I love the ancient aliens with amazing technology trope. Please include it!
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Isn't it still quite plausible for them to be ancient on our scale (thousands to millions of years), while essentially contemporary on a cosmic scale (billions to trillions of years)?
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For the ancient all-powerful alien civ trope I would like this to be invoked in a random generator kind of way but can also be turned on and off before start up new game
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Ancient alien civilization confirmed day one DLC then?
Sorry, Prothean DLC of ME3 still rankles a tad.
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The only way that someone could claim that we're likely among the first potential space faring species is by either making things up or being vague with statistics, probably to inflate our species importance. 100,000 years ago is five minutes ago on a cosmic scale. Why is it really more likely, as a galactic statistic, that modern humans are morel likely to luck onto the chance of the needed intelligence than earth life 90 million years ago?
Addendum: Magically powerful or hyper-teched? No, no particular backing for that, but existing as a space faring, interstellar species is not unlikely. But there there is a tendency for writers/creators to treat their precursor races as Renaissance/Enlightenment views version of Rome (superior and lost) or Atlantis rather than as, say, an equal that managed to get into the race earlier. It's all scattered supercomputers and super-weapons, rather than crumbling old apartment buildings and bits of cutlery and dishes. Or if those exist, they probably have superpowers.
Addendum: Magically powerful or hyper-teched? No, no particular backing for that, but existing as a space faring, interstellar species is not unlikely. But there there is a tendency for writers/creators to treat their precursor races as Renaissance/Enlightenment views version of Rome (superior and lost) or Atlantis rather than as, say, an equal that managed to get into the race earlier. It's all scattered supercomputers and super-weapons, rather than crumbling old apartment buildings and bits of cutlery and dishes. Or if those exist, they probably have superpowers.
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Because there is also some vague formula wich can calculte the quantity of intelligent life based on the know intelligent lifeforms... it alwasy comes to 1
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The issue is when it's over used in a setting and become the basis of everything. In mass effect every piece of technology comes from ancient races, the main enemy is ancient races, and the Answer to The Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything is ancient races, and your main buddy/sexyalien/loveinterest is a damn archeologist that studies ancient races;
After playing mass effect you kinda have an ancient races overdose and don't wan't to hear about ancient races in a space setting anymore, i reckon.
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Quite to the contrary, in my case. Mass Effect is part of what makes me love the idea of ancient races. The Reapers, as a concept, are fantastically done. If it weren't for poor writing regarding their origins and "leadership", the Reapers would probably be remembered as one of the best ancient aliens in all of fiction.
One. Billion. Years. That's how long the Reapers have been around. If that doesn't blow your sci-fi mind, then I question your sense of wonder.
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Adding more zeroes to a date don't do anything to blow my sci-fi mind, no.
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In my reference to ancient and we will call it "modern" civs, i actually want to hark back to an old game and that's the Free Space series. In here two relatively equal civs start spreading out, then encounter each other, then whoops galactic war. As they keep spreading out they run into the type 3 on the block, the Shivans. A xenophobic race that just kills anything not them, they did it before with the ancient race that was annihilated.
The nice thing is the "ancient" doomed race really didnt contribute much here. Other then figuring out a couple concepts "basically the end to game one" the real discoveries (military) come from the war. They are a dead species and lets just look at the Detroit area of Michigan US to see how fast nature will just reclaim stuff. Like seriously, unless its a desert without high winds the planets ecosystem will obliterate most traces of a civilization. Its happend here already on this world, just shoot back to some of the early meso american civs that records say were there and well... are not anymore...at all.
Destruction can be swift and all evidence can be washed away, very quickly. Not on a galactic scale but even ours.
The nice thing is the "ancient" doomed race really didnt contribute much here. Other then figuring out a couple concepts "basically the end to game one" the real discoveries (military) come from the war. They are a dead species and lets just look at the Detroit area of Michigan US to see how fast nature will just reclaim stuff. Like seriously, unless its a desert without high winds the planets ecosystem will obliterate most traces of a civilization. Its happend here already on this world, just shoot back to some of the early meso american civs that records say were there and well... are not anymore...at all.
Destruction can be swift and all evidence can be washed away, very quickly. Not on a galactic scale but even ours.
I like the idea of a truly ancient race that has been active for hundreds of thousands of years, but believing it impossible, never invented any kind of FTL travel. They'd have colonized their nearby systems and have pretty good techs but would have to research travel techs from the beginning when the younger races start flying circles around them.
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The chance of x amount of alien species discovering interplanetary space travel lets say whitin 100 years of eachother is extremly small at best. Consider the amount of time life have been on this planet alone and I dont mean bacteria and singel cell lifeforms but complex life. Thats like 5-600 million years.
The planet alone is 4,5 billion years old and the universe some 13-14 billion years old. Lets say it took the ~5 billion years (its probely somewhere around that considering they recently found evidence of galaxies forming 500 million years after the big bang, corrent me if im worng) to seed the universe whit the various elements needed for complex life. Then anotler 3.5-4 billion years for that life to evolve on a planet that leaves us whit around 4 billion years where intelligent life could have evolved so the ideer of a ancient race that spanned the galaxy is not that unlikely.
Question is how does such a race die out ? I can think of a few ways but im not gonna go into that as then it would be a rather long post but as for the game I hope they give us the option to ramdomize the various races in their tech level to somewhat take into account the age of the universe.
The planet alone is 4,5 billion years old and the universe some 13-14 billion years old. Lets say it took the ~5 billion years (its probely somewhere around that considering they recently found evidence of galaxies forming 500 million years after the big bang, corrent me if im worng) to seed the universe whit the various elements needed for complex life. Then anotler 3.5-4 billion years for that life to evolve on a planet that leaves us whit around 4 billion years where intelligent life could have evolved so the ideer of a ancient race that spanned the galaxy is not that unlikely.
Question is how does such a race die out ? I can think of a few ways but im not gonna go into that as then it would be a rather long post but as for the game I hope they give us the option to ramdomize the various races in their tech level to somewhat take into account the age of the universe.
Well, researchable ancient ruins and fallen empires have been confirmed, but they've also said it's a symmetrical start, despite having a bunch of races discover FTL around the same time being unlikely.
Wasn't the GalCiv backstory that humanity, as the youngest race on the block, discovered FTL travel and an idealistic scientist broadcasted the info across the galaxy before humanity had finished even one ship with it.
Maybe a race in Stellaris discovered an ancient relay which then broadcasted the information globally before they could stop it. Slightly cliché I guess but not too unlikely and it explains everything neatly.
Maybe a race in Stellaris discovered an ancient relay which then broadcasted the information globally before they could stop it. Slightly cliché I guess but not too unlikely and it explains everything neatly.
If all you see if the number, then I don't think you appreciate the depth nor imagination required to understand the meaning behind it. Having lived for so long means that their knowledge is unfathomable. They have done things that you can't even dream about. They are/were a force, not simply by their own exertions, but by simply existing/continuing to exist.
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I like the "Humanity is Alone" idea. Let the factions be factions of Humanity. Symmetrical start through Identical start. We branch out from the same depleted home planet.
Maybe we even run into sub-lightspeed races (i.e. barbarians, primiives, etc).
Then, we run into an impossibly amazing alien race, and they hate us. We either unite the factions or die.
Much butt-kicking ensues.
Of course, this is not how the game is structured.
Maybe we even run into sub-lightspeed races (i.e. barbarians, primiives, etc).
Then, we run into an impossibly amazing alien race, and they hate us. We either unite the factions or die.
Much butt-kicking ensues.
Of course, this is not how the game is structured.
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Could be a very cool mod though.
Instead of expanding and (relatively) quickly finding many other alien races, you instead find yourself mostly alone in a (relatively) small area of the galaxy but are still able to colonise dozens of stars. Eventually, relations in your empire change - maybe you splinter into many smaller states or two rival superpowers... an entire history of humanity is developed ingame over hours of game time... until first contact is made a hundred years or so later. Then the next true stage of the game begins.
Sounds pretty awesome to me.
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