Complaint - State of the Lore [Important]

State of the Lore

(This is a bit long, but I do urge you to read through it, as I do feel strongly about this and believe this is rather important. There Is a TL;DR! at the bottom.)

As many of you may know, wiki-editors, as well as other members of staff, have been working towards creating our own server canon. For this purpose, the Lore forum section was created.

Generally speaking, the process for creating new lore follows a certain pattern, following a set of what I thought to be "unspoken" rules or steps.

1. The wiki-editor/staff member creates a lore draft.
   
   
2. The wiki-editor/staff member posts this draft in the Lore forum section, where it remains open for discussion for a decent period of time.
   
   
3. The wiki-editor/staff member awaits feedback and adjusts his lore draft accordingly.
   
   
4. An administrator approves of a final draft, which has received mostly positive reactions from the community.
   
   
5. This lore will be added to the wiki, or a forum section to replace the wiki, which will officiate it to be recognised as server canon.

https://www.antaresroleplay.com/wiki/united-systems/?noRedirect=1
Recently, the human lore, or more specifically the lore of the United Systems has skipped a few of these steps.
More specifically step 2 and 3, which deal with community feedback.


While this has certainly happened before, with more neutral lore subjects, such as general technology and things regarding our setting, I don't feel this is appropriate for something in the lore that refers specifically to a certain species, in this case "humans", due to the fact that there may be bias. The fact that these additions of human lore have also actively improved the human's own background, in terms of how dire their situation is, as a species, significantly "buffing" them, makes this all the more unacceptable.

I take issue to these alterations in the lore:

1. USCM is a part of the USAF, the USCM is the only military organisation known in the original lore, with the USAF being a past faction in our server lore. This creates conflict and is contradictory, as I do seem to recall the USAF answering to and at one point, being fugitives from the USCM.
   
   
2. "The United Systems of Sol, Alpha Centauri, and Tau Ceti, or just the United Systems, is a military-centric representative democracy shadowed by a martial monarchy governing the mentioned systems in its title along with multiple frontier colonies (named the 'territories'), and houses nearly twenty billion Humans within this expanse."
3. "The United Systems has largely recovered from the tragedy of Earth in the aspect of economy. Mainly a war economy, agriculture and industrialism is emphasized, and the driving forces of the government-backed corporations has brought unemployment to the lowest it has been since before the resource wars."
   
   This directly contradicts the original human lore:
   "They were the first race to engage in space travel, both for science and entertainment, but their limitations restricted them to their own solar system."
   "Eventually they began to war amongst themselves more frequently, and with Earth's resources depleting, returned to the space race as each of the world's superpowers attempted to claim and colonise new planets. While in the midst of a particularly lengthy struggle to claim Mars, the humans observed a Beast From Beyond The Stars crash land on Earth."
   "Finally, General Kale made contact. She escaped Earth with a fleet of her best soldiers, and they've taken refuge in a space station not far from Mars. From there, they're planning and strategising what to do about the giant damn monster that's eating our planet.
   I overheard all this as my superior officer spoke to her on the comm-link. He asked her what she suggested the rest of humanity do. 'Do whatever,' she said. 'It's going to be a long road home'. I don't think we're going back to Earth any time soon."
   It also contradicts new lore that has come to light:
   http://starbounder.org/Mars_Model
   

Creating our own lore is fine, however, I believe that this takes that a bit too far.
I understand that it has been... 9 Years since Earth has been hit and I also understand that humans have been dealt a fairly horrible hand in the Starbound lore, but despite this we keep seeing a lot of highly militarised human factions, with questionable amounts of resources.
This new lore that is being pushed through, wants to minimize the catastrophe the humans have experienced and as a result would support the presence of these militaristic factions.
I do agree that we should rewrite the dire circumstances surrounding humanity somewhat, by allowing them to at least have been able to properly colonise 50% of Mars and being on the road towards recovery, however, I'd say that having Humanity recover miraculously, just like that, totally clashes with their original design, theme and "feel" as a whole.

For those who disagree with me:
The Hylotl were in a similar situation, after losing their homeworld to the Florans.
When Clem made the new Hylotl lore, which made the Hylotl more militarised and somewhat vengeful instead of their original, peaceful, pacifistic nature, which focused on self-defense after the conflict instead of trying to retake their homeworld, people rebelled.

Spoiler: Hylotl Lore Complaints

This also stands in STARK contrast with the issues surrounding the Glitch lore, as the Glitch have been severly gutted and disadvantaged by the views or bias of our current staff team or our current server canon:

What do we know about the Glitch?

• According to vanilla lore, the Glitch were the first race to come in contact with the Florans.
• They also discovered the Avians and contacted them, allowing them to study the Glitch FTL drive, to improve the Avian FTL drive.
  
• In vanilla lore, they have spaceships with a flying castle aesthetic.
• There are also Glitch wizards, who most likely use chemical weapons, explosives and staves.
  
• Glitch armour descriptions state they have additional brains, which can be interpreted as a built-in AI, sort of like Jarvis or Friday from Iron Man.
• The armour is generally described as being very tough and heavy.
• I believe this implies the Glitch use a form of power armor, with hydraulics to aid their mobility.
• Glitch are stuck in the medieval era, in terms of their aesthetic, philosphy and traditions, however they do have access to advanced technology, Outcast Glitch are shunned for their ideology, not for using advanced technology, like Glitch wizards.

As such, Glitch using moderately tough power armour, which allows them to be somewhat viable combattants with a melee focus and in addition to possessing powerful melee weaponry, also possess crude weapons, like fully automated crossbows that fire explosives, being powerful, crude and rather inefficient ranged weapons could be plausibe.

If properly defined could allow people to actually RP knight-like Glitch without feeling incredibly useless when compared to the overwhelming amount of humans and suits wearing kevlar and using ballistic weaponry that turns them into cheese grates.

This has not always been the case;
In the days of the Order, Glitch Knights, despite their many limitations, were able to function to a reasonable degree. However, nowadays, I believe the majority of our staff members have a certain bias towards the more "human-like" way of doing things and people are forced to wear kevlar vests and spend time researching gun trivia, in order to properly combat RP with all these gunnuts running around who want to play army.
Admittingly, due to the fact that human-style RP is generally more "realistic" in nature, this results in the fact that other races, who use more "unrealistic" or "fantasy" elements in order to make up for their flaws, get shafted.

However, why should we approve of Avian Crystal Tech, or Bio-forging, or Apex hyper advanced technologies, or the Novakid as a species, when we don't recognise Glitch Power Suits/Power Armour as an actual thing?
If anything, exceptionally functional Power Armour which integrates with the Glitch's own systems, which would give them an edge against other Power Armour users, could be this Species' "unique property".

A lot of people have been discouraged from being able to RP as Glitch Knights due to the unfair limitations placed upon the species and their aesthetic as a result of our setting which is gradually being adjusted to unfairly favour humans and force members of the other races to conform to what is considered the "human way" as it is the most "realistic" and "efficient" way of doing things.

TL;DR: I CALL BS:
Humans are being favoured due to bias reasons whereas the Glitch are being screwed over and their main theme is generally made useless.

 

This is ridiculous.
Many species are dualistic in nature.
Aside from the Humans, Novakid and Hylotl, there are:

• Flightless vs Grounded
• Savage vs Civil
• Miniknog vs Rebels
• Hivemind vs Outcast

Hivemind Glitch are the majority.
Hivemind Glitch have been described in the lore to possess advanced technologies, but they just refer to them as magical constructs, they have been a space-faring empire long before the Avians achieved FTL. As such, they are most likely the oldest species, perhaps an experiment of "The Cultivator" in a stupid part of the vanilla the lore, before he started cultivating other humanoid races.

Your statement that the Hivemind Glitch are entirely medieval in nature, in terms of technology is just FALSE.

If you do not feel that the Outcast Glitch minority, could use resources from the Hivemind Glitch, in terms of what they could smuggle or take with them as they run, to form their own Outcast communities, then Humanity has no reason at all to be buffed, and Humans shouldn't have access to all these pretty things like Kevlar and Munition as a result. The Hivemind society is as important to ALL Glitch as the Apex homeworld is to the Rebels, and how important Mars would be to the humans.

I don't think you understand what "devastating" means, or are that this US draft on the wiki implies that humanity isn't nearly devastated enough.

Even IF we were to allow humanity to have recovered more than what the orignial lore states, the idea that they've got multiple grand colonies and worlds with expansive industry is ridiculous. I'd say they'd still be in the process of colonising mars, due to continued struggles between different fractions of the human forces. Inhabiting Mars and repopulating that planet on a significant scale, worth of note, with perhaps a couple of minor mining colonies and military outposts is more than enough of a boost.

You do realise you're pretty much promoting Robot-suiting, yes? This actively takes away from the assymmetrical design of combat interactions in Starbound. You're literally HUMANISING everything because of your precious "realism" in a setting where such a thing is pretty ridiculous.

Glitch specialising in a form of power armour, and perhaps power weapons, or them possesing technology which reinforces their shields/armor against ballistic weaponry, to give them an edge against "conventional" firearms would be befitting of their aesthetic and would render them to be at least somewhat functional. I agree that the concept of power armour is dull and that it would probably require quite a lot of balancing to make it work properly. I don't intend every random Glitch to be on par with what a Space Marine from 40K in terms of what they would be capable of, they'd be minor tank-like melee fighters, but grenades, rocket launchers and other heavy armaments, and properly aimed shots, would still be able to take them down. You also have landmines, there's a decent amount of things you can do to counter them still. No matter how you put it, the Glitch need some love in terms of what you allow them to possess, especially because of what they were SUPPOSED to be in the lore.

Yes but you are either ignoring the point, or missing it somehow.
Glitch need something, as a species, doesn't matter if they are Hivemind or not, to make them viable.
They "wouldn't" need that in the vanilla state of the game, however, somehow current Staff thinks it's OK to send an entire species into the stone ages because it's not "realistic" enough yet it feels the need to help out humanity by pulling a complete 180 on both the Glitch AND Human lores.

Limit Power Armor as a concept to the Glitch species, impose other limitations and find a way to achieve an assymetrical balance.
100% Symmetrical balance is so "medieval" in nature, like chess for instance.
It is stale, boring and it promotes "suiting" more than ever. There is nothing to be gained from not just joining the USAF and enjoying a "formal" human military training, because apparantly humans are the best, and that's final.
Playing a Moba with different characters available to choose from or an MMORPG with fluctuating power levels of classes depending on the update is more modern and is generally more dynamic.
I do understand that this does require some effort to achieve, however I believe we owe the Glitch species at least that much.

If anyone has any doubts regarding my personal bias, as I am pretty much accusing others of being biased: I don't even play Glitch and Ragnarok has long been deserted. I have nothing to gain from the Glitch becoming more relevant, aside from perhaps a possible resurgence of Glitch Knights.

Edit: in terms of setting it would be potentially beneficial to limit the amount of grand-scale system-wide expansions / big, relevant colonies, as it would give our setting as the "Frontier" more meaning, this could be the first "Galactic goldrush" or great wave of colonialism. Council space may become more important and prevalent as a result.

 

Alright, then why bother allowing humans to have even colonised Mars?
According to the lore, even Mars was evacuated. Humanity is in a shitty place.
If we're following your proposition, we shouldn't bother helping the humans out either.
There's no reason for humans to be that favoured in comparison to the other races, just because of "muh realusm".

Again, Glitch could have power armour due to their culture promoting melee combat and due to environmenal or inter-species relations.
Glitch have been known to have been in skirmishes with Florans, which ended rather badly for them. They also possess relatively advanced ballistic and explosive weapons, generally in the form of modernised crossbows. The incentive to develop a medieval-looking armour that is also somewhat functional is there. Additionally, you keep saying Glitch were supposed to be completely medieval in their origin, which I've explained over and over again to be false.
You're not just disagreeing, you're actively denying the facts.

 

Then I suppose the problem is that people generally tend to use weaposn that greatly surpass "civilian arms", which does create this situation where Glitch armour, in its current state, is pretty useless.

The difference between Hivemind and Outcast is their Ideology and the fact that they no longer need to follow a set role in society.
A Glitch who was a baker one day can be a blacksmith the next. And Blacksmiths, aside from being responsible for creating weapons and armour, are also responsible for Glitch repair. It seems illogical to me that a species of robots, who are supposedly 100% medieval in terms of their understanding of technology would be able to reproduce through building new Glitch, or be capable of repairing themselves.
They do have knowledge of advanced Tech, it is just generally fleeting.
The difference is that Outcast Glitch have the potential to unlock this knowledge, over time, through some effort or through "luck". (Being gifted.)
The whole process is somewhat "glitchy". (That was a pun.)

 

I disagree, there are a couple of external factors which may have led to the creation of a form of power armor which would be effective against ballistic weaponry, perhaps in combination with enhanced shielding through force-fields, which would be more easily penetrated by melee weapons, to conform to their general aesthetic. Glitch have interacted and have skirmishes with other species in the past, and as such, I wouldn't put it past the Hivemind to be able to adapt. As I said before, the Glitch hivemind remains static in terms of its philosophy, traditions, aesthetic and their society / roles in society. Other things, like the Hivemind creating new technology through the experiments of some Hivemind Glitch assigned to discover new technologies, which would be beneficial to the Glitch while still remaining "medieval" in terms of its aesthetic, as we know that the Glitch have inspired the Avian FTL drive design and they were the first to encounter the Florans. There is no lore that condems them to a 100% medieval technological level.

I do agree that Power Armour isn't necessarily the answer, however, I do feel they need something.
It does somewhat fit their theme and seems like a pretty straightforward answer, though it does come with its complications in terms of balance.

 

I would imagine it'd be possible that the USCM is named as such because they're basically space navy.
They would be part of the military, but they'd be the section of the army that deals with extraterrestial threats and space travel. Regardless, this isn't too important. The bottom line is that the military forces at this point would be inferior to the Hylotl even.

It is still an active improvement on the human's background situation, an excessive one at that.

You think they had a contingency plan for if earth got blowed up?
No. Because the original lore has humans struggle amongst eachother, slowing down their colonisation, and they don't even have Mars.

Improving their situation to where they would be gradually recovering on Mars, having terraformed it, would be enough of a compensation. However, this lore implies multiple major colonies and that humanity has already mostly recovered, which is totally ridiculous.

TL;DR:

Totally fucked => "Stable", but not Thriving, gradually recovering = OK

Totally fucked => Spread across the stars, with multiple worlds colonised and mostly recovered, over a period of a mere 9 years. = NOT OK