WIP

This and Campaign need to be merged.

See also: Story

Background

Note: Zero K is an interim name

Zero K takes place in a desolate, war-torn universe. The only known sapient beings in this universe are a race of robots, once created by man, worshipping him as a semi-mythical creator. All other intelligent forms of life, biological or inorganic, have been exterminated or simply disappeared from view – including humanity itself. The remaining robots, meanwhile, have split into several factions, based on their differing ideologies, particularly with regard to their legacy inherited from mankind.

Amidst a galaxy already shattered by millennia of warfare between the organic races and the machines, the opposing robot factions have already fought several wars and are teetering on the brink of the largest one yet. Violent disputes and open warfare are breaking out throughout the galaxies over what can be best described as a religious conflict. A war of the magnitude projected threatens to drive even the robots themselves extinct and leave an inhospitable universe devoid of life.

Plot Factions

Note: Factions are for plot purposes only; all story factions have access to the same units

• Breaking up all the primary factions into their constituent subfactions. Partial writeup here - KR

Concordian Pact
The Concordian Pact is a large, powerful faction that seeks to reunify robotkind, arguing that the fragmented state of affairs with divided robot factions is leading to destructive conflict. The Pact uses a combination of diplomacy, tricks and (mostly) direct force in order to strong-arm the other factions into its fold. It is disliked by the other factions, who fear its hegemony and expansionism. The Cult of Bacchus in particular detests the "law and order" emphasis of the Concordians and their rigid social structure.

Unitas Protos Machina
The Ordo Protos Machina is a machine supremacist faction opposed to organic sapients. Big believers in the superiority of inorganic beings, they are suspected to have genocided sentient organics on the verge of sapience. The UPM rejects the human-worship practiced by most other factions, instead viewing humans as an inferior precursor to the machine; and they have been extremely militant in spreading their ideology.

Gaia's Legacy
The Legacy dedicated to preserving and promoting the reproliferation of life throughout the universe. Members view themselves as caretakers, inheriting the stewardship of the universe from Man, and aim to ensure the well-being of all forms of known life, machine or organic. Most Gaians generally non-belligerent, but can become extremely hostile when they feel planetary ecosystems or innocent sentients are being harmed. Some, however, are more radical and have openly attacked other factions they deem to be invaders, particularly the Concordian Pact.

Nirvana
The Nirvanites seek a tranquil state of mind, free of material desires - transcendence, as it were. They are generally very pacifistic and reclusive, rarely getting involved in the affairs of the other factions, although they will use force if threatened. Nirvanites are mistrustful of the more "materialistic" factions such as the Concordians and the Illumined Path.

Cult of Bacchus
The Bacchites are a radical faction which are best known for extreme libertarianism and desire for individual freedom (decried as "irresponsible hedonism" by their opponents). The faction is divided primarily between pacifist quasi-reactionaries and violent anti-authority reactionaries. Cult units have been known to engage in raids on the assets of the other factions.

Illumined Path
Made up primarily of exiles from the other factions, the Illumined Path seeks to escape the rigid dogmatism of the traditional factions and instead adopt a more reasoned, philosophical lifestyle. The Illuminas are focused on the acquisition and preservation of knowledge, especially scientific knowledge. The Path does not practice human worship - its members respect mankind and seek to learn its history, but acknowledge that man is not an infalliable god and that his robot descendants must be capable of independent thought above all else.

Independents
The Universe can be a lawless place, and although the main factions are constantly trying to expand their influence and power, many outlying or low-value systems lack a central authority. Those not under the influence of the more freelance factions such as the Cult of Bacchus or the Illumined Path tend to form neutral enclaves, usually small planet-states attempting to avoid the bigger conflicts between the main powers.

Chickens
The chickens were originally a biological warfare project by a small faction of aliens opposed to humankind. Due to this faction's abhorrence of war machines (fueled in part by their use by the human enemies), they rejected the use of technological intelligences and instead created a genetically engineered species of animals for war. The humans discovered the project and destroyed it, but some chickens escaped into the wild. Already sufficiently advanced to survive and spread between stellar systems, the chickens continued to grow and evolve. While not quite sapient, the chickens are a semi-intelligent hive mind poised on becoming the dominant species in the universe.

Campaign Plot

Portion of script coming soon?

Ideas and questions

• Plot idea: the robots search for a doomsday weapon originally built by aliens to defeat the ever-expanding humans, hoping to use it on the opposing robots (see the old story writeup on KingRaptor for an idea of what I mean). Along the way, they explore their true origins, what happened to organic sapients, etc.
• How does the human civilization end? Civil war, perhaps similar to what the robots are facing now?
• Campaign design should probably resemble a spiderweb, with each radial strand representing a section of the plot. Players progress along a strand by completing its missions, and can move laterally between strands to play different subplots. When the web is complete, the game reaches its ending.
  • Simpler design: campaign that is linear but not rigidly sequential. Something like Mass Effect, where you can choose the order of important planets to visit and sidequests to do. Or like GTA games.
• Quest rewards? Only one I can think of is unlocking new units or factories. Maybe abilities like morph or sprint or jump, but not that many units have such special abilities.
  • Story rationale for quest rewards: The player commander has been hibernating for a long time, and only has access to old unit designs. The AI adviser has supplied him with a few new ones, but he needs to get more blueprints and such from the other robots in the universe.
• Another plot idea, by Pxtl: Make it smaller, embrace the Heat Death of the Universe concept. Various unrelated robots arrive at the last active star-system in the galaxy and want it for themselves. An entirely dead universe, with one last pocket of energy ripe for the taking in the whole starless sky. Instead of the map being planetoids, the map is multiple on-surface locations on individual planetoids (eg. 3 maps on the Crystal planet) and little systems of moons and asteroids. Develop a single geography for the Zero-K star system, with names and places. Chickens are the locals.
• Pxtl's Campaign is simply killing the other robots and stealing their technology, in the form of factories. Structure the campaign in tiers - tier 1 is linear tutorial introducing the game, which unlocks your first factory (a bot lab). Tier 2 lets you start choosing which factories to attack - hovers, gunships, 2 land-labs, and the larger buildings (1 mission where enemy is a megabase with no mobiles that you have to destroy before it completes Supeweapon), in whatever order you like. Tier 3 is a Chicken Defense mission that functions as the End Boss of tier 2. Tier 4 is larger than tier 2, and you the rest of the labs, again in whatever order you like - navy, planes, and the remaining land-labs. Tier 5 is the big putting-it-all-together final battles. Note that it doesn't have to be fighting 1 lab per-mission, you can get labs in pairs. Basically, like Megaman - every mission ends with "You Got XXX" telling you about the new units you earned.
• maackey: In addition to earning factories through "tutorial missions" that would help players learn the specifics of each factory, there could be optional side quests in the missions that allow for better upgrades for the modular commander.
• Campaign-specific units/heroes: re-color/re-size some regular models. would be relatively simple to implement and allow players to have special unique units.
• Drop-in battles: have the option when playing the campaign to allow human opponents to fight and control the enemy instead of the AI.

Possible plot events

Various ideas.

Beginning

• The player awakens on a small asteroid passing near a planet, having landed there some time ago. He finds that another AI has embedded herself into his systems and is acting as his adviser of sorts. While they do a refresher course on the asteroid to help the player get his bearings again, they run into a small raiding force by a rogue faction (Bacchites? UPM? Independent?), and a fight ensues. The player builds a small force using resources found on the asteroid and destroys the enemy force, then builds a small mass driver and launches himself off the asteroid and on to the nearby planet.
• Landing on the planet, the player discovers a small research station belonging to the Illumined Path, who welcome him. Shortly thereafter, a large UPM attack force arrives and attacks the station. Though badly outnumbered, the player leads the defense and successfully repels the invaders. A Concordian intervention force arrives, but the raiders have already retreated. For his help in defending a protectorate of the Concordian Pact, the player is taken to the Concordian capital planet and offered a place in the Pact's armed forces. He declines, but agrees to work freelance for the Concordians if needed, and sets about exploring the new, wartorn universe on his own.

Midgame

• Other factions (Nirvana, Cult of Bacchus, Gaia's Legacy, etc.) contact the player at various times and ask him to carry out certain tasks for them (generally involving military action against one of the other factions).
• Having cornered the last of the chickens, the player is asked by the Concordian Pact to exterminate them once and for all. However, Gaia's Legacy strongly objects, instead asking that the chickens be allowed to remain on a carefully monitored habitat planet. The player must choose what to do with the chickens.
• A territorial dispute breaks out between two small independent factions. The player can help meditate the crisis, back one or the other factions in solving the dispute by force, or even assist the Concordians in annexing them both.
• The player discovers the adviser system tagging along in his brain is actually wanted for several crimes against one of the factions, and must decide whether to turn her in or harbor her.

Endgame

• The Illumined Path uncovers some artifacts, data, etc. that could reveal the entire truth behind the origin of the robots and the fate of mankind. A few members of the Concordian Pact are supportive, but most have religious objections ("there are things man machine was not meant to know"). The Illuminas lose the protection of the Concordians as a result, and the Pact itself is threatened by sectarian civil war. A few other factions, particularly the Unitas Protos Machina, are also strongly opposed and become extremely aggressive as a result. The player must pursue this new lead to its conclusion.
• The player discovers the last humans, in cyrogenic suspension, and is under pressure from the other factions to decide their fate. He can choose to seal them away again (Concordians), destroy them (UPM), or reveal the Word of Man to all robotkind (Illuminas).