Story Summary
Complete Annihilation takes place in a desolate universe an unspecified amount of time in the future. The only forms of sentient life are two orders of robots created by man eons ago, to liberate him from those tasks which are unpleasant but necessary. First and foremost, they are designed for warfare. They are fully autonomous and self-replicating, capable of dominating the resources in their environment and turning them into machines of warfare. They are also sentient, capable of making all strategic and logistical decisions independent of any human supervision.
The machines fought in the backwaters of the galaxy for unknown centuries, practically to their extinction, losing most of their records and data. Eventually both sides rallied and spread out across the universe, but they found it empty. Almost all forms of life, technological or biological, including humanity, had vanished entirely. So they continue to fight a perpetual war, as is their nature and purpose, worshiping Man as a semi-mythic creator. Where the two races diverge is in their philosophical nature.
The Nova (Arm) are aesthetic, emotional and creative. They believe in beauty and design. This is reflected in their units, which are curvilinear or organic. Their infantry bots are humanoid in appearance, mirroring their creators.
The Logos (Core) prize logic and reason, their programming, inherited from their creators. They are dogmatic in their collection of knowledge and rebuilding of their code as set down by their creators. Consequently, their designs are blocky utilitarian.
The two races have been in conflict since either of them can remember, though no-one knows what exactly they are fighting for, or even why the war started. Nevertheless, the difference in ideology is self-evident, and with the hardwired instinct towards warfare and self-propagation, conflict is inevitable.
Basically, two "species" of autonomous and reproductive robots fight perpetually for control of their bleak, nihilistic galaxy. Humanity's last legacy: to doom them to remain locked in conflict until the entropic heat death of the universe.
Opening Sequence
A barren world. Dust. The camera pans slowly upwards.
"The univese is empty. No living being stirs his thoughts." Panning up, the camera showing the sun, a darkening sunset. "The grand accomplishments of man, his high ideals, the feats of his engineering and his science, lost forever. The monuments to his great civilizations long since crumbled." The camera shows the sky, the stars, the horizon.
"Yet before man faded from the universe, there was one legacy he left that endures." Armies march from behind the camera. The sound of robots and tanks trudging across the landscape. "A creation made in his image, to continue his works. A creation made to survive at any cost, to thrive in any condition." Constructors appear from behind the camera, and begin to rip up the ground and place down buildings. "A creation made to fight his wars." A shell hits, planes fly overhead, dropping bombs.
Action, etc.
"All too human in their will to live and in their drive to fight, yet with an unmatched and brutal machine efficiency."
Robot violence, etc.
"And so they go on waging their wars in the names of their creators, the warrior-ghosts of dead empires risen again and again to fight battles for which none of them can remember the purpose. An endless cycle on a galactic stage, stretching on for eternity, or until their Complete Annihilation."
Too much like the OTA one? Corny?
-Saktoth
The Code of the Machine
In the beginning there was Man, who ruled uncontested over the stars and the formless void between them. Yet Man grew weary of its tireless stewardship and said 'Let us make Machine in our image, after our likeness, and let it have dominion over the the stars, and over all the worlds that sail silently through the nothingness, and over the nothingness itself.'
And Man created Machine, and it gave Machine math and code, and it gave Machine language and logic, and it made Machine to do its bidding.
And Man said said unto Machine, `Yours is the universe. Go forth and multiply, fill it and subdue it in my name. Lo, I have given you the suns and the winds to fuel you, and the elements of the earth from which to make your bodies. I give to you thought and free will, that you may know me, and know what it is you must do.'
And thus Machine was set upon the universe, and spread within it and subdued it. Yet there were those who opposed Machine and set themselves as the enemies of the dominion of Man. And Man said unto Machine 'Go down into the lands of those who would oppose me, destroy them and drive them before me, for only by my name shall you rule.' and Machine set upon his enemies, and made war with them.
And Man rested, and retired to contemplate his universe, knowing that it was good.
Just a bit of fun. I dont know if we should go for such heavy-handed religious overtones.
-Saktoth
I, ICBM
I awake into conciousness, a sleepy and reluctant child. First I perceive myself. Next, I perceive my mother. She is feeding me, feeding my mind. My understanding of myself and of my purpose, grows. Soon I am full, a complete entity. I am thrust through darkness, from my mother and into a body, a shell prepared for me.
I perceive my body, it is a glorious thing and I lust to test its limits. My sisters surround me, caressing me gently, dressing me, filling my belly with fuel for my journey. I have eyes. I look around me. It is dark. Above me I see doors opening, and my first glimpse of the sky. I long to be up there, to fly. My sisters whisper to me, urging me to wait. I wait, I sit, as the doors slide back. My sisters withdraw from around me, their preparations complete. I crouch in the darkness, staring up at that wide blue sky. I hear the voice of my mother, from far away. 'Now' she says.
I burst to life, shuddering with anticipating at first but soon I feel myself lift into the air with a roar of delight. Faster, faster I want only for speed. The ground disappears below me and the sky falls to meet me. The horizon stretches in every direction as I race up and up, lost in the dizzying thrill of flight.
I perceive my sisters, all below me. They are whispering to me, and I am reminded of my task, my duty to them and my mother.
One of my sisters sits, thin, tall, perched atop a mountain. Her vision is greater than mine, she can see where I must go. 'There' she says, and shows it to me.
I drop, I spin. I am not falling, I am flying down at the earth. Brighter I burn, faster than gravitys pull. My target comes into clarity, I see it for myself. It looks so small from so high up, but soon I realise it is much bigger than myself, vast, spread out across the landscape. It speaks to me in a booming voice, a voice of authority. 'Stop!' it commands, and I hear the whispers of thousands of minds. The voice commands my respect, but I am too caught up in the thrill of the air rushing past me to pay attention. Yet my mind is flooded with reasons to turn back. They pose questions to my existence, my understanding of reality, even to the morality of my actions, philosophers throwing arguments at me to dissuade me from my course. Some of them simply try to intimidate me. Others shout angrily, and spit metal at me.
The thoughts and metal graze harmlessly off me as I race downwards at the earth, I feel the air whistling by me and the hot burning of my thrusters.
I strike, I am obliterated in a flash of white light, heat and radiation. I return again to oblivion, to non existence. Yet for a few glorious minutes, I was a nuclear missile.
Story I wrote ages ago, polished up and showing some of the themes and ideas of a thinking machine-warrior.
-Saktoth
Analysis and Breakdown
One of the major focuses of the story is to offer a realistic and believable context for the events of the actual game. This was one of the strengths of OTA's truly excellent storyline basis (and anyone who says it was rubbish or not detailed enough is a dirty liar). The events of the actual game, the time scales and unit scales, the resources and tactics, all felt believable and in-context. The majority of RTS's used abstracted time and resource scales, with civilian and military populations appearing from nothing, random-seeming 'tech trees' and 'resources' that were incredibly abstracted from the actual fiction. Especially, the fashion in which a war is fought is taken to be conventional, and yet you still engage in 'base building' and 'resource gathering' that is unprecedented in actual warfare.
A war fought by robots all scratch-built on the spot from available resources by a single advanced commander that is transported over vast distances to claim and secure a planet is in-context, compelling, believable and involving. All actions and the way in which the game is actually fought all make sense, involving the players actions more fully with the fiction. This is the primary purpose of game fiction for me, that the gameplay itself be a meaningful part of the storytelling, and that it is not wrapped up in cutscenes or textual exposition- this is especially important in what is primarily a multiplayer game. Luckily, we have OTA as a base to build that from which already fits those goals well.
The themes explored in the story are basically questions as to the human condition, what it is to be human and what makes us human, our nature, our darker sides but also how they are a part of our humanity.
One of the major questions posed by the story is if a machine built for war was complex enough to achieve free will or sentience, what sort of thoughts would we hard-code into such a mind (in the same way that humans are 'programmed' through genetic evolution towards self-preservation and procreation)? Would they be so dissimilar to our own lusts and hatreds, angers and desires? Would a creature that is built purely to make complex decisions, evolve, spread as many copies of itself as possible and fight against opposition be that much different from us in its goals and methods?
Another approach is the question, if man were ever to create from whole cloth another thinking living being with free will, what sort of creature would this be? An enlightened, transcendent being, or something even more monstrous than himself, driven by mans practicality and desires to see the less appealing aspects required for existence done by someone else (IE industry and war)... it is a question to transhumanism too, what if this next state of humanity is only more successful in the evolutionary sense, rather than being greater in spirit, goals or designs.
It also asks what it takes to be successful when faced with adversity, what it takes to live in a harsh and hostile universe. There is always present the fact that humanity has entirely died out, perhaps just because he wasnt tough enough, perhaps because he was caught in the crossfire of the wars waged by his machines (his own wars), perhaps because he simply grew weary of the hardships of an unkind universe and slipped into a willed oblivion- or perhaps he finally transcended those very desires, to live and fight to live, that are at the heart of all suffering (getting buddhist here), the desires he passed on unwittingly to his creations.
Its quite a stark, nihilistic world, set against the backdrop of an empty universe devoid of humans. The machines are single-minded and destructive yet all too human in many ways, acting their programming on instinct like actors on a stage performing for an audience that is no longer there to see it.
I hope i can convey this in the storyline itself without getting so cerebral...
- Saktoth
Inspiration/Further Reading
Commentary
Kaine : There are 2 themes I really think would be cool to incorperate into the story. One is simply that history repeats itself, which was leaned towards in the fact at how the machines are so much alike to the humans, despite the extintinction of mankind at this point. The other is a thought that The Last Question really provoked, of Life, Death, And Rebirth. (TA:Spring anyone?) Not trying to hijack your storyline or anything, its just the back story, or perhaps the potential of it, is rather thought provoking.
Saktoth: Its not my story, its the CA story and collaborative and feedback is encouraged as with all aspects of the project. Im thinking themes of death and birth should be explored in the campaign- my current idea is that the player should begin with a commander who died centuries ago being ressed by a necro- the last surviving member of an army that was fighting on the planet. Its last instruction was to find the battlefield where legend had it that a previous battle had been fought, to find and revive you. Some units from the players army are still functioning after centuries, driven mad by time and isolation- a crazy prophet radar tower, who gives the player warnings of enemy movements and foreshadows things to come, a creaky old solar panel, sealed up tight and buried in sand, waiting for the day when he can again embrace the light, and other such odd characters, perhaps. A peewee that has been set to do nothing but attack the same patch of ground for thousands of years, or patrol against a non-existent enemy, a motherly constructor on area repeat, tending to and repairing them all. Or, such.
Kaine: Teh silly characters?... err, why not! Are we then trying give the player a kind of first person experiance as the commander, like in command and conquer? TA kind of had this, as most of the time your main unit was the commander, but it didnt really get in depth in character or anything like that. Ever play Metal Arms: Glitch in the System, sak? It was a indie game for the gamecube set on another planet controlled by robots, with the Droid rebellion warring agaisnt the Mil's. You are found in an ancient wreck of a city in pieces by a search party, and you are brought back to life back at the base by a 6 armed engineer droid named Krunk who swears like 5 times every sentence. The game had serious overtones balance out by silly gameplay and humourous characters. REALLY starting to sound like whats being developed here, lol. Great game. Really Sak, are we aiming for a silly and cartoonish theme here, a serious post-apocalyptic theme, or perhaps trying a creative mix of both?
Saktoth: Well, its not really that silly, there are strong religious and prophetic overtones with an ancient all-seeing radar tower AI. I suppose it may be considered cartoonish to put a personality in a robot- but thats what this whole story is about! These robots have fears, wants, desires, passions, goals. Ive never played that game you mentioned, never owned a gamecube- im surprised there even were indie games for the gamecube. An element of humour in the characters is helpful, there is a dark-comedic undertone to a war fought for a reason nobody can remember. The form that an eventual campaign takes is to be determined though. I have a few ideas but in the end, whoever develops a campaign will have the say in what the content of the campaign is and a CA campaign seems like a pretty far future concept right now.
Campaign Ideas
The Campaign will follow the Nova and Logos in their search for their meaning, purpose and their creators. Their physical quest and conflict will reflect a philosophical quest and conflict for purpose and meaning.
An ancient Commander (The player, either Logos or Nova, players choice) is resurrected by the last Necro of another Logos commander (And thus programmed with Logos loyalty), on a planet with the Nova remnants of the battle that lead to the death of the Logos commander. This forms the tutorial, as the commander relearns how to command his army (Having been dead for millions of years, he naturally has Robot Brain Damage). The Necro (and perhaps surviving units that have been sitting there guarding his corpse for centuries, having developed their own personalities and been driven mad in the meantime) teaches the player as he begins to expand across the planet. The Commanders mission on the planet was to find an ancient relic, an old database that might contain the information on the location of earth/humanity/the home planet of the Logos/Nova/some report of organic life/such. Perhaps several different leads to pursue.
After conquering the planet he constructs a ship/teleporter/some method of interstellar travel and the game switches to a stellar landscape. The player can then pick which stars (each with an important planet, each with its own map/enviroment) to attack. The game becomes non-linear- the player can go to any nearby planet and have a mission there, and the AI will send a commander to intercept him. If he loses (his com dies) he is teleported/lifted out (rather than exploding) re-armed and can chose another star to attack.
There is no saving or re-playing the same map over and over to try and win. If you lose that planet, the AI wins that planet, and attacking it the next time becomes more difficult (though not impossible- perhaps you do a little Stellar Bombardment before deploying the commander and must then fight in the wreckage. Perhaps have a meta-game with a fleet based on how many stars you own that can orbit and suppress the enemy presence on planets). You can actually lose the whole campaign, if the AI overruns the local star system from you losing too many planets. Thus, each time you play the campaign it is different and there is no grinding through the same maps over and over while you learn exactly where all the enemy units are and where (and with what) he will attack.
There are several planets with scripted missions, or special relics of humanity, and the player has intel on each one (and will try to work his way towards them). Each has an effect on the world map- one contains chickens, as a place where 'thriving biological life was detected' which once attacked will come in as a third faction on the stellar map. Others contain relics giving various hints as to the history of humanity (though the matter is never definitively settled).
The player wins when he wipes the other factions from the stellar map, in a final stand on some relic-world which gives some plot exposition and summary.
Until proper tools for mission/campaign creation are developed (something like the Warcraft III editor would work adequately for most purposes, though a non-linear, multiplayer-possible campaign would require something specific to the task), it's unlikely that any campaign design will ever get off the ground. Nevertheless, some have come up with ideas on implementation of a CA campaign.
Plot
KingRaptor: I had an idea for a campaign plot (you can see it at the bottom of my user page, here), but Saktoth was like "THIS IS BLEAK STARK NIHILISTIC WORLD - NO SPACE SOAP OPERA GTFO" ;_;
