Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sid_Meier%27s_Alpha_CentauriIt was a game. And it had a comic. This is that comic: https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/Sid_Meier%27s_Alpha_Centauri:_Power_of_the_Mind_Worms
Fun-fact. The last time this comic was storytimed was in 2012. More then a decade ago!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=035cpHEowS4
Translations for those who need it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2L5JgTkxAkg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EghMCc6ftoA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lva8L-J8x04
ENTERENTERhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdCB9yE9Hcc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ez7AFPX9RYE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UvnGFEE7Qw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YO_xh7xIabk
Ok
Wow, and I thought that Song of Saya adaptation had bad art.
>>154254332Frankly, I'm more impressed this game even had a comic. You don't really expect a game like this to have a comic
>>154254354I agree, I was just surprised how bad the human faces are.
And that's the end of the storytime.
Thank you for your service, OP.
>>154254360To be fair their only reference was like these still frames of the faction leaders. Not to mention this was a spinoff comic of a videogame. I'm not really expecting much, and was more surprised they would actually license a comic.
Deirdre is probably tied with Yang for being the most demented evil faction leader. It's so weird how all the writing in and around the game treat her as the default protagonist.
>>154254508All of the SMAC leaders have protagonist and antagonist qualities. There is no 'bad guy'.
>>154254519Yeah but the writing clearly favors some over others.
>>154254495Even recycled Santiago's still in >>154253952.Anyway, I thought this was really interesting to read. Like detailing a few turns in the game.Thanks, OP
>>154254548Not really.Diedre is the MC of the "planet awakening" subplot, Miriam is the MC of her own Jurassic Park style technothriller subplot, Yang is the MC of his own spiritual-philosophical collectivist journey subplot, and so forth. Each of them have their own subplot in the tech quotes.
>>154254548>>154254562I am of the opinion that both of you are correct. The game was intended to be the direct sequel of Civlization II, and its more of a sequel/spiritual sucessor than any other imitator (especially Beyond Earth) could ever be.I do think that Brian Reynolds (the REAL brains behind the game and its true creator) had a specific bias, which is why the Gaians, University and Peacekeepers are seen as a positive force. In contrast, Yang is basically North Korea 2.0, Morgan has the worst economic choice (with Free Market economics made to look REALLY bad) and the Believers are creationist fundamentalists with dominion theology and are privy to using nukes (so basically the true realization of Nuclear Gandhi) But, and at the same time - the game allows the player to play as these factions. And as the other anon point out, you can be their MC, and play as them differently. You CAN play as Morgan with Green economics. You can play as Sisiter Miriam Godwinson with democracy and green economics. Sure, there are some social engineering choices you can't choose, but its possible to play a game in a way different from how they're depicted. And the game does challenge how we may initially perceive the characters. Sister Miriam for instance becomes the eventual voice of reason in the game, calling out the moral decisions with adopting new technologies.
>>154253644This is a cool find.
>>154253771such pretty shrubbery~
>>154256139You talking about the xenofungus or the very obvious copy+paste smudges?
>>154253751How did the Morganites get to Needlejets before the Gaians got to fucking lasersEven on Blind Research, there'd have to be some probe teams out there doing serious overtime
>>154254011I think the translator broke down here
Thanks OPNot particularly great but it's always nice to see anything about one of my favorite videogamesComics could've been a fun way to flesh out the setting, if only they found better artists and writers to do it>>154254618>UniversityZakharov does the "right" thing and helps with Transcendence, but he's ultimately still a scientist at heart who doesn't really bother with morality except when it personally aggravates him similar to Morgan, where on one hand you've got Retroviral Engineering ("The Academician's private residences shall remain off-limits to the Genetic Inspectors") and on the other hand there's Temple of Planet ("until every last Mind Worm egg, every last slimy one, has been cooked to a smoking husk")And even with Transcendence it's pretty clear that his plan for shotgunning Planet's brain with the entire internet isn't as Planet-friendly as Deidre (and Planet) would've preferred, he just doesn't want humanity to get violently prunedIn a game where Technology is king, it's easy to be "the good guy" when you get the Singularity Planet Busters before anyone else
>>154253644They made a what?!
>>154257504>>154257504I imagined this is a version of events where the faction leaders aren't exactly 'playing the game'. So perhaps Deidre is basically bee-lining all the ecology tech to the exclusion everything else, Spartans doing the same for military tech and Morgan economy tech. Then Morgan just buys the tech from Santiago. Of course no 'player' would actually play the game this way and neither would the AI because it would get curbstomped immediately.
Is it me or was the music bugged? I remember playing with Santiago and only having music during combat, while with other factions I had music at other points but not during combat.
>>154258555I know, I know, I meant it as a joke (mostly)It's just that Lasers are quite literally the earliest weapon you can research in the game, they could've picked anything else and it would've made Deidre look like less of an idiotA better, more equivalent tech would be Chaos weaponry, but that might've not read well in the scriptIt's just one of those details that's funny if you know, because the author apparently didn't>>154258655Apparently it can break on modern systems, GOG has a fix for it on their forumsIt can be hard to tell sometimes because of how ambient the soundtrack can get, though
>>154254618I have sunk more hours into BE than SMAC just for the infantry designs. I love hardsuits and robots. I didn't vibe with SMAC's units being dudes in coats with track-mounted support weapons. BE is otherwise trash though. The only things I enjoyed were the unit designs and the unintentional political incorrectness.
>>154258741>Apparently it can break on modern systems, GOG has a fix for it on their forumsIt's included in the game download itself now if you're talking about what I think you're talking about. You'll see two game launchers and you want to pick the titled SMAC/SMAX or something like that.
>>154253940I like the game map in the background.
>>154254562>>154254618This is Miriam's final quote in the tech/building lore blurbs>"Go through, my children! The time of miracles is upon us. Let us cast off sin and walk together to the Garden of the Lord. With God's mercy we shall meet again on the other side."Such sudden enthusiasm has been taken by some as an implication that after being so insistent about the dangers of new technology in her other quotes she finally went nuts and the believers committed mass suicide by setting gate coordinates to nowhere.
>>154257504Because Gaians are fags.
>>154259834Which is possibly alluded to with the Bulk Matter Transmitter project that she also narrates>"And what of the immortal soul in such transactions? Can this machine transmit and reattach it as well? Or is it lost forever, leaving a soulless body to wander the world in despair?"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wh-ZcdO5fe8So Miriam and the Believers did not even leave bodiesThey could've adapted the books into comic form, the final war between Miriam and Zakharov could've been cool to see (preferably done by better artists)
>Be me>Be playing Civ 2>Bust my ass to manage to build the colony ship and send it to Alpha Centauri>Play the sequel years later>The efffing UN expropriated my people's colony ship and put a bunch of people who were my enemies in itScrew the UN. It was funny how when the UN Captain was assassinated everyone took it as a chance to split without as much as an investagation into his murder because everyone hated the United Nations. It would had been funny if Lal's faction was the military faction. His goal being to reestablish UN's regulation over everyone else and imposing rules on them by entering any war just to attack everyone involved and conquering the other factions.
>>154260267Well due to the way Diplomacy worked in SMAC, the best path to peace was having an army way bigger than anyone else'sWhich probably contributes to Lal's reputation for being a wuss, since it takes a human player to actually do that
>>154260191I wonder if you just gets absorbed by the planetmind, which is everywhere, if you enter a directionless psi gate. If that's the case Miriam got raptured into a garden of fungus after all.
I never managed to survive to endgame.
I wish I was less of a casual brainlet and actually git gut at the game.
>>154262912Try spamming rovers.
