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Stellaris Dev Diary #47 - Guardians

Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. Today we'll continue talking about the Leviathans Story Pack, specifically its headline feature: the Guardians.

The Guardians (Paid Feature)
The Guardians, or Leviathans as they're also known, are space-dwelling beings of immense power. They vary a great deal in biology and composition: Some are enormous space creatures, some are technological remnants of ancient civilizations, and some are something far different altogether. How you find them also varies - some you may encounter in their home systems, jealously guarding their territory, others may be unleashed on the galaxy by exploring the wrong planet or star.

The chance of a particular Guardian being present in your game will depend on the size of your galaxy - a tiny galaxy might only have one or two, while a Huge galaxy might contain nearly all or even all of them if you explore far enough. Defeating them, or in some cases, helping them, will unlock rewards in the form of resources, empire-wide modifiers and unique technologies. Guardians vary in power, but are meant to be a serious challenge for a mid-game empire, so don't expect to be able to bring them down in the first decades of the game.

Below I am going to talk a little about a few of the Guardians. These are just a sample and not nearly all of them, but we want to avoid showing off everything there is for a player to find in the Leviathans Story Pack for those who wish to explore and find out for themselves.
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The Space Dragon
The Space Dragon is a capricious being, jealously guarding its hoard. With this particular Guardian, there is no reasoning or dialogue... it wants to be left alone, and will attack any and all trespassers in its territory. If you wish to get at its hoard, you will have to slay it, and you had best be sure to bring a large enough fleet - anger it enough, and it will not settle for simply driving you off. Should you bring it down, however, the vast mineral riches of its hoard will be yours to claim... and who knows what you might find among the treasures. Technology, artifacts... perhaps even a dragon egg?
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The Infinity Machine
The Infinity Machine, a strange metal sphere, sits at the edge of a massive black hole, unmoving. It does not attack as you approach, does not communicate, does not even react. It seems to be waiting for something. Perhaps if you find a way to speak with it, you can find out what it wants. Perhaps you can even help it? Or, if you choose, you could simply order your fleet to attack... after all, how much of a threat could a mere metal sphere be?
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Stellarite
What can live inside a star?

What sort of being can withstand, and even thrive in, such immense heat and pressure?

What could be its purpose?

... what does it eat?
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That's all for today! Next week we'll be talking about changes to the graphics and sound of Stellaris coming in the Heinlein update, as well as a teaser on the more than 20 minutes of new music by Andreas Waldetoft included in the Leviathans Story Pack.
 
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IMMA FIREIN' MY LAZAH!

God, killing that Dragon is going to be a game changer for Multiplayer, and I can see dozens of players just going after the dragon. A race to gain that freaking much minerals and energy. For a guy who forgets about maintenance costs...
 
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Nice feature! This will also contribute to making the galaxy more alive and add more content for the mid-game.
 
I'd love to get something like the shivans in this game. And not just the looks... but the extermination tactics.
 
Kill Organic Guardian, splice it's DNA with my species; take over the Galaxy with the hybrid race.
 
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The Infinity Machine
The Infinity Machine, a strange metal sphere, sits at the edge of a massive black hole, unmoving. It does not attack as you approach, does not communicate, does not even react. It seems to be waiting for something. Perhaps if you find a way to speak with it, you can find out what it wants. Perhaps you can even help it? Or, if you choose, you could simply order your fleet to attack... after all, how much of a threat could a mere metal sphere be?

I hope I'm not the only one where my mind went right to The Impossible Planet from Doctor Who when they saw the image for this thing. Yes, it's an eerie metal sphere and not the prison of a primordial evil (fingers crossed) but that was where my mind went first and my paranoia regarding said primordial evil makes me curious. I look forward to learning what lurks within this seemingly impossible object.
 
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Can a fanatic spiritualist militarist people worship and study the Dragon? Like, duh, that's my first thought upon seeing it.
 
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I feel that sounds about right. Too long though haha. I miss my Stellaris!

I know the feeling, I really don't want to play Stellaris right now since I want to wait on the DLC as opposed to restarting again. I'll have to retool all of the regular races I like to have spawn in though and tweak my usual mod race since I use the Ringworld Start mod on... all of them actually. Kinda enjoy using it far too much now that I think about it but I'm kinda sick of the normal kinds of starts. Sure habitability is trash (100% Ringworld & Gaia and 0% elsewhere) but its made the universal wars look like serious business all the time.

If they still work properly then the Guardians will feel even more at home in my games. It's just the scale of things when you have four planets in your starting system, so much potential. Forgive my rambling after simply agreeing, just so much want for the DLC that I can't help it.
 
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Are guardians independent from the other paid features in any way? I was looking forward to the paid dlc, but space adventuring and large monsters aren't something I am excited about.
 
Are guardians independent from the other paid features in any way? I was looking forward to the paid dlc, but space adventuring and large monsters aren't something I am excited about.

Well...

Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. Today we'll continue talking about the Leviathans Story Pack, specifically its headline feature: the Guardians.

The Guardians (Paid Feature)
The Guardians, or Leviathans as they're also known, are space-dwelling beings of immense power. They vary a great deal in biology and composition: Some are enormous space creatures, some are technological remnants of ancient civilizations, and some are something far different altogether. How you find them also varies - some you may encounter in their home systems, jealously guarding their territory, others may be unleashed on the galaxy by exploring the wrong planet or star.

I think the words "The Guardians (Paid Feature)" say it all.
 
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