Play SMAC at Veeky Forums's advice

>Play SMAC at Veeky Forums's advice
>Choose Deidre because she's the hottest
>Destroy everyone on the continent, get into a protracted war with Morgan that over decades I manage to just barely win
>Realize Morgan was a buffer zone between the southern part of the continent where i was and a giant island to the north
>Yang is there, and the entire island is nothing but cities
>Even if I could invade, attacking each city's defenses one by one would take longer than everything else combined
This game is driving me insane.

Other urls found in this thread:

alphacentauri2.info/official/Profile Sister Miriam Godwinson.htm
youtube.com/watch?v=Lva8L-J8x04
alphacentauri2.info/wiki/Main_Page
twitter.com/SFWRedditVideos

Welcome to SMAC.

Good choice, by the way. Deidre's awesome, because Mind Worm Murder is great.

This is where you use planet busters.

If you have the expansion pack, consider spamming fungal missiles. They're pretty much perfect for when you need to fuck up a tight cluster of bases without using planet busters.

Or yeah, planet busters.

>planet busters
Not OP, but I avoided using planet busters out of principle. Until I started one game situated between Miriam and Yang. That changed my opinion very quickly.

If you go by the books, Miriam is the canon best leader to be a citizen under.

Nothing compares to the ecstasy of blowing 4x4 holes of pure devastation into Planet's crust.

>Not realizing Deidre forcefully impregnated people with Mind Worms
>Not knowing she was every bit extremist and fundementalist as Miriam
>Not knowing she was the true Fundementalist and not Miriam

>Not Deidre
The Gaians are the best to the little man.

You did not read past the surface narrative and missed the point completely.

Even then, Lal would be better than Miriam. Miriam only beats Santiago, Yang, and maybe the Russian guy.

We must dissent.

Lal was essentially a sham democracy with him living the megalomaniac life of cloning his dead wife and forcing her to love him.

It was no more than a Democracy than North Korea or the darker side of the EU. Secret elections, cronyism and complete and utter corruption hidden entirely by the Byzantine bureaucracy of his faction.

It discouraged all the advantages that gave the other factions some form of advancement. The Peacekeepers have none, you are either born in to the ruling caste or you are not. It is the worst faction to be under as every other one is in some way a meritocracy in some of the following ways, Science, Religion, Fitness, Business, there is a way however disagreeable to advance, Lal there is not. There exists the party and everybody out of it.

His darkest quote is the free flow of information meaning what exactly? I watch you. Big brother everywhere.

Yang is always a bitch to deal with. He converts whatever territory he has into something straight out of a Forge World and makes fighting him like invading Armageddon.

No thanks.

>cloning his dead wife
Is the only true thing in there. It isn't followed up on at all. You can have whatever headcanon you want, but don't pretend its anything else.

>His darkest quote
Was about allowing free speech to enable democracy. The polar opposite of the Big Brother faction leader: Yang.

Its okay once you out tech him. Just pay him off until mid\late game. His border cities are the only ones with stacks of mega doom, airdropped troops can take his central cities easily. You probably won't hold them for long but it disrupts the troop movements so you don't get endless human waves coming at you.

There is one version of the game in which everything is clearly labled so you are told to think, this is the face value of the game. It is a great experience in of itself.

There is another version in which almost every single quote and dialogue, script and technology has a hidden, darker meaning that ties directly to their factions mindset, it is always darker and sinister and in many cases nightmare fuel.

The dialogue of the tech-tree rivals, if not exceeds, Planescape and any other game. Yes, their is a mind-numbingly obvious meaning in the words but explore them, read a few of them together and visualize what has happened, what the technology you researched means to the people.

Think of Mind-Stapling, does not sound too bad but then recall one of the books you can be awarded at the end is "How to raise a Mind Stapled child" a horrific thing that we are distanced from by two clicks of a mouse, you have just irrepairably damaged an entire cities worth of minds, never to be the same again.

>The polar opposite of the Big Brother faction leader: Yang.

Yang does not care what his people think, what traitorous thoughts they may have as he has the means to deal with them, their is massive hints that the fences his faction gets for free are not to keep people out but to keep his people in.

Yang himself was a wonderkin. In his eyes Yang views himself as a god while at the same time understands that such a thing does not exist or if it did, does not matter. Ying and Yang, duality.

Sure, and you can play a Peacekeeper game where you mind staple as often as you can, but that's not really playing to their strengths (bonus Talent) or Lal's character as shown by the tech dialogues.

On the other hand it makes more sense, mechanically and thematically, for Yang to mind-staple his booming Drone populations.

It's definitely implied Deidre, Zakharov and Morgan are doing horrific things to their people.

Smart thing to do is slip some stealth-formers in, dig a Borehole, then surround it with fungus, and wait. Spread as much fungus as you can. Let the wild-occurring worms grind down the Hive.

>"How to raise a Mind Stapled Child"
That... hmm... you have a point user, that is actually really disturbing. It's quite interesting to think that in the average playthrough of SMAC you the player will do things that would make Hitler uncomfortable.

Except for the fact that she's the second worst of all leaders, a religious fanatics who doesn't give a crap about her followers and actively opposes literally *every* measure that improves the lives of anyone on the planet. Screw Miriam. Terrorists burned Earth, on Planet they should be burned.

Hovertank formers can drown continents without making Planet go berserk. A fair bit slower though.

My favourite endgames are when the other factions aren't even a threat anymore and I need to gear my entire economy into producing anti-mind worm units.

Zakharov pls

Point of order, Miriam was literally only included because the Neo Baptists thumped their Bibles and protested

I do not mean the way you, the player, plays the game. I refer to the background lore of what each of the factions do.

The Recycling Tanks that all of us rush to build early on to generate extra recources... we do not care if the people wish it or want it but we don't think of it, it's cheap to build and pays for itself after a couple of turns, ensuring we have better food for our citizens. You are practicing nation-wide Cannibalism regardless if they want it or not.

Every faction is horrific.

I never heard of that. Source?

Technically we do that anyway. Human bodies in the ground decompose and the ecosystem recycles those nutrients to make more plants grow. The Recycling Tanks just speed it up and use a more efficient process that doesn't happen in nature.

>more efficient process that doesn't happen in nature
It kind of does, we call it cannibalism.

Not nearly the same, user. In this, you entire body is rendered down to be used as materials to feed the remaining population, who will then do the same. It is left up to your mind to ponder if they have just been formed in to a protein bar for direct consuming or rendered further as fertilizer.

Regardless it means there are no burial rights, no cemeteries an utter lack of sentimentality and emotional attachment to the corpse. Upon death your body becomes property of the State.

>TFW I play as pirate-boy, and my first actions are to repeal weapons laws, maximize pollution, and use planet busters against completely pointless targets, and abuse the council to constantly vote to melt the ice caps
>Then I laugh and laugh as the water level rises and never stops, Planet gets fucking pissed, my enemies are losing cities left and right, and my navy takes whatever is left
I love being the Preacher.

>no burial rites
That's literally unknown.

>no cemeteries
There are often cemeteries or graves dug with no body to actually deposit in them.

>an utter lack of sentimentality and emotional attachment to the corpse.
This again is not strictly true at all. Among certain societies in the Himalayas, where there is very little soft ground in which to be buried, it often falls to the friends, family, or otherwise important people in the deceased's life to divvy up the body into tiny pieces which the carnivores and scavengers of the mountain can consume. This has been described as seeming cathartic to some, reverent to others, but is nevertheless an honoring of the dead via rites. Just because your crude sense of sentimentality can't shape itself around whatever another culture does with its dead, does not mean it wholly lacks sentimental or emotional power.

>upon death your body becomes property of the State.
This is pretty much true.

Official Firaxis profile
alphacentauri2.info/official/Profile Sister Miriam Godwinson.htm

Service Record:
Born 2014, Athens, Georgia, father a high-ranking member of the Evangelical Fire. Baptized in River of Fire at age 7; attended series of religious schools, including College of the Covenant. Received Ph.D. in psychology from Yale University.
Abundant charisma led her to position as ranking Psych Priest of Heavenly Diocese; later appointed U.N. Honorary Psych Chaplain for Re-integration Forces sent to countries decimated in Crusader Wars. Reassigned stateside when native populations elevated her to a cultlike religious figure (the 'Prophet Phenomenon' often coinciding with post-nuclear madness).

Political pressure for the reconciling of the secular and the spiritual led to her appointment as Psych Chaplain, U.N. Alpha Centauri Mission

>an utter lack of sentimentality and emotional attachment to the corpse
I don't see a problem with this.

>Upon death your body becomes property of the State.
I mean, if you want to be pedantic, even today, on death your corpse becomes property of your family, or the state if you're a John Doe or have literally no one who would be interested in burying you. There's technically nothing stopping a nation today saying "We have decided to nationalize the funeral industry. All corpses will be handed over to the state and buried in approved national cemeteries." I mean, aside from massive public backlash.

Again, none of this can be proved but it is left to the player to draw and extrapolate their own conclusions. Some of them are dark indeed. It is not at all the only way of looking at it, but a deeper and more realistic viewing of a much loved game.

>This again is not strictly true at all. Among certain societies in the Himalayas, where there is very little soft ground in which to be buried, it often falls to the friends, family, or otherwise important people in the deceased's life to divvy up the body into tiny pieces which the carnivores and scavengers of the mountain can consume. This has been described as seeming cathartic to some, reverent to others, but is nevertheless an honoring of the dead via rites. Just because your crude sense of sentimentality can't shape itself around whatever another culture does with its dead, does not mean it wholly lacks sentimental or emotional power.
We are told time and time again Planet is far more fertile than Earth ever was (Not all), the only reason it is practiced is that the Factions have a recource (The Dead) that are not being used to their fullest potential. It is Greed, by the State to gain more recources to further their efforts.

Also this, desu. When you get right down to it, burial is ultimately an elaborate and ritualized form of garbage disposal. The person, whether you want to call it the ego, the mind, the soul, whatever, is gone, the corpse is now stinking up the joint and a disease risk. Even if you're of a sect that believes in a bodily resurrection of the dead in the End Days or whatever, the immediate corpse still needs to be dealt with somehow.

What I really want to know is how the Punishment Sphere and the Nerve-Stapling torture actually works. Like, the names are ominous, but what do they mean?

Me neither, but virtually every culture on present day Earth does.

Those are intentionally left vauge but I suspect nerve stapling puts a limit on how much or what your nerves can process or transmit, effectively numbing you or allowing whomever controls the system to control what you feel - pleasure, pain, etc.

IIRC, according to the Gurps supplement, the Punishment Sphere applies direct nerve stimulation to create agonizing pain without physically hurting them, which can be applied endlessly if desired, or just a five-minute stir-fry.
Nerve stapling does something to the brain and nervous system to suppress independent thought and intelligence. It's basically a very high-tech lobotomy.

Yeah, but, not only are we aping the waning days of Golden Age sci-fi (where everything was transhumanist claptrap and that was supposed to be a good thing), but it's also the late 90s, so we're supposed to treat Deirdre's zealotry as the moral high ground because one day the Planet and the Humans will be the same and obviously that's a good ending, I mean that's really what I had in mind when I first researched The Wheel all those centuries ago.

>Nerve-Stapling torture
Think Pain Glove in old 40k lore. Or that box Bene Gesserit hags had in Dune.

Nerve Stapling appears to be a purposeful attacking of a part of the brain, or at least abuse that can result in the destruction of it to render the people uncapable of protesting and resisting any chances imposed on them for the immediate future, but can have lasting effects.

The Punishment sphere is a public facility that destroys higher brain function that prevents higher learning (By preventing Talents from being found) and enforces rigid compliance to the Faction (As it also prevents Drones/Rebels from forming).

Look beyond the immediate and search for the hidden!

*Incapable, not uncapable
>tfw I was nerve-stapled as a child

>His darkest quote is the free flow of information
That's probably my favorite quote from the game, as it's just so applicable to real life. "Beware he who seeks to deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master".

I find that againt the AI, spamming missiles to kill defenders in soem cities and establishing beacheads into them usually produces good results. They keep sending troops at you, but usually they eventually just stop trying, and then you can can advance. Might take a while, though. Also, AI can't into boats, so if there's an ocean between you, you can usually leave them mostly alone.

The SMAC tabletop game described Nerve Stapling as the process in which the victim is made to experience every emotion and sensation, to the fullest, and at the same time as a method of torture.
Think of it like waterboarding for the mind.

Then again, i don't know how canon this is to the series and i am paraphrasing, so take it with a grain of salt.

The Punishment sphere was a continous form of the same thing.

nice traditional game

>That's probably my favorite quote from the game, as it's just so applicable to real life
Little did we realize at the time, actually restricting information from people who want it is really fucking hard. Poisoning the well so that they only consume the information you want them to, on the other hand? So much easier.

>That's probably my favorite quote from the game, as it's just so applicable to real life

This is the greatest untruth of our times, the information is there, very little is hidden from us it is simply we do not care enough to ask.. It is simply we are apathetic to it all. And would rather protest the lawful defense of a police officer over our Elected Officials not being bound by the rule of law.

This guy gets it, though it is not poisoning the well so much as removing the well and replacing it with a fresh water lake.

>This guy gets it, though it is not poisoning the well so much as removing the well and replacing it with a fresh water lake.
By poisoning the well, I mean "Don't listen to [opposing group], they're [bad people] who only want [bad thing] because [reasons], listen to [our group], we're [good people] trying to achieve [great things] because we're [good qualities]." The exact form will vary wildly, but the end result is what we're seeing now, the death of open discourse, the splintering of political narrative, and increasing radicalization because political opponents are literally no longer perceiving the same reality.

That's true. We might be corrupt, but THEY are so much more corrupt.

We have always been at war with East-Asia, don't you support our troops?

>It is the worst faction to be under as every other one is in some way a meritocracy
Why is being a meritocracy necessarily good. Denying access to power is not the same as denying access to quality of life, in-fact the quickest way to pacify the plebs is through bread and circuses... and bread and circuses are quite nice. How is being born not a member of the ruling party any different from being born without the predisposition to excel at whatever singular skill that a given faction choses to base its meritocracy off of. At-least if you're born disadvantaged in Lal's world, the party has the decency to take care of you.

Access to power =/= access to quality of life.

>At-least if you're born disadvantaged in Lal's world, the party has the decency to take care of you.
Where does it say that? Nowhere does it say that Lal's Peacekeeping forces respect human rights, he grossly violates them personally several times in the background.

Santiago is love. Santiago is life.

>implying USA is any different
Keep dreaming

...

You have the chance to fix it, you still could. But instead you voted for an, socialist Jew and now for a woman above the law, immune it the rule of it and guilty of war crimes by proxy.

“It is not uncommon to see patients undergo permanent psychological trauma in the presence of the Sphere, before the nerve stapler has even been strapped into position. Its effect on the general consciousness of the culture is profound: husbands have seen wives go inside, and mothers their children. Dr. Xynan left the surface of the sphere semitranslucent for a reason. You can hear them in there; you can see them. It is a thing of terrible beauty.”

— Baron Klim, “The Music of the Spheres”

Whatever the punishment sphere is it involves nerve-stapling.

It'd guess that nerve-stabling is probably fixing certain patterns of obedience into the brain. Something like Room 101 in convenient cranial probe form. A process where whatever it is that makes you who you are is found, isolated, and cauterized.

>Mechanically incapable of using Police State Civic
>"The Warrior's bland acronym, MMI, obscures the true horror of this monstrosity. Its inventors promise a new era of genius, but meanwhile unscrupulous power brokers use its forcible installation to violate the sanctity of unwilling human minds. They are creating their own private army of demons."
>"As the Americans learned so painfully in Earth's final century, free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on information flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism. Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master."
>"The entire character of a base and its inhabitants can be absorbed in a quick trip to the Rec Commons. The sweaty arenas of Fort Legion, the glittering gambling halls of Morgan Bank, the sunny lovers' trysts in Gaia's High Garden, or the somber reading rooms of U.N. Headquarters. Even the feeding bay at the Hive gives stark insight into the sleeping demons of Yang's communal utopia."
>Extra talents is cited as being a result of attracting the "liberal elite" to his cadre.


All of this indicates that life in the peacekeeping forces, even if it is truly without power, is not without comfort.

Who has the best post-human singularity ending? Which one would you consider the most Utopian?

>implying implications
Doesn't matter who gets elected. Could be Sanders, could be Trump, could be Godzilla. The country is led by a powerful oligarchy that doesn't get elected nor obeys elections.
If Trump wins, it's gonna be the biggest disappointment - you will learn he can't do anything, just as Obama couldn't even close Guantanamo.

>Extra talents is cited as being a result of attracting the "liberal elite" to his cadre.
Talents are the elite and the highest educated of the population, they are not the working class/drones.

>"The entire character of a base and its inhabitants can be absorbed in a quick trip to the Rec Commons. The sweaty arenas of Fort Legion, the glittering gambling halls of Morgan Bank, the sunny lovers' trysts in Gaia's High Garden, or the somber reading rooms of U.N. Headquarters. Even the feeding bay at the Hive gives stark insight into the sleeping demons of Yang's communal utopia.
It stands to reason that those mentioned above are the most noteworthy and well known, but again the reading rooms are somber and serious, not the care free comfy places we envision.

>"The Warrior's bland acronym, MMI, obscures the true horror of this monstrosity. Its inventors promise a new era of genius, but meanwhile unscrupulous power brokers use its forcible installation to violate the sanctity of unwilling human minds. They are creating their own private army of demons."
Lal does the same, bringing a dead wife back from cloning with the hopes of seducing and loving her once more.

Either way, national voting patterns (Of any western nation) show they would rather trust somebody they know is corrupt, liar and working against their interests than risk change.

>Lal does the same, bringing a dead wife back from cloning with the hopes of seducing and loving her once more.
Cloning dead girlfriend=extensive military nerve stapling

k

Ironically, Yang is one of the best ones.

I was thinking to give this game a try.
How is the "science" element ?
Something like technobabble or hard science or well thought one or mix of either 3?
I have heard that it's pretty good in that compared to most of sci-fi games.`
\

It's somewhere between Mass Effect 1 and Avatar.

Actually it's very similar to Avatar, except instead of blue catgirl waifus there's swarms of worms that eat people alive

And the science aspect in terms of worldbuilding,lore and techtree?"

>Everyone is a dick so they use science to outdick each other

ok.
So, what about the claims that the creators did research and put plausible aspects and concepts as much as they can?
Is it on par with hard sci-fi stuff or plausible yet speculative sci-fi?

Most of it is pretty hard, based on extrapolations and projections of current theoretical science. The main exception is the presence psychic powers (which may or not be based on the characteristics of the planet).

I would say it is one of the hardest sci-fi tech trees ever. It avoids Star Trek speak.

Other user chiming in. Has anything has been written on the internet (blogs, articles) that details and co-relates to real life stuff? I might need it to convinces some of my friends since they always excuse by saying it's an old game.
This is where I first came to know about the term "singularity".

Not that I know of. But I will offer that if your friends use its age an excuse not to play a game you recommend, do not bother, your doing research to convince them will not alter their opinion user.

Mary had a little lamb

Jack and Jill went up the hill

Can't hear those old songs anymore without seeing the dispassionate face of Yang.

You are right.
Instead I will gather material related to Alpha Centauri for my reading.
Could you tell me stuff I should get in order to know more about it, like tech tree and lore?

>Mary had a little lamb,
>Little lamb little lamb,
>Mary had a little lamb,
>whose fleece was white as snow.

>—Assassins’ Redoubt,
>Final Transmission

youtube.com/watch?v=Lva8L-J8x04

This is what happens upon completion of the secret project, The Dream Twister. It's name alone is sinister enough, implying that not even in your most intimate dreams are you safe from the probing fingers of the future. Your inner most thoughts and memories will be twisted and torn asunder to offer protecting against PSI attack, it is not shown how it does so but judging from the above it looks tramatic in the extreme.

My thoughts on the video is that just as the body is conditioned through extreme punishing exercise regimes in the army so too is the mind toughened and strengthed by the implanting or the twisting of horrific dreams and thoughts to prevent paralysis during Mind-Worm attack.

My theory is further strengthed by what technology you must research to unlock this project, it is the following.

The Will to Power

This also allows you to use Social choice - Thought Control, further strengthenig my reasoning. The two techs required to research this are Centauri-Psi which deals directly with learning more about Mind-Worms and their telepathic means of communcation and Homo Superior which deals with the peak of humanity combined with the peak of emerging technology both things you would need if you were to marching through the most intimate part of a mans being, is mind.

Man is a rope, tied between beast and overman—a rope
over an abyss. A dangerous across, a dangerous on-the-way,
a dangerous looking-back, a dangerous shuddering and
stopping. What is great in man is that he is a bridge and
not an end: what can be loved in man is that he is an overture
and a going under. I love those who do not know how to
live, for they are those who cross over.

—Friedrich Nietzsche,
“Thus Spoke Zarathustra

alphacentauri2.info/wiki/Main_Page

This is pretty cool, I got my above post about the Dream Twister here. It's all legit;

Thank you, user.

That would be because the books are fucking shit.

>ugh we had our thumbs up our asses this entire time, I guess we'll spin out our remaining time in a computer simulation before Planet eats us all.

Remember user, make connections. They will not jump out at you and you will have to look for them, read everything, think on what it means from an in-character perspective or from that as a ruler.

>entire economy geared towards fending off end-game mindworms

Tell us more about your endgame mindworm tactics.

One of my favorite bits of lore you can learn through the tech tree is how Deidre won her war against Santiago.

The culture of peace loving hippies taking down the warrior culture via psychic mind rape. Good times.

>Tell us more about your endgame mindworm tactics.
HERBICIDE FUNGAL REMOVERS, KNOWN AS PLANET-SCOURERS, THEY SHALL REAP A BLOODY TOOL ON PLANET'S NETWORK.

I do love you can name your units and create custom ones.

I like that theory. Makes me feel like less of a bastard for perusing that project.

>Mary had a little lamb,
>Little lamb little lamb,
>Mary had a little lamb,
>whose fleece was white as snow.

>—Assassins’ Redoubt,
>Final Transmission

The reason this is sang is that this was Deadrie was the one behind the Mind Worm attacks. Why else would they sing that nursery rhyme? Deadrie is the nature lover and what is more innocent and loving than Mary's little lamb? It was a psy-op, designed to break the iron-nerve of the Spartan Soldiery, one that may well of worked.

What is also implied is that each and every Spartan was put to death in the most agonizing way possible, Mind-Worm Rape.

Again, a theory, like my Dream Twister one. But it is all there.

>Deadrie was the one behind the Mind Worm attacks. Why else would they sing that nursery rhyme? Deadrie is the nature lover and what is more innocent and loving than Mary's little lamb? It was a psy-op, designed to break the iron-nerve of the Spartan Soldiery, one that may well of worked.

That's some Lost tier ass-pulling there.

In my opinion, the nursery rhyme just implies that the Dream Twister mind-fucks people badly enough to have them numbly typing out a nursery rhyme--some kind of PTSD infantile regression--on some blood-spattered console before keeling over and dying.

I always end up making outrageously expensive Singularity Deathspheres and calling them something melodramatic, like Annihilators or something.

It could of been any nursery rhyme.

>One two buckle my shoe
>Three four open at the door

Is far more sinister and darker. As well as countless other short phrases. Another point is the Dream Twister grants 50% PSI Attack, not Defense, so whomever gained it in the lore was not Spartans as they were the one attacked by it. Deadrie is already established in lore as having viciously attacked the Spartans at one point.

It is not a Lost Tier Ass pull, it is thought out with all the points actually established but finally able to assemble them. Yours is nothing but a bland and boring edgy-shit completely unconnected with any narrative and just... exists.

There is the "Our Secret War" lore tidbits as well, how Deidre talks about how her lovely beach was turned into a naval yard.

>Deadrie
Spell.

>It's not the spoopiest nursery rhyme, why'd they use that
The tonal dissonance is part of the point. It makes it creepier.

>Deirdre attacked
I'm not disagreeing here.

I'm just saying that suggesting that the choice of rhyme specifically implies the Gaians is the sort of storytelling that agonises about tying every plot point to as many other plot points as possible, like having Anakin build C3PO.

>>Deadrie
>Spell.

Ad hominen, omit from next discussion.

>It's not the spoopiest nursery rhyme, why'd they use that
The tonal dissonance is part of the point. It makes it creepier.
This means nothing, there is nothing that can not be done with one of the old nursery rhymes that can not be done with the other. The only difference is the lyrical matter, that being the inclusion of the Mary's Little Lamb, an obvious metaphor for the Gaians Lady.

> is the sort of storytelling that agonises about tying every plot point to as many other plot points as possible, like having Anakin build C3PO.
In most games I would agree with you, but in a one where the dialogue and text for the research is so deep, complex and has surprising depth and moral inplications I find it hard to believe there is not more subtly hidden in it.

Miriams faction commits collective suicide canonically. Check the entry for psi gate in the tech tree, they kill themselves with it.

I'm obviously not going to convince you, Shyamalan, so I guess I'll withdraw from shitposting so as not to clutter up the thread with unproductive bickering.

That's some fucking wild-ass speculation, considering that technology is literally about matter transmission. Extensive and elaborate metaphor is kind of just how Miriam talks, there's no reason to assume it's somehow more sinister that she does so here.

As i've said all along there are many ways to play the game and read in to the background lore. Personally I see it a lot deeper and connected than you.

I posted some simple conjecture for other anons to muse over, you saw fit to shoot it down as a Lost Tier ass-pull, you began the bickering drone.

>Conjecture
>noun
>an opinion or conclusion formed on the basis of incomplete information.

I ask you to try and forumulate good and pleasant discourse here. It is hard enough to find.

It's Yin and Yang.

Spartans tankrushed the Peacekeepers and then Gaians got nervous and took the Spartans out with mindworms.

What is the game that comes closest in spirit to SMAC? You see several attempts at gameplay during the years, but seldom the lore gets more than hinted at, even if the tech trees contain many common elements they never go out of their way to show the implications of what you're reseraching, leaving you the choice to ponder about it and come to your own conclusion. Is it because in SMAC leaders weren't just nameless proxies of the player, and on top of that represented a deeper ideology too?

Isn't the point of using Mary had a little lamb to imply it is Deidre's (Mary's) Mind Worms (Little Lambs)?