So i've been reading up on the lore, and honestly the floran race seems pretty overpowered. In combat they are very powerful and seemingly unmatched., taking minimal casualties even when going up against far more technologically advanced foes. This is seen in the ''Incarcerus Notes'' lore series. The ''Abridged history of the Avians'' PDF and the fact that the florans managed to take over the Hylotl homeworld. They came out victorious in their conflicts with both the more advanced Avians and more advanced Hylotl, even when being likely outnumbered heavily by a more technologically advanced race in the Floran/Avian conflict. They also don't seem particuarly unintelligent. It appears their culture prevented them from advancing technology, rather than intelligence. This is shown by the fact that they at a tribal level managed to fly an avian starship from their homeworld, and are able to combine parts from all the other races into constructing their own starships. Now, this makes them pretty overpowered as individuals and as factions. It seems the lore was not written with racial balance and roleplaying in mind. However, one other important part of the lore is that different floran tribes often have disagreements with each other and go to war with each other. This seems like a pretty lore friendly expanation to keep the florans and their expansion in check. I propose a possible conflict between floran factions for this reason, or other ideas.. I am interested in hearing others inputs. Sources: http://starbounder.org/Lore
Fair, but I just wanted to post this because I had seen other races and factions treating florans as they are not a major threat just because of the florans primitive culture. Major factions think the floran tribes are a laughable threat, despite what happened to to the main Governments of the Hylotl and Avian species when they went to war with Florans. Powergaming is never acceptable OOC, but anyone with any knowledge of galactic history should be cautious about angering floran factions IC, that's all I ask. I feel the United Systems and the Fleet consider florans a negligable threat, when that doesn't match up with official lore.
Most factions and players tend to think just about anyone is a laughable threat, not Florans or their tribes exclusively. It's more a matter of arrogance IC than it is of OOC ignorance of lore.
General disdain for florans is not anything new. Florans also are able to psychicly control plants and alter their growth, as well as regenerate lost limbs. It's all a matter of not using it to powergame and if people do, simply shun them. Wars in general are hard to coordinate because nobody ever really wants to lose.
Are you kidding? The Fleet considers the Florans a RIDICULOUS threat. We're just called racists when we bring it up. When we remind people of what they did, more racism. I've seen Fleet members bring up numerous times that the Florans have killed trillions of people and ravaged hundreds of worlds. RACIST! This is mostly because the lore-based Florans ARE a huge threat, but most of the Florans being RPed are not the savage, over-the-top killers that exist within the canonical lore.
In fact, the floran tribe that was the nearest one having canon lore florans, Firedrinker's one, even dissappeared from factions. Most florans are either against their own nature or take their savage nature, but rping in a way to make it 'funny'. I haven't seen many florans who act as a pure predator, luring what it considers it's prey by clever means. There are so many snowflake florans regarding their own nature, they stopped being so in Antares.
To be fair, it is a difficult thing to pull off for most people, since doing so can effectively lead to either a) Having that character killed off, b) Having that character block all other possible forms of ordinary interaction because of the nature of their interactions, or c) Forcing themselves to play an antagonistic role that the roleplayer simply isn't used to. Sometimes it's a combination of all 3. It's a very punishing role, one that I can only see experienced RPers who are more suited to this kind of interaction do properly. The best way to combat that is to have a decent repertoire of characters beforehand that you can look at and say, "Well, these are my main folk, so if I make a dude that's hellbent on hunting folks that gets themselves killed, then it won't matter much." This allows people to have something to fall back on. Another way is to explore the various ways evil can be expressed: You can have a complete murderous psychopath who is very affable, likes drinking and such as opposed to an anti-social cold-blooded killer, and acclimate yourself to playing more and more straightforward villainy.
"I want to play an antagonist-heavy character, but I do not want to take an antagonist-heavy role. Also I want to rub plant boobies together."
Possibilities are high, yet the problem is they usually are made the least canon floran possible. And Chucklefish didn't help much on this with their lore, honestly, since there are gaps as big as the Grand Canyon leaving too much room to imagination.
Such is the woes of an incomplete game. To be noted, though, it is canon that there are Florans that do reject their roots to see if there's something more in the Universe, thus becoming more civil (it's the entire premise of playing Floran not only in-game in the first place, but for most space-faring Floran), so there's no concrete position on what is canon in the first place for a space-faring Floran, since it all boils down to subjectivity and how you decide to play your Floran, like everyone else. What is canon, though, is the attitudes of the average tribal Floran; if a person roleplays a Floran that's fresh from a tribe but they act like the plant-humanoid equivalent of Pocahontas and they never state to reject those Floran ideologies, then they're just going against canon for rubbing plant-boobies together. Damn you, Sen. Also something to note is just because they do act more civil and go against their roots doesn't mean they completely abandon it, either. Paying attention to the quotes the Floran say when they're prompted to talk about a given item or block at least provides a bridge between the established canyon, even if flimsy at best. As for the dilemma of the increasing archetype of Floran characters that aren't played aggressively here on this server, the only way to treat that is to encourage people to play more aggressive Florans. It's unlikely that you will ever be able to coax everyone to follow suit (because how can you say no to plant-boobies?), but with enough insistence, you can see a good amount of people play that kind of Floran beyond the very niche role it plays now in this community.
And usually people are called out on it for being racist and bigoted, which they are. But they're also justified in this because Florans are, as a species, mass-murdering psychopaths with little to no empathy for meatsacks. They are the apex predator of apex predators. They do whatever is necessary to get on top, and are usually rather mischievous and back-stabby about it. Trillions dead, people. Two wars. A homeworld lost. That's not bigoted, it's smart.
It's mostly the hordes of florans that done all this, not just one floran. So one floran shouldn't be that much of a big deal. EVEN if people seem to slap on custom lore on them like regrowing limbs on a whim and so on.
From my personal OOC perspective, I would still definitely consider it bigoted and racist to treat every floran the same, despite it being official lore that florans can be, and plenty are, more civilised. Makes me think of the treatment of Japanese americans in WWII. Yeah, Japan was the enemy but it wasn't ok to round up Japanese people that had nothing to do with the attacks on the US Based on the floran starting codexes. There are ''civilised'' floran that still enjoy meat and stabbing as much as their more tribal brethren, but also have more progressive ideals about who are and aren't ok to stab. More on topic, my opinion has changed on a few things, and I am glad I made this thread to get other peoples perspectives.
