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Monday, June 16, 2008

Background Activities

This is Steven Petrick Posting.

One of the things about a game that has been running a long time is background. Star Fleet Battles has a lot of that, so much that there are a lot of things you can extrapolate into the future from given "macro-events" very easily. The end of the General War, for example, was pretty ruinous for some empires and less so for others. Yes, everyone suffered economic exhaustion, but some never had any major incursions across their frontiers, leaving their industrial intact. That can help set up the next round of history and explain the decisions of various political and military leaders.

Even so, you have to make sure everyone is acting with consistency within their own characteristics. The Tholians, for example, are not suddenly going to become all chummy with the Federation just because the Federation helped them. The Tholians inherently do not trust anyone, and are going to be expecting the Federation to betray them at any time. They are not going to be any more friendly towards the ISC, even though the ISC has removed their "Seltorian problem" for the time being.

There character is always going to be one of trying to get to a point where they get that Dyson Sphere moving again.

Like I said, the Seltorian problem has been dealt with for the time being, but how many years will it be before more Seltorians show up now that they know conclusively that Tholians are here? (They did send messages "home".) For the Tholians that means more Seltorians will come, and they will not want to be there.