Are there going to be a giant space monsters?

[fleetothemoon]

Per title.

A giant space faring organism? Planets that are "alive"? Huge parasitic creature that searches for planets with living life as hosts? Maybe we can tame these creatures, or kill them and make a living out of their carcasses!?

Will these or something similar exist? I personally want to see more horror in space that extends beyond there not being enough food, the air being toxic or alien humanoids wants to kill us etc.

 

[AKicebear]

I'd rather not.

 

[Tim_Ward]

I, too, would rather not.

But if it's like what you said and the monsters are at least fairly interesting, then it might at least be tolerable.

If it's like it is in Moo2, with space dragons and space eels and space amoeba, I'll mod it out.

Then I'll sneak into everyone's houses in the dead of night and mod it out of their copies as well. Then I'll break into PDS and mod it out of the source code for the first update. Then I'll hack any site on the internet where it's mentioned and mod that mention out of the site. Then I'll kidnap the entire dev team, take them to a remote island and then mod it out of their short and long term memories over a weekend using mild altering drugs, hypnotism and psychological conditioning, before releasing them thinking they've just been involved in the most off the rails post-release party on record.

Only then will I begin my first game.

 

[EntropyAvatar]

Well, space-dragons are just a bit lazy. However, with a bit of thought I'm sure the good people at Paradox can dream up a few varieties of "giant space monsters" that seem plausible enough (at least for a setting that assumes a variety of intelligent species mysteriously achieving FTL at that same time). Giant monsters don't have to be biological or if biological don't have to be natural.

I hope the galaxy is full of weird, wonderful and horrible threats and at it would be disappointing if at least a few of them weren't giant-scale.

 

[Wenla]

Per title.

A giant space faring organism? Planets that are "alive"? Huge parasitic creature that searches for planets with living life as hosts? Maybe we can tame these creatures, or kill them and make a living out of their carcasses!?

Will these or something similar exist? I personally want to see more horror in space that extends beyond there not being enough food, the air being toxic or alien humanoids wants to kill us etc.

I hope not.

 

[cosmeIII]

Distant Worlds did this, mostly to provide some early game threat before finding other alien species and culling potential expansionism a bit.

Whether it should be done or not in Stellaris is another question. The large, decadent empires probably took care of that giant space monster business with whatever highly advanced all-destructive arsenal they have/had. But still, the idea sounds fun and if done well it could provide for some nice quests. Would you want to kill it and burn it with nuclear fire or research while it's alive, somehow working towards controlling it?

 

[fleetothemoon]

For people who say, "rather not", why not? Is it because it goes against your ideas of how space should be like? I don't mind if you disagree, but at least provide some reasons why.

I, too, would rather not.

But if it's like what you said and the monsters are at least fairly interesting, then it might at least be tolerable.

If it's like it is in Moo2, with space dragons and space eels and space amoeba, I'll mod it out.

Cardboard cut monsters and lazy implementation can make it cheap, but is there any underlying reasons why you don't like the idea? If you are looking for moral justifications to kidnap and drug the devs, then I'm sure there are plenty of others you can find

Distant Worlds did this, mostly to provide some early game threat before finding other alien species and culling potential expansionism a bit.

Whether it should be done or not in Stellaris is another question. The large, decadent empires probably took care of that giant space monster business with whatever highly advanced all-destructive arsenal they have/had. But still, the idea sounds fun and if done well it could provide for some nice quests. Would you want to kill it and burn it with nuclear fire or research while it's alive, somehow working towards controlling it?

In Stellaris, we don't start as large decandent empires. However, if you are talking about previous empires that have been eradicated for whatever reason (ancient early alien civilization trope), then there could various reasons why space organisms still exist. Maybe, the former empires kept them under control to use for their advantage. Maybe the organism evolved due to reasons related to the ancient empire's eradication. Maybe the organism's existence is owed to the ancient empire... or its eradication. There's plenty of reasons why we can call them into existence.

Also, there's no reason to automatically assume that giant space horrors or organisms will always be trumped by developed humanoid technologies. It could be, that people simply learn to adapt, and live around it, or maybe even learn to work in symbiosis, rather then directly annihilating them.

They may even learn to live with such threats for a large chunk of their space-faring history, much like how we all come to live with a reality where there are earthquakes, meteor dropping, and strange men entering your house at night to "mod your game". Perhaps the day will come, when they will be able to obtain the technologies to truly eliminate the creature, but it may come with a price. Especially, if there has been a developed symbiotic-like relationship.

I would say that such organisms may not necessarily even have to be 'encountered' during space travels. They can be something that an alien civilization have been exposed to even prior to their space faring history ("Look, it's a plane, no it's a bird... oh shit it's a giant dong! run for your lives!")

Well, space-dragons are just a bit lazy. However, with a bit of thought I'm sure the good people at Paradox can dream up a few varieties of "giant space monsters" that seem plausible enough (at least for a setting that assumes a variety of intelligent species mysteriously achieving FTL at that same time). Giant monsters don't have to be biological or if biological don't have to be natural.

I hope the galaxy is full of weird, wonderful and horrible threats and at it would be disappointing if at least a few of them weren't giant-scale.

My thoughts are the same.

I don't think such creatures should be common, but they should at least exist, and offer a fair threat when encountered.

 

[BooDoo]

As part of the special project perhaps, nothing like the above roaming in space attacking ships please.

 

[RoboticManiac]

Of course there's going to be giant space monsters. Every self respecting space game has them.

 

[Fireplay]

Why not just make it two minor choices when your setting up the creation of the galaxy?
Abundent or Rare? [How many in the galaxy]
None or Few or Many? [Varieties of space monsters] [None option disables them]

 

[aitaituo]

Why not just make it two minor choices when your setting up the creation of the galaxy?
Abundent or Rare? [How many in the galaxy]
None or Few or Many? [Varieties of space monsters] [None option disables them]

I hope there are a whole bunch of galaxy creation settings like this.

 

[Fireplay]

I hope there are a whole bunch of galaxy creation settings like this.

I've always felt bad for a game when I enjoy setting it up far more than the actual gameplay itself. But yes, the more creation settings avaliable that don't hinder the game the better.

 

[AKicebear]

For me space monsters feel more like fantasy than sci-fi. It's always giant worms, giant lobsters, etc which feels silly. If someone can offer a compelling example of space monsters that doesn't feel like fantasy, I'm all ears - but highly skeptical.

 

[cladboy2]

How about fighting Tyranid like space monsters. A swarm of Tyranids would freak me out more than a single space monster. They pose more of a threat due to their numbers.
"The Tyranids are an extragalactic composite species of hideous xenos that is actually a space-faring ecosystem comprised of innumerable different bioforms which are all variations on the same genetic theme. The Tyranid race is ultimately dedicated solely to its own survival, propagation and evolutionary advancement. The Tyranids collectively form a monstrous superorganism that travels across the universe in their great Hive Fleets of biomechanical Hive Ships, systematically consuming all other biomatter to enable its own rapid evolution and reproduction."
Link

 

[TheFragPrince]

As with other aspects of the game (see the discussion of backgrounds, https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/opinion-space-is-black-actually.889659/), the desirability hinges on whether you want a game or a simulation. For a game, space monsters are a great way to add some zest. For a simulation, you'd need to think hard indeed how to bring them about.

Since Stellaris to me seems intent to have elements of both, it would be truly great to leave the decision to the player whether he wants them in or out, tilting more towards game or simulation. But that may make balancing other aspects much more complicated.

 

[cosmeIII]

As with other aspects of the game (see the discussion of backgrounds, https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/opinion-space-is-black-actually.889659/), the desirability hinges on whether you want a game or a simulation. For a game, space monsters are a great way to add some zest. For a simulation, you'd need to think hard indeed how to bring them about.

Since Stellaris to me seems intent to have elements of both, it would be truly great to leave the decision to the player whether he wants them in or out, tilting more towards game or simulation. But that may make balancing other aspects much more complicated.

Although it is debatable how much of a simulation Stellaris is (IMO, it hinges way more on the game element than the simulation one). I agree with player decision on this matter. In the end, the "Space Monsters" element of the game, were it to exist, would not hold much importance. This game wants to portray the rise&fall of spacefaring empires, not its struggle against space behemoths.

I hold strong in my belief that if these were to be a thing in Stellaris, they would be very much akin to their Distant Worlds counterparts: Early game bosses.

 

[fleetothemoon]

How about fighting Tyranid like space monsters. A swarm of Tyranids would freak me out more than a single space monster. They pose more of a threat due to their numbers.
"The Tyranids are an extragalactic composite species of hideous xenos that is actually a space-faring ecosystem comprised of innumerable different bioforms which are all variations on the same genetic theme. The Tyranid race is ultimately dedicated solely to its own survival, propagation and evolutionary advancement. The Tyranids collectively form a monstrous superorganism that travels across the universe in their great Hive Fleets of biomechanical Hive Ships, systematically consuming all other biomatter to enable its own rapid evolution and reproduction."
Link

In my opinion, the Tyranids are not really space monsters, in the sense that I was talking about.

Tyranids are more like a space faring civilization that just happens to have the biology and the technology that is radically different from what we usually conceive of based on humans.

I certainly wish that spacefaring civilizations like Tyranids exist, and that there are some radical differences between the races, with unique gameplay, rather than just superficial differences in gameplay statistics, as we tend to see in 4X games. This is even more important for replayability than in games like EU4 or CK2, since unlike those games, in Stellaris, everyone have the same start. However, I wonder if this will be achieved, considering that races are being randomly generated...

Regardless, that is separate from my wish for there to singular (or no more than a few) gigantic, maybe moon or planet sized, or if we wanna go a bit crazy, solar system sized, monstrous entities that lurks in certain systems. Sort of like a living planet... or even a behemoth tentacle like parasite that consumes the minerals of other planets, and eventually destroying it... You get the idea.

 

[Clophiroth]

But Mogo doesn´t socialize!

 

[Tim_Ward]

Cardboard cut monsters and lazy implementation can make it cheap, but is there any underlying reasons why you don't like the idea? If you are looking for moral justifications to kidnap and drug the devs, then I'm sure there are plenty of others you can find

Ok, fair question.

My objections to the basic concept are these:

1) How, and why, did such things come to be? I can't really come up with a plausible evolutionary history for a biological organism that flies around in space, messing up inhabited planets. Space isn't exactly friendly to life as we know it. I don't say life can't exist there, for we know that microbes can survive in deep space but developed organisms that exist in space? Such things would be very alien, they wouldn't fly around eating planets or whatever, they'd probably bask in the photosphere's of certain types of stars or, I don't know, absorb radiation in van Allen belts. Eat dark matter and swim in the magnetic fields of gas giants. The idea that exists that there are things whose biology is alien enough that they survive, and thrive, in deep space for centuries and yet at the same time familiar enough that they'd be easily detectable and look like giant space fish and sustain themselves by consuming biological matter in the same way we do? The whole thing is very B-Movie.
2) How do they get around? Do they just go around STL all the time? Or do they have some kind of biological method of FTL? Biological FTL; that seems unlikely to say the least.
3) How do you make this an interesting gameplay concept? A space monster shows up around one of your worlds; either you've got the military to destroy it or you haven't; therefore either you divert a fleet from doing something interesting you want to do to blow it up, which is annoying, or one of your worlds takes damage and there's nothing you can do about it, which is annoying.

 

[EntropyAvatar]

For me space monsters feel more like fantasy than sci-fi. It's always giant worms, giant lobsters, etc which feels silly. If someone can offer a compelling example of space monsters that doesn't feel like fantasy, I'm all ears - but highly skeptical.

Sword of the Stars had a number of interesting "monster-like" entities. The Locusts arrived in a large spherical mothership that detached swarms of high-tech automated small craft that would cleanse the system of opposition, then consume the resources of the system to produce more locusts and possibly an additional mothership. The System Killer was a automated relic from a long-forgotten war that was back to carry out it's mission of destroying enemy stars.

I didn't like the SotS take on out-of-control Von Neumann probes, but the basic idea of system infested with swarms of self-replicators could be cool. Or all the residents of a system retreated into a virtuality housed in an orbital station with automated defenses designed to last 'forever'.

We know that something like "beings from another dimension" are part of the Stellaris setting. Perhaps a system contains an anomaly that allows a different type of other-dimension beings to access and survive in the local space. They could appear like just about anything.

Space-based biological threats could have been engineered by some long-forgotten ascendant species as a defense mechanism, science project or art installation. The point is that if you are living in a galaxy (like Stellaris) where super-advanced races have existed in the past, they can pretty much do whatever they want and can leave all sorts of interesting toys behind, not all of which are made of metal.