storyline ideas (part 2)

[spiritplumber]

Well adding factions is trivial the only catch is that every faction that has autogenerated ships must own at least 1 system at the beginning of a game.

[Captin cocksniff]

Chuck, well done for putting up the stroy line i have read whats up...

From the extra missions, Lang is delivering "Food stuffs", and is helped by the Murchants guild. I think Lang is a better candidate to own Rondell than Mesnuch. It would also tie in with Murphy, an uninformed lacky, who is doing official buisness, but is secreatly doing the bidding of Lang, working for the Guild.

Why are the kats searching for delta prime? Well....
they are searching, but don't really know what they are looking for. All the shanigans in Palan would have attracted some attention. And with monkhouse involved, those in the know would smell a rat. All they know is that it is going on in the palan area, so they searh round that area. each faction follows the lead of the other, they don't know what the others are looking for, just that if they are spending so much to look for it then it must be importatnt. The ES is pressured by the retros, the pirates and kilrathi are doing their own exploration. Monkhouse knows that there are problems and so gives you his artifact, as the only way some one will get it is over you dead body. and no one knows to look for you.

We also know from the bartenders that confed and the militas are looking for sandaval. A lot of people knew he had the artifact and so a lot of people wanted him dead, he was proabbly playing them off against each other to get the best deal. Lynch found out and had tayla kill him. then used their contacts to frame you.

[chuck_starchaser]

Good points CC, I'll edit the stuff tonight.

[klauss]

Well adding factions is trivial the only catch is that every faction that has autogenerated ships must own at least 1 system at the beginning of a game.

Is that for ship production and dynamic battles?
That could be fixed, with static production / conversion rates. That is, ships get converted from one faction to the other, or produced spontaneously without a producer system. That would happen with pirates and merchants: merchant ships could be converted into pirate ships (raided). That would allow pirates to not own a system.

I could try to do those changes... later. That's python, isn't it? dynamic_battle.py, dynamic_universe.py and faction_ships.py?

[chuck_starchaser]

Let's just get rid of factions, or relegate the term faction
to organizational affiliation, which could be based on
different things. I can be retro by ideology, a Border Worlder
by birth, a Landreich by nationality, privateer as per
occupation, and pirate as a hobby, but currently be flying
a cargo mission, say.

Code: Select all

class race;
class birth_nationality;
class residence_nationality;
class ideology; //may need thought
class occupation;
class affiliation;
class hobby;
class mission;

Code: Select all

union faction
{
  race*;
  birth_nationality*;
  residence_nationality*;
  ideology*; //may need thought
  occupation*;
  affiliation*;
  hobby*;
  mission*;
};

Why an ugly union? (Note, for those not familiar with C++, a union is like a wildcard container that can fit one member of any of the kinds listed.)
Because we'd use "faction" to identify the "purpose" of a squadron. The flyers in a squadron may be of different races, nationalities, professions or ideologies, but they are flying together as a convoy to transport iron, so their faction is "iron transporting mission"-type.

By contrast, an individual would have all the attributes (full description)..

Code: Select all

class individual
{
  race*;
  birth_nationality*;
  residence_nationality*;
  ideology*; //may need thought
  occupation*;
  affiliation*;
  hobby*;
  mission*;
  string name_;
};

Then...

Code: Select all

class squadron
//a single ship flying with an itenerary is a squadron of 1
{
  int num_ships_;
  faction squadron_affiliation_;
  std::vector<flyer> flyers_;
  location current_location_;
  vector3d flying_vector_;
  planet* from_; //null for unknown
  planet* to_; //null for unknown
}

Code: Select all

class flyer
{
  individual* pilot_;
  ship_id ship_;
}

[spiritplumber]

It's a fairly sweeping change, we should run it through Daniel as it would require a lot of phyton pokety-poking for vanilla VS too.

[chuck_starchaser]

Have him read this thread starting from this post; as well as the transponders revisited thread.

EDIT:
By the way, talking about sub-factions, I like this historical account and classification of types of pirates in this post. We should incorporate these various types of pirates, IMO. It would help enrich the deep plot a lot.

[chuck_starchaser]

Copying this from another thread, as it's more fitting here, and editing it a bit. Just a bit of rehashing and brainstorming...

Everything in PR3 will be after the war, except the military stint; --it's only fitting to have it end when the war ends, isn't it?

Starting the game, you get attacked at a base, your ship is destroyed, so you you pay for your way off system and a ride to Perry by working as a turret gunner aboard a Drayman. Once at Perry you have no choice but to enlist with Confeds and you make a first stint (very easy), after which you're a Reservist; but now as a reservist they call you back in before you have a chance to escape, and you're into a second stint, this time with Black Ops. Maybe this second stint could begin with rescueing Monkhouse from Kilrathi captivity, and attacking some of their most secret bases with nuclear or biological weapons. This would benefit the whole canon, in that the idea of the kats giving up the fight solely based on the destruction of Kilrah could be questionable, but if some bases they had and thought were super secret get attacked and wiped out just before the destruction of Kilrah, that would make the treaty of Torgo all the more believable. Anyhow, in your debriefing, or the rumors you hear, is that during this operation you'll be wiping out as many as 50 kat bases, but you only end up doing a few of them and the war ends, and now you're a (probably decorated) veteran.
After that I have no idea yet, need to learn a lot more about the timeline and the characters and places. There should be at least 1, and more likely two sub-plots per major faction: AWACS, BW, Landreich, Firekka; but I don't know in what order yet.
There are basically two choices at each point in the timeline:

A) Choose the same focal point as the main WC timeline and add to its story; or...
B) Choose a new focus, in an area far from the focus of WC timeline and supplement it.

And choice A subdivides into...

A1) What you do sets the stage for events in WC, like the Black Ops in kat territory helping justify Torgo.
A2) What you find out explains what happens to characters after WC events that were left untold in WC canon.
A3) Who you meet and your conversations with WC characters add angles or depth to characters and story from WC canon.

I'd like, over all, to mix these aproaches, or simply not to have a "policy" about it, but just let the story grow on us.

But, coming back to factions, I think we have to try and

1) make a very fine-grained subdivision of the factions
2) understand their complex relationships
3) understand the visions and goals of some of the main players in WC history
4) develop a deep story about each of those characters
5) find lose ends in the WC story
6) come up with stories to tie them up
7) add new characters and stories that would fit

In other words, we start from both ends top-down and bottom-up:
Top-down meaning that we know the overall plot:
Confed stint, faction-oriented plots, kroiz saga/gun saga; and we're trying to flesh them out.
Bottom up meaning the process of discovery, by dissecting the Priv/WC story and finding what's going on, and finding what lacks explanation, and mining little gems that grow into full little stories, and perhaps bind themselves to other little stories forming larger clusters.

Hopefully the dual approach will help accelerate the process:
A pure top-down approach would feel like all form and no substance.
A pure bottom up approach would give us just loose pearls in limbo.
But working both ways should produce at least some early results of story pieces with good form and good substance.

All of the above pertains to coming up with the "deep" story or plot.
Turning that into a mission specifications and dialogue should be very easy, as then the work is one of reducing detail. Showing only those elements of the story that Burrows would happen to see, or needs to know.
Whatever the player doesn't strictly need to know to play along, we have a choice to make it obvious and explicit, or easily deducible, or hinted at, or really hard to figure out, or possibly impossible. Which is the way life is, after all, there's a lot of stuff we don't know, and a lot of stuff we can't know.

[chuck_starchaser]

From the extra missions, Lang is delivering "Food stuffs", and is helped by the Murchants guild. I think Lang is a better candidate to own Rondell than Mesnuch. It would also tie in with Murphy, an uninformed lacky, who is doing official buisness, but is secreatly doing the bidding of Lang, working for the Guild.

LYNCH:
I want you to attack a number of Merchant's Guild ships.
Damien Lang, an old business rival, needs those shipments to arrive, if he's to save face.
These MG vessels are taking a load of foodstuffs in the Varnus system.
Intercept and destroy them all at Rodin.

Very interesting! Foodstuffs? Old business rival? So he DOES own Bronte!
Damien Lang, whether he is or isn't a mobster, he's definitely in some food business, and might very well be connected to Rondell...
Is Damien Lang sending or receiving the shipments?
Let's see: Traditionally, in 90% of business shipments, the seller is the one who ships the stuff, and the one who loses face if the stuff doesn't arrive; not the buyer. Besides, if he were the buyer he wouldn't "lose face" unless he's a re-seller; but even as a re-seller he'd be exonerated if the original sender failed to deliver. So Damien Lang is the sender. He is in Rodin, and is the food producing company's owner or CEO --just like Sandoval was of Rondell--, I think.
If this is so, Lang and Sandoval, the food producing company in Rodin and Rondell, have one thing in common: Both are rivals of Lynch/Bronte. But it's possible Rondell might be a multi-planetary food corporation...
Bronte seems to be headquartered in New Detroit, but New Det is not an agricultural planet, so Bronte is multiplanetary, probably, and probably so is Rondell. So Sandoval and Lang could be planetary subsidary CEO's for Rondell - Palan and Rondell - Rodin, respectively.

Why are the kats searching for delta prime? Well....
they are searching, but don't really know what they are looking for. All the shanigans in Palan would have attracted some attention. And with monkhouse involved, those in the know would smell a rat. All they know is that it is going on in the palan area, so they searh round that area. each faction follows the lead of the other, they don't know what the others are looking for, just that if they are spending so much to look for it then it must be importatnt. The ES is pressured by the retros, the pirates and kilrathi are doing their own exploration. Monkhouse knows that there are problems and so gives you his artifact, as the only way some one will get it is over you dead body. and no one knows to look for you.

It could also be that Monkhouse did try to leave Palan, and got taken alive by the kats, while you're doing the missions for Cross. The pirates seem clueless: If you're friends with them, they don't attack you. They are just flying around...

We also know from the bartenders that confed and the militas are looking for sandaval. A lot of people knew he had the artifact and so a lot of people wanted him dead, he was proabbly playing them off against each other to get the best deal. Lynch found out and had tayla kill him. then used their contacts to frame you.

If I was Lynch and wanted to have someone killed I'd use Miggs, rather than Tayla. I'm not sure what "deal" you're thinking of. Sandoval knows what the arifact is and why he stole it. He's not trying to sell it; he just wanted to get back to Palan. That he tried to frame you, that's for sure; but he didn't succeed, otherwise you'd be wanted by the militias in New Det; but they seem to be okay with you. In any case, he *controls* the militias, but has little or no power on the courts.

Another thing I find interesting about all this food-stuff is that the last mission you do for Murphy in RF is to deliver food to New Det. Seems like Bronte can't deliver food to their own headquarters! And then Lynch moves to an ugly mine far to the East...

So, Lynch ordered a siege of Palan using mercenaries.
Menesch later orders a siege of NewDet using retros.

Tit for tat.

But even though Menesch is dead, Lynch doesn't go back...
Looks like Kroiz did survive, after all...

[Captin cocksniff]

Yea i prefere Monkhouse being taken alive by the kiilrathi. Then it gives you the oppertunity to rescue him later.

Lang was incharge of those deliveries. But from what lynch says, i get the feeling it is personal, he dosn't care about what the sipments are, he just wants him to look bad that is the main emphisis of the mission. There is no indication as to weather Lang is a mobster or not, but I would presume he must be doing some underhand buisness to be a rival of lynches, as Lynches main buisness isn't food. To me it is just a front, mostly to launder money, even if they make no deliveries they would still be making profit from all the illegal opps.

I would prefere to put Lang as the Head of Rondell, Lynch in charge of Bronte. And sandaval as we had him before, a feild geoligist, proabbly working for Bronte, but with large intrests in Rondell, sandoval steals the artifact, and the milita are looking for him, because of lynch. Sandaval says he is about to sell the artifact,presumably he cant leave new detroit as he will be hunted down, so he has to meet someone who can take it off him, but is suspitious as to what is going to happen.

Tayla knows too much, she is defintily involved. there is only one miggs, and i am sure a lot of people lynch wants dead. Lynch can't always send miggs to kill people, and why did he send you? And what is tayla doing on New detroit anyways? I see Tayla as one of Lynches genrals, she has a bunch of minions, she wouldn't have directly killed sandaval, but one of her minions proabbly did. She herself is in direct contact with lynch, she is able to set up meetings, she has to be close to lynch to so that. The bartenders tell you that sandoval is on new detroit. So tayla proabbly went looking for him, first place to go is the bar and she got lucky.?

[chuck_starchaser]

Very true. I'd totally forgotten Sandoval had said he'd be selling the thing for a very large sum... Could be just a lie, though, I mean, if he worked for Bronte, how would Monkhouse know about him? Monkhouse said Sandoval held the arifact dearer than his life. Sounds like he knew him. But I'll think think again about it all, later this evening.

[Captin cocksniff]

Well being one i should know. Scientists are a bit like high class whores, except they don't get paid as much. Their contracts don't last long, and they'll go to the higest bidder, and they'll steal your cash given the oppertunity.

Also, it is part of the job description of a scientist to know who is doing similar work in your field, as you often have to compete with them to get you publications out first, our use them to make yours better. Cos publications are what matters, science is pretty brutal really.

Plus every one knows that sandoval had an important alien something or other, you get told so by bartenders right at the begining of the game. they also tell you that he is a high ender, hireing out lots of privateers, proabbly to protect himself or keep the artifact moveing. they also tell you he is trying to "dump it", he obviously had no idea what he was getting into when he stole it, he was too loud about haveing it, and he got noticed by some very important people.

Also there is a lot of chat about pentonville, with direct refrences to Tayla and her smuggling routes. maby she moved from pentonville as she was going to get busted, its too in your face, for her to get away with it, plus raordian dosn't help her cause either blowing off his mouth. Lynch would proabbly be pretty angry at the loss of a base. Plus the bartenders also tell you that confed are tring to stop the brillance going into New constant, Tayla must have knowen that and sent you right in to them.

[chuck_starchaser]

Yeah, well, there are no jobs for "scientists" but everyone has to have a PHD to drive a truck these days. We need a "cultural revolution", Chinese-style.
What's your field?
I like the idea of Sandoval being an archeologist. That would explain a lot of things, like him and Monkhouse knowing each other. And if he worked for Rondell, it would explain how Rondell became aware of the possible value of the artifacts, and their descision to kidnap Monkhouse. And Sandoval probably had a plan to stay hiding in New Det for a while and ask Rondell for a large sum for the piece he stole. What I still can't reconcile is his load of iron mission. Why? Okay, he wants to be rid of the artifact because "it's hot", but would he spend money buying iron at retail price in an industrial planet, to have it shipped, just to disguise the real purpose of the mission? Why not ship computers and make some money out of it, at least? Or is that a hint to the player, to the effect that the real mission load is something other than iron?
There are other things that don't square up, namely if we assume Tayla wasn't lying when she said she used to do business with him, and that the police are so concerned about his murder. Seems to me he was either rich and important, or a big crook, or both, which isn't my image of an archeologist; but I guess you're saying my image of a scientist may be a mere stereotype, and that he could be all of the above: rich, important, a big crook, as well as an archeologist.
I'll have to sleep on that.
(I need to find the 'bar rumours' again; I forgot to bookmark the url or save the file, and now it won't google.)

[spiritplumber]

http://home.iprimus.com.au/IP-PWP02/179 ... cript.html here ya go

[chuck_starchaser]

Ahh... Thank you, Spirit!


Allright, factions... In the post I mentioned earlier, Ron Losey offers a classification of pirates into 3 categories:

1) Extremist Pirates: Attack ships as a way to blockade an enemy's shipping as well as to make money to finance their operations. There are such extremist Muslim pirates operating currently in Indonesia and Philipines.
Unlike other pirates, they might use suicidal techniques, are well organized, and are often not aligned to any government.

2) Rogue Pirates: Work for themselves, can't organize beyond very small groups as they mistrust each other as for sharing the loot. They also need to worry about where to sell their stuff, or where to store it until it is sold.

3) Privateers: Privately owned warships or fleets that agree to attack the shipping of one or more nations, but NOT those of the nation they are loyal to. They are well organized, better armed, and have no problems finding a friendly port, or where to sell their loot.

We could have such a classification, and perhaps a fourth one, like Privateers, but whose loyalty is to a faction, not to a nation. This doesn't mean we need to openly distinguish them, but it does mean not all pirates would behave in the same way. Note that under this classification, Retros would be a sub-type of pirates.
Again, this doesn't mean we need to change anything. Actually, one thing would be great to change, even retroactively to Priv and RF: It would make a lot of sense if retros, after a successful atack, would pick up loot with their tractor beams, just like pirates do. There's no reason to assume retros are so rich they can just leave and ignore the stuff in space.

[chuck_starchaser]

Doh!
"Tayla: I won’t say anything that will tip my hand prematurely… but I can tell you that Sandoval got it by killing its previous owner. Before that a spice merchant named Deiter obtained it from his own father. Death follows this thing. Feel lucky?"

Also, I misread,
"Tayla: Some Confed patrols, but I’ve paid some major bribes to make sure you’re left alone."
to mean she'd bribed confeds; but in the reject and reconsider dialogue she clarifies:
"Tayla: Yeah. I’ve spread a few bribes around InSys to pave your way… though if you hit some Confed patrols, watch out."

[spiritplumber]

Up until patch 12 everyone tried to pick up loot from a battle site (pirates would occasionally try to do so BEFORE finishing a fight, and all their fighters have a trac beam), then the trac beam code was changed. i have to see exactly what was changed and how. but no worries

[chuck_starchaser]

Right on! I have a question, I found this in the cic miscellaneous page:

"Grain is a basic foodstuff that has been used for generations. Sold on agricultural planets, grain is traded for between 6 and 29 credits per unit in 2669, and between 18 and 89 credits in 2670."

Where could the '2670' come from? This could put a hole in the storyline if it's based on fact. Any mention of 2670 in RF or something?

[spiritplumber]

the priv intro says "gemini sector, 2669"


the rf intro says "one year later..."


you know what we could do?

first military stint: between Priv and RF, terrel hires you as a freelancer after you get the drone but refuse a commission. say you get a brevet rank or something. you help out with whatever (capture a cloaking device so blair can use it?)

war ends. you get a govt credit card to go to jolson.

RF.

possible subsequent military work against kilrathis who didn't disarm, or initial secession attempts.

other plot.


This would actuall align Priv more closely to canon take that retros!

[chuck_starchaser]

Damn Origin and their carelessness... "year later"! .... DOH!
There's no mention in RF of the war having ended, is there? Quite the contrary, IIRC...

EDIT:
I have no problem sticking the miltary stint between PR and RF, but I think all the multiple references to the war raging are a much bigger problem to solve. All we need to do is change the one screen to say "a week later" or "some time later". How about it?

EDIT2:
Or was there a mention of "lessening tensions at the front" when the Confeds send fleets searching out the Retro base or something...? I forget. But even that would fall far short of an "end of the war"... If the war has ENDED there should be salient mentions of the fact, and big, visible consequences all around.

[spiritplumber]

I think that part of it is that Gemini is far from major engagements (it's at the "northern" frontier), the Kilrathi empire being split into clans it's perfectly possible that whoever is in charge of the adjacent sector figured they'd keep fighting. Besides, Kilrathi activity in Gemini was mostly commerce raids even during the war, so it's perfectly likely that the various local commander could have said "The heck with this, let's keep looting while the looting is good".

But yeah, it IS a glaring inconsistency -- although it explains where the Retros got all the Salthis, they were supposed to be scrapped but they were "diverted" by some minor Kat noble who figured that since he couldn't keep fighting he could at least facilitate the humans to shoot at each other.

Part of the reason why I'd like to put the first (short) military stint between Priv and RF is that: (1) we don't know what Burrows did during that year anyway, so no canon clashes (2) people can start experiencing the second mode (mission driven, rather than freeform) of WCU a little earlier (3) most people who play WCU probably already have played Priv and the remake, and finishing that storyline a THIRD time before getting to ANY of the new stuff might be boring.

A possible tie-in with the main WC storyline is that Burrows could be sent with a small task force to bait, disable and capture a Strakha fighter so that its cloaking stuff can be used on the Excaliburs -- the "evil" ending for the quest would be that the player steals the Strakha for himself, at which point Confed seriously gets on your ass.

The big THE WAR IS OVER news flash would have "a privateer" credited in a supporting role on the action if the player turns over the Strakha to confed, and "a group of brave pilots" if not.

(The reason why I bring up a whole fighter is that I don't think we should have modular cloakers -- i mean the Strakha is BUILT around the cloaker, and the Excal was probably adapted to it, and even then its cloaker wasn't as flexible as the strakha's)




just a VERY NON BINDING thought ^_^; i hope it helps!

[chuck_starchaser]

Allright, here's some stuff on kloaking:

"Cloak:
Generators create a distortion field that bends most radiation around the vessel. That includes most visible light. A small amount is allowed to get through, or the pilot would be blind. This is why there is a black and white effect when cloaked. The frequencies that are let through are constantly modulated, but you might still spot the ship if you're lucky. Cloak requires a lot of power, and a ship can't stay cloaked for a long time in a combat situation.
In some cases, targetting systems don't work when a ship or missile is cloaked. You either need someone piloting the ship, or the missile needs to drop out of cloak every now and then to update its target information. A good example of this is the Kilrathi Skipper missile.
The Kilrathi were the first to develop stealth technology around 2654/2655, though the technology didn't become widely used until around 2667.
In 2668, the Confederation was able to develop its own stealth ships by using captured Kilrathi technology as a guide, but were unable to completely understand the technology themselves.
Cloaking requires the use of a crystal that has a limited life.
The first Confed Stealth Fighter prototype was unveiled in the Selyan Sector at the 2669 GCM competition. It featured an integral MX-27BC guided-proton warhead.
Stealth gear was used on the Light Smuggler (Bannockburn) is intended to be used for short periods of time. It is a huge drain on the ship's energy and sending a narrow band translight pulse required dropping out of stealth.
The Kilrathi seemed not to be able to detect the Bannockburn (Plunkett class cruiser which was based in Sirius system as of 2681) when it was in stealth mode."

"Name: Strakha class Medium/Heavy Stealth Fighter
Faction: Kilrathi Empire
About: Relatively rare in the Kilrathi arsenal. Cutting edge. They were originally called "Stealth cats" by Confed Intell, before they were encountered in combat.
Designed for sneaking, their hull includes sensor distorting materials. Its irregular shape could confuse scanners. The cloaking device made that the fighter could be completely hidden, both from scanners and from view."

"Name: F-103 Excalibur class Heavy Space/Atmospheric Fighter/Bomber
Faction: Terran Confederation
About: The Excalibur was the Confederation's hottest new fighter in 2669. At that time, it was still in testing, but it wasn't long before it was proving its worth as it was used to drop the Temblor bomb on Kilrah. The Special Operations funded Excalibur was tested by Jace Dillon, and came equipped with a matter/anti-matter engine effectively making it a prototype for the Lance (Dragon) fighter.

Though it has changed slightly since its initial launch, the Excalibur is still in service in 2681.
Cloak: Optional"

Now, I'm rather aprehensive about honoring the "year later" thing... Don't we, in RF, do a mission for the Confed routing kilrathis from some system near the front? I remember there's some important military kat there talking about their supplying ships to the retros. We need to find out who that was and what was his clan. If his clan was an opposing clan to the ruling clan, that's okay; otherwise that confession by a commander in the ruling clan, in addition to a kat fleet being in that system in the first place, not to speak around Capella and all that, is too much to justify in peace time. Skirmishes, okay; but not a fleet with a capship and a military commander.

[chuck_starchaser]

The name just came back: "Kahl".

BTW, we were talking about Lynch; in the mission computers there appear to be four companies he owns:
* Lynch Enterprises
* Lynch Mining
* Lynch Security
* Lynch Shipping

[chuck_starchaser]

Did quite a bit of work on the wiki storyline; check it out.

@CC:
Besides whether Sandoval was an archeologist or not, there's the other problem: Tayla said the artifact belonged to a spice merchant called Deiter who'd inherited. I'm thinking of taking it as a lie. Lynch having owned the artifact before Sandoval stole it makes too much sense, particularly considering that he said his people had looked at a holo of it, without explaining how he got a holo in the first place.

And we should start working on analyzing Righteous Fire. This should be a lot easier, since probably Origin didn't put 10% as much thought and dedication on RF as they did on Priv.

EDIT:
Got it started in the wiki.
BTW, I found this RF bar rumor about Lynch's moving:
"This you gotta hear. You know who Roman Lynch is? Only the richest, most-connected crime lord in Gemini Sector. He’s been moving around a lot lately. I don’t know where he’s staying right now. Probably some out-of-the-way place, to avoid over-eager privateers buggin’ him for work. If you can get in touch with him, though, I bet he’s got some real juicy stuff."
All it means to me is that his moving was not a thing Origin did casually; they are aware they moved him, so it DOES mean something; whatever that is.

And Hunter Toth is dead:
"Did you hear the news? The Retros finally got Hunter Toth. Remember him? He’s the guy who wrote ‘Prometheus Unplugged.’ There were some Confeds involved in the battle. They say it was really weird. The Retros somehow disabled his ship and took him captive. Then they jumped out of the system, and no one knows where they went. I hear the Retros don’t treat their ‘technophile’ prisoners too well. I wonder what they’re doing to Toth right now."

[Captin cocksniff]

Yea Tayla is a pirate, with connections to lynch after all. Like I said before, for me she is too nice for a pirate. I just rememberd that Regis, Lynches cousin, killed "someone". And not even lynch could get him out of the jam, and if i remember rightly, confeds are looking for regis. Thus maby Regis Killed Sandaval. Confed proabbly want him bad for the artifact as it in reality should be handed over to confed, (like when they confiscated the mars site).

About the timeing problem, there are too many refrences to a "killrathi war", dissapearing capships, and problems on the front in RF.
I think it makes more sense to have RF before the end of the war. I have been tempted to push back priv to 2668 and RF to the begining of 2669.

i was playing the Original priv in dos box, for some comparison. One thing that i knoticed is that the merchants guild misssions, never have "employers" only the merchants guild. Don't know what to make of that.

There is also some guy called M Jolnar, who employes in the hunters guild.

Sandaval, was employing lots of people, the bartenders tell you. He was proabbly trying to keep things moveing, so no one really had any idea where the artifact was, only him, so if they kill him they will never get it. Say when you left, sandaval took a trip off newdetroit, and was hunted down by Regis. Who later found out that sandavall didn't have it. So Tayla went to new detroit to folow up the leads, as now the feds where looking for Regis.

RF:

Mesnuch is comming back from Exile. Most lightly because of your Gun, and new promice of power with the retros and kilrthi (+ traitors).

Oxford is under seidge of Retros, masterson dismantles oxford, maby he took seltke stuff and is shipping it every where, would explain the large amount of intrest in oxford (pirates, retros and even hunters)

Tayla moves to Sherwood, in my opinion, she is runing away from something. Firstly, she is partly involved in the sandoval affair and linked to you and the artifact, lynch and maby regis. Secondly bertenders tell youu that confed is trying to stop the smuggling into new constant, and finally raiordian was shooting his mouth off, every one (bartenders) knew that tayla was incharge and working off pentonville. So i recon she was going to get busted.

Intrestingly, in both PR and RF tayla has you run brilance to bases where lynch is. And she adds that you made important people very happy. So Lynch proabbly has a drug problem, and his problems with seeling where about drugs.

Goodin has you protecting sherwood´, (systems eithr side) from kilrathi. and Murphy has you protecting the area around new detroit, and new constant. You have to run food into New detroit. As Lang is conneted to the MG, he is proabbly useing the oppertunity to humiliate Lynch, another symbol of lynches crumbling power, the way i see it, Lynch securiteis is a high class extortion racket, and lynch cant provide the protection, so Lang captilises on the oppertunity to get at lynch.

Maby Caocorn, is connected to Lang (and murphy) and Lynch is trying to get even (rondell buisness) and so he is the one blockeding the Liverpool refinary, (i can't rember who you encounter though). What is going down in Metsor?

the rest is simple, monte, terrel, informat.

As far as i can remember the retros are a splinter group of the curch of man. so there is also a peacefull curch of man some where too.

Hunter Toth gets kidnaped by the retros, (useing what sounds like leach technology). He is proabbly part of Monte, masteson, monkhouse, society. So maby you go and rescue him, though presumibly he would be in such a state that death would be more approperate.


And Chuck good job with the wiki, I haven't had time to read everything, but a minor detail.

Izanami corp. (rememberd from Original Pr) usually delivers computers, software, robots and stuff like that, often to Oxford. (it is in the unknowen section i think)


As for the explination of Omini, I don't think it is necessary. I am not sure as to the exact terminology, but many "compnies" are owned by diffrent compnies, which comtogether under a larger name like "Omini inc", which is made up of (forisntance) "Ominiscan", "tactical micro devices", and "Transcom", each run as seperate compnies, however there is also a main body of management. Or maby Omini Inc provides the softwere, ominiscan the hardware. As for the BS omini, it was proabbly a coloboration to dominate the market, like the "mercadies Kompressor", Omini has the backing of confed No? not a good compney to mess with.

Skybird scanners should be owned by a bigger compney, Skybird or something like that, and they should be underfire from ethical types for their "exploitation" of Firekkan workers (like compnies in china). so it would be fun to have a group equivilent to green peace, sort of thing.

From the japaneese names it sounds like we may have a japaneese equlivilent to Lynch?