Stellaris Invicta
2020-Jan-06, Monday 11:12![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dorchadas
I couldn't sleep last night, and while I was trying and failing to sleep I stumbled on this miniseries about Stellaris, a dramatization of a let's play called "Stellaris Invicta":
The basic premise is that late in the 21st century, Earth is invaded by aliens and, over the course of a decade of war, manages to defeat the small alien force thanks to a retaliatory nuclear strike at their orbital flagship and a long, grinding land war, but at the cost of almost completely devastating Earth. So after further decades of martial law, the Earth is unified as the Greater Terran Union with the goal of finding the alien homeworld and making sure nothing ever threatens humanity again.
Normally these kind of Humanity FUCK YEAH stories either bore me or annoy me, because they're so often an excuse for crypto-(or not so crypto)fascist fantasies played out with aliens standing in for people of color. But I liked it a lot here because the narrative is woven out of a Let's Play series that went on for dozens of hours, so rather than being someone's fantasies of oppressing the lesser races with a sci fi mask, it's building a story out of the events of the game, most of the major ones of which were voted on by the people watching the stream.
For example, slight spoiler here for the War in Heaven event that triggers later:
The War in Heaven triggers and in the Let's Play, the hosts are super excited because they've never seen this before, and then they're worried because the GTU just got out of crippling war with the Stellar Axis led by the Florian Matriarchy that only ended due to the Fallen Empires awakening. And then when the Jaz Gavaz Peacekeepers and the Xani Restorers, ancient species with technology millennia beyond that of any other civilization in the galaxy, both came to the GTU and demanded that it side with one or the other or be the enemy of both, the hosts put it to a vote while discussing how probably screwed they were and how this might be the end for the GTU. The people watching the stream voted for defiance, the hosts were excited and joined the League of Non-Aligned Powers and get more and more excited as they see how many galactic powers reject the Awakened Empires' demands...and then the League declared war almost immediately before the hosts were ready and they were very annoyed.
In the narrative version of events, it became this:
Terra Invicta!
It's all based on in-game events, but it's the classic story of people who have hated each other for centuries uniting to fight a greater enemy.
I've watched a bunch of the livestreams and all of the post-livestream narrative and the storytelling is top notch in the way that they take the chaos and randomness of an 4X game and turn it into coherent narrative thread. And while it seems like it's just going to be 40K fanfic, listening to the hosts shows they consistently put hard decisions to a vote and don't immediately leap for the most bloodthirsty option. The first species the Greater Terran Union encountered after achieving FTL, the Wessari, were occupied, vassalized, and centuries later, integrated into the GTU rather than being genocided, and the GTU eventually did ally itself with alien powers. It's that consistent thread of decency that kept me interested--the sense that the GTU was the way it was because of the invasion of Earth, but that they always remembered that its harsh measures were born out of necessity due to the situation and not a one-size-fits-all policy to dealing with the galaxy.
There's a season 2 coming. I can't wait.
The basic premise is that late in the 21st century, Earth is invaded by aliens and, over the course of a decade of war, manages to defeat the small alien force thanks to a retaliatory nuclear strike at their orbital flagship and a long, grinding land war, but at the cost of almost completely devastating Earth. So after further decades of martial law, the Earth is unified as the Greater Terran Union with the goal of finding the alien homeworld and making sure nothing ever threatens humanity again.
Normally these kind of Humanity FUCK YEAH stories either bore me or annoy me, because they're so often an excuse for crypto-(or not so crypto)fascist fantasies played out with aliens standing in for people of color. But I liked it a lot here because the narrative is woven out of a Let's Play series that went on for dozens of hours, so rather than being someone's fantasies of oppressing the lesser races with a sci fi mask, it's building a story out of the events of the game, most of the major ones of which were voted on by the people watching the stream.
For example, slight spoiler here for the War in Heaven event that triggers later:
The War in Heaven triggers and in the Let's Play, the hosts are super excited because they've never seen this before, and then they're worried because the GTU just got out of crippling war with the Stellar Axis led by the Florian Matriarchy that only ended due to the Fallen Empires awakening. And then when the Jaz Gavaz Peacekeepers and the Xani Restorers, ancient species with technology millennia beyond that of any other civilization in the galaxy, both came to the GTU and demanded that it side with one or the other or be the enemy of both, the hosts put it to a vote while discussing how probably screwed they were and how this might be the end for the GTU. The people watching the stream voted for defiance, the hosts were excited and joined the League of Non-Aligned Powers and get more and more excited as they see how many galactic powers reject the Awakened Empires' demands...and then the League declared war almost immediately before the hosts were ready and they were very annoyed.
In the narrative version of events, it became this:
"For reasons that had long since faded into history, the two powers were ancient rivals, and a renewed conflict between them seemed imminent. Everywhere across the galaxy, roving fleets of Jaz Gavaz and Xani ships met in a series of increasingly tense confrontations. Diplomats from every nation convened emergency meetings to determine what action to take, and the National Assembly relentlessly debated how the Greater Terran Union could possibly navigate this new state of affairs in its current condition.Damn.
"In 2615, time finally ran out.
"In the remote Irem system, the Jaz Gavaz and Xani met in open battle, and fleets of warships exchanged weapons fire of a kind that had never in recorded history been unleashed. Before the battle had even ended, representatives from both sides arrived on Earth, demanding the surrender and vassalization of the Greater Terran Union, that it would join in their war in exchange for technological wonders, and promising terrible punishments should their offers be refused. Each side demanded a reply within twenty-four hours, a period that would come to be known in human history as 'The Longest Day.'
"Neither the High Marshal, the National Council, the National Assembly, nor the general citizenry harbored any fallacies as to the Union's current situation. The national strategic reserves had been drained, the military-industrial complex had just begun to recover, and fleet, air, and land command remained dangerously understrength. Military analysts worked tirelessly to estimate the projected capabilities of each side, and as the hours counted down, reports were rushed to the National Council, each member knowing full well that the decision made here would dictate the fate of humanity. The only choice left was to decide which power could deliver the victory they had promised.
"On May 25th, 2615, forty minutes before the deadline imposed on humanity expired, the marshals of the Greater Terran Union appeared before the National Assembly, and for the first time they were joined by representatives of the Wessari Commissariat and the Union's allies, the Rixian Galactic Directorate, the Union of Nimerium, and the Faraxian Confederation. Their announcement was broadcast across the whole of the Union, to every citizen, ship, and station. In response to the demand from both the Jaz Gavaz and Xani that the Greater Terran Union capitulate; in response to the demand that humanity swear loyalty to alien masters; in response to the demand that the Union's armies be used to fight the wars of their new overlords; in response to the demand that Earth be governed by alien overseers, the High Marshal announced that the reply from the Greater Terran Union was a single word.
'Never.' "
Terra Invicta!It's all based on in-game events, but it's the classic story of people who have hated each other for centuries uniting to fight a greater enemy.
I've watched a bunch of the livestreams and all of the post-livestream narrative and the storytelling is top notch in the way that they take the chaos and randomness of an 4X game and turn it into coherent narrative thread. And while it seems like it's just going to be 40K fanfic, listening to the hosts shows they consistently put hard decisions to a vote and don't immediately leap for the most bloodthirsty option. The first species the Greater Terran Union encountered after achieving FTL, the Wessari, were occupied, vassalized, and centuries later, integrated into the GTU rather than being genocided, and the GTU eventually did ally itself with alien powers. It's that consistent thread of decency that kept me interested--the sense that the GTU was the way it was because of the invasion of Earth, but that they always remembered that its harsh measures were born out of necessity due to the situation and not a one-size-fits-all policy to dealing with the galaxy.
There's a season 2 coming. I can't wait.
