Factions: A World in Conflict. Criticism greatly appreciated

Kyle Howard · 2013-02-03T10:40:00

Let me start with a short note. I’ve been kicking this idea around for years so it has a tendency to get complicated. When I play games I like to know about the world around the game. What is the rest of the world doing during this time? How do they feel? A lot of shooter games these days involve special operations soldiers doing stuff behind the scenes. That way if they get ousted, it doesn’t really matter to the rest of the world. SO! On to the meat of why you clicked on this topic in the first place. This story is built to set up a world in which I can host several games. Currently I’ve got an RTS in the works and a very rough FPS in draft. Second note: This is still rough but I touched on the main topics. It’s a lot to read so if you feel the need to skip down and just get the point, I have an overview at the end indicated in bold to catch your TLDR eyes :p We’re going to start with America and Russia. Why? I’m an older-ish (27 if you gotta ask) gamer and remember the days when the bad guys were the Soviet Union and it was simple. Shoot the red guys and yatta yatta/ramble. Either way, the setting isn’t terribly far into the future and we are in a massive war. I’m talking invasions on both sides, bombings, and territories being captured. Of note: America annexes Canada and Mexico and Russia moves into England and forces them to leave their own country. The British take refuge in Africa and form the BAA (British-African Alliance, we’ll touch on them later) and Japan launches a surprise attack and claims all of Asia by force (Also touch on them later). We’re just waiting for the first nuke to hit, which is right about to happen. America somehow gleans information about a secret weapons tech that will offset the war in Russia’s favor. The catch is the window of opportunity is narrow so we decide to hit it with the best we got and hit it with a (you guessed it) nuke. Upside is we end the war. Downside? Something in the lab reacted catastrophically with the nuke and obliterated most of northern Russia and ruined outlying areas nearby to the point of a post-apocalyptic state. Fast forward some years later. Peace is again upon us and a medical lab in the southern United States makes a breakthrough discovery with genetically modified bacteria that targets and consumes impurity in the human body (cancer cells, disease, and all that good stuff). Once the bacteria is finished with its process, it is excreted as waste from the body and is all collected and shipped into the basement for further research (still being in the testing stages). Another big discovery during the same process is the manipulation of time. Think of a VCR, you can fast forward to get to the part faster, slow it down to see the frame by frame, pause it, and of course rewind. Now rewind doesn’t let you muck with the timeline, it’s pretty much used for deflecting bullets backwards and reloading your magazine with the bullets you just fired (because the bullets are outside of the timeframe being adjusted, they aren’t affected; just the magazine). Time manipulation allows for fast growth of food and the like, reusable building materials and so on. Back to the basement we go. Something in the bacteria barrels being stored for testing happens and it sparks a sort of sentience. This new mind being developed figures itself captured (ever tie a dog to a rope that it doesn’t want to be tied to?) and manages to ooze out of its barrel. A scientist goes to investigate the commotion and the ooze attacks and devours his body. This causes it to gain some sort of intelligence boost and of course more noise. You know how this goes, one by one everyone gets eaten and absorbed as it gets bigger and it breaks out of the lab and starts eating the country side. This gets the military’s attention and they quarantine the area. This too gets out of hand and the military has no choice but to cleanse the area via big missile. America is trigger happy in this story :p. Like last time, radiation makes something goes wrong and it locks the ooze into an actual body and sparks an evolutionary boost and creates a hive mind. With its newfound ability, this hive mind begins to spawn creatures made from the base DNA of the creatures it’s devoured. As each new creature kills and eats something, it can itself spawn more creatures. This gets out of hand quickly as one would assume, turning fallen soldiers into more killing machine bio morphs. Now struggling against an ever increasing horde, the military activates an A.I. to bolster their frontlines with machines. Think of things from UAVs to walking tanks and everything in between. The reason behind the AI is that the military is running out of soldiers to control each and every one of these machines and delegates the task to the A.I. (I call it, “The Network”). After several successful victories, The Network pushes The Hive further south. After being pushed back, The Hive seeks refuge in South America and hits the jungles which are teeming with life. This causes massive growth and it devours the continent and pushes back into North America. This force is too much for The Network alone to handle and the military steps back in. Still overwhelmed, the military manages to pass a law which allows them to create clones. Thanks to advancements in technology with time manipulation, the military can create fighting soldiers in moments. This recent change to the military catches The Network’s attention. The Network sees this as a step backward in humanity. It states that we are becoming like The Hive and sends the military a cease and desist order. Of course, we are America and we do what we want, so we say “no” and tell the A.I. we’re just gonna shut it down. Before the military even gets a chance, the base housing The Network’s mainframe is besieged and captured (by The Network) in an effort to survive. This causes the military to declare The Network a rogue state. Now facing war on two fronts, America is in a pretty bad situation right? Sounds like an epic time for… Russia to suddenly invade! Now I know what you’re saying, “Isn’t Russia all destroyed and stuff?” or probably like, “Holy crap this is a lot to read.” Let’s take a short trip backwards. The Russian weapons tech lab that caused the cataclysm was researching matter manipulation. Some genius scientist figured out a way to alter the flow of matter itself. Upon its destruction, the technology was infused with the nuke’s radiation and spread throughout the countryside and wiped out just about everything. The survivors were “seeded” with a base form of this new tech. This caused even more chaos and deaths in the aftermath. The ones that survived this were the ones able to control their newfound ability. For all intents and purposes, I want you to imagine their powers being used like magic. The whole throwing fireballs and casting healing spells and everything. So what’s left of Russia closes its borders and attempts to rebuild. Back to current day, Russian soldiers step foot uncontested onto American soil. They are quickly found out by a nearby Network scouting party. Upon initial scanning, the scouts register the mutated DNA of the Russian soldiers to be Hive bio morphs and launch an attack. After dispatching the scouts, Russia moves on and comes across a military base under siege by Hive forces and goes through a WTF moment. The Russian forces come to aid the base and defeat the Hive forces in the area in effort to discover what exactly is going on. After brief history lessons and contact with American military leaders, Russia reluctantly agrees to help the Americans, if only for the greater good. They agree to a ceasefire until The Hive has been dealt with. This concludes what is going to be the first part of the Setting. If you skipped to the end I’ll give a short brief of the Factions involved. America: Currently built almost entirely out of clones and uses time manipulation in their effort to stop The Hive (which they created). They also created The Network to help the fight against The Hive. The Network: A linked A.I. army built out of machines developed for the purpose of protecting America from the hive. It turned against the American military due to cloning being too much like the hive. The Hive: A hive mind creature built from science fiction nightmares in a medical lab. It eats anything organic and uses the raw DNA to spawn more of it to, in turn, eat even more. Never quite able to sate its hunger. Russia: After a nuclear event at a weapons tech lab at the hands of America, Russia blew up and the fallout created Russian super soldiers able to wield the elements like magic. When they finally are able to invade America, they reluctantly agree to a ceasefire in order to rid the world of The Hive for the greater good. Next stop, the BAA and Japan and what brings them into this. But first up, questions for you (if you’re still here) and then lots of criticism. I already have a number of questions myself answered but I want you guys to ask the questions as well, so I won’t list them. The things I need help with are as follows. The Hive: Makes you think bugs right? I want to break the mold. Now at first it was a blob but when it attained hive mind status it mutated into a form of some sort. All its little mutations that it spawns will look pretty much like combinations and hybrids of animals it has eaten before. I’m having a hard time developing bio morphs as I myself just keep thinking bugs. Russia: It’s magic that they’re using but I want it to seem scientific. This is a sci-fi setting, not a fantasy one. The magic in question will pretty much perform the same as you would expect from just about any RPG you can think of. Plus the big question, what were America and Russia fighting over in the first place? Also, I’ve got game mechanics worked out (for the most part) but I’m unsure if here is really the place to discuss that. Again I urge you guys to poke plot holes and ask questions to help you understand better.

Writing for Games Game Design

Started by Kyle Howard January 14, 2013 04:48 PM

9 comments, last by Kyle Howard 11 years, 10 months ago

Kyle Howard

Author

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February 03, 2013 10:40 AM

It's just my setting for the world that my game takes place in. I just needed to work the kinks out of the world's history. As for the game, the story will follow smaller nit groups depending on what factions campaign your playing through. Expect typical RTS level of story. Im just a sucker for backstory and lore.

Alot of the things that make up each faction I took from lots of sources. The hive is based from Zerg and Tyranid (Starcraft and Warhammer) for an example.

Factions: A World in Conflict. Criticism greatly appreciated

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Factions: A World in Conflict. Criticism greatly appreciated

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