No one cares

I think I've answered your claims already somewhere, that it is incorrect to state that no one else survived. Major chunk of Vaulters stayed behind, as Argosy couldn't hold them all, yet they survived and moved to another planet, Auriga 2.0 . Same can be true for other factions, it is simply UKNOWN if they did. Each and every faction basically finishes their main quest with plans on how are they going to survive eternal winter and what's next for their faction. Weather they succeed simply isn't shown in ES2 storyline, nor related to.

Besides, even if it will be canonically coined (but I doubt it) that the rest of life on Auriga ended up dead, I'm not sure why do you act all aggrieved about it. EL came out before ES2 was planned and its storyline written. EL established from beginning that the planet is dying, and the end looks grim. And before that ES1 had a dead planet, Vaulters and one Broken Lord hero, so the fate of Auriga was already established before EL/ES2 narrative, not vice versa. This shouldn't come out as surprise and your resentment about is causeless.

Technically the Cultists and their queen can still be out there :)

I actually like the fact that endless legend ends with most nations being wiped out. I don't think it is necessary to keep the nations alive so their story can continue. We heard their stories, G2G can continue writing new ones. There are more stories to be told.

Most of the stories end adequately without the quest victory. Take a few examples:

the wild walkers learn to adapt to a new life out of the forest, but when it becomes clear Auriga will kill them, the wild walkers refuse to leave and give up their planet, trying in vain to preserve themselves and their land by the creation of a giant monument.

The broken lords struggle with a choice, to give up their morals or give up their means to survive, the broken lords refuse to give up their morality to survive.

The necrophage attempt to use a human to change the nature of the necrophages to survive, but instead of turning the necrophage from being monsters, he turns the human into a monster. the leader of the necrophage resigns his species to their fate stating, "even if every last mortal dies, at least the stars will witness how the Necrophage swarmed Auriga."

The quest victory makes little sense for any of the races, they all know the end is coming, but they all choose to hang onto something, be it land, morality, destiny, revenge, wealth, culture or even their very nature, none of them wanted to survive badly enough to give up all those things. So I think it is telling that 'quest victory' isn't the main victory for any of them.

On the other hand, I do have a problem with the Valters, not that they survived but how they survived. They basically just found a ship that could get them out of there. Unlike any of the other factions, they didn't develop or change or plan. They just got lucky and left.

If they had built their own ship, made hard choices, compromised their morals and the way they were, then I would say it would have been fine that they survived. But, instead, they were just lucky.

bbsibling wrote:

I actually like the fact that endless legend ends with most nations being wiped out. I don't think it is necessary to keep the nations alive so their story can continue. We heard their stories, G2G can continue writing new ones. There are more stories to be told.

Most of the stories end adequately without the quest victory. Take a few examples:

the wild walkers learn to adapt to a new life out of the forest, but when it becomes clear Auriga will kill them, the wild walkers refuse to leave and give up their planet, trying in vain to preserve themselves and their land by the creation of a giant monument.

The broken lords struggle with a choice, to give up their morals or give up their means to survive, the broken lords refuse to give up their morality to survive.

The necrophage attempt to use a human to change the nature of the necrophages to survive, but instead of turning the necrophage from being monsters, he turns the human into a monster. the leader of the necrophage resigns his species to their fate stating, "even if every last mortal dies, at least the stars will witness how the Necrophage swarmed Auriga."

The quest victory makes little sense for any of the races, they all know the end is coming, but they all choose to hang onto something, be it land, morality, destiny, revenge, wealth, culture or even their very nature, none of them wanted to survive badly enough to give up all those things. So I think it is telling that 'quest victory' isn't the main victory for any of them.

On the other hand, I do have a problem with the Valters, not that they survived but how they survived. They basically just found a ship that could get them out of there. Unlike any of the other factions, they didn't develop or change or plan. They just got lucky and left.

If they had built their own ship, made hard choices, compromised their morals and the way they were, then I would say it would have been fine that they survived. But, instead, they were just lucky.

Im fine with a good number of nations and minor ones becoming history, but to have only 1 major and 1 minor out of the 13 major and 18+ minor factions survive feels, abrupt, and as you said, how they got out also feels out of place, as if they are only in ES2 because they are one of the more popular factions. There is the starship "Success" that crashed on auriga as well, if it can be repaired, we can see another major and maybe 2 minor factions make it out as well.

As I understand it the Vaulters were the only faction with a story line that ended in them escaping Auriga, which ever faction -after the Argosy left the planet- completed the Quest Victory to find the Hissho ship cratered on the planet then caused the event that caused the Argosy to veer off course when their core went critical.

All the other faction victory conditions ended with them either bunkering down to try and weather the winter (either in the quest chain or by building the vault) which as Auriga turned into a lifeless ball of ice was futile or by just taking over the planet which has much the same result.

Everyone on Auriga was doomed from the start, anyone who played Endless SPace 1 already knew that, the Vaulters being the only truly space-faring peoples with the means to return to the stars were the only ones really geared to escape. It would've been nice to have some references, like the Broken Lord hero that can be found in ES1 but otherwise oh well.

Those left behind live on in our hearts.

What if Necrophages Proliferator unit(s) infected one or more members of the Vaulter crew with parasitism before leaving Auriga by Argosy ship? Alien-style? What about stowaways in general?