Story
Nairit
NJ, USA Join Date: 2014-11-10 Member: 199589Members
NJ, USA Join Date: 2014-11-10 Member: 199589Members
*Warning Long post*
Ok as little as we know about Subnautica story and lore at the moment I am going to start pocking holes in it. Mind you many of these “holes” would be pretty much irrelevant, many not holes at all but lack of information, many can easily be patched up, many are only "holes" because this is pre-alpha and consistent story isn't a consideration at the moment. I just think it’s important to ask writers those questions so that we don’t have too many “Wizard did it” answers later on.
So let’s recap:
Ok now questions:
Where are you going with this mysterious pulse?
We all know how the story goes in cliché sci-fi – there is a hostile force, something that doesn’t want humans there… perhaps an alien device that player will have to find and master before Earth colony ship can land. Alternatively and a bit less cliché the pulse might be the result of natural phenomena which player will still have to study and master or at least find a way to counter. Is this necessary though? Hostile alien force seems to be against the stated spirit of the game, and neutral force like natural phenomena doesn’t seem to add anything to gameplay or story?
Also would the Earth even send the Colony ship? I mean if it doesn’t get “All Clear” from Aurora – would Earth really sends thousands colonists on potentially deadly mission? And if it does hear from Aurora – would it send the ship? Hey we got this thing that shoots spaceships out of the skies – so come on over send the colony ship.
Why is Aurora so large?
Ok granted massive Aurora looks badass, but why does exactly would Earth waste resources on a massive ship presumably filled with supplies, equipment and personnel when apparently a single person in lifepod equipped with fabricator can - not only conduct planetary survey but jump start the colonization? Why isn’t Aurora just a lifepod equipped with a cryo chamber and a fabricator and strapped on a rocket?
Are we going for one-person-colonization-effort?
Once again Aurora is huge, I assume that means someone on Earth believed it has to be. Believed that survey and initial colonization/terraforming requires considerable resources, qualified personnel and more. Are we going to prove them wrong and show everyone that one person can establish the outpost, conduct comprehensive survey and jump start terraforming effort?
Is there something wrong witch character's priorities?
Anyone else thinks strange that after tragic destruction of the Aurora character isn’t thinking – “I have to look for other survivors” or say “I have to get the warning and SOS/Mayday to Earth” or say “I have to get to Aurora see if I can recover some of the equipment and supplies” or even “oh my god, all my friends are dead”? Instead the characters cheerfully dives in to explore the ocean as if they were on snorkel tour on Hawaii.
Why is there only one life-pod? Why only one person inside of it?
Seriously if Aurora had a crew of only dozen and say only 2 life-pods (seems unlikely for the size of the ship) and then you get only 1 survivor – I’d be seriously considering possibility that survivor sabotaged the ship or that she/he at least selfishly abandoned her/his mates
***
P.S. What would work personally for me is either:
a) Smaller Aurora. Essentially one-man “deep search” exploration vessel designed for a specific purpose of allowing a single Star Scout find and survey planets for potential colonization. In this case Aurora doesn’t even need to crash land, it just have to be slightly bigger version of the Lifepod that our scout/character landed on the waterworld. Also I should point out that such Lone Wolf Scouts and First-in missions are time honored tradition of science fiction.
b) Actual survey expedition. Team, other survivors, NPCs… they don’t need to be anything more than plot features and few dialog lines in say base interface, they can even be added without having actual 3D models in the gameworld… but they have to be there. Also there have to missions to Aurora crash, something that explains why the ship was necessary in the first place.
Perhaps we can make the first mission of the to respond to a distress signal from another lifepod, rescue expedition medic, which will now be a part of the expedition team and can provide a number of new crafting schematics as well as conduct biomedical research on the samples we bring to the base. And perhaps the second mission would be to get to Aurora and lunch space probe which will transmit Mayday to Earth with the secondary objective of accessing ships database to extract additional crafting schematics.
Ok as little as we know about Subnautica story and lore at the moment I am going to start pocking holes in it. Mind you many of these “holes” would be pretty much irrelevant, many not holes at all but lack of information, many can easily be patched up, many are only "holes" because this is pre-alpha and consistent story isn't a consideration at the moment. I just think it’s important to ask writers those questions so that we don’t have too many “Wizard did it” answers later on.
So let’s recap:
- In not so distant future Earth is colonizing distant planets.
- Before true colony ships and colonists arrive Earth sends survey vessels. Aurora is one such vessel.
- On approach (or atmospheric entry) to currently unnamed planet (or is Subnautica the name of the planet) Aurora is struck by an unexplained energy pulse, suffers catastrophic hull failure and crashes.
- A single life pod with one crew member on board survives.
Ok now questions:
Where are you going with this mysterious pulse?
We all know how the story goes in cliché sci-fi – there is a hostile force, something that doesn’t want humans there… perhaps an alien device that player will have to find and master before Earth colony ship can land. Alternatively and a bit less cliché the pulse might be the result of natural phenomena which player will still have to study and master or at least find a way to counter. Is this necessary though? Hostile alien force seems to be against the stated spirit of the game, and neutral force like natural phenomena doesn’t seem to add anything to gameplay or story?
Also would the Earth even send the Colony ship? I mean if it doesn’t get “All Clear” from Aurora – would Earth really sends thousands colonists on potentially deadly mission? And if it does hear from Aurora – would it send the ship? Hey we got this thing that shoots spaceships out of the skies – so come on over send the colony ship.
Why is Aurora so large?
Ok granted massive Aurora looks badass, but why does exactly would Earth waste resources on a massive ship presumably filled with supplies, equipment and personnel when apparently a single person in lifepod equipped with fabricator can - not only conduct planetary survey but jump start the colonization? Why isn’t Aurora just a lifepod equipped with a cryo chamber and a fabricator and strapped on a rocket?
Are we going for one-person-colonization-effort?
Once again Aurora is huge, I assume that means someone on Earth believed it has to be. Believed that survey and initial colonization/terraforming requires considerable resources, qualified personnel and more. Are we going to prove them wrong and show everyone that one person can establish the outpost, conduct comprehensive survey and jump start terraforming effort?
Is there something wrong witch character's priorities?
Anyone else thinks strange that after tragic destruction of the Aurora character isn’t thinking – “I have to look for other survivors” or say “I have to get the warning and SOS/Mayday to Earth” or say “I have to get to Aurora see if I can recover some of the equipment and supplies” or even “oh my god, all my friends are dead”? Instead the characters cheerfully dives in to explore the ocean as if they were on snorkel tour on Hawaii.
Why is there only one life-pod? Why only one person inside of it?
Seriously if Aurora had a crew of only dozen and say only 2 life-pods (seems unlikely for the size of the ship) and then you get only 1 survivor – I’d be seriously considering possibility that survivor sabotaged the ship or that she/he at least selfishly abandoned her/his mates
***
P.S. What would work personally for me is either:
a) Smaller Aurora. Essentially one-man “deep search” exploration vessel designed for a specific purpose of allowing a single Star Scout find and survey planets for potential colonization. In this case Aurora doesn’t even need to crash land, it just have to be slightly bigger version of the Lifepod that our scout/character landed on the waterworld. Also I should point out that such Lone Wolf Scouts and First-in missions are time honored tradition of science fiction.
b) Actual survey expedition. Team, other survivors, NPCs… they don’t need to be anything more than plot features and few dialog lines in say base interface, they can even be added without having actual 3D models in the gameworld… but they have to be there. Also there have to missions to Aurora crash, something that explains why the ship was necessary in the first place.
Perhaps we can make the first mission of the to respond to a distress signal from another lifepod, rescue expedition medic, which will now be a part of the expedition team and can provide a number of new crafting schematics as well as conduct biomedical research on the samples we bring to the base. And perhaps the second mission would be to get to Aurora and lunch space probe which will transmit Mayday to Earth with the secondary objective of accessing ships database to extract additional crafting schematics.
Comments
1. send an AI-ship there
2. get the AI to extract biological essences from the planet
3. get the AI to rebreed its own , to the planet adopted, kind of 85%humanlike organismn
4. teach him the basics and throw him out into the open water
that would totally bypass any biological and microbical limitations of spacetravel
and somehow dodge the nasty question how you want to freeze human bodies for lightyears.
The pulse could be the product of whatever led the ship to the planet. Maybe They chose the planet because there is an enormous amount of life on it. Since there are big creatures on the planet why not going one step further: maybe the planet itself is some kind of space whale (reefbacks could be his offspring). The energy pulse could then either be a defense mechanism or what I prefer just like a whale breathing. Whales have their breathing wholes and this one breathes energy which unfortunately hit the aurora.
Just one idea that came into my mind.
1. The pulse is just a trigger to start the game, I don’t think fully explaining this is crucial to the story. In general I like how little the character knows about what is going on, which I will expand on later.
As for the colony ships, I don’t think Unknown Worlds is really planning on having an end game. I would say have part of exploring the Aurora finding a communications room and sending a message back to earth warning of the danger or asking for rescue which will be refused because of the danger and establishing that you are on your own.
2. I interoperate the aurora as being the ‘mothership’ of the operation. It would be intended to stay in orbit as a platform for the colonization (though its aerodynamic shape suggests it is designed to withstand re-entry). From there it would send out a landing party to secure an area and establish a beachhead for the colonists. Maybe at some point you could find wreckage of some landing craft within and around the aurora
So, the aurora is large because it was intended to be a large operation
3. I don’t think the characters goal is to colonize the planet but to simply survive it and all exploration is for that purpose or just human curiosity and colonization cannot by carried out just the one person.
4. First off, lol.
The characters vitals are monitored pretty closely and that AI lady would probably know definitively that there are no other survivors but you would absolutely want to get to the aurora as soon as possible but of course, there are barriers like skin melting radiation and terrifying enormous fish monsters.
There is a thread somewhere here about fleshing out the intro which I intend to post in when I finish writing this, and I think that your points can be addressed in the intro. I’ll edit in a link when I’ve done that.
5. This ties into what I said about not knowing what’s going on. In my mind it goes something like this; the character is not a colonizer, he/she is a mechanic or engineer on the aurora and was never intended to land on the planet.
So, on approach, you and your crew are prepping the pods for landing on the planet when the energy wave hits you are lucky (or unlucky) enough to be inside a pod. The hull breach of the Aurora is so cataclysmic that no one has time to make it to the life pods before the ship depressurizes and everyone suffocates. Meanwhile, you are stuck in a life pod as it automatically seals and ejects you from the ship
I consider surviving violent depressurization by being unintentionally sealed in a lifepod is great luck.
But everyone you know is dead and you are completely alone
Maybe the Aurora was on it's way to another planet to support a terraforming mission and the water planet was not the planned destination. And the source of the energy pulse wasn't necessary on the water planet either.
So except for some hint's (on the wreck?) about the original mission and the energy pulse I rather like the story to deal with surviving, exploring and an intelligent aquatic life form (mermaids
But, at least you're alive. Much good luck.