tower intellectual makes university hate them
>common philosophy and education rejecting faith over worship of heroes and human form makes believers hate them
You can easily justify them in a central position where they can flex to be allies of most and enemies of any

Pick your poison, /v/.

>>713981085
even the most racist anons i know have black characters they like

it's a bit more complicated than being triggered by everything

>>713981104
I feel like either a sentient AI faction embracing accelerationism, or a more fleshed Marxist faction similar to the one from the expansion pack would have been better choices than the Spartans

>>713978770
Psychic defense mechanism. Mind worms attack by assaulting your brain with horrors and then implanting their eggs into your stunned (but not dead) body. So basic psychic defense means taking familiar and safe things you've known since childhood, things deeply rooted into your psyche, and associating them with control. That it's the last transmission, that someone was verbally repeating it, means the whole colony was getting overrun by mind worms at the time and they were just barely trying to report it or ask for help but couldn't without their focus

>>713981559
I'd say the colony was hit by the Dream Twister itself and the whole city was lost, presumably after the entire population had their dreams twisted and went insane
Mind worms are psychic, but after Centauri Psi you can give your own units psychic attacks, and Will to Power (which leads to the Dream Twister) depends on Centauri Psi
But the ambiguity of it is the best part so it's up in the air what really happened

>>713981424
I always picked Spartans

>>713979204
She's a simple girl.
Her faction are the primitivists not by choice but because they literally had nothing, including basic education. People who grew up living in the ruins and rubble left of Americas, scavenging for whatever they can find. As a result she's pro whatever lets her survive better(bigger guns, military tactics) while also carrying the grudge towards the people that took the old world away from everyone(the people who invented and made things such as those bigger guns)

What I'm confused about is why don't they have any animosity towards Morgan, as the representative of business he's the other half of the technocracy that pushed for the environmental and societal disintegration of the entire world.

>>713981406
>cont.
They should be populist civic nationalism taken to its natural conclusion. The state does not care about the characteristics of your birth, the state and the people who make it up only care about what you make of yourself after those circumstances. And the extreme conclusion of that is that you are expected to have your genes altered to become more capable, expected to be removed from your parent's care for extended periods to undergo common instruction with all your peers, and expected to treat every citizen as an equal member of the grand fraternity you call your nation at the cost of viewing those who don't make the cut with disdain
The nation gave you every possibility to make it after all, you could've gone into your career and still be a proud rifleman, a Spartan, that you didn't makes it all your choice.

>>713981424
The Crossfire factions are so boring I always forget they exist.

>>713982064
To be fair they each only had like 3 tech quotes each. A couple of them could possibly make it as regular factions with some of that additional depth though a few are doomed from their inception to be too one note for a proper faction

>>713981424
Miriam is right.

>>713981529
I don't know, I think Spartans do have their place, violence and militarism is a fundamental part of the human experience (like science, like faith, like commerce, like naturalism, etc.,), but they needed to be written with more awareness that they don't have the monopoly on those things in this setting
A few of the leaders have quotes where they demonstrate some vulnerability and questioning about their own ideology, I think Santiago would've benefited from at least one

>>713981118
this guy does seem like an extreme version of the legalists, and the "socialism with chinese characteristics" is just legalists with a new coat of paint, especially since they found socialism as a good vessel for their ideals, of course legalists have been a major faction for a thousand years in china before socialism was even invented, contrasted against the confucianists, who value virtue, morals and traditions over cold calculating meritocratic efficiency, that the legalists consider more important, both of these are pretty "socialist" factions in the sense that they value social harmony and society as a whole over the individual, their difference is just that confucianists say that social harmony needs to be achieved through virtue and morals while legalists say that morals are irrelevant and being pragmatic and efficient is what matters for society as a whole to prosper, the third faction that is rather small in comparison but shows up during chinese history every now and then are the daoists who value individual self realisation over society, and say that your only goal in life should be finding harmony with nature (being one with the dao) and improve yourself as an individual, not worry about society or other people and their problems, and consider any top down control to be a violation of wu wei (NAP) and you should also avoid trying to control others through any sort of force, of course you're allowed to use force when legalists try to tread on you though

>>713981424
Deirdre is objectively the best one in terms of where she leads humanity story-wise. Zakharov is a close second. Morgan and Yang can be picked for luls, everyone else is just different flavors of retarded
>inb4 Miriam
Yes, especially her.

>>713982064
The trouble is they're mostly extremists in a game where the main narrative thrust is factions gradually becoming more extreme in order to survive Planet and outcompete everyone else who is doing the same thing
You could already go all in on cybernetics as University or mind worms as Gaia, Aki-Zeta and Cha Dawn don't really bring anything new to the table
The only one that really does anything new is Domai because he's going in the opposite direction instead, wanting Drones to be treated like people instead of staple collections

If the game mechanics allowed it I think they'd be more fun as rebel factions that would show up if you weren't paying attention and/or doing a shitty job
>Be Deidre
>Get notified that some of your border colonies are becoming cultish weirdos and they demand more power
>Choose your preferred method of pacification
>It succeeds, it goes away for a while
>It fails, more notifications that the colonies are gathering around a new upstart leader and threatening to break off
>More choices, more successes/failures
>Enter Cha Dawn taking a bunch of bases for himself and offering you a mind worm in these trying times

>>713982482
There's also Mohism.

I just want to remind this thread that Deirdre doesn't shave and doesn't wash. She has hairy and stinky armpits and pussi.
Thank you.

>Some would ask, how could a perfect God create a universe filled with so much that is evil. They have missed a greater conundrum: why would a perfect God create a universe at all?

>>713981406
>>713982025
Agreed. I think the reason they didn't lean more into this Heinleinian direction is because the entire game is predicated on a post-nationalist logic which was as much intentional liberal political commentary as the devs just wanting to make a civ game without civs.

Where they really fucked up is not giving them a significant early bonus if they're supposed to be survivalists proficient in impoverished conditions. Instead they get an industry malus on everything while the Gaians get the fungal food bonus which rockets them into a massive lead in almost every game.

I'm starting to think this entire game is just about pretentious 3deep5you quotes

Remember me?

>>713983365
there was more like, legalism, confucianism, daoism and mohism were the 4 main types of ideologies in ancient china, but mohism dissolved into parts of the other 3 like 2000 years ago and has been just irrelevant, for the last 2000 years up until now the main two factions are legalists and confucianists, with daoists having smaller bits of relevance here or there, usually gathering to do some random retarded cults around supposed sorcerers, but generally just being the guy who lives in the forest and tells the policeman that taxes are a violation of the non agression pact

>>713982652
>Deidre cultists
>Best

>"My people are my lab-rats" Zakharov,
>"Living here, you could get dissected at any second" Zakharov
>Close second
You are deranged.

About Deidre, just think for a second, why would an ALIEN PLANET made of FUNGUS AND WORMS be sending her visions of roots, branches and leaves to communicate? Why would an ALIEN BRAIN FUNGUS be manifesting as visions of PLANET EARTH PLANTS?
Are you really buying into her theatrics and bullshit?

>>713973543
AC is the better casual game; it becomes too easy even on the highest difficulty once you know all the tricks but I respect Civ 4 more as a challenge. Both are still my top 2 4x games.

>>713972341 (OP)
What the fuck...Father?

>>713983787
It's also about braindead steamrolling the game as Morgan or bruteforcing democratic victory as Lal because their perks are stupid OP.

>>713983787
It's also about terraforming by gently raising hills or making oceans via black hole-powered nuclear weapons or flooding the entire planet by actively abusing climate change mechanics and drowning enemy civilisations with it

>>713983613
>dierdre lands in the monsoon
gg go next

>>713972341 (OP)
Her life was a greek tragedy. There was nothing she could do to stop mankind from running off a cliff technologically and killed herself never knowing the Transcendence ending saved them all at the eleventh hour.

>>713972341 (OP)
Pucci looks mightily fine there.

>>713983787
The quotes, the setting and the plot you unveil through the tech tree really are the standout part.
For the gameplay? As far as I am led to believe, you either play casually or you do degenerate things with boreholes, crawlers and infinite city sprawl.

>>713981424
What the fuck does anarchist capitalism even look like?

>>713984343
>Feeding everyone's immortal christian souls into the maw of a hungry, mindless and godless alien beast
>Saved

>>713983846
It was okay, but it wasn't as dark as SMAC. I do like a couple of the endings though. The Domination ending pretty much has humanity giving up on the idea of peace completely, lending to its ultimate survival, and the Supremacy ending paradoxically goes all in on the neo-religious theme when you'd think that would have been Purity.

>>713984654
No rules, make money.

>>713983968
Also, I don't think fusing the human race to a planet sized psychic mushroom brain would be nearly as beneficial when your belief system begins and ends with "co exist with nature". Without any ideals beyond this, you just end up making mankind part of the scenery, maybe even wormfood (rabbits "co exist with nature" when they're being eaten by dogs).
At least with Miriam, you could potentially convert Planet into the largest christian in the galaxy.

>>713984727
Planet was only proto-sapient, The University blasted the sum contents of all collected human knowledge and history into it, forcing it to adopt the Human context.

>>713984654
Crypto bro?

>>713984814
Canonically, she walks into a Psi-Gate with no set destination, madwoman disintegrated herself and all of her followers. Not sure which faction was meant to be the one attacking her though, I'd say University or Morgan considering those are the two factions that went all in on the abominable inhuman tech like self aware colonies and nano-paste

>>713984654
Technically it wouldn't be anarchic (stateless) at all as the oligopoly and it's hierarchy would become a de-facto state

>>713985295
The book isn't canon. It ignores huge chunks of what defines each faction to satisfy the author's biases

4x is such a boring genre holy shit. Saved only by interesting premise like SMAC or pwetty presentation like Endless

>>713985515
I don't mean the book, just going by the tech descriptions we know she walks through a psi-gate in the late game and its her last tech quote.

>>713985395
Capitalism can't exist without market. Market implies there are some form of order in existence. Anarchism and capitalism can not coexist.

>>713985762
People themselves are the market, capitalism occurs so long as two people can barter. Shit like currency is largely superfluous and more meant to grease exchange because it's easier to say a bag of grain is worth X currency instead of however many chickens or wood carvings.

>>713972341 (OP)
Morgan was the objective protagonist

>>713983968
>>713983968
>Are you really buying into her theatrics and bullshit?
Nigga, have you actually played the game? The planet is alive and only kinda proto-sentient (at least prior to the flowering). It is not any more aware of humanity than you are of the bacteria living in your small intestine. That's why the final research project for Transcendence involves blasting the sum total of human knowledge, history and culture into the planet's brain to make it recognize humanity as a sentient species and not just a parasite. see >>713984872
>Also, I don't think fusing the human race to a planet sized psychic mushroom brain would be nearly as beneficial when your belief system begins and ends with "co exist with nature".
That ending involves all factions working together, not just Gaia.

>>713985295
Mad?
Or only one sane?
Remember, everyone else had their consciousness forcibly blasted and trapped inside a giant ball of fungus, never to be human again.

>>713981084
We left them on earth for a reason.

>>713980356
We must dissent.

>>713986025
>Remember, everyone else had their consciousness forcibly blasted and trapped inside a giant ball of fungus, never to be human again.
That only happened afterwards, but yes she was generally the only sane one among them aside from Pravin Lal, and even he'd fucked himself in the mid-game when he got cybernetic implants.

>>713986025
>Christcuck definition of humanity can't go beyond "a bipedal hairless ape".
Predictable, but still sad.

>>713983064
Only the Hackers seem to not have any connection to one of the OG factions, since they are by far the most random group without any real concrete foundation.
I want to say they came from the Morganites, who got sucker punched by some underpaid hackers they hired after they hijacked one or more cities from them.

>>713981246
Yeah, combine that with the 'Army with a State' concept and it might go somewhere.

>>713986004
The planet might be sentient or not, but do you really buy into the bullshit that Deidre is its voice in human form?
Do you really fail to see the similarities to every single cult with a charismatic leader that claims to be the voice of god made flesh?

>>713986231
>he doesn't know
Read all the tech quotes as a progression, the other factions go fucking insane with the godlike power they get from tech. Miriam isn't strictly against advancement, her faction bonuses slow her tech down, but grant a bonus to probes, indicating that she prefers more rigorous testing before applying technology to her own people. Half her quotes are her preaching caution, not luddism.
>Evil lurks in the datalinks as it did in the streets of yesteryear, but it was never the streets that were evil.

>>713986389
She seems to have done some spooky tech early on which let her link her mind to its network psionically, which let Planet talk through her. She wasn't faking it, she was actually a damned good bio-engineer even as kooky as she was using fucking mind worms on people.

>>713981085
If they're an actual character.

>>713986342
Roze was a former QA Manager for MorganNet and went rogue
All the Crossfire faction leaders have canon attachments to the base factions, aside from the aliens, obviously

>>713986389
This game is not subtle about what the Planet is, and doesn't hide how amazing human transcendence will be either.
Deidre being the canon winner by following the game quotes is a given too.

>>713986389
She may or may not be full of shit when it comes to being "the voice", but that doesn't matter. The final outcome proves her to be objectively right regardless of whether she was actually having some kind psychic communion with the planet or just talking out of her ass because she thought that was the correct thing to do based on her assumption that the planet was alive.

>>713986441
Yet she had no qualms using whatever "technological horrors" were necessary when it suited her agenda. She's not only a retard, she's a hypocrite retard.

>>713986767
>Writers were biased
We know

>>713981085
>You ivory tower intellectuals must not lose touch with the world of industrial growth and hard currency. It is all very well and good to pursue these high-minded scientific theories, but research grants are expensive and you must justify your existence by providing not only knowledge, but concrete and profitable applications as well.
Modern black characters are bad caricatures with nothing interesting to say. While Morgan is a caricature, he's actually interesting and all of his quotes say real things regarding his philosophy of greed being ethical. In other words, millennial writers grew up on nuance and went on to write shit without nuance, and I say that as a millennial myself.

>>713986901
Deidre was right because if transcendence didn't happen, millions of mountain sized mind worms were going to come crawling out of the planet's core, and psyche rape every human on the surface.

>>713986901
>Yet she had no qualms using whatever "technological horrors" were necessary when it suited her agenda. She's not only a retard, she's a hypocrite retard.
You lack the nuance to understand Miriam. You just see religion and have an immediate kneejerk reaction, no thought occurs in your head.

>>713987018
>millions of mountain sized mind worms were going to come crawling out of the planet's core
I'm not sure that's what was going to happen. Wasn't the fungus just going to go into bloom and choke out all other life on the planet?

>>713985904
So who's going to issue currency, genius? There can be no government in anarchy and without government the market fucking collapse, and we would still be trading fish for meat.

>>713972341 (OP)
I love SMAC so fucking much bros I wish I wasn't shit at the game

>>713987397
Me.

>>713987397
>So who's going to issue currency, genius?
Me.

>>713986962
>biased
Since the entire game is a work of fiction, no such thing applies. If the authors say transcendence was the best possible outcome for humanity, then that's what it is, and if you don't like it, you're free to write your own game/book where the outcome will be different.

>>713987084
>You lack the nuance to understand Miriam
More like Miriam lacked the nuance (and likely the mental capacity) to understand that humanity needed to evolve in order survive.

>>713987397
It's not necessary to issue currency, you can barter with precious metals directly. Fiat currency is the only thing that 'needs' issuing because it is without worth beyond a governing body's say-so.

>>713987397
the currency will be cunny

>>713972341 (OP)
It's rude to overstay
bad manners

>>713980356
We must dissent

>>713981085
I'd rather not be reminded that niggers exist out in reality, but at least Morgan is written like a White man and doesn't speak in ebonics, so I can pretend that he's human.

>>713972341 (OP)
Morgan was the most based leader in AC.

>>713987487
>to understand that humanity needed to evolve in order survive.
You are an idiot. The result of that same evolution destroyed Earth, precipiating the launch of The Unity to begin with. Evolution not very far into the game results in Yang creating genejacks. Progress is not inherently good, in fact most of the shit in SMAC presents downright horrifying realities for humanity, that's what she's cautioning against.

>>713980356
Step into the psi gate Miriam

>>713987156
That's what we see, although considering how badly the pink aliens wanted to avoid another flowering there probably was a psychic component to it as well, there just wasn't anything on Planet smart enough to get fried until we came along

>>713987487
I mean, Miriam can technically be the winner of the transcendence race and become the core of this giant hivemind.
What that entails is up to debate, since the loser ending always shows the played character being sent to Earth. Or does the Aliens have their own, I don't remember?

>>713984654
Selling subscription health care services to your child sex workers while charging them rent for the room they whore their bodies out of, with optional meal plan.

>>713987487
>Since the entire game is a work of fiction, no such thing applies
What a fucking retarded argument. Let me guess, you're one of those special people who think that LOTR wasn't biased against rapid industrialism and didn't have luddism influence in it?

>>713986004
I don't trust Deidre, she sent swarm of mindworms to rape an entire spartan city

>>713987487
you have to go back

>>713987580
morgan would be a wing ceo real quick

>>713987963
I could beat Deidre at sex.

>>713988106
>Angry Scottish accent.
The TTRPG gave some really funny characteristics to these faction leaders.

>>713973837
>full version of the Dream Twister
Fukken saved

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evs0nFCufNM

Deidre is canon btw

>>713978770
>Spartan defenders were blasted with psychic day in day out causing them to suffer from severe sleep deprivation
>proto Russian Sleep Experiment.webm + mindworm reap

>>713988358
You know the worst thing? The Children's Creche as a technology is attributed to the Spartans.

>>713983064
>when your opening quote is just some lyrics pulled from an old bush ranger folk song

>Richard Baxton piloted his Recon Rover into a fungal vortex and held off four waves of mind worms, saving an entire colony. We immediately purchased his identity manifests and repackaged him into the Recon Rover Rick character with a multi-tiered media campaign: televids, touchbooks, holos, psi-tours-- the works. People need heroes. They don't need to know how he died clawing his eyes out, screaming for mercy. The real story would just hurt sales, and dampen the spirits of our customers

>>713988561
THEY'LL YET REGRET

>>713980356
>Apologize
>To that insufferable christgolem bitch
I don't think so

>>713988561
The Chinaman fears the Aussie.

>>713988663
Gonna burn his books.

>>713988663
>mocks god the whole game
>prostrates in terror trying to appease Planet
Oh the ironing

>>713987741
>>713988040
You seething christcucks need to go back to living in the woods and picking fleas out of your hides if you think that progress and evolution is not what God intended to begin with.

>>713987890
>Miriam can technically be the winner of the transcendence race
Doesn't she canonically kill herself before that happens?

>>713988636
https://youtu.be/2t7Y5k9OIdg

>>713988869
You still don't get it do you? Read this part slowly.

Miriam is not against progress. She advocates caution in how that progress is harnessed.

>>713988858
>Let the Gaians preach their silly religion, but one way or the other I shall see this compound burned, seared, and sterilized until every hiding place is found and until every last Mind Worm egg, every last slimy one, has been cooked to a smoking husk. That species shall be exterminated, I tell you! Exterminated!
He's a complicated man

>>713988663
Gets easily hacked, gets the most drone rights, can't into warfare, can't make money worth shit.
Le science man can't run a nation worth shit.

>>713988869
>the r*dditor thinks I'm a christcuck

>>713980703
>>713981424
Was there any in-game indication that Morgan's corpo state could be a bad place to live? All I remember is that you needed the hab complex building way earlier than others because Morgan's citizens refuse to live in pods.

>>713989114
Morgan is unironically better at science than him because the sheer fucking wealth he can throw around lets him spec into hard tech without even slowing down in other areas.

>>713989156
Morgan seems like he'd be fun to go drinking with

>>713989156
They were creating mutants out of research patients in the research hospital and said research patients probably didn't know what was going to happen to them until it was too late. Also nerve stapling people who accidentally found out.

>>713988519
>Genejacks and Recycling Tanks are Hive inventions
>The Longevity Vaccine is a Morganite exclusive

>>713989156
his society sucks dick if you're poor

>>713984654
No roads but no taxes either

>>713989156
It's okay going by the implications most of the quotes bring up, but it's definitely expensive until all the conveniences start filtering down, which they do. Morgan doesn't preach hoarding or centralisation of resources, but absolute consumption, as a result he builds out much faster than any other faction so we can assume most morganites enjoy a high standard of wealth compared to the other factions.

Interestingly, he's not opposed to green policy. I found that kind of weird.

>>713987156
Yes.
The cycle the planet has is the fungus growing with the available nutrients until the mass achieves proto-sentience, at which point it starts to expand aggressively, with its mental capabilities expanding as it does so and it all culminates in a "blooming", an event where it explosively covers all of the planet, consuming all of the remaining available nutrients of all forms as it achieves true sentience, if only for a moment, only for long enough to realize it has just ran out of food and it's time to die again.
Nearly all of the mass then starves, taking away all the amassed and stored knowledge with it, returning the entity back to zero.
After the planet has recovered enough to support the growth of the bio mass again, the cycle begins anew.

On a successful run the earth factions interrupt the process, giving it a sentience prematurely, before the planet entity can collapse the ecosystem that supports it, letting it reach a manageable equilibrium.

>>713989529
>Interestingly, he's not opposed to green policy. I found that kind of weird.
green policy isnt always a money waste

>>713989491
Lmao just don't be poor

>>713989529
Green is marketable, the fact that it's sustainable is secondary to Morgan

>>713989675
>>713989731
You'd think he would be by default since his philosophy is opposed to Deidre's.

>>713989529
>Interestingly, he's not opposed to green policy. I found that kind of weird.
Morgan takes the long view. He does intend to live forever, after all.

>>713989816
Fair, by the point he can take it he's already got space industry set up and definitely plans to cage Alpha Centauri A in the future. At least that was the plan before Transcendence.

>>713989815
Not necessarily
If a more profitable avenue came along than melting down the entire Planet for minerals then I'm sure Morgan would be more than happy to switch to it, that just happens to be the most profitable avenue by default
I mean I'm sure Morgan would be happy to become Planetmind himself, if only so he could live forever and melt down other planets later

>>713973543
Civ 4 is better gameplay wise but Alpha Centauri actually has a setting.

>>713989815
It's one of a few instances where an AI leader will become belligerent toward other factions for implementing a policy they're also using.

>>713980356
>Complete strawman in game.
>Actually more reasonable than most factions in game.

>>713990043
You can have both

>>713989529
Like you said, he's pro-consumption - not hoarding or pro-destruction.
What use is barren fields and nuclear wastes to anyone? What use is a large number in a bank account with nothing to spend on it? Morgan's ideology is explosive but not self-defeating.

>>713988968
I like that this is also implemented mechanically - she's not locked off from tech, her faction is just slower and more cautious about implementing it.

>>713973707
>Santiago wasn't even supposed to be on the ship in the first place
>only gets in by storming the gates during the loading since she's head for one of the largest gangs in the US after it effectively collapsed
>is the primary reason why the Unity crashes because she chimped out and killed the captain
She's the catalyst for why the whole imploded as hard as it did.

>>713990168
You can, and I wish they would make that game, but sadly we got Beyond Earth.

>>713989081
He's very protective of his brain.
Mindworms are his worst nightmare.

>>713972341 (OP)
What happened to video game dialogue/writing? Why is everything so shit now?

>>713990189
She gets a probe bonus even, with the basic idea that she keeps stealing shit from the University, until they get the Hunter Seeker Algorithm anyway.

>>713990126
*Most factions in story.

>>713972341 (OP)
>le smart genius businessman is black
>entire paragraphs about how AMERICA BAD
>american leader is a borderline retarded Christian fundamentalist who wouldn't even be on the ship that everyone fucking hates
this game was proto-woke.

>>713990208
>Ruins Lal's plan to perpetuate the status quo that destroyed Earth
Based.

>>713990189
>her faction is just slower and more cautious about implementing it.
Which is even better because the optimal strategy to counteract that is to shit out probe teams and steal that tech from others anyway, so the game is already challenging you on whether you stick to your principles (and get left behind) or do the same shit everyone else is doing (and stay competitive)
It's neat narrative/gameplay integration

Is that a Jojo reference?

>>713988858
>swallows his autism and declares war on the awakening ayy god
Kino

>>713990395
The game was obviously proto woke considering it was mostly taking the shit out of 90's politics.

>>713990417
Technically, Lal was really low in the pecking order when it came to the command structure of the Unity, so he didn't have much say.
Garland was the head of operations, but it would have been Yang that would take overall leadership after he died.

>Actually manages to quote the Art of War without coming across as pretentious.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmRpLLs7SNE
God, late 90's early 00's was such a magical time for PC gaming.

>>713990395
Morgan's not a genius, he was an african business mogul whose company was contracted to build The Unity, he wasn't even supposed to be on it.

>>713990395
>borderline insane bible thumping ginger is the only one that would be considered sane compared to the rest of her contemporaries
Grim

>>713990669
>but it would have been Yang that would take overall leadership after he died
Thank fucking christ he didn't, jesus. The man was completely fucking insane.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdCB9yE9Hcc

>>713990883
How exactly is she borderline insane? Apart from the end where she walks into a Psi-Gate.

>>713991025
>Going down to Morgan Park, gonna have myself a time...

>>713990726
The secret project movies still haven't been topped when it comes to presenting your tech tree and wonders.
>https://youtu.be/iwqN3Ur-wP0

>>713990208
Her other option was to let herself and her people die just because they weren't born privileged enough to either be rich enough for a ticket or have a chance to be well educated enough to be a useful tool.
Should've she just accepted death and extinction?

I didn't really appreciate the gameplay-narrative discordance near the end of the game. My faction has attained godlike technological prowess, begun colonizing the system, wild fungus is entirely eliminated within my borders, my cities' peacetime garrisons can swat hundreds of locusts, and I'm supposed to believe that a fungal mass is an existential threat?

>>713977802

>Game says that America collapsed because it tried to control all information and all people
>Meanwhile America has the most open internet (for the most part, it is not perfect) while countries like China have their own intranet and North Korea executes you for playing League of Legends (based actually)

>>713980703
Morgan was born to a noble family though

>>713991025
>Hey! Get off my land you peacekeeping son of a-
I love how everyone just bullies Lal

>>713973707
Santiago's whole thing being half-baked makes sense if we headcanon the Spartans being the first (or real close to it) faction to die after getting WORM'd, so the whole philosophy was essentially killed in the cradle and never got the chance to form.

>>713990883
Lal is also sane
>Inb4 muh wife and cloning
Oh no, people experience grief when they lose a loved one. Truly shocking!

>>713991086
She is violent, militaristic, bigoted, anti-science, thinks God is talking to her, etc. She is a parody of the most hardcore fundamentalist because the devs were edgy atheists.

>>713991131
We're a bit behind schedule is all.

>>713991101
Reminder, The Self-Aware Colony's effect is that it cuts energy upkeep in half. Think about what that actually means.

>>713990457
>I refuse to feed my people into a giant blender to research this tech
>but if you're going to feed your people into a giant blender, I mean it's not like the tech is going to get uninvented
She's funny.

>>713991296
Yeah, the word you're looking for is "hypocrite".

>>713991210
They lived long enough to develop space travel, and cloning vats. They definitely did not die out fast.
Also, considering the number of figures in the Transcendence project is the same number as the faction leaders, they might have lived, but became a puppet state.

>>713991131
>Free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny.
>The free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism
>China
>Despotic country
>Has full grip on public discourse
>America
>Free country
>Constricting its grip on public discourse
It's a warning, and it was way ahead of its time.

>>713991403
They're all hypocrites, none of their ideologies are iron-clad, it's part of what makes the game have so much staying power.

>>713991220
>ayy god wakes up and starts giving them visions of a terrible future
>God is nowhere to be found and the datalinks won't stop screaming
>takes the most faithful and telefrags everyone Pinkie style with a one way phase gate
The last voice of restraint dies by her own hand while the rest just go full speed towards hell or xenophile synthesis.

>>713991220
>anti-science
>Evil lurks in the datalinks as it did in the streets of yesteryear, but it was never the streets that were evil
We've already established she's not. Don't enter a conversation you're not prepared to have.

>>713991590
>"Uhm I'm finally willing to use gas lanterns in the year 3000 sweaty I'm not anti-science!"

Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.

>>713991641
>strawman
I think the edgy atheist here is you

>>713991174
He's an Indian, it happens even in fiction.

I wish we could get a remaster of this game. Keep all the writing exactly the same just update the mechanics and UI

Which faction would have the hottest women to use We Must Consent: 100 Surefire Pick-up Lines of [Faction Name Here] on?

>>713991835
We might considering how bad Civ7 went, but that's also points against it considering how bad Civ7 went.

>>713991447
>the first faction to reach Transcendence becomes effective immortals and gatekeepers to the highest echelons of Planet's mind
>everyone else is given the choice to join the collective or persist in the meat space with their land holdings free from persecution
>final slide cuts to a revitalization effort going back to Earth using all of the accumulated technology and knowledge from their time on Planet
>heavy implications that nothing survived once the Unity left the system towards Alpha Centauri
Out of all the endings this one was the most hopeful despite the massive loss of life. The diplomatic, conquest and economic endings say that they sent a team back to check on Earth but nothing was heard back from it.

>>713991861
Morgan Industries and it's not close.

>>713991957
There were corporate wars brewing right as The Unity was being built. The UN knew Earth was beyond fucked.

>>713991861
depends on your kind of woman

>>713991835
Same. Frankly, I would be okay with just UI improvement and maybe a balance patch.

>>713991835
I'd much prefer a fan patch than one of these modern shitty RTS companies trying to patch it up

Morgan.
Genetic engineering is going to flow through their society the moment it is open to anyone, as long as they have the money. Rich fucks are going to make sure they are beautiful the moment they come out of the baby vat.

>>713992245
They could do some higher res prerenders for the sprites. Couldn't hurt.

>>713992034
I'd be down for some nubian kweens from his industries

>>713992359
That would also be fine. Especially if they throw in a option to switch back to the old graphics.

>>713992335
>sperm piracy and counterfeit genetically modified sperm could both become real issues
The future will be hilarious.

>>713991835
>keep all the writing exactly the same
good FUCKING luck with that one lmao
they would not fucking be able to resist
no fucking way, impossible

>>713992397
Damn genetically designed with the jiggliest asses and titties that will never sag, black don't crack will become a reality BWC won't survive the Qweens.

>>713991641
>Maybe we should wait a bit on the whole manmade horrors beyond your comprehension thing.
>Lmao, you are anti-science!

>>713992605
>sperm piracy
Already kind of a thing, you have single chinese businesswomen paying men to put kids in them because the chinese are all obsessed with dynasty. It's not much of a step from reasoning that if you can pay for a thing, you can also steal it. What are they gonna do? Unbirth the child?

>>713992758
also desu I have zero doubt that choice sperm donor samples go "missing" for rich clients

>>713992758
>Unbirth the child?
I mean...

>>713986762
>Domai was originally a Hive drone that managed to survive nerve stapling and break away from Yang's yoke during a drone riot
>Sven was the Unity's chief navigator but didn't hold enough sway in the early days so he worked in the worm pits before escaping out to sea to start his own faction
>Aki-Ross 5 was a prototype for early testing of the Man/Machine interfacing that went rogue
>Cha was prom night dumpster babby dropped into a worm pit that managed to not get eaten

>>713992916
Don't be gross

>>713992309
An Open SMAC would be cool

>>713992335
None of the other factions seem to hold any positive views on superfluous ideas of leisure and personal pleasures like Morgan's.
They might have beautiful people, but the real super model goddesses will only show up in his faction.

>>713991101
>>713991280
This is the future you chose, /v/. Thanks OpenAI

>>713991280
ELI5

>>713993141
I'm not Indian.

>>713993141
Nobody chooses the future, we are all at the mercy of forces beyond our understanding. It could no more be stopped than asking the world to cease spinning. Shit that's kind how SMAC went now that I think about it, man we are so fucked.

>>713992974
No, not deviantArt unbirth it, I meant murder, much less gross
Cultures like China didn't get where they are because they weren't clenching so hard they weren't having girls

>>713993391
Oh yeah I remember something about that, grim stuff

>>713993324
>these will be just one of the many steps required to pierce the veil
>they can barely handle what they have now without finding ways of fucking that up
Grim

Damn I want to bust up inside Deidre's guts

>>713981085
modern writers just suck ass. society is degrading at an enormous rate since globalization has taken effect.

Imagine the salesposting on Morganchan. You now have a vested interest in your favourite game being top 10 on charts at all times or it could just die on the spot.

>>713994165
Shilling would probably be illegal because it fucks with market prediction algorithms and negatively affects profits.

You know I imagine working for Morgan can't be any worse than like working for Amazon or like Fed ex.

>>713994543
He would actually pay you since the Hab Complex is an early tech for Morgan, he'd just make sure whatever you earn goes right back into products and services he can make a profit on. In a healthy economy, the currency flows rather than stagnates.

>>713994765
good point

>>713987427
just start with Deidre and automate your terraformers for now. let the mindworms fight for you and figure out what works for you first.

>>713991835
I wish someone, anyone, would just make an alternative way to experience the whole thing. Just a site that compiles a chronological list and summary of events and techs and lore and shit to share the experience of all of the game even if someone refuses to play old dry and broken games.

>>713995003
what do i care for your plebian suffering?

>>713995003
>the experience of all of the game
>without experiencing the game
/v/

>>713994543
>>713994765
If I remember right, there's a Lal quote that portrays Morgan colonies as having really glitzy areas with lots of gambling and shit going on.
I imagine that Morgan colonies have probably the best "middle class" experience, but with zero safety net if you can't make it.

>>713995003
There was a site like that iirc, but the guy gushes over it a bit much. Forget what it was called though.

>>713995003
https://paeantosmac.wordpress.com/
This blog is basically that.

>>713995298
Drones get nerve stapled, and if you're a really bad drone, you get the Punishment Sphere.

>>713994765
Honestly that's fucking fine, as long as the crap he steals my money entertains me from my misery.

>>713995440
But thats true for almost everyone, unless you're in a Deirdre colony, then you just get fed to worms. Even the university portrays drone life as kinda shit. If you're not smart enough to hack it as a researcher you're second class. At least with Morgan there's a chance at upward mobility.
I suppose Lal's colonies are probably also pretty calm with not a lot going on, so you're probably fine there too.

>>713995329
https://paeantosmac.wordpress.com/2015/02/17/introduction/
it's probably too wordy for that retard though

>>713995298
That's fine as long as Morgantendo comes out with regular Morgan Kart games and Super Morgan Bros.

>>713995685
Lal once again proven the most boring of the lot, can he ever catch a break?

>>713995735
Yeah that's the one, it's a long fucking read, but it's not half bad as an exploration of the game's mechanics and narrative. You're probably gonna see a lot of the same stuff in it as has already been said in this thread though.

>>713995810
Thats the entire point of Lal.
He's the boring UN faction. Written entirely as a sort of "yeah they're probably right from a certain perspective, but they'll never achieve anything notable" statement about democratic bureaucracy. If the goal for your society is to just stumble on the same way it has in forever in an infinite stagnation, then Lal is your guy.

>>713995810
He is also the only one outside of Deidre that acknowledges Planet before it becomes the cool thing, and believes environmental protection is a key to not getting psych raped by mind worms.
He is everything, but also nothing at the same time.

https://vocaroo.com/1euTsu9uIZ5b
He's our guy

>>713994765
So you get paid but then it goes back to him? I don’t get it

>>713996142
>believes environmental protection is a key to not getting psych raped by mind worms.
Pretty sure thats more because Lal is the backward looking faction that remembers how they fucked up Earth and doesn't want a repeat of that.
Lal is pretty interesting, because he's the definition of conservatism. Looking back on the past and trying to find answers there, rather than every other faction's different brands of radicalism. So he sometimes gets the correct result from looking at history. But he's never going to be an innovator or be particularly adept at responding to unique challenges.

>>713996550
You get paid, but he also sells a whole bunch of shit you need, so you buy it from him with the money you earned. The energy loops.

>>713996674
As long as the food tastes alright and the vidya is decent, I don't give a fuck.

>>713996550
Morgan owns everything.
So he pays you, but then you have to go buy food at MorganCorp Grocers and you rent your apartment from MorganBlock and you get your Datalink subscription from MorganTainment.

>>713991131
>laughs in US government funding Palantir

>>713996773
Could be worse honestly. Morgan probably would take it as a personal offense if the service is shitty.

>>713988056
Yep.

>>713996960
>openly bribes other factions
>it works
He can't keep getting away with it!

Me buying a Morganstation 5 seeing live feed of the green line going up a tiny bit as my purchase goes through

>>713996674
>>713996773
I guess that’s not too much different from working at Walmart or something.. I wonder if that setup could be viable tho kinda interesting but I’m sure it’s hell. Ive briefly played this game but mostly for the cool lines.

>>713997507
Peak
>energy credits in your account from your investment

>>713997507
>BREATHE IT AT HIM NOT ME

>>713981085
most people don't actually hold bigoted views on black people even here it just that shitlibery has made any view of black people that isn't entirely positive as some sort of kkk stance when in reality most people dislike blacks for perfectly valid reasons

>>713972341 (OP)
never played this game but i doesnt look like we'll ever get writing like this again
where its witty and "smart" in a fun way and doesnt pull any punches
fucking hate modern writers

Why haven't they released a remaster or sold the rights to this game?

>>713997841
Brian Reynolds was a philosophy major with an interest in history. So no, we're never getting anything written like this again, you can't go through college without being brainwashed, or at least coming out with an incredibly skewed view on these matters. Intellectual integrity is long dead in higher education.

>>713998064
Beyond Earth was meant to be the remake, but that didn't go well.

>>713990168
Where?

>>713997615
IRL there's company scrip, an old salary system where a company paid you in monopoly money that only that company's business would accept. Very popular in for example mining towns where the company that owned the mine, which employed maybe half the town, also owned everything else and could also decide the prices. I guess this works under Morgan because credits are a global currency (theoretically you could get over to another faction and spend your money there, but honestly why would you), and he has enough common sense to know that even a monopoly can be toppled if it stops giving a shit about quality.

>>713998687
The Alpha Centauri Civ4 mod is kind of ass.

>>713998990
>he has enough common sense to know that even a monopoly can be toppled if it stops giving a shit about quality
There would be plenty of practical example from Earth as well.

...

>>713996497
lmao

>>713999172
Top Lal

>>713999172
I can scarcely remember a single line. I think there was something about him bemoaning his dead gf and wanting to clone her?

>>713998687
Try Zephon

>>713999331
AS THE AMERICANS LEARNED

>>713999291

>>713999331
>Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.

>>713999401
Oh yeah, I forgot that one was attributed to him

>>713999331
I actually like most of Lal's lines, there is value in the fact that he's the straight man in a cast of insane whackjobs, it's a necessary sacrifice
For some reason the one I think about the most is
>Once a man has changed the relationship between himself and his environment, he cannot return to the blissful ignorance he left. Motion, of necessity, involves a change in perspective.
But his lines about transcendence, MMI, scientific theory and the Rec Commons are all great too

>>713995735
>all that stuff on technology and the secret projects
I know what I'm reading tomorrow

>>713973543
Alpha Centauri is peak fiction/setting/writing/atmosphere, but Civ4 is peak Civilization gameplay. Every Civ game after Civ4 is a downgrade

Does the game ever showcases rhe bad sidr of capitalism eirh Morgan? Seems like everything is going well because he has enough of a sense not to cuck people for short-term gain since he intends to live forever.
Irl capitalism only sucks bc you have a bunch of big blood cabal families siphoning wealth upwards, and that doesnt really change under communism or w/e.

>>713999430
Greetings. My name is Jebuiz y’Har. If my calculations are correct, you should be receiving this transmission in the year 1990 AD.

>>713999172
He looks like he harasses people on morgan net

>>713999942
He goes over every fucking building in the game too

>>714000114
>"Some civilian workers got in among the research patients today and became so hysterical I felt compelled to have them nerve stapled. The consequence, of course, will be another public relations nightmare, but I was severely shaken by the extent of their revulsion towards a project so vital to our survival."
– CEO Nwabudike Morgan, "The Personal Diaries"

>>714000114
I guess at some point, you run out of resources to consume and certain people will have to eat bugs.

>>714000189
if only Deirdre would show bobs and vagene

>>714000114
>he has enough of a sense not to cuck people for short-term gain
His most famous line is
>Resources exist to be consumed. And consumed they will be, if not by this generation then by some future. By what right does this forgotten future seek to deny us our birthright? None I say! Let us take what is ours, chew and eat our fill.
What makes Morgan fun is that he's really just working on extending the timeframe of "short term gains"
But aside from that, people have already posted the quote about the research labs that perform nightmarish experiments for profit, and the Richard Baxton quote
The man doesn't care much about anything other than stonks, even at the expense of the truth and human lives (and those psychotic "child" AIs that come from Morgan Polysoft)

>>714000397
>reach the point of near post scarcity with the ability to travel faster than light alongside weaponizing black holes
>still forcing your populace to eat zhe bugz
Pathetic with the sheer amount of upward potential that every faction has once they invest in orbital mining and supply crawlers. Only a brainless incompetent should be sniffing around in the dirt for a snack like a savage when effective immortality is at your fingertips.

>>714000114
Capitalism naturally leads to consolidation of wealth and power. It's unethical at its core.

>>714000736
In his defense, the ethics of greed seems to conclude that resources need to be consumed in order to advance, and considering he's amongst the first of the factions to set up space industry, he's doing pretty good at that. If he were as short sighted as similar people in our own time, he'd deem space a waste of resources to try to tap.

>>714000450
Didn't you hear? She dances naked with her crazy pagan cultists in the Gaian communal gardens to worship the giant death worms.
Someone must have taken a video of it already, and posted it on some dark network node.

>>713999172
I remember thread with picrelated was nuked because
>/pol/ not video games
How can modern games even compete?

>>714001191
Dig that crazy Gaian witch!

What does this secret project supposeed to imply? Black Hole is le hell or what?

>>714001809
Forgot the video
https://youtu.be/vB46XpnwhrA?si=uFuTIKK5e6vUb8LN

>>713980398
They should have ripped off S.M. Stirling for ideas on fleshing out the Spartans. He's really good at writing right-wing villain factions with actual depth and fully realized philosophies guiding their societies. He even has one that is both atheist and pro-LGBT while still being nutty right wingers.

>>713981559
>Mind worms attack by assaulting your brain with horrors and then implanting their eggs into your stunned (but not dead) body.

>>714001001
Show me an ethical economic model

>>714001809
There's a theory that our universe exists inside the singularity of a black hole. So Zhakarov is creating inumerable universes with the potential for life for batteries, the implication here is the open question of whether or not our universe was made for the same reason by some uncaring alien deity for an arbitrarily trivial purpose.

>>714001989
Could be worse, at least he's not Eric Flint, I fucking hate Eric Flint.

>>714001809
It's a physics concept so hostile and alien to life as we understand it that you probably just shouldn't give it much thought unless you're one of those "indecent" people who want to understand it anyway
You could dress it up but that's really all there is to it

>>714002151
Spartans were also a common victim of Mind Worms thanks to Deidre's 'secret' war on them. Spartans also place their children close to the front in Creches to make their conscripted parents fight harder. The Spartans are also known to have canonically lost.

>"As we approached we were confronted by the ruined splendor of Sparta Command. The true immensity of the place became instantly apparent as our Quantum Tank crunched over the rubble and parked next to a shattered bunker, but the extent of the destruction took weeks to assess. The shielded datacore had sustained several massive breaches and smoke still billowed from the numerous cannon ports. There were few signs of human life. "

>>714002471
Also to add to that, Eric Flint doesn't like understand why anyone might not like another group of people, it's because they're ignorant rednecks and he ass no extra thought to it.

>>714002278
How do you get that from a short video that shows essentially nothing?

>>714002676
Towards the end of the video, the shapes start to look like screaming faces

The "decent" bit is just an in-joke, because the only way to study such a thing would be to create a "naked singularity"

>>714002729
>Towards the end of the video, the shapes start to look like screaming faces

>>714002948
Why did you post a picture of OP sucking cock?

>>714001032
It's not only that. It's that an unconsumed resource isn't a resource at all. It's a megaelixir that's sitting in your party inventory after you beat the final boss. If you're not going to use it, it might as well have never existed.

"But future generations might need it!" Well, you're someone's future generation. Maybe it was meant for you after all.

>>713998126
It was already dead long before Reynolds even applied, but they still believed in keeping up appearances back then. You can basically carbon date people with this stuff. A well-read and generally competent execution burdened with silly multicult liberal trappings puts him finishing university sometime in the 80's or 90's.

>>713995796
I think Morgan Chief is a pretty cool guy

>>714003426
Gears of Morgan is better

Damn now I have to get food and play this for a couple hours,

>>713973707
They could have taken inspiration from the actual historical Spartans and give them bonuses to their talents offset by maluses to their normal citizens. Throw in some quotes about how the normies have to suffer through endless drudge so the talented have enough free time to fulfill their potential. That wouldn't really fit with Santiago's bluer collar sympathies though.

>>713987397
>So who's going to issue currency, genius?
The game has an answer to that. You might notice that none of the factions owns the common currency.

>>714003385
>A 1990 graduate of the University of the South, Reynolds briefly pursued graduate studies in philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley.

>>713987487
>Since the entire game is a work of fiction, no such thing applies. If the authors say transcendence was the best possible outcome for humanity, then that's what it is, and if you don't like it, you're free to write your own game/book where the outcome will be different.
Fiction is useless for understanding the real world and human condition except insofar as it prompts us to reflect on our own experiences or, in science fiction specifically, consider possible futures. If you think the author presents an unrealistic scenario or reaches the wrong conclusions from their own premises, then it's entirely legitimate so say so as a form of criticism. Indeed, I think such such criticism is among the best ways to engage with a story.
The "canon" of a fictitious world only really matters when multiple authors are collaborating in a shared universe and need to agree on things to achieve consistency. This is especially true in a video game that intentionally gives the player choice as to how the story plays out.

>>713985904
Capitalism is a system of investment, wherein you invest capital into projects and then gain more capital to invest further. Bartering is not strictly the same thing

>>714005123
>an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit.
This includes bartering under 'trade'

>>714004797
I feel like as long as the jumps in logic aren’t just plain crazy then anything is possible, really. Except if we’re talking about hard science.

>>714001989
I only read some of his dies the fire series, whats the good shit with him

>>713972341 (OP)
Based quote, I have stuff to do for at least the next 500 years as well

>>714006272
The Draka series. The writing is a little rough because it's some of his earliest work, but it has his best ideas.

>>714006272
His new series is pretty good about like a bunch of college students and an army guy being sent back to Imperial Rome while like Hadrian or one of the decent emperors is in charge.

>>714006936
>>714006952
Danke

>>714002225
plantation based agriculture

>>713991125
You legitimately don't understand how the fungus works but that's ok.

>>714002225
Georgism
Whatever model the rerum novarum predicts
Clan based primitivism

>>714007683
>the psychic fungus is totally a match for orbital weaponry and singularity-powered floating terraforming platforms with tailored fungicide controlled by sentient AI
please enlighten me, nigger

>Shitposts on Morgannet.
>Laughs at Hive CCTV gore videos.
>Turns Sacharov's LLM server into a planetcoin miner.

>>714009479
>DLC

>>714009479
>Turning the entire Planet into a bitcoin farm
Devilish

>>713999172
>the last bastion of old-world style democracy and conservatism is a pajeet larping after the most ineffective global institute in history, UN

I respect Lal for trying to remain the straight man among all the schizophrenic radicals that are more likely to blow each other up than achieve Trascendence, but he will never succeed as long as he only uses the past for answers and never bothers to even peek into the future.

>>714009664
When the economy swings, you can see from space that the planetary fungus rearranges itself into a screaming pink face

>>714011258
Piece crimes

>>714011258
Can you cause nuclear winter?

>>714005213
Yes but barter existed before capitalism and independent of it. You're equating the means by which a capitalist economy works with the thing itself. A building may be measured in metres but you wouldn't say it is made of metres.

>>713983846
this game needed more roleplaying like alpha centari and to be darker

>>713996550
You get paid, but he owns everything you need, so your paycheck goes back into his pockets. It's like working at a store and making purchases after work there

>>714011781
You can cause the sea level to rise and melt the polar ice caps.

>>714011258
Why the fuck are there so few games that let you make lakes with nuclear weapons
It's fucking bullshit and I've been waiting TWENTY SIX YEARS

>>714013492
That takes a lot of effort and most devs are 500 Indians and like 10 white people who actually work.

>>714013492
Lost technologies. The same reason why modern sim devs can't make Falcon 4 tier dynamic campaigns.

What's the best way to play this these days? GOG version?

>>714014019
GOG is always the way to play old games. 99% of time steam releases are fucked and abandoned.

>>714001220
That last sentence of his is more relevant today than ever.

>>714013298
That is not nuclear winter

>>714006815
>I have accomplished much in my five hundred years of life. My vidya backlog is now down to merely 357 titles.

>>713988561
>>713988636
>>713988929
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXRYuQsg4Gw

Does this Alpha Centauri have a modding scene or a team of fans working to port the game to an engine that can handle more factions, larger maps custom mods, etc like some other older games

>>713985542
You need that xenophobia in your veins to enjoy it.

>>714016605
Do you not understand that a faction made by modders would not live up to the original quality

>>714019191
I assume anon means more factions on the map, since the game limits you to 7 and it comes with a faction maker exe by default

>>713991220
She's a parody for half the game but becomes more reasonable in hindsight when Planet society jumps off the deep end and start making judge/jury/executioner AIs, Onions Green tanks, brain-in-a-jar "immortality", grey goo to turn bodies to bullets...

Absolutely maddening we'll never get anything with this much sincerity and effort ever again.

Curious if anyone knows how well the opensource glsmac project works. I don't want to start a new game only to have to abandon it halfway due to it being incomplete.

The issues page looks clean.

>>713984654
China, sell glued together meat to people so you can buy plastic rice to eat.

>>714020075
If Disco Elysium can come out in today's climate, then games with effort and sincerity are completely possible. But the internet has become too politicised for the new generation to make something on par with SMAC in terms of ideology exploration.

>>714001809
>>714001915
Contrary to popular belief, general relativity implies that the event horizon is not actually lethal itself. It's just that for a small black hole you get torn apart by tidal forces before you get to the horizon, whereas for a large black hole it only happens later (when you get close to the singularity itself).
But is that really true? The point of an event horizon is that there's no way at all to get information back out. The only way to really confirm what is behind it would be to physically go inside and sacrifice your life for an experiment that nobody else will know the result of.

So maybe there really are demons lurking beyond the horizon. We will never be able to check.

>>714020179
There's a roadmap: https://github.com/afwbkbc/glsmac
Looks like you can't play even one turn yet

Sky farms are fantastically beautiful, with their kilometer long networks of glass framed in grids of metal, and the sunlight shining through jungles of vegetation inside. When one of them catches the light, you can see the refracted beauty for miles; they are life-giving stars on a desolate planet … gardens on the wing."
– Lady Deidre Skye, "Planet Dreams"

>>714021875
>https://github.com/afwbkbc/glsmac
Goddamnit.

>>713973158
>gets illness noone can heal
now what

>>714022386
Rules for thee not for me

>>714022386

>>713991101
Yep, and how they got increasingly more horrific as the game went on. The gray goo one is cool as fuck too

>>713982482
Why are so many games I play as of recent despite not being made by Chinese keep pulling the confucianism vs legalism vs Daoism card on me

My favourite part of Morgan Centauri was when CEO Morgan said "it's Morgan time" and Morg'd all over everyone

>>713991025

>>713998232
The civilopedia of beyond earth is pretty cool at least, and there's some interesting stuff it in, but it has so much less personality still

>>713998232
I should probably pirate it and give it a try some day

>>714012376
Define capitalism

>>714014019
GOG has any patches you need preinstalled and some games they have community patches with ways to enable/disable them. Steam usually has none of the patches released afterwards for older releases since it's a dump of the disc.

>>714022386
Ironically, that guy sounds more like a Christian.

>And when at last it is time for the transition from shitpost to site mascot, from Chimera to Queen, it is then that the true genius of our strategy shall become apparent, for waifus are the lifeblood of this society and when the chips are down he who controls the waifu supply controls 4chan. In former times the monster women monopoly was called "The Descarte Special"; we intend to give this name an entirely new meaning.
CEO Nwabudike Morgan, "The Imageboard Monopoly"

>>714024725
I literally did you clown. But sure.

>Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their use for the purpose of obtaining profit.[a] This socioeconomic system has developed historically through several stages and is defined by a number of basic constituent elements: private property, profit motive, capital accumulation, competitive markets, commodification, wage labor, and an emphasis on innovation and economic growth.[b] Capitalist economies tend to experience a business cycle of economic growth followed by recessions.

>>714025701
but what is morg's tax policy?

>>714026161
>>Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their use for the purpose of obtaining profit
Barter did not exist before this concept.
>private property, profit motive, capital accumulation, competitive markets, commodification, wage labor, and an emphasis on innovation and economic growth
Nor any of these. Nobody was trading cabbages for charcoal with the idea that they were doing it to lose out on relative value.

>>714026315
One sick skateboard flip per costco chicken bake consumed

>>713991131
>>Meanwhile America has the most open internet
LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

But why would I dissent

>>713991131
The Internet is open inasmuch as a Venus flytrap is open. It's a fucking military project, you naive fool, all nations with capability to exert network control do so, ESPECIALLY the US. Part of the reason why the Internet went global is precisely to ensnare everyone in it.

>>714028009
it's that or get in the nerve-staple booth

>>714026408
>Nobody was trading cabbages for charcoal with the idea that they were doing it to lose out on relative value.
Presumptuous.

>>714028009
To prevent man-made horrors beyond your comprehension (you won't succeed).

>>714020075
>with this much sincerity
*not-quite-transparent pro-Deidre GAIA messaging

>>713990208
>>is the primary reason why the Unity crashes because she chimped out and killed the captain
Santiago didn't kill him! It was the

>>713972341 (OP)
Human behaviour is economic behaviour

Any Morganites tried the new Call of Morgan, I heard it's pretty good.

>>714029798
Why play CoM when Morganfront exists?

>>713972341 (OP)
His backflip was impressive.

>>713972341 (OP)
>>713973158
Yang was pretty hardcore in manual too.

QRD on SMAC novels?

>>714029904
Morganfront is too try hard for me.

>>713981406
>>violence is an inherent part of life, something all society must participate in simply to avoid nature's chaos reclaiming them
Bizarre conclusion to make. Reclaiming presupposes you ever escaped chaos, when you routinely generate it all along.
Chaos is chaos, it's complex, and bad only when it is.
'Nature's chaos' has no relevance here per se as one isn't actually under attack by nature.
When most basic needs are covered, and even when they are not and one is in poor state, one can just sit and do some stargazing. One doesn't need violence to do so.

The Morgans 4 is vastly inferior to the Morgan's 3. The Morgans 4 took away the open world, your Morgan's used to be able to like walk around town and meet other Morgans.

>>714030429
I can't believe people think it's OK to post absolute dogshit opinions like this over the MorganNET, Morgan's 4 is so much better it's not a competition

>>714029798
>>714029904
>>714030035
Play Morgan Effect 3. It's good!

>>714027623
What independently wealthy country is more open? By that I mean countries that aren’t 100% reliant on superpowers to even have internet, lack the infrastructure to police it to such an extreme degree that they don’t bother, and benefit economically from being a place for users from other countries to break rules.

>>713985762
It can, easily.
Core notion of capitalism is power acquisition. Market is not a necessity, or a requirement. It's a tactic.
Anarchy and capitalism work just fine.

>>714030675
HEY EVERYONE WE HAVE MORGAN ARTS SHILL

>>713988858
He's a lot more complex than "mock god", nor does he prostrate in terror, nor is terror bad.
He simply recognizes the immediate threat and so forces communication on it. Concurrently one can posit that transcendence ending is possible primarily to him, and that the silly Earth-Deidre owes him.
On that note, his outlook on theology aren't actually challenged by the Planet's emergent sentience.

>>714030761
Morgan Effect 1 is my favorite, Morgan Effect 2 was kind of a disappointment.

>>713991220
>She is violent
How and why is that bad?
>militaristic
Ditto.
>bigoted
Ditto.
>anti-science
She's explicitly not. She's against carelessness and poking the nose into the machine or transgressing, in particular by sinful means.
Tthe faction as a whole gets a limit from that, rather than any luddite or primitivism stances. As a high level manipulator, actual political leader and her presumably being passably versed in history she simply can't not know about historical Christian scientists.
>thinks God is talking to her, etc.
And if He does?
>She is a parody of the most hardcore fundamentalist because the devs were edgy atheists.
SMAC isn't atheistic story, it's gnostic-ish Gaia Theory like.
Miriam's warnings, regardless of Christian backdrop, ring true in all cases.
And when transcendence ending happens, human or alien, SMAC turns into a cosmic horror story.

For me? Gotta be Morg's Epic Costco Bakery Simulator 9000

>>714030354
>Reclaiming presupposes you ever escaped chaos, when you routinely generate it all along.
There's a stark contrast between
>I need to fight this cave bear to the death or it will slaughter half my tribe
>I need to take these lands from my neighbor because my own have been ravaged my natural disaster
and
>i need to wrestle this petty thief to the ground for general social order and using a taser would make me kind of a pussy
>'Nature's chaos' has no relevance here per se as one isn't actually under attack by nature.
You've lived a very privileged life to say this
>one can just sit and do some stargazing
And that person plans on freezing to death in the winter then

>>714032176
Oh that one's my favorite. Cooking Morga is great, really teaches valuable life skills

Philosophy, religion, all this shit makes my brain hurt and upsets me because it seems like people behaving in bizarre ways they don't need to because they cannot accept being irrational and illogical, or they need some ironclad justification for everything, even their own existence. Enjoy life, don't be an asshole, try to leave the world a bit better than it was when you came into it, I can't fathom behaving otherwise. I'll never understand intellectuals.

It's a shame Team Morgan will never make another game as good As Morgan Hill 1, it was my favorite game on the Morgan Station

>>714032203
>There's a stark contrast between
There is, yet there isn't. These all in the end are problems. You simply chose to put them into boxes with varying priority levels, by degree of drama, and as a result have gimped your own capability to treat all issues equally cool.
>You've lived a very privileged life to say this
Perhaps. However your presumed statement is fallacious. The notion you proclaim presumes a certain "inept just right" sort of character that, in order to reach more optimal conclusions in regards to the environment, must be away from any danger. Humans don't work this way, and for a hundred persons that can't operate in chaos, 10 thrive in it, and for 1 it's just tuesday.
>And that person plans on freezing to death in the winter then
If one wills to do so, sure. Or they have a solution in progress, or a foregone solution. Or anything really. Not all people are the same, Anon-kun.

>>714033197
NTA but can you talk like a human being instead of an insufferable cunt?

>>714033197
>These all in the end are problems
No, one is an immediate problem that will kill you and everyone you love if you do not struggle against it and continue to struggle such that it never takes root the other is a minor crack in the public trust
>Humans don't work this way, and for a hundred persons that can't operate in chaos, 10 thrive in it, and for 1 it's just tuesday.
No shit nigger but the hundred that can't are necessary to feed and clothe the ten that can. If the barbarian doesn't starve to death then he ends up jerking off in the woods in a shitty hut for all his life instead of living in a nice manor and warm bed.
>If one wills to do so, sure. Or they have a solution in progress, or a foregone solution. Or anything really
No, either they go into the woods to chop firewood to make charcoal and brave the dangers thereof or they fucking die inside of six months. There is no
>oh but there's other methods
Either you conquer your cut of the woods to build a house or you, or your kids, get blown the fuck away by the next storm.

>>713981559
>pre-game novella: Santiago/Yang are the main villains
>in-game lore: Deidre comes across as the evilest fucker
>actual game: holy shit Miriam not again I hate this ginger cunt so much

>>714032318
>Philosophy, religion, all this shit makes my brain hurt and upsets me
Does it upset you because you interpret their actions as a sin, or because you can't gauge them?
>because it seems like people behaving in bizarre ways they don't need to because they cannot accept being irrational and illogical
This is a questionable conclusion. They act rational already. Humans are actually rational species.
>or they need some ironclad justification for everything, even their own existence.
It is wise to pursue such things, for many reasons, including survival.
>Enjoy life
This is a questionable suggestion.
>don't be an asshole
This is a naive and impotent imploration, or perhaps even arrogantly dismissive. Sentients aren't of one mind.
>try to leave the world a bit better than it was when you came into it
Better how? What is better? To whom? Instant inquiry starter.
>I can't fathom behaving otherwise. I'll never understand intellectuals.
As a sin, then.

>SMAC thread about to devolve into religious shitflinging
Kill yourselves faggots

Bros why is Fem-Morgan so fucking sexy in Morgan Effect

>>714033743
I'm not reading all that, talk like a person instead of a robot

Considering the story similarities between the series, any hopes for the Expanse game?

What's going to be Morgan response when the new generation grows up and kills him because they have nothing?

>>714033563
>No, one is an immediate problem that will kill you
>the other is a minor crack in the public trust
No. These are poorly thought out issues in poorly thought out way. Neither this particular bear that you were dumb to run into, nor this non-descipt mass of neighbors of indeterminate character, power and resource capacity, in unknown location, time and total mise-en-scene exist in a vacuum.
Bear can be escaped from or killed expertly. Betrayal of public trust can kill you easily.
Or one can just slaughter all that public. Once again you don't understand that the difficulty of all these issues is primarily on agent itself.
The solution is on the means, but the perception is on the agent.
>No shit nigger but the hundred that can't are necessary to feed and clothe the ten that can.
Or they aren't. Or I have a better hundred. Or I have that 10 that can keep that 100 in line. Or they all mine. You see the issue? Neolithic revolution (it happened earlier than that, actually) had to happen first.
>If the barbarian doesn't starve to death then he ends up jerking off in the woods in a shitty hut for all his life instead of living in a nice manor and warm bed.
Barbarian must first appreciate fine manors, which someone must at all conceive first.
A steppe nomad portable hut is no worse for comfort, and nomad army is no worse for wear. Goals are irrelevant.
Perception, once again.
The point isn't that your petri dish of conveniently primitivized binary choice selections and equally convenient strawmen of smarts and imagination rounded down to your level mustn't take some or some other choices logical to your bias.
The point is that your petri dish is solely your limitation you subscribe to, and that any people you use as examples of anything are IRRELEVANT beyond threat assessment. They are not authority on anything. They're a bunch of physical agents.
Physical phenomena are the same. You chose to drool over threats. Others don't.

>>714032318
>people behaving in bizarre ways they don't need to
Do you think that the highest importance is to seek pleasure and avoid pain or do you think that everything has a kind of order to it and thus each person has a role in their system they should accept?

>>714034083
I don't speak IRC or ghetto, and if you don't want to read, you're not obligated to make pithy "I'm not reading" statements.
Ignoring posts saves time.

>>714034974
>Or they aren't.
Yes, they are.
>BUH WAT IF
Doesn't matter.
Stop pretending to be a retarded midwit, you're not making any interesting or entertaining discourse

>>714035008
I don't know if I'd call it highest, but yea.
>everything has a kind of order to it
Nah I'm not religious.
>>714035078
I'm not reading all that, talk like a person instead of a robot or keep begging for responses you fag

>>714035135
I talk to talk, not to be entertained.
Self-stroking fucks such as yourself are never entertaining. Only way to make it so is to destroy any rhetorics and arguments others can make piece by piece, but though I can see how, I nether can articulate it, nor am I sadistic enough to do so.
Nor are they interesting.
You need but to stop, "fullwit".
Your useless milquetoast contributions to noosphere are doubtlessly full of value to even deign plebs such as myself with increasingly dull responses.

>low IQ specimen walks in
>makes poorly informed statement
>gets blown out
>I'm not reading all that

>>714034730
Morganites are like locusts, Charon is tough, and space is big.
Morgan isn't without issues, but he isn't stupid.

>>714035520
>t. 92 IQ but pretends his BA in political science makes him a genius
"muh perception" isn't an argument because literally everyone has valued security and comfort throughout all history

>>714035594
>he didn't get his intellectual engagement dopamine
Cry about it.

>>713973543
The gamplay is more antiquated but the atmosphere and soul is better in Alpha Centauri.

>>713972341 (OP)
He's the Obama I wanted

>>713980356
No, I will never trust or listen to people with bad haircuts.

I tried getting into alpha centauri before because I liked the setting, but I bounced off of it because of the UI and general clunkyness compared to more modern 4x games. Is there any mod or fanpatch that improves the overall user friendliness of the game?

>>714035824
Who are all these everyone and why do you assume that not only were their perceptions of even comfort and security equal, but that they shared yours?
To make comfort one must invent, and to be secure one must be strong and smart.
People that act as cornerstones of civilizations, their most critical maintainers, pioneers and free agents are NOT bothered by chaos to the point that "reclamation" by it is at all an issue, you simply can't build a damn thing if you can't handle the pressure of these enterprises, therefore societies whose main bulk of population is mature enough to handle pressure without any abtract social cybernetics has an easier life because they don't give a fuck beyond necessary ones.
That's the original point.
Your "societies" is built around them, not the other way around.

>>713981424
As a kid I always thought Deirdre was a nudest and I was extremely disappointed to learn she was just wearing a low cut dress.

>>714036325
>Who are all these everyone
EVERYONE FOREVER
EVEN THE BIGGEST SAVAGE STILL WILL KILL YOU TO DEFEND WHAT HE THINK IS HIS
No i'm not bothering reading the rest of your post or any of your further posts when you're going to open like an absolute fucking twat. You're not being deeply philosophical you're being a stupid cunt not living in reality

>>714036428
Erm no anon you need to objectively ergonomically prove on a quantic level that people don't want to suffer or die or you are not being le logical

>>713989815
Green Markets are bull markets, he'd be all for exploiting environmentalism and clean living for profit.

>>713981085
If they are well written and their personalities and purpose are for much more than simply existing as a black person for the sake of diversity then yes.

>>714036428
Your reality is vastly deluded even on subject of criminal actions and forceful approaches to things if you think they are so unnuanced that entire human history is Grug Grug action in simplest ways possible in all possible instances, even in earliest human eras.
And it's not "defend", it's "take".

>>713980703
>MUA-BOO-D-KAY Morgan
Still cracks me up

>>713989081
Which event triggers this quote? I don't recall it belonging to a tech.

>>714036879
Temple of Planet

>>714036067
Clearly Yang is the best. He's just an old chinese innocent man. A bit stern, but he's nice. Just look at that smile.

>>713984654
Anarchy of any flavor is not a sustainable system anyways. Order and structure will eventually be restored by someone or some group because we are pack animals and having hierarchies is the default. Anarchy is a mere transitional phase.

>>714037171
Dude had Chinese bedhead, the fuck are you talking about?

>>714036250
lol no

>>714037171
Yang considers humans to be flesh automatons that exist to work.

>>714037421
He's just old. Surely you aren't so bad that you'd begrudge a grandpa something so silly?

>>714037679
Well, is he wrong? That's what you were doing since uni. He just states facts.

>>714036981
Thank (You)

>>714037739
He's old enough to know how to properly comb his hair but doesn't, his worlds are worth about as much as the comb he didn't use.

>>714037203
>>713984654
>conflating anarchy with anomie as usual
Anarchy means a lack of rulers, not a lack of rules, which would be the latter. An anarchist capitalist society would then by a society where private property rights would be respected and would have no ruling body. Disputes would be handled through arbitration by a mutually agreed upon third party, which would naturally arise through a building up reputation of fair and impartial judgements. These could be for example village elders or professional dispute resolution agencies.

>>714037679
He considers some humans flesh automatons
Brain separate from body
>What do I care for your suffering? Pain, even agony, is no more than information before the senses, data fed to the computer of the mind. The lesson is simple: you have received the information, now act on it. Take control of the input and you shall become master of the output.
Some people are born to be laborers and should think of nothing else, some are born to be bureaucrats and thinkers and that is their role in society. And, in his ideal world, the laborer doesn't even exist, the labor merely manifests itself so the higher orders of person can focus entirely on bettering the intellectual pursuits of mankind

>>714011258
why not normal atomics?

>Thread's still up
nice
TOTAL YANG DOMINATION

>>714040803
YANG GANG

>>713983846

>Beyond Earth

Its underrated.

The game itself has a lot of fun ideas and units and the late game works better than most other Civs.

But it doesn't have anywhere near as much personality as Alpha Centauri and the logical way of playing the game is to B line the victory conditions under the tech tree which kind of spoils the fun of unlocking a lot of the fun stuff.

If they remade Alpha Centauri with Beyond Earth's game play I'd be very happy.

PS: If you want to try it make sure to get the Rising Tide DLC, its a HUGE improvement.

thread is still going after having a quick sleep
Nice

>>714041464
>just posting the copypasta for this is enough to get you pinged these days
Lol
Lmao even

>>714041464

I'm realizing now that my love of bullet points is making my writing look like I'm an AI. It was never an issue before; but the modern world is going to force me to start writing proper paragraphs at least until the machines master that too.

>>714041901

You mean the Lal quote?

>>714042021
Yeah it hits too close to home for some people.

>>714033863
Peak retard here

>>713980356
>Sister Miriam was the last pure canonical human. At the end we can see that she was presented with a profound choice. She could have chosen to eat from the tree of life and, thus, join the others in true immortality. But it would not have been on her terms. In her eyes, it would have cost Miriam her very soul. So she opted instead for the final death, trusting in the promise of Heaven to the very last.
They just don't make em like they used to anymore.

Thanks v, I think I'll check this game out

>>713991131
Anyone have the screencap of that one ban, directly quoting the game?

>>713991131

Europe is going to shit much faster than the United States when it comes to free speech and surveillance; but the US isn't going in the right direction either. Fortunately the 1st amendment handcuffs the US government from doing a lot of the bullshit the Europeans are trying right now.

>>714038049
>lack of rulers, not a lack of rules
Meanwhile, back in reality, independent cooperative action becomes impossible in groups larger than a hundred or so, and power vacuums collapse almost immediately, either from external competition or internal opportunists.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Hill_Occupied_Protest

>>713973837
>this simple nursery rhyme is a stopgap mantra for conscripts when the advanced defense networks fail and your comrades are dropping like flies from the constant psi barrages
Brutal

>>714038049
Lack of rulers inherently leads to lack of rules. Why would anybody agree to some random 3rd party judgement when it could very well be cheaper, and more emotionally satisfying because human beings aren't perfect logic engines, to just shoot the other fuck.

>>714042021
It's outdated, US et al use many propaganda techniques. One doesn't need a despot when discourse is more than capable of self-sabotage.

>>714046207
What you describe is perfectly logical. Logic isn't synonymous with certain outcome.

>>714043624
>Fortunately the 1st amendment handcuffs the US government
The very fact they keep trying to find a way around that should be ringing alarm bells

>>714045084
CHAZ was hilarious, it had unironic armed warlords popping up towards the end

>>713973543
Writing wise? Definitely. Not like most people play 4x for the plot but AC has a fairly competent one. It surpasses ES2 and the only downside I can think of it is the faction rulers. They aren't exactly memorable but their quests sure as hell got me.

>>714046991
>Horatio vs Morgan
That would be a PPV worth the price of admission desu.

>>713973158
And this is how he's the guy who refers to his citizens as drones. Turns out when you think of all life as just a biological computer, you can do a lot of incredibly evil shit to them. It's all just parts after all...

>>713973158
He didn't last very long, I wonder which faction picked him up and stuck him in a Punishment Sphere. Bet he cares a great deal for his own suffering.

>>714046691
They don't need to try. All US laws are by design either self-circumventable, or dealt with by other means available to power circle in-group.
As US society as a whole has never reached actual appropriate psycho-spiritual states neccessary for both democracy and its maintenance virtuously or at least wisely, their total sum of sins and countless mistakes has created a self-subverting dog eat dog society. Any attempt to speak out shall be met with equal opposition of impotent fools or smarty pants of any stripe, who can make any ripples anywhere but never amount where it matters the most, the reddit of social structures.
Any blowouts that do happen create useless losses, which creates any amount of stress and strife on any scale, which can be spun to some use later.
Outward effect subjects like 2nd Amendment are stopped by a sum of domestication, social dumbing down, homegrown trouble makers like Ted manifesto guy, prison culture, controlled oppositions and overstimulation.

>>714042732
She was too based for this world.

>>713980967
Reminder that ascent to transcendence and the convergence events in dead space are the exact same things just presented in two different ways. Presentation is everything.

>>714047706
>Planet will reach a point where it turns into Hellstar Remina
>backed by the genetic memory and accumulated technology from an entire species of juiced up homo superiors

>>714047610
>and this entity never make planetfall upon another world
Grim

been a good thread, this

>>714038049
It all boils down to might makes right in your retarded ancap system anyways because everyone has to agree to listen to the rulings of for profit courtrooms for it to work and that won't happen.

>>714047253
I don't think he does, he seems to be completely removed from human emotion. He's like a supreme autist+psychopath.

>Why do you insist that the human genetic code is "sacred" or "taboo"?
>It is a chemical process and nothing more. For that matter -we- are chemical processes and nothing more.
>If you deny yourself a useful tool simply because it reminds you uncomfortably of your mortality, you have uselessly and pointlessly crippled yourself.
> -- Chairman Sheng-ji Yang, "Looking God in the Eye"
He was ahead of his time even in the future

>>714049678
Violence is the supreme authority from which all other authority is derived. This applies even in contemporary societies, the fact is that the ruling government has the monopoly on violence, it has the might, which makes it right. Anarcho-Capitalism proposes to democratize might.

>>714050304
He was correct in the end because every other faction except the Lord's Believers went all in on genetic engineering, cloning and cybernetics.

>>714047253
Lal is too much of a pussy to do it on his own and so is early diedre. My guess is a combo of drone riots and Spartan pressure funded by Morgan. The Spartan stoicism and Hive legalism are antithetical to each other and human wave tactics always sucks against combined arms and superior training

>>714050395
Since the Spartans eventually got crushed by the Gaians after they came up with the Dream Twister to counter the Neural Amplifier, I guess that means Yang died to mind worms once Spartan Command was overrun.

>>714050336
>Anarcho-Capitalism proposes to democratize might.
If you wish to know the consequnces of such, read Pseudo-Xenophon (Old Oligarch). Or at least it was that one.
Also no, violence is only authority if it is recognized as such. Yes, the specific definition of violence in current material universe has effect in practice all the time, but practical removal of your enemies does not equal acknowledgment in the eyes of your peers. Violence is a means first, making might into right is a skill all on its own.

>>714050378
Oh, of course. Everyone hates Yang for being immoral because he openly states the darker parts of themselves. All of them do those same terrible things, all of them commit horrors beyond human comprehension, Yang simply doesnt try to justify it as moral. He opened the door to discoveries that they all used because they were too practical to not. And he's hated because nobody wants to admit to the darker parts of human nature that can be in the crashed plane in the mountains and immediately know what evils are necessary to survive

>>714050336
Democratized briefly, anyway.
>NotMorgan pays the Independent Security Squad to go around and beat up all the other major power holders and kidnap their families
>declares himself the new government: anarchism is over
>profit (more than before)

>>714050395
>pussy
All SMAC leaders are bit fucked the head, even Lal.
Deirde is ruthless as fuck, it's practically implied that she went for psyops early on.

>>714050565
Oh absolutely, I don't believe any anarchic system works because human nature is fundamentally drawn to hierarchical systems, and those have historically proven to be the most stable in moderation. Though I don't agree with your interpretation that violence isn't authority, violence is always authority, no one is going to argue with you if you beat their head in with a rock. Contemporary societies just employ the threat of violence through policing action to keep order. To be clear, involuntary incarceration is a violent measure.

>>714045084
CHAZ wasn't real anarchy, chud. Real anarchy has never been tried.

>ctrl+f Nautilus Pirates
>0 matches
DisaPPOINTED!

>>714050646
>claims to be a greenfinger hippie
>more like a neo pagan and eco terrorist who regularly engages in war crimes and sacrifices her enemies to Planet in exchange for more gifts to eventually walk the path towards convergence
This haggis munching bitch is fucking horrifying. She would make the average antag today shit their pants once the escalation starts ramping up.

>>714050646
Not even normal psyops as we understand it, actual psi bullshit. The madwoman weaponised mind worms in nothing flat.

>>714050565
If you are supremely violent you can just kill the people who oppose you even further. Obviously this doesnt make a stable society but point is at some point in the history of all powers they only got or kept their seat because they or their supporters were a big enough physical threat. Being an actual leader of course means acknowledging that one person is never actually all-powerful, that you are always reliant on the power of subordinates whom you must convince that you're the right man for the job or be ousted but that's karma.
It's better to be loved than feared but better to be feared than not respected at all.

"Richard Baxton piloted his Recon Rover into a fungal vortex and held off four waves of mind worms, saving an entire colony. We immediately purchased his identity manifests and repackaged him into the Recon Rover Rick character with a multi-tiered media campaign: televids, touchbooks, holos, psi-tours— the works. People need heroes. They don't need to know how he died clawing his eyes out, screaming for mercy. The real story would just hurt sales, and dampen the spirits of our customers."
– Morgan Stellartots Keynote Speech, "Mythology for Profit"

>>714050839
Gotta love it, she's a legit evil woman, chaotic evil in disguise.

>>714051247
Not a caricature of evil either, she's competent and intelligent, which makes it so much worse.