Provoked by this? :D

MidnightTea wrote:

Exactly! Here's a great example of the kind of shift in thinking I think you're asking for here:  To most players within the usual fandom paradigm, the question "Did X race/faction escape the end of Auriga?" is "No".  Or rather "No, until we hear otherwise". Even though it's possible for every faction to get to the end in some way and, well, survive. So picking a favorite would indeed be invalidating people's experiences.

But nonetheless, most of us likely thought of the Sisters of Mercy as having not survived. At least until they were announced as part of the Vaulter expansion, whereupon the "most likely dead until we hear otherwise" was updated in status to "Alive".

I get the sense you'd like us to try and move past that sort of binary way of thinking about it. Embrace, well, endless possibilities. It's even possible everyone escaped the end of Auriga in some fashion or another depending on timeline or even what direction of space they went out to. Just because someone isn't accounted for in Endless Space 2 doesn't mean they didn't survive. If you ever study just how big a place space is or how many directions one can go, it's a miracle anyone would ever meet again. (and indeed, that's the whole theme of the Vaulter questline in ES2)

I think Amplitude likes to work in that awe that comes from infinity and even derives a sense of fantasy/magic from that. Of course, being able to just deal with infinity is hard for a lot of people because we're just not wired as a species to comprehend how small we are. Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot comes to mind.

With an infinity of possibilities to work from, yeah, it's not too hard for everyone to have their space and their stories. The Endless universe would make a hell of a tabletop setting. (indeed, Endless Legend kind of reminded me of playing one, the map felt more like a literal game board than a realistic depiction of a landscape)

If I could marry a forum post, it'd be this one.

Just a teensy note about alien pluralism: it's even implied by some spontaneous minor pop gains that the minor pops you see on-screen don't represent all populations on your worlds. The minor pops would be equivalent to minorities large enough to make a socio-economic impact, but you'd have lots of smaller groups of foreign species, too. Of course, whether those are melting pot citizens of the universe or slaves rather depends on which faction you're playing...

MidnightTea wrote:

...

In other words, if you feel very strongly something in your personal headcanon ought to be true, proceed with the idea that it is. There may not be any word of god coming to put it in stone for you, but you are encouraged to pick up a chisel and look for a slab of your own. If it makes you or others happy, then "your" canon is doing a great job. 

That's great! As the devs are RPG fans (tabletop and computer), we like the idea of giving the players the 'right' to play around in the Endless Multiverse and make it their own. 

And I like your attitude towards the other aliens, as not every species will view the galaxy as a "zero sum" game.

-Slow

MiDan wrote:

...

I recently came up with my own way to include ES1: It's the first galactic war, preceding ES2. 

My 'canon' game of ES1 features all the major factions missing or reduced in ES2: Amoeba, Automatons, Harmony, Hissho, Pilgrims, and Sowers. It's the story of how they were destroyed or reduced to pockets of minor factions.

This war probably concluded around the time of Auriga's final, permanent winter. In the power vacuum left behind, the major factions of ES2 began their climb toward the stars.

Beautiful :)

Love this statement! Geeks like us love to get hung up on 'canon', but canon is really about what you make of it on a personal level. Take Star Wars, for example: Disney has its own canon, sure, but who's going to stop you rationalising KOTOR back into the timeline if you want to?

I recently came up with my own way to include ES1: It's the first galactic war, preceding ES2. 

My 'canon' game of ES1 features all the major factions missing or reduced in ES2: Amoeba, Automatons, Harmony, Hissho, Pilgrims, and Sowers. It's the story of how they were destroyed or reduced to pockets of minor factions.

This war probably concluded around the time of Auriga's final, permanent winter. In the power vacuum left behind, the major factions of ES2 began their climb toward the stars.

I like to believe that the Endless universe itself is a simulation being run by the Eternals, a race of near-god-like beings attempting to escape their own universe that they've driven to destruction. These Eternals want to use the Endless universe as a refuge or makeshift home for themselves, but unfortunately they all died before they could carry out that plan. Their leftover memories, the Lost, are, well, lost in the Endless universe now.

Am I close?

Yeah, sure, it's a good argument. I just think this all has left me kind of uninterested with the lore in the first place, so joke's on me.

What I was meaning to say earlier is that such a game as this by nature cannot contain more canon information than it does now. Everyone writes their own canon in every game we play. It is unrealistic to ask for more, really. At least for me.

Yeah, sure. I, ehh, just don't think I had any intetion of making this into a discussion about Endless Legend lore

KreigorMoorkus wrote:

I don't think anyone is disputing there is such a thing as canon, Pluvinarch. However, the example you picked of Endless Legend and Auriga is one I've come across as being somewhat weak given that we know that Auriga freezes over and that the Vaulters are (so far) the only people together with the Sisters of Mercy to survive.

Yes but how would you even know if the Ardent Mages survived? If they became a virtual existence of data and energy, they could leave the planet entirely in their new forms or simply exist on its frozen surface perpetually. Similarly, the entire Allayi society is made with winter survival in mind. 

Then you have the Broken Lords. They are pure energy. Would eternal winter even affect them once they became powerful enough to produce Dust on their own?

I don't think anyone is disputing there is such a thing as canon, Pluvinarch. However, the example you picked of Endless Legend and Auriga is one I've come across as being somewhat weak given that we know that Auriga freezes over and that the Vaulters are (so far) the only people together with the Sisters of Mercy to survive.

There is canon lore, most of it comes from the major faction quests. Most major faction quests don´t contradict each other, so all could have happened together.

If we take Endless Legend as an example, them we know that:

[SPOILERS]

- The Vaulters found the Argosy.

- The Wild Walkers build a very huge tower.

- The Roving Clans became very rich with Dust.

- The Ardent Mages virtualised themselves.

- The Drakken got their minds altered back to Endless servants.

- The Cultists became a powerful force.

- The Necrophage stored their eggs in safe places.

- The Broken Lords mastered the use of Dust.

- The Forgotten avenged one of their heroes.

- The Allayi mastered winter survival.

- The Morgawr became a great psychic threat.

But then which one became the greatest empire and who survived until the end is up to the gameplay.

While I can understand people's love towards the universe and that we want more of it, the fact that we're dealing with a strategy game makes it so that lore cannot really be handled better than it is now. A few key points in the past to set up the stage for the game to play out in the present.

That for me is perfectly enough to get immeresed in my story.

Not sure I agree with the statement that it "cannot" be handled differently. It could most likely, however, it would require a more scripted gaming experience most likely. So given how we are expecting Endless Space and Legend to play, it would be tricky, sure.

While I can understand people's love towards the universe and that we want more of it, the fact that we're dealing with a strategy game makes it so that lore cannot really be handled better than it is now. A few key points in the past to set up the stage for the game to play out in the present.

That for me is perfectly enough to get immeresed in my story.