Perseus Patrol devlog #2: Story Outline
Crossing a vast empty space right next to our own dear Sol system is the route of Perseus. The first Greek hero slayed and slayed monsters of the deep darkness on his trail. Humans told the tale of saving Andromeda from a sea monster, Cetus. What really happened, who knows thousands of years later. If only Perseus would walk amongst us today…
In the world of Giant of the Stars and Perseus Patrol, there is an underlying eternal battle waged unseen by ordinary humans. Ancient races too advanced for us to interact with, fight for two outcomes. For one, the natural path of the universe is to collapse and start again. To live again, love again and pass again, in an eternal cycle. For the another, this abomination of endless circle is meaningless. They believe something greater lies beyond the ever-restarting cycle.
Their powers are equal, their numbers are too few to affect the course of the universe. They need allies to carry out plans on scale. One of them crashed onto Earth in ancient times. Lurking at the depths, turning those who deemed ready into their champion. Their first success was called Perseus.
It just happened as thousands of years later, scientists named the spiral arm next to ours Perseus Arm. They didn’t know its meaning for a shadowy cabal of eternal beings, once human.
In this world, mankind expands to new worlds. The public never gets to know about the forgotten champions. Only weird stories, occasional sightings of shadows in the dark and conspiracy theories circulate. None serious, as life in the new frontier most dangerous to humans. No free time to think of the inconsequential.
Captain Colbert tasked with patroling the neighboring galatic arm. With the Giant’s catastrophy revealing dark matter to be a deadly danger to ships crossing the gap, Steeldome is the ideal mobile base representing the Federation’s might. Or its helping hand. Or its economy. Or its knowledge. Different message depending on the views of the conquered, helped, traders and scientists.
Captain knows, her behavior reflects upon the Federation. How will colonies perceive her ship’s arrival? A threat? An offer of safety? She is here to find out. And to decide fate, at least her part in it.
The story starts from a single ignition point and branches by player decision. I define four major paths the Captain can project power:
- military might,
- research and knowledge,
- economic prowess,
- diplomatic channels.
Primary directive: Federation cohesion
As the only interstellar state of manking struggles to maintain power and keep Earth safe, you are sent out to stabilize the Perseus Arm, other ships sent elsewhere. Depending on if you follow orders or just take off anyhow you wish, plenty of outcomes available for the main story:
I want to take a form of the “Letter of Last Resort” as evaluating your style of playing. Take a great video here from Lines on Maps Extra:
https://youtu.be/B1I8wHr3tN8?si=fnrAy6szv3zhkmmp
In short, there will be a letter written by the President of the Federation, locked away on the Steeldome. Due to reasons I want the world to develop, the Federation will fall in the end. The question only is how?
And here comes you as the player, taking the paths, focusing or balancing, you may end up with different letters of last resort when you open the safe at the end of this storyline:
- retaliate against the colonies → WMDs will be used to coerce the seceded colonies → civil war for years, even decades with Earth decimated once more.
- do not retaliate → WMDs were used against Earth protecting star bases, some against Earth itself but the order is to not continue, but build new alliances instead.
- hand over decision → President writes that if you read this, we failed and we are not to be trusted with further decisions → you are on your own.
- burn everything down → WMDs against colonies, Earth, anything that moves, finish it, provoke as much war possible, may the future races be better than we mortals were.
Possibly will write more than four different letters depending on the outcomes and differences of play-styles available as the game dev continues.
Military path - “Protege of the Admiralty”
You know what the Federation brass wants you to do: teach those pesky colonies where the monopoly of force lies. Piracy won’t be a problem for long with Steeldome in the vicinity.
If you focus almost solely on building an onboard invasion army and combat fleet, you may be able to invade entire planets, board heavily guarded star bases. In this scenario, you get more militaristic and colonies will fear you as you use your military power more to solve problems.
Scientist path - “We are explorers first…”
This is your chance to look under every rock, every cloud, in every system you can just go and visit. You believe the only commonality we all share: curiosity will keep us together.
If you focus on scientific achievements, you can use plenty of methods to help out the colonies in new harsh environments. Adapt life to vulcanic planets, quarantine and heal outbreaks of exotic viruses, develop new crops, etc.
Engineer path - “Seven Wonders of the Milky Way”
Armed with a mobile manufacturing base, you can shape the galaxy to your wishes. Build enough followers, upskill your crew to be engineers and building a Dyson sphere may become possibly one day.
Until then, you can offer maintenance support and repairs to colonies getting into trouble by nature or by attacking pirates. Colonizing or constructing new star bases are expensive endeavors increasing your economic power greatly.
Diplomat path - “Unification comes from within”
Once you took a class in crisis bargaining back in navy college that changed you approach forever. You rarely needed to use force, even just the show of it. You deeply understood how to manipulate, bargain and negotiate self-enforcing agreements.
Focusing on building the diplomat corps and positioning key agents to colonies leaderships inner circles, you may be able to keep alliances without a bloodshed. Not counting the occasional unexplained disappearances.
Ultimate mystery
While there is no plan to block any content or mission based on which path is selected first, there may be changes how each mission plays out.
Ultimately your ship’s and crew’s capabilities grow so much, you can feel owning the stars. This is when the sightings and anomalies recorded comes together and points to a series of challenges to take.
These challenges will test all your capabilities, but in the end you find something unexplainable: a Matrioshka Brain fragment. A structre from thousands of concave and convex mirrors, floating in dark space. Gaining power from a Dyson sphere a few lightyears away, it pulsates as millenia of missed maintenance breaks it down.
Seemingly abandoned and forgotten, you start scanning it to learn more. The moment your blood frozen in your veins, an undescribe-able horror emerges from the fragment. Not taking chances, you send out drones and fighters as turning around and engaging FTL takes a bit of time.
Depending on your decisions, this is the ultimate ending to the story in Perseus Patrol:
- Steeldome destroyed with all hands lost,
- finished scanning and escape,
- boarded the fragment and escape,
- break the language barrier and negotiate,
- hack into the fragment to pacify,
- or just escape without information.
Based on the outcome, a final cut-scene shows the future of the galaxy. The Matrioshka Brain fragment is part of a galaxy-wide system, keeping an inter-galactic energy shield up. This blocks from leaving the Milky way, but blocks entering too. In a few years from the events, a few Brain fragments fail.
Depending on if you got the info out, manking may stand a chance against what awaits on the other side. If not, God help us all in facing the invaders… and may our forgotten heroes show themselves in time of need.
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Previous devlog:
Sandor Nagy
