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Topic: Algol IV Ruins. ?!?! (Read 3160 times)
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Valaggar
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If you make the Melnorme angry with you, and say the reply within quotation marks, they respond like this:
"Look, mistakes happen. Don't get so bent out of shape!"
The Spathi once used a similar excuse
after an unfortunate incident at their base on Algol IV.
They didn't like the climate there
so they decided to make `just a few minor, climatic adjustments.'
Their equipment went haywire, they panicked and fled
and the entire atmosphere was stripped off the planet
much to the native Algolites sincere,
though short-lived, regret.
Well then, although Algol IV is really a planet without atmosphere, there are no ruins.
Plus, Algol is in Druuge space. How could the cowardly Spathi make such a long and perilous journey?! And what happened between them and the Druuge?
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Draxas
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The natives of Algol IV were liklely non-senient, and their "regret" is probably used to simply personify them for purposes of this example.
I suspect that the Druuge's current sphere of influence cropped up fairly recently in the timeline. They were an unknown and uninvolved race during the events of SC1, which implies that their SOI was much smaller. They probably didn't expand their operations to the scope we're familiar with until after the Ur-Quan began the Doctrinal Conflict, and the other Hierarchy races got bored and started mostly minding only their own business instead of being galactic enforcers for their masters. Thus, Algol (being on the edge of their current SOI) was outside of their jurisdiction, and fair game for colonization by anyone. Considering the war that was raging, this is likely why the Spathi chose the world: It was far away from the front, there were no known sentients anywhere nearby, and it was probably worth the risk (and intense fear) for the colonization team to make the trip if the payoff was avoiding the war on their new world.
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Draxas
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It's just color text. Don't get too broken up with it. Millions of species in the galaxy were born, developed cultures (or not), and died out (with no small help from our friends the Kohr-Ah, no doubt), and we never had a chance to interact with any of them. Just because these guys get a 10 second mention doesn't make them any different.
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Draxas
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Not necessary, though, especially considering that few players engage in hostilities with the Melnorme unless they're trying to see new bits of dialog or are playing an "Evil Empire" themed game. Not to mention that said flavor text is explained away easily even with things as they are.
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Death 999
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We did. You did. Yes we can. No.
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It is very odd that the Spathi would range THAT far to build a colony, and yet not have covered the galaxy. Perhaps the map was redrawn after dialog-writing?
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Draxas
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I chalk it up to a diverse theater of operations during the events of SC1, and possibly an (aborted, thanks to the Spathi, apparently) attempt from the Hierarchy to attack a new flank of the alliance.
Or, maybe they just redrew the map after the dialog was written. 
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Draxas
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Why would you say they had traded the Ultron already? That seems to be a very recent development, from the way the races talk about it. It seems like the Utwig basically traded for the Ultron, and then broke it within a few months, but they were already so addicted to the feeling of euphoria that it gave them that their culture went into the spiral that it did (Hmmm... The Ultron as space drugs. Never thought about it that way until I wrote this post). If the breaking of the Ultron was in the more distant past, I expect that the Utwig would have committed suicide already, or the Druuge would have made more agressive moves to steal the bomb (Ever see the "Druuge tried that just last week" dialog when you show the bomb guards the Ultron? It sort of implies that the Druuge are first trying subterfuge to try to steal the bomb, but haven't made much of an effort yet).
If I had to guess, I would say that the Ultron was the first major trade the Druuge made after their near-miss with the Kohr-Ah. It probably took them a while to get set up and active again, and a few months for their trade fleet to make the journey to Utwig space, so the trade couldn't have happened more than a year or so before the start of the game, maybe even less. By extension, it seems like the Utwig probably broke the Ultron somewhere around the time that you first arrive in Sol as the game begins.
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AngusThermopyle
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*SPOILERS*
I dunno, it seems kinda hard to imagine the Druuge allowing an operational Spathi base in their SOI.
My guess is that certain constellation names were not set in stone at the time of writing the game and manual. For example, the manual states the Syreen evolved in the Arianni constellation. My memory is a little fuzzy on this, but I’m pretty sure they came from Beta Copernicus.
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Draxas
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Plus, don't forget what I said about Algol's position being unchanged since the beginning.
Not necessarily true. More than likely, the Melnorme's informational dialog was written last, because they can independently give hints for every single quest in the game. By nature of that, they would have had to have written the Melnorme's informational dialog after the starmap was completely finalized. However, their anecdotes could easily have been written much earlier, and used any convenient star name that came to mind, or been based on a preliminary starmap. It would be a simple oversight of little consequence to ignore this random snippet of dialog once the starmap was completed.
Anyway, the Druuge have a large SOI since some months before the beginning of the game, probably, since they don't seem so new to starfaring. But, anyway, there aren't always ships in every system, as you can see exploring a bit. So the Spathi were just lucky. Or they waited for the monsters to leave before entering the system.
The Druuge took advantage of the power vacuum in the area left by the retreating Kohr-Ah and increasingly isolationist Battle Thralls by expanding their SOI considerably once the immediate threat had passed. They have no nearby neighbors to keep them in check, and the formerly hostile situation in the quadrant had cooled considerably.
As for the Spathi, think of how terrifying the prospect of setting up a colony in a system claimed by another starfaring race would be. Such an act could easily provoke a war, which is something no normal Spathi could likely think about and not faint from fright; they had just finished inadvertantly fighting in one of those, and were in a state of relative peace, so a new one is the last thing they would need or want. Thus, there is no way they would have attempted to colonize that system unless they were unaware of the Druuge's presence nearby (and, if the Druuge's SOI included Algol, a fleet of Eluders in Hyperspace would definitely have attracted some attention, even if there were no Maulers in-system to greet them), lending additional credence to the idea that the Druuge SOI was much smaller then, and expanded to its current size only recently.
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Valaggar
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Not necessarily true. More than likely, the Melnorme's informational dialog was written last etc. Indeed. It's probably the most reasonable and plausible explanation. Spathi couldn't travel so far, not only because of fear but also because small fleets can't go too far in UQM, probably due to the lack of fuel.
In-game, we could say that the Melnorme didn't want to give away for free such information, so they intentionally confused the name.
The explanation with the increasing SOI is a bit exaggerated, since it wasn't so large a power vacuum: the Burvixese lived only on one planet and the Gg were coreward (the opposite direction from Algol) and peaceful.
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AngusThermopyle
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After reading through this thread a bit more, I think there are two possibilities:
It’s a writing error, as stated above. This is probably the most plausible explanation.
Or maybe those clever Melnorme made the whole thing up to dissuade you from any hostilities. We’ve come to expect that everything the Melnorme say is factual, but they may just have sly streak in them when self-preservation becomes a priority.
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Valaggar
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Yes, it really stroke me at first like a writing error, but I didn't want to admit it being such a thing.
But we can always say that it's made up by the Melnorme. Maybe even the Dramya are made up, I don't see the Melnorme able to strike such a deadly blow to an entire species (unless they had hired others to do the dirty job... but such a swift retaliation is strange then, considering that they would have sit and negotiated the price first. Or were the Melnorme so desperate that they offered a ridiculously high price from the beginning? It's not profitable.)
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