StarControl Forums
Nt, posting from work in a minute.
Let's start a mega-thread on all the best Alien IDEAS we can come up with for Star Control. I'm not talking design, or name, or what they look like. I'm talking specifically about the players interaction WITH them! I'm sure we've all been kicking around "cool ideas" for decades, so spit them out here!!
To start off with, here are a few I've been formulating for years:
1) You come across a race that's currently in hibernation. All their cities, they're all shut down completely, no response when trying to contact them. You don't know why they're hibernating when your lander stops at their first city, but after stopping at each one of their cities, you uncover more of the puzzle from reading their logs and realize that their planet has a very long day, and a very long night. They've evolved over millennia to hibernate at NIGHT. Well, at some point in their history, their world attracted an astral body into their orbit, and as the planet and astral body orbits, it has cast their ENTIRE civilization into darkness. This made them do what they do best - hibernate. Permanently. You discover they've actually been hibernating, without knowing it, for upwards of 10,000 years, still thinking they just went to sleep for the night. Was the astral body a natural phenomenon? Was it something more sinister? Did a nearby race get worried about their progress and succeed in halting it??? That's for the player to find out. And more importantly, how do you get that thing out of orbit?! Pull it off and they "wake up" and join your alliance... unsuccessful, they stay sleeping forever.
2) You come across an extremely technologically-advanced race that crash-landed on a random planet millennia ago. The spaceship was fried beyond repair, effectively sending them back to the stoneage. For decades, they wondered why no one over came for them. After their hope died out, they started a new, primitive civilization on the new world in the dead husk of their space ship in the hopes someone will eventually rescue them. You find them, and become their salvation! They plead with you to go to Alpha Tucanae II (their homeworld) to alert their brethren, get them a return trip home, and of course, answer their age-old question: Why did no one from their planet come looking? Arriving at their homeworld, the situation turns tragic - it's gone. They only thing left on their homeworld are the sun-bleached bones of their now-extinct race. Some cataclysm, maybe disease? You bring the stranded society the bad news, telling them they're the only surviving members of their race, and provide them ships to get back to their home. When they do, they start up civilization anew and share some of their incredible technology with you (Hellbore Cannons, PLEASE?!)- and join your alliance!
3) The Allumnoi were the dominant species on their planet for over 40,000 years until their vast, insatiable need for expansion exhausted all resources the planet had to offer. Unable to yet achieve meaningful spaceflight or off-world colonization, they died off by the billions. The future was very grim, indeed - until one day, a scientist fused himself with a specific fungus native to their planet, that had proved invariable resilient - Dcharronia Devouriae. The fungus saved him by taking over his bodily functions for him - he no longer needed to eat, sleep or even breathe. The fungus processed inedible/unbreathable material into energy to keep his body going. Eventually, he didn't even need to *think* for himself, as he watched his hand release trillions of Dcharr spores into the atmosphere. Now, everything is fine! Nothing sinister to be worried about at all! Dcharr-Alumnoi *Symbiotic Friendship*! Not at all parasites! That's their overly cheerful motto 
do you attempt separation? Do you take the two species' friendship at face value? What happens when the Tywom report some interesting fungal cells falling from space onto THEIR homeworld nearby?
Comments?? Refinements?
Also, start at 4)............!
I think the best use of this topic would be for what alien races you guys would want to create in your mods. :)
................. okay! Everyone, start with #4 of aliens you're going to create in your mods 
Vaelzad's the boss.
I like Nr 1 the most. Humanity can offer them our already hyper-advanced alarm clock technology, best trade ever.
I'd like to chime in and say that I absolutely love this idea. I'd contribute ideas to the post, but seeing as one of the GDDs I'm working on right now is a game in the same vein as Star Control with a bit of Sins, I should probably keep them under wraps for now ;P
2) is easily my favorite because of my love of post-apocalyptic scenarios. But I'd really enjoy an option to PLAY AS these beings, that just seems so cool and appeals to my need for struggle and effort translating into fulfilling endgame experiences.
I love the idea, too, Volusanius!! 'Cept no one seems to be around! Helloooo hello hello hello hello (echo)
I really want to hear other people's ideas on this. Anyone have some fun stuff to add? We didn't even get to #4! GDD's be damned, Volusanius, you should come up with one off the top of your head right now and post!
Prodigalmaster - Post your own idea now! I'm sure you can come up with good stuff
I would like it if you meet an alien race just as their planet is suffering some kind of catastrophy and you have to decide not only if you are going to help them or not, but also if you are going to dump (some of) your current cargo to free up space to take on more of them, or try to find out if there is still enough time to get extra crew modules (if those will be a thing in the new SC of course) to save even more, and then you have to help find them a new habitable planet.
If you go back to the planet afterwards you find that the alien race were testing some device and this caused their own demise (like if the large hadron collider here on earth had actually destroyed us like some people were afraid might happen).
You get the device on board and later in the game scientists in your alliance make something useful out of it (weapon, better propulsion system, etc.) but there's a twist: if you decided not to save the alien race you are missing valuable input and the thing explodes when it's tested leaving you with nothing, if you did save them their scientists give the valuable input needed to stop the device from malfunctioning again and you now have a funky new......thingumy
EDIT: I just realised i would want this alien race to resemble felines, so the conversation can contain comic gold such as: "It looks like you are experiencing some kind of CAT-astrophy"
Haha! If it's a disease... "Are you guys not feline well these days?"
You come across what appears to be a well "worn" ship bristling with weapons. When you make contact, you meet Rigel and Cairne. These two bounty hunters try to enlist you in helping them. By helping them they will pay you in information, resources and "less than legal" or "prototype" tech for your ship. Helping them can both help and hurt you. While they for the most part are on the up and up, you will realize they work with a means justifies the end mentality. Some of the tech you get may or may not be stolen from other races. They may be able to get that tech you have been trying to get from another race as well. Working for them can impact relations with some factions as they may have strained relations with some races. It becomes a pros and cons relationship. The more your loyal to them they greater the chance they will assist you when you need it the most. Is it worth it?
It reminds me of the Druuge! You can do some shady dealings to get what you need... but you pay the price! This is a cool twist on that! Kind of a combination between the Druuge and a risky version of the Melnorme. Excellent.
The characters are my own from a bit of fiction writing I have been playing with over the years. It would be cool to see them come to fruition.
6) I always thought it would be cool to have a race that doesn't show up on any kind of scanner that your ship may have. When you arrive at their world, it just appears empty and no dialogue comes up. When you scan their world, no mineral, bio or energy signatures show up. The planet is an empty, desolate place , with no reason to fly your lander down there to investigate. Most people would just gloss right over it! However, for some kind of trade (maybe with the twin bounty hunters, Rigel and Cairne?!?), they tell you to "TRUST US, you'll find what you're looking for when you land on that planet..." and sure enough! If you just trust them and make a landing, you land right into the middle of a thriving city you couldn't see from orbit! Aghast, they inquire as to how you found them - they've been covering their existence for eons, in the hopes that no outsiders would interfere with their society. Convince them that an even bigger threat is nearby, and they may aid you in your quest...
7) Have a race that has no known ways to communicate with it... no markings resembling a mouth, no eyes, no ears, doesn't seem like it can hear you when you talk to it or even register your presence... just stands there, motionless and silent, like it's waiting for you to interact. It eventually gets tired of the silence and attacks. Time after time, it ends the same way. Turns out it needs to be communicated with telepathically - like the talking pet - and considers your brain inferior, unevolved or just plain dumb. Or maybe it just doesn't know there IS any other way to communicate... so it attacks because you're ignoring its telepathic messages. Once you do find a way to speak to it, it considers you on the same level and welcomes you with an "open mind".
I Actually have MANY sketches and ideas for aliens!
the problems is... i don't know how to mod 
Hopefully, with Stardock's plans, you won't have to know how to mod!
Hopefully, with Stardock's plans, you won't have to know how to mod!
;D hope you are right
It's funny just how many of our thoughts I can trace back to at least half a dozen sci-fi shows and games I have seen over the years. That said, I like them all. Sadly I lack any real modding skills so this is what I would like to see created by another who would have them. (Unless they can make the mod engine completely idiot proof, then I might have a chance in hell at it 
)
I would like to encounter something along the lines of a "no good deed" story. You encounter two groups that have long been at war with each other. Neither side necessarily good or evil. Both guilty of crimes against the other, and one is nearly finished. Talking to both sides shows that the hatred for each other is too great to stop the conflict. If you don't step in, one side will be completely wiped out. However, should you step in? It may be genocide to let one side wipe out the other but is it your war? Do you feel they deserve the destruction? If you do intervene, what consequences might that bring to the galactic stage? Are they trying to bribe you for help? Threaten for it? What value is to to you to enter the conflict? Morality, ethics, self serving greed or perhaps simple want of destruction. In the end, was any of it worth it?
I enjoy morally ambiguous situations. 
Life should never be simple, particularly when everyone is in heavily armed warships.
You discover a species that somehow lures travelers to its planet and much like a spider web entraps explorers, essentially adding its biological matter to itself. Living for such a long time it has the memories of everything it has assimilated and is a vast resource for information/locations to anyone willing to donate biological, "crew" matter to its collective. Thus much like the Druuge creating a moral dilemma for the player.
I imagine, when communicating with it whatever creature is trapped in its tendrils is the one communicating.
This would be amazing. When you drop your lander? It would assimilate your crew and gain the location of earth and the knowledge of its people! A LOT could be done with that information!!
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