So the Sowers aren't in the game because they were slaughtered by someone?

I wonder about the Sowers, but at least they weren't retconned out of existence. Now they are at least a curiosity, and hopefully playable in some future update.

The second planet looks like the Z'Vali idea of paradise.

UndeadPuppy wrote:

So the Sowers aren't in the game because they were slaughtered by someone?

Well, as far as I can see, this is the first mention of the Sowers in ESII, and they appear to be the terraforming robots for the Virtuals. I would then assume that there are many, many planets withh Sowers on them, and a playable faction will probably be just one of these multitude of Sowers.

MrJade wrote:

UndeadPuppy wrote:

So the Sowers aren't in the game because they were slaughtered by someone?

Well, as far as I can see, this is the first mention of the Sowers in ESII, and they appear to be the terraforming robots for the Virtuals. I would then assume that there are many, many planets withh Sowers on them, and a playable faction will probably be just one of these multitude of Sowers.

Nothing indicates that the Sowers were slaughtered, as far as I'm aware. Of the old major factions not present, it's only the Harmony who in the new lore got rekt by some sort of conflict.

It seems odd to me that if the galaxy were full of Sowers and Sower-terraformed planets, there would be a Unique planet which is considered so due to the mysterious presence of an abandoned Sower project. This makes me think that, as currently envisioned for ES2, Sowers in the galaxy are not common, and that it is even more uncommon for them to have abandoned a planet without apparent reason. But who knows? I haven't even played the game in a while, and will have to wait to see this new planet to form better opinions on it.

One thing that's always bugged me about the Sowers is their allegiance to the Virtual, rather than Concrete, Endless. Terraforming planets for habitability is much more of a concrete thing to do in my mind, as they seemed more concerned about the physical world than the Virtual. It's all in the name, of course, and perhaps that's sort of misleading. I've always considered the Virtuals to be somewhat similar to the Supremacy affinity from Civ: Beyond Earth (if that strikes a bell with people here) - that they are very unattached to the physical world. Perhaps that isn't really what their culture is concerned with, though. Any thoughts?

TheTakenKing wrote:

MrJade wrote:

UndeadPuppy wrote:

So the Sowers aren't in the game because they were slaughtered by someone?

Well, as far as I can see, this is the first mention of the Sowers in ESII, and they appear to be the terraforming robots for the Virtuals. I would then assume that there are many, many planets withh Sowers on them, and a playable faction will probably be just one of these multitude of Sowers.

Nothing indicates that the Sowers were slaughtered, as far as I'm aware. Of the old major factions not present, it's only the Harmony who in the new lore got rekt by some sort of conflict.

It seems odd to me that if the galaxy were full of Sowers and Sower-terraformed planets, there would be a Unique planet which is considered so due to the mysterious presence of an abandoned Sower project. This makes me think that, as currently envisioned for ES2, Sowers in the galaxy are not common, and that it is even more uncommon for them to have abandoned a planet without apparent reason. But who knows? I haven't even played the game in a while, and will have to wait to see this new planet to form better opinions on it.

One thing that's always bugged me about the Sowers is their allegiance to the Virtual, rather than Concrete, Endless. Terraforming planets for habitability is much more of a concrete thing to do in my mind, as they seemed more concerned about the physical world than the Virtual. It's all in the name, of course, and perhaps that's sort of misleading. I've always considered the Virtuals to be somewhat similar to the Supremacy affinity from Civ: Beyond Earth (if that strikes a bell with people here) - that they are very unattached to the physical world. Perhaps that isn't really what their culture is concerned with, though. Any thoughts?

The Virtuals do need infrastructure to function efficently, just not the same type as the Concrete or any other physical being. 

And I thought the whole pointof virtualisation, at least according to the old lore was immortality and power without consequences, so they could experience all the pleasures that the universe had to offer without any of the drawbacks.

I just wanna chime in and say that Amplitude have done a fantastic job making the planets feel and look different from each other. The attention to detail and making them feel like they're a living part of the galaxy is top notch!

I encourage you to take a good hard look at the unique planets we introduced with 1.0.18 -- The Stellar Prisoner... ;)

Just a backstory comment -- though the Virtuals are incorporeal, they are not ghosts, but entities living in computer networks (or the hyper-modern equivalent of that). Their "bodies" are formed of Dust and electrons, so they cannot really exist without some sort of electrical grid and power source. The job of the Sowers was to install the infrastructure elements that would allow Virtuals to live and explore in peace on planets--power sources, energy fields, etc. on land and sea so that the Virtuals could survive.

Clearly it would be a much larger job to do this for the Concretes, who require not only energy but also food and shelter. The Concretes certainly had Sower equivalents, but tended to be more "hands-on" with terraforming as there is no point in terraforming planets that you may not use--it is a lot of effort to do "just in case". But for the Virtuals, once they had quantum-coupled communications and FTL, they could bounce around the galaxy at incredible speeds. The Sowers permitted the Virtuals to visit and study planets far more easily than the Concretes could have hoped to.

Slowhands wrote:

Just a backstory comment -- though the Virtuals are incorporeal, they are not ghosts, but entities living in computer networks (or the hyper-modern equivalent of that). Their "bodies" are formed of Dust and electrons, so they cannot really exist without some sort of electrical grid and power source. The job of the Sowers was to install the infrastructure elements that would allow Virtuals to live and explore in peace on planets--power sources, energy fields, etc. on land and sea so that the Virtuals could survive.

Clearly it would be a much larger job to do this for the Concretes, who require not only energy but also food and shelter. The Concretes certainly had Sower equivalents, but tended to be more "hands-on" with terraforming as there is no point in terraforming planets that you may not use--it is a lot of effort to do "just in case". But for the Virtuals, once they had quantum-coupled communications and FTL, they could bounce around the galaxy at incredible speeds. The Sowers permitted the Virtuals to visit and study planets far more easily than the Concretes could have hoped to.

Yeah, I suspected that was the case.

Slowhands wrote:

Just a backstory comment -- though the Virtuals are incorporeal, they are not ghosts, but entities living in computer networks (or the hyper-modern equivalent of that). Their "bodies" are formed of Dust and electrons, so they cannot really exist without some sort of electrical grid and power source. The job of the Sowers was to install the infrastructure elements that would allow Virtuals to live and explore in peace on planets--power sources, energy fields, etc. on land and sea so that the Virtuals could survive.

Clearly it would be a much larger job to do this for the Concretes, who require not only energy but also food and shelter. The Concretes certainly had Sower equivalents, but tended to be more "hands-on" with terraforming as there is no point in terraforming planets that you may not use--it is a lot of effort to do "just in case". But for the Virtuals, once they had quantum-coupled communications and FTL, they could bounce around the galaxy at incredible speeds. The Sowers permitted the Virtuals to visit and study planets far more easily than the Concretes could have hoped to.

Thanks for the lore comments and clarification!

Out of curiosity, was there anything that the Concretes had that was superior to the Virtual equivalent? Also, much of the in-game lore snippets seem to indicate that it was the Virtuals who instigated the conflict between Endless factions. Why would they even feel the need to fight the Concrete, if they were so superior? They must have felt threatened in some way, and from what I've seen so far in the ES games, there isn't much indication of that.

TheTakenKing wrote:

Slowhands wrote:

Just a backstory comment -- though the Virtuals are incorporeal, they are not ghosts, but entities living in computer networks (or the hyper-modern equivalent of that). Their "bodies" are formed of Dust and electrons, so they cannot really exist without some sort of electrical grid and power source. The job of the Sowers was to install the infrastructure elements that would allow Virtuals to live and explore in peace on planets--power sources, energy fields, etc. on land and sea so that the Virtuals could survive.

Clearly it would be a much larger job to do this for the Concretes, who require not only energy but also food and shelter. The Concretes certainly had Sower equivalents, but tended to be more "hands-on" with terraforming as there is no point in terraforming planets that you may not use--it is a lot of effort to do "just in case". But for the Virtuals, once they had quantum-coupled communications and FTL, they could bounce around the galaxy at incredible speeds. The Sowers permitted the Virtuals to visit and study planets far more easily than the Concretes could have hoped to.

Thanks for the lore comments and clarification!

Out of curiosity, was there anything that the Concretes had that was superior to the Virtual equivalent? Also, much of the in-game lore snippets seem to indicate that it was the Virtuals who instigated the conflict between Endless factions. Why would they even feel the need to fight the Concrete, if they were so superior? They must have felt threatened in some way, and from what I've seen so far in the ES games, there isn't much indication of that.

Genetic manipulation I guess.... the Concrete faction did focus on improving themselves and other species.