(Spoilers!) Question about the ending...

WhiteWeaselWhiteWeasel Join Date: 2012-11-25 Member: 173197Members
While I am fully aware that the stinger at the end of the credits is a brick joke from a PDA blurb at the beginning of the game, what does that mean for the player? Are they just stuck in orbit until they run out of supplies since I doubt they can pay off their outstanding balance of 1 trillion credits?

While funny, that's kinda messed up in hindsight.

Comments

  • TenebrousNovaTenebrousNova England Join Date: 2015-12-23 Member: 210206Members
    edited April 2018
    It wouldn't surprise me if it were true. And if you bought lots of valuable things with you (Precursor ion tech, diamonds, etc) it's a catch 22 because Alterra already owns them by default since you found them as an employee. You could "resign" whilst you're on the planet, but I'm guessing they'd just hit you with an equally massive lawsuit for using their tech to survive and escape.
  • WhiteWeaselWhiteWeasel Join Date: 2012-11-25 Member: 173197Members
    I think the best argument for the player to tackle that fine or at least be given a pass is that they've disabled the quarantine enforcement platform. The player has terminated a threat that was A) responsible for the loss of a significant company asset (it's even stated to be a multi trillion credit project) and personnel. B ) Until the QEP was disabled, any resources on 4546b were inaccessible and thus any value that was placed on them is largely superficial. Now with the gun disabled, that value is tangible and exploitable.
  • TenebrousNovaTenebrousNova England Join Date: 2015-12-23 Member: 210206Members
    Now that you mention the QEP, I wonder if it would be worth leaving it online just so the debt collectors could never get to me. Personally I don't think I'd mind a self imposed exile on a beautiful planet like 4546B, especially with all the technology I'd have access to so I could live in comfort, although it would raise the ethical dilemma of Aurora and/or Sunbeam's remains and those of the crew being recovered (And the possibility of other ships getting shot down). Maybe I could take up conservation efforts for the more rare species (Sea crown, sea dragon, sea emperor) instead.

    Perhaps that's a problem for the next fanfic author. :)
  • scifiwriterguyscifiwriterguy Sector ZZ-9-Plural Z-α Join Date: 2017-02-14 Member: 227901Members
    I think the best argument for the player to tackle that fine or at least be given a pass is that they've disabled the quarantine enforcement platform. The player has terminated a threat that was A) responsible for the loss of a significant company asset (it's even stated to be a multi trillion credit project) and personnel. B ) Until the QEP was disabled, any resources on 4546b were inaccessible and thus any value that was placed on them is largely superficial. Now with the gun disabled, that value is tangible and exploitable.

    You've never dealt with a corporate legal department, huh? ;)
  • AvimimusAvimimus Join Date: 2016-03-28 Member: 214968Members
    edited April 2018
    On the one hand it is a dystopian catch-22 (and punishment for not deserting!)


    On the other hand - I do wonder how much inflation has taken place by the time of the story? Like - how much does a bagel cost?
  • TalanicTalanic United States Join Date: 2018-02-21 Member: 238014Members
    Avimimus wrote: »
    On the one hand it is a dystopian catch-22 (and punishment for not deserting!)


    On the other hand - I do wonder how much inflation has taken place by the time of the story? Like - how much does a bagel cost?

    From what we know of element formation, gold is always likely to be scarce. It forms only in supernovae, so far as we can tell - and silver is the same, just a bit less so. Rubies are expensive today but honestly we've been able to make them in labs for nearly two centuries. Diamonds are similarly peanuts to manufacture with the tech level we're talking here.

    Other than the gold and silver, nothing is that inherently valuable (as opposed to situationally valuable - e.g. a bottle of water to someone dying of thirst; if we're getting into situational value then Alterra can charge whatever the heck it wants) except for the ion cubes. Those are probably the bulk of the value.

    Regardless, the whole thing is almost certainly a ploy to get the protagonist to sign over the movie / game / book rights.
  • scifiwriterguyscifiwriterguy Sector ZZ-9-Plural Z-α Join Date: 2017-02-14 Member: 227901Members
    Talanic wrote: »
    Avimimus wrote: »
    On the one hand it is a dystopian catch-22 (and punishment for not deserting!)


    On the other hand - I do wonder how much inflation has taken place by the time of the story? Like - how much does a bagel cost?

    From what we know of element formation, gold is always likely to be scarce. It forms only in supernovae, so far as we can tell - and silver is the same, just a bit less so. Rubies are expensive today but honestly we've been able to make them in labs for nearly two centuries. Diamonds are similarly peanuts to manufacture with the tech level we're talking here.

    Other than the gold and silver, nothing is that inherently valuable (as opposed to situationally valuable - e.g. a bottle of water to someone dying of thirst; if we're getting into situational value then Alterra can charge whatever the heck it wants) except for the ion cubes. Those are probably the bulk of the value.

    Regardless, the whole thing is almost certainly a ploy to get the protagonist to sign over the movie / game / book rights.

    Not sure I'd agree there, @Talanic, my friend.


    All that glitters is not gold...
    Gold is scarce - relatively speaking - in the Earth's crust because we're a planetary body. Early in the Earth's formation, all of the very heavy elements sank to the core. Not all, because geology is never a perfect sort, but the vast bulk of the transuranic elements, heavy metals, and the like all headed for the core. So if you were to saw the Earth in half, you'd find enough gold, silver, and platinum in the core to plate the entire surface of the planet four meters thick.

    Much of the gold that we mine is thought to have been brought to the Earth by meteor bombardment after the cooling of the surface. That, coupled with the gold that just didn't sink gives us what we mine. But that's planetary bodies in general and this planet in particular. An organization with the degree of space industry that Alterra has to have to be building starships like Aurora - not to mention launching super-long-distance expeditions and building interstellar infrastructure - would have access to gigatons of asteroids to mine, some of which will be fairly rich in precious metals. Between that and strip-mining uninhabitable planets (which at that tech level would be pretty easy), gold, silver, and platinum wouldn't be rare at all, nor would elements like iridium which is vanishingly slight on Earth but abundant in the asteroid belt.

    The key here would be purity. Gold mining, at least terrestrially, is extremely inefficient. The density of gold in gold ore is very, very low. If your monitor screen represented the average tonne of gold ore, then about 2 pixels would be actual gold. (Actually less than 2, but I'm rounding up because a third of a pixel is hard to visualize.) Gold ore is a boring looking rock. Having seen it myself in mining, I can tell you that it's the dullest, most worthless looking rock you can imagine - basically looks like granite with a chest cold. But hidden in that matrix of rock is a tiny, tiny amount of gold you can refine out. In-game, though, we're picking up relatively high-purity chunks the size of our head. Now, they should be heavier than the average anchor, but laying that aside, that's a lot of gold in one lump, so your mining in-game is a lot more cost-effective than hard-rock mining we do today. That ups the value just through sheer efficiency, but not enough to really throw the balance.

    Rare Earth Elements would have greater staying power for industrial value, but even those would likely rapidly cease to be as rare when you're mining out asteroids and planets in multiple solar systems.

    Shiny rocks...
    Diamonds are easy to manufacture even at our current tech level, but corundum compounds - like rubies - are a colossal pain in the neck. Despite being visually appealing, synthetic ruby is significantly different from natural (unlike synthetic diamond, which is identical to wild-type). Even prior to the CVD and HPHT processes to create diamond, a maximum-quality ruby was more valuable than a maximum-value diamond twice its size, simply because the occurrence of inclusions and imperfections in corundum is common and unavoidable, whereas in diamond, clean samples aren't particularly hard to come by. If those fist-size rubies we're constantly plucking off the walls are anywhere near gem-quality, each one would be pushing a million bucks a pop today.

    So where did the huge bill come from?
    Well, as @Avimimus suggested, inflation could be playing a significant role here. But let's also remember that Alterra is a monopoly that operates as a government. They can fix prices all day because they make the laws. So there's nothing stopping them from setting absurdly high prices on any number of commodities because it suits whatever objective they have that week. And for all we know, they've built a clause into the contract that the loss of a ship is the responsibility of its crew and we're being slapped with our share of the Aurora's value because someone turned it into a lawn dart. The only things of real value we found during the game are alien in origin - their technology would carry more value than any rock ever could, especially if it could be reverse-engineered.

    But mainly this is a case of "Alterra wants something, and can do what it wants to secure it." Single person found something of insane value that you don't want to pay fair market value for? Apply enough pressure to him to make him sign it all over. From everything we can see in PDA downloads, this is Alterra's MO.

    Which is why I cured myself, left the QEP on, built several resort-quality bases, and am sitting in my observatory chaise lounge with a creepvine colada (with umbrella) and not going back to that corporate hellhole. Cheers. ;)
  • WhiteWeaselWhiteWeasel Join Date: 2012-11-25 Member: 173197Members
    edited April 2018
    You've never dealt with a corporate legal department, huh? ;)
    If anything they'd be playing right into my hand. They need to come and arrest me sometime. Can't pay off that balance if I run out of air. ;)

  • TalanicTalanic United States Join Date: 2018-02-21 Member: 238014Members
    You're right, but I could come up with a scenario or two in which it'd still be expensive. We just don't know enough about the setting for me to be certain. What IS life like back in populated space? Do megacities rise up, housing billions in a few dozen cubic kilometers? Have they started work on ringworlds and need every scrap of material they can scrounge up?

    Or is interstellar flight cheaper and easier than in-system flight, making planetary mining far more economical than tearing up (or sending drones to mount an engine on) a mineral-rich asteroid? I would assume that every system mankind has started to exploit, all the easiest deposits went first. It takes the Sunbeam a week to come in and try to pick us up from the outskirts of the system, but given the phase gate that I assume the Aurora set up, the Neptune rocket appears to deliver the player back home in minutes. This could just be artistic license for the credits scene, of course, but it raises enough ambiguity in my sleep-addled mind to be worth bringing up.

    I believe you and I agree about the company's motivation. I still think they're mostly after the story rights (after all, we do encounter references to other castaways that they've jazzed up into games and tales) because after all, they already claim to own the planet.
  • scifiwriterguyscifiwriterguy Sector ZZ-9-Plural Z-α Join Date: 2017-02-14 Member: 227901Members
    Talanic wrote: »
    You're right, but I could come up with a scenario or two in which it'd still be expensive. We just don't know enough about the setting for me to be certain. What IS life like back in populated space? Do megacities rise up, housing billions in a few dozen cubic kilometers? Have they started work on ringworlds and need every scrap of material they can scrounge up?

    Or is interstellar flight cheaper and easier than in-system flight, making planetary mining far more economical than tearing up (or sending drones to mount an engine on) a mineral-rich asteroid? I would assume that every system mankind has started to exploit, all the easiest deposits went first. It takes the Sunbeam a week to come in and try to pick us up from the outskirts of the system, but given the phase gate that I assume the Aurora set up, the Neptune rocket appears to deliver the player back home in minutes. This could just be artistic license for the credits scene, of course, but it raises enough ambiguity in my sleep-addled mind to be worth bringing up.

    I believe you and I agree about the company's motivation. I still think they're mostly after the story rights (after all, we do encounter references to other castaways that they've jazzed up into games and tales) because after all, they already claim to own the planet.

    All good points, and I've never had a problem with the "put him in debt so he signs it all away" hypothesis on Alterra's motivations. My equally sleep-addled mind failed to come up with another reasonable source for your bill:

    Licensing fees.

    Everything that fabricator runs off is Alterra property, as is the fabricator. So everything you produce is a licensed Alterra product. They're hitting you up for the raw materials, sure, but also the going retail value of everything you're making. A portable laser cutter capable of hacking through multiple doors on a single battery charge? That's not $19.95. A Seamoth? At least as much as a midsize car. A Cyclops? All of those base parts produced by an Alterra base builder, which probably runs off the same licensing agreement as the fabricator?

    The more things change, the more they stay the same. With Alterra, the product (probably) won't kill you, but the EULA is murder.
  • TalanicTalanic United States Join Date: 2018-02-21 Member: 238014Members
    On top of the licensing fees we're also paying for a certified Alterra professional to craft and operate these machines. And the cost of acquiring a certificate (or the penalty for uncertified use, whichever is worse).
  • Number35Number35 Join Date: 2016-12-03 Member: 224491Members
    To be honest, If he was able to get in communication with the others on the planet the fine may not even matter due to what he has had to go through and the circumstances he was under. It was be completely unfair to fine him for gathering materials for survival and finding a way back home after having the spaceship he was in shot down and he was the only one alive by the end of the game.
  • BloodGod22BloodGod22 England Join Date: 2016-07-06 Member: 219708Members
    Actually, a Trillion credits might not be as much as we assume if inflation is to be taken into account.
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