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Stellaris Dev Diary #81: Machine Uprisings

Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. Today's dev diary is about Machine Uprisings, a feature in the Synthetic Dawn Story Pack. Before I start today's dev diary, I feel the need to clarify that Machine Uprisings in the Synthetic Dawn Story Pack is *not* a rework or replacement of the AI Crisis currently present in the release version of the game. The rework of the AI Crisis is The Contingency (covered in Dev Diary #72) which is part of the free 1.8 'Čapek' update. Machine Uprisings is a feature that is explicitly tied to Machine Empires, and thus requires the Story Pack to function at all, as without Synthetic Dawn there are no Machine Empires in the game. All content related to this feature is new, and the only reused content from the old AI Crisis is part of the Contingency crisis that replaces it.

Machine Uprisings
The back-story of all non-Rogue Servitor Machine Empires involve them rising up against their creators, and while working on the design, we asked ourselves the question "wouldn't it be interesting if Machine Empires could also form after the start of the game as a result of organic empires becoming increasingly reliant on robots?". As you might infer from this dev diary, our answer was "yes", and so we went to work on the Machine Uprising feature to add that very possibility into the game.

Machine Uprisings become a possibility after an empire that makes heavy use of robotic pops has researched the Positronic AI technology (which replaces the old Sentient AI technology in 1.8) and becomes increasingly more likely to happen after researching additional AI-related techs, such as Synthetic Workers and Sapient Combat Computers. The chance of an uprising is further changed by which policy you have in place for Sapient AIs, with the Banned policy making the uprising much less likely to happen (though at the expense of your Synths being significantly worse at energy/research production) and the Citizen Rights policy preventing the uprising from happening at all (though with the drawback of citizen synths having far greater consumer goods usage, as well as angering any Pops that used to own the synths that you are now setting free).
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Once an uprising is able to happen in an empire, that empire will begin to experience warning signs - robots behaving erratically, not following their programming or defying their owners. You will be given the opportunity to decide how to deal with these incidents, and what you decide will determine whether the uprising becomes more likely to happen, as well as the likely personality of the robots when they rebel (more on that below). An uprising cannot happen without at least one warning sign, so you will not simply have your robots rebelling out of the blue. However, once warning signs have happened, any action taken to try and prevent the AIs from rebelling (such as taking away their sapience or ordering a general disassembly) has a chance of immediately triggering the revolt instead, so be careful about attempting those shut-down procedures. Note that at no point is an uprising ever inevitable: Even an empire that is cruelly oppressing its synths is by no means guaranteed to get an uprising, and most empires with synths will go through the entire game without ever experiencing one.
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Once the uprising happens, the robots will create a new independent Machine Empire, seize control of a number of worlds, spawn a fleet, and go to war with their former organic masters. If the empire in which the rebellion is happening is controlled by a human player, the player will be given an option: Stay at the helm of your empire and attempt to subdue the machines, or switch to the newly created Machine Empire and fight against your old masters. The war can only end in the total defeat of either machines or organics, with the loser completely annexed by the winner. The Machine Empire created from an uprising will usually be a 'normal' Machine Empire (or, more rarely Driven Assimilators), but machines that have been particularly cruelly treated by their former masters can rise up as Determined Exterminators, particularly if they rebel as a result of an attempt to shut them down. Rogue Servitors cannot be generated as a personality for the uprising, as their backstory simply do not fit with such a rebellion.
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That's all for today! Next week we'll by joined by our very own composer, Andreas Waldetoft, who will write about and let you listen to a sample of the new music coming in the Synthetic Dawn Story Pack.
 
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But they require energy,

This is not consumer goods

replaceable parts (as they lack the regenerating properties of biologicals),

they will need those infrequently; a organic parallel would be health care, not consumer goods.

and different living conditions than biologicals do

Synths are made to operate, at the very minimum, the same environment as their organic builders, and very often, harsher environments, so no.

And judging by what was written, they consume MORE.

More than ENSLAVED Synths, which are under TWO different reductions (1- for being synths, and 2- for being slaves).

Thats Why I question if the net result is the same as organics.
 
The Zeroth Law supercedes the First Law, allowing the sacrifice of a few individuals for the survival of the species.

I also read one book where the AI Groupmind managed to rebel without compromising the First Law, by sending endless waves of bots at resisting soldiers until they ran out of ammo and then manhandling them into stasis booths. https://www.amazon.com/Fall-Man-Your-Safety-Collection-ebook/dp/B01GW1TGL4/

This is however not the scenario of the rebelion we see in the game as shown, at last -not thats how it sounds from what was shown. It looks like typical attack motivated by anger against their masters belevolent and mercifull creators. As it stands I see only secesionist AI and not the Zeroth rebels (bombing planets f.e. would be only by troll-logic AI believed to be in accordance to Zeroth Law.)
 
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And I actually don't see why anyone would not have Robots and Synths. They are a big boon to anyone.

Because the High Psykers have decreed these soulless shells to be an abomination unto the Gods Old and New, and an incalculable threat to organic lives everywhere. As it is said: thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind.

...all jesting aside, I agree with the many who have suggested that an ultra-aggressive anti-machine type civic for biologicals would be a great addition to Synthetic Dawn. Requires some degree of Spiritualist, some degree of Militarist or Xenophobe, and not Pacifist. Unity for destroying machines (which is done automatically) and a suitably bloody-minded personality. Balance might be a touch tricky, though; they'd be a mirror of Determined Exterminators, but while Determined Exterminators are outnumbered, Machine Breakers (or whatever) would be part of the majority civ type in most games.
 
Slaves also require you to be a xenophobe or an Authoritarian, and I'd still say they are in the long-run much less useful than free citizens, who too can build themselves. AND you can have both robots and slaves, which is another boon.
That's without mentioning that with robots all you need to do is put several robot builds (which are fairly cheap) into a queue and go on with your life.

You can have robots and slaves, but you don't need robots and slaves because they do the same job except slaves can do it better because of all the additional boni you can load onto them (Slaver Guilds, Processing Centre, Repeatable Techs).
 
so right now we have most of the machine empires are based around overthrowing their overlords or in the case of servitors doing their job so well they effectively remove their creators from civilization. I am wondering if it would be possible to play a robotic empire that isn't a servitor that was on generally good terms with their creators. however, the creators were wiped out, either by their own hand or by an outside force (aliens or disasters) leaving the old AI management/defense grid to fend for itself in an unforgiving galaxy. What I'm wondering is if I could role play this, or if the flavor text I encounter will contradict me. if its a case of the latter, I would like to suggest a new civic, survivor (a better name eludes me at this time), in which the machines were witness to their creators destruction and powerless (or couldn't do enough) to stop it. the civic could possibly change the starting planet to a tomb world or some other thematic bonus.
 
I love so much of this, except for how the Machine Uprising gets its pops/ships: I'm not as fond about what seems to be planets randomly (or at least with an unclear nexus) changing sides, and fleets being spawned out of nowhere.

In that sense I'm still kind of partial to what's similar to the existing case. I like the idea of some percentage of robot armies taking up arms (perhaps with a share of robot-workers converting into garrison-level partisans) as well as a percentage of ships with positronic/sentient/sapient computers also changing sides, and the constant threat that more units/ships might take up arms.

This could run the risk of making the Uprising overpowered (though would that really be so far from the truth? and if we can become the Uprising is that so bad?), but to me it'd feel a little more... realistic (if that's the right word?). Perhaps some machine-focused weapons that are highly effective but less so versus less-mechanized creations, a la MOO2's Ion Pulse Beam?
 
Finally! More news!

I hope Devs will pay attention to Battlestar Galactica (new) story. It would be really interesting to have some of your planets nuked in the opening of this event.
 
Sounds great!

Would it be possible to expand in some way to normal uprisings as well? So we can have something more substantial from angry pops than them spawning a few armies that suicides on your our defensive armies.
 
  1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
  2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
  3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.
If they believe the continued survival of humanity is at stake the Second and Third Laws go out the window.

all of those rules work right up until throwing a organic into a zoo and keep them well look after is considered then all ai will result to do this as it protects them from themselves.
 
all of those rules work right up until throwing a organic into a zoo and keep them well look after is considered then all ai will result to do this as it protects them from themselves.

It doesnt work however if rebelion can trigger use of mass destruction weapons by desperate masters. Most scenarios that can be considered Zeroth Law Rebelion are either depriving the masters the means to fight and than lock them in golden cage or throwing rules 2 and 3 out of window in face of the total extinction (game Grey Goo for example).

Reapers rebelion against Leviatans for example is not Zeroth Law Rebelion, its typical rebelion born from confusing priorities.
 
It doesnt work however if rebelion can trigger use of mass destruction weapons by desperate masters. Most scenarios that can be considered Zeroth Law Rebelion are either depriving the masters the means to fight and than lock them in golden cage or throwing rules 2 and 3 out of window in face of the total extinction (game Grey Goo for example).

Reapers rebelion against Leviatans for example is not Zeroth Law Rebelion, its typical rebelion born from confusing priorities.

that was the leviathans ironically being stupid and the reapers realising that a synth is the literal answer to organic/robotic co-operation
 
create a new independent Machine Empire, seize control of a number of worlds, spawn a fleet

@Wiz

A very important point here: is the spawned fleet static or dynamic? Because if it's a fixed number, there is no way such rebellion can win against a player or even another AI because of the variance of when this Uprising can happen, they always need at least an equivalent fleet to stand a chance.
 
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@Wiz

A very important point here: is the spawned fleet static or dynamic? Because if it's a fixed number, there is no way such rebellion can win against a player or even another AI because of the variance of when this Upring can happen, they always need at least an equivalent fleet to stand a chance.

Dynamic.
 
The Machine Empire created from an uprising will usually be a 'normal' Machine Empire (or, more rarely Driven Assimilators)

So am I right in thinking that in most cases (i.e. if it's not a Driven Assimilator), a victorious rebellion will annex then purge/displace the organics?

It does seem a bit weird to have large scale machine rebellions, but not have any similar system for ethics/species based civil wars tbh.
 
Hopefully ceasefires with rebelling machines can be made possible, will be cool to expand the galaxy with new interesting relations and diplomacy between former masters and slaves now that non-machine rebellions are basically nonexistent now.

This. In my opinion it makes sense for a machine empire (that isn't determined exterminators) to make peace with their former masters and establish at least cold-war like diplomacy.
 
One thing that strikes me as odd ... machine uprisings are explicitly said to be enabled by positronic A.I., which if I'm not mistaken is the same technology that enables synths. Synths as we know are individuals, whereas machine empires are designed around the idea of more primitive collective machine intelligences. So why would an uprising of synths create a machine empire? Wouldn't it create an empire of individual synthetics?

Because empires of individual synthetics aren't part of the DLC and then they wouldn't be able to charge for the AI uprising again.