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First Contact Should Matter

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Maximus101

Maximus101

First Lieutenant
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Aug 20, 2007
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A lot of space strategy games that I have played don't seem to treat meeting another intelligent species as a big deal (I know some, like GalCIv has, a lore reason). The people seem to not care about it at all and it is just letting you know that rival is near you.

I think that when you fisrt meet another intelligent species for the first time (spacefaring or not) it should send reverberations across your nation and be a major destabilizing event. Not gamekilling obviously but extreme ideas might become more likely to be supported for a bit until people get used to the idea.

Only for the first species, then the impact should decrease.
 
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Maximus101 said:
A lot of space strategy games that I have played don't seem to treat meeting another intelligent species as a big deal (I know some, like GalCIv has, a lore reason). The people seem to not care about it at all and it is just letting you know that rival is near you.

I think that when you fisrt meet another intelligent species for the first time (spacefaring or not) it should send reverberations across your nation and be a major destabilizing event. Not gamekilling obviously but extreme ideas might become more likely to be supported for a bit until people get used to the idea.

Only for the first species, then the impact should decrease.
Click to expand...
I you thought process and I agree first contact to be more important. I don't first contact should necessarily be a destabilizing event the first time or every time. Leave this up to the player giving certain buffs and debuffs depending on how your civilization handles first contact. I also really like the idea of being able to discover prespaceflight species and influence their development.
 
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This is sort of getting away from the intent of your post a bit, but since you brought up first contacts, I would really like it if when you first meet a new race, you cannot know anything about them, and there is some system of sending a character to try to establish a connection and figure out each other's languages, with events that can increase or decrease tension between the two empires.

Just to avoid the whole 'Oh, sweet. You speak english.' phenomenon.

Yeah yeah yeah, Star Trek universal translator (*coughdeusexmachinacough*). But running into other races and not being able to know anything about them or communicate with them immediately does raise the mysteriousness and tension of the experience.
 
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First contact is least likely to happen quick in the early stage of the game. I think you would have a lot of time to get your research done and get the first ship into space. Event would appear and your people celebrate (or those with power celebrates while people suffer). First FTL constructed...etc Then you go out on exploring. There are possibilities that you might find ancient relics belonging to long gone civilization. I think by the time you make first contact, people would be adjusted to the fact that there are other races out there.
 
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I have no idea why discovering aliens would be such a huge shock, I mean we expect to find them or don't but the reality is we're pretty well adjusted to the concept that there might be aliens out there.

As for the second part of your argument is that it should take time before we can talk to aliens and that is a separate topic entirely.
 
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Maybe the effects depend on how Xenophobic or Xenophillic your species is? Xenophobic species might get a dissent increase/loose stability while a Xenophillic species might have the opposite reaction
 
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valergain said:
I have no idea why discovering aliens would be such a huge shock, I mean we expect to find them or don't but the reality is we're pretty well adjusted to the concept that there might be aliens out there.

As for the second part of your argument is that it should take time before we can talk to aliens and that is a separate topic entirely.
Click to expand...
Dude, the confirmed existence of aliens, especially ones with the ability to actually reach our planet, would be a complete game-changer in regards to global security and our place in the universe as a whole.
 
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Druplesnubb said:
Dude, the confirmed existence of aliens, especially ones with the ability to actually reach our planet, would be a complete game-changer in regards to global security and our place in the universe as a whole.
Click to expand...

It's not exactly unexpected, and I would argue almost to be expected after the discovery of FTL.
 
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The worrying thing is if we discover FTL and find out there is nobody else out there.
 
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Novacat said:
The worrying thing is if we discover FTL and find out there is nobody else out there.
Click to expand...

I think that people would have a far more extreme reaction to aliens than the lack of aliens. The lack of aliens would be slow and overtime. People would slowly begin realizing nothing's out there while finding aliens would be a sudden, shocking jolt.
 
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Wulfburk said:
There woudnt be enough beer for the mass depression that would hit everyone.
Click to expand...

More than likely humanity will end up making its own aliens, genetic engineering tech is already very close to that point. Anthropomorphic aliens might end up being a thing after all.
 
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That would be a cool scenario tho. A galaxy with no aliens. Man reached for the stars and grabbed everything, we reached so far out that none central government could control all of humanity and instead we developed into several "small" space empires. Some were democracies and others were autocracys. This went on for centuries, some people started to look different than others (probably because genetic engineering and cyber technology). But in the end it was only humans in the vast galaxy. Until one day, strong signals was discovered in the far reach of the galaxy.

That would be in my opinion even more horrifying than just being alone in the universe. Living alone in a galaxy and have settled with that thought for centuries, that the concept of alien life is just a remnant of an ancient time, and then suddenly discover alien life or atleast traces of it.
 
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ParadiseCity said:
That would be in my opinion even more horrifying than just being alone in the universe. Living alone in a galaxy and have settled with that thought for centuries, that the concept of alien life is just a remnant of an ancient time, and then suddenly discover alien life or atleast traces of it.
Click to expand...

Human groups: "Aliens? After all this time? Where have you guys been?"
Aliens: "Hiding. We came to warn you."

Alternately:
Aliens: "We killed them all. Goodbye."

It sounds very good for a story or game, but I don't think default Stellaris will have that sort of situation.
That would be a cool mod. Hopefully scenario mods will be a thing.
 
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Novacat said:
More than likely humanity will end up making its own aliens, genetic engineering tech is already very close to that point. Anthropomorphic aliens might end up being a thing after all.
Click to expand...
Yeah! Catgirls FTW!
Would be a funny scenario.. first mankind reches the stars, creates other species and then the big crash... few thousand years later mankind again reches the stars and finds their creations..
totally funny :3
 
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Harle said:
This is sort of getting away from the intent of your post a bit, but since you brought up first contacts, I would really like it if when you first meet a new race, you cannot know anything about them, and there is some system of sending a character to try to establish a connection and figure out each other's languages, with events that can increase or decrease tension between the two empires.

Just to avoid the whole 'Oh, sweet. You speak english.' phenomenon.

Yeah yeah yeah, Star Trek universal translator (*coughdeusexmachinacough*). But running into other races and not being able to know anything about them or communicate with them immediately does raise the mysteriousness and tension of the experience.
Click to expand...
Yeah. I'm also always a bit annoyed by the whole "These are the YipYips - their race is 100% defined by the following traits and they will act totally predictable. We found that all out in the one conversation we had between discovering them and writing you this message" :p

Regarding first contact, I agree that this should be a major event for your culture, but also for small ones.
Everytime you discover a small species (especially the pre-spaceflight ones) there should be a random event how they react to it, with some options for the player. For example a very backward race might rever the player species as gods and you can either "affirm their beliefs", giving you a huge influence bonus but potential problems further down the road if they discover it, "educate them about the universe", leading to uplifting, "enslave them" etc.

The kind of events you may get, as well as the ways you can react to them, should depend on the traits of the race you discovered, as well as your own.
This could be mirrored for big Empire Contacts as well. If your first contact is an aggressive, xenophobic race, there might be a huge drive towards military spending in order to defend against the perceived threat, whereas if the first race you meet is friendly, there might be a drive for diplomacy and Federation (unless your own race is the xenophobic, aggressive one in which case there'll be a drive for enslavement :p)

Well written Event chains where always one of the best things for me in Paradox games (and the main thing I would be looking for in Mods)
 
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Druplesnubb said:
Dude, the confirmed existence of aliens, especially ones with the ability to actually reach our planet, would be a complete game-changer in regards to global security and our place in the universe as a whole.
Click to expand...
Speaking of which, I want some sort of challenge... like getting caught off guard when discovering another race far superior than I.
 
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Held der Arbeit said:
Yeah. I'm also always a bit annoyed by the whole "These are the YipYips - their race is 100% defined by the following traits and they will act totally predictable. We found that all out in the one conversation we had between discovering them and writing you this message" :p
Click to expand...
And now I'll start a petition to have the YipYips as a pre-set race in Stellaris
 
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