Hive Mind: Biological Ascension Critique

[BlackUmbrellas]

You do realise that it's not actually real?

Sure. But this was a discussion about Starcraft's lore, in which Tavior demonstrated a marked lack of familiarity of the topic. They can't just say "either the Zerg had psionic potential or they didn't" when that's not how Starcraft established psionics to work.

Tavior wants to use the Zerg as an example of a fictional hive mind which should, by his logic, be able to complete the Psionic Ascendancy path. But it's a bad example because it not only displays all the traits of having completed the Biological Ascendancy path, but also the only evidence Tavior has that it should be able to do the psionic one (telepathy) is just a basic trait of Stellaris Hive-Minds.

 

[nyah]

Sure. But this was a discussion about Starcraft's lore, in which Tavior demonstrated a marked lack of familiarity of the topic. They can't just say "either the Zerg had psionic potential or they didn't" when that's not how Starcraft established psionics to work.

Tavior wants to use the Zerg as an example of a fictional hive mind which should, by his logic, be able to complete the Psionic Ascendancy path. But it's a bad example because it not only displays all the traits of having completed the Biological Ascendancy path, but also the only evidence Tavior has that it should be able to do the psionic one (telepathy) is just a basic trait of Stellaris Hive-Minds.

Perhaps. But then, none of it is really science fiction, just made up space alien fantasy bollocks. Why not let paradox make up their own universe? It can't be any more fantastical than any of the others.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

Perhaps. But then, none of it is really science fiction, just made up space alien fantasy bollocks. Why not let paradox make up their own universe? It can't be any more fantastical than any of the others.

You might be misinterpreting my intent here.

Paradox can do whatever they want, and their universe does operate by its own rules- one of which being that Hive Minds are incompatible with the Psionic and Synthetic Ascendance paths. My intent here, as someone very familiar with Starcraft's lore and internal logic (which, incidentally, is absolutely scifi for the same reason Stellaris is scifi even though it has "space alien fantasy bollocks" all over the place) has been to show Tavior why they picked a supremely terrible example to prove their point that Hive Minds do stuff comparable to the Psionic Ascendancy in other fiction.

I'd hoped at the start that Tavior would realize their mistake and find a different, better example, but instead they decided this was a cause that warranted them crucifying themselves.

 

[Tavior]

Starcraft
Episode 2 Mission 8:
Overmind said this "These templar wield energies much like my own." Talking about Dark Templar and their PSI powers especially void energies.

Overmind used PSI to create a wormhole to transport their overlord/space fleet to Aiur instantly.

Cerebrate has some limited degree of PSI in control a tiny area (mostly over special units during campaign).

Starcraft doesn't really make any distinct between PSI and Telepathy like Stellaris does. For example, Synthetic/Drone are completely incapable of doing anything PSI-wise in Stellaris.

But in starcraft they have PSI devices that are capable of emitting telepathic "image of a mind/thought" and disrupt telepathy links.


Starcraft 2

After losing Overmind, Kerrigan and Brood Queen had to take over the role of control the swarm which meant Overmind was NOT the only creature capable of using telepathy within the swarm. There are few instance thought out the Starcraft 2 campaign where Brood Queen had to make their own choices and broke off from Kerrigan with one case of clear case where Kerrigan "essentially either willing or unwilling cut the cord".


If you want to persist calling me a false expert by all means check them out.

 

[Saviour of Galaxy]

example of psionic hive mind

which, incidentally, is absolutely scifi for the same reason Stellaris is scifi even though it has "space alien fantasy bollocks" all over the place.

A little off-topic, but for me both Stellaris and StarCraft, and Mass Effect too are both not science-fiction, but futuristic fantasy. There are already few "hard" science-fictions (Red Faction, for example), few light/arguable s-f (many space combat sims - Freespace is good example) and a lot of pseudo-SF with science part beeing non-existant.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

A little off-topic, but for me both Stellaris and StarCraft, and Mass Effect too are both not science-fiction, but futuristic fantasy. There are already few "hard" science-fictions (Red Faction, for example), few light/arguable s-f (many space combat sims - Freespace is good example) and a lot of pseudo-SF with science part beeing non-existant.

That's purely a matter of opinion- I've never approved of trying to subdivide science fiction so that "science fantasy" "doesn't count". There's already the sliding scale of Soft vs. Hard scifi to deal with that. Stellaris, Starcraft, Mass Effect, whatever- they're Soft scifi. Still scifi though.

 

[BigPharma]

I know Stellaris makes use of a lot of sci-fi tropes, but we can step back for a moment and just appreciate that this game is allowed to have its own lore and its own rules? It's not a 40K game, and it's not Starcraft, or Star Trek. If you want it so bad, mod it in, but when Wiz has taken the time to outline "This is what we have decided a Hive Mind means", it's not very justifiable to say "But that doesn't go along with other games and franchises!" just because that's what you want.

 

[Tavior]

I know Stellaris makes use of a lot of sci-fi tropes, but we can step back for a moment and just appreciate that this game is allowed to have its own lore and its own rules? It's not a 40K game, and it's not Starcraft, or Star Trek. If you want it so bad, mod it in, but when Wiz has taken the time to outline "This is what we have decided a Hive Mind means", it's not very justifiable to say "But that doesn't go along with other games and franchises!" just because that's what you want.

My only concern is that if they don't add in cybernetic and PSI ascension to Hive Mind. You are already limiting Hive Mind Players choice of game play.

I am not approaching this problem with mind set of I "want Borg, MorningLightMountain, Formics, and whatsoever else" in Stellaris.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

I know Stellaris makes use of a lot of sci-fi tropes, but we can step back for a moment and just appreciate that this game is allowed to have its own lore and its own rules? It's not a 40K game, and it's not Starcraft, or Star Trek. If you want it so bad, mod it in, but when Wiz has taken the time to outline "This is what we have decided a Hive Mind means", it's not very justifiable to say "But that doesn't go along with other games and franchises!" just because that's what you want.

As passionate as I am about Starcraft, yeah, I totally agree. I pointed out this distinction earlier, even- there's two conversations going on in this thread: one about whether or not the Zerg are a good example of a psionic ascension hivemind in outside fiction, and another about if hiveminds should be allowed to do that in Stellaris.

Stellaris has defined Hive Minds as inherently organic in nature- they can't access the Shroud the way required to awaken Psionic talents because of how their hive-telepathy works, and the distributed nature of their consciousness prevents them from upgrading their species into Synths.

 

[Rydelfox]

My only concern is that if they don't add in cybernetic and PSI ascension to Hive Mind. You are already limiting Hive Mind Players choice of game play.

I am not approaching this problem with mind set of I "want Borg, MorningLightMountain, Formics, and whatsoever else" in Stellaris.

To that purpose, a 5 page argument about whether or not the Zerg fit a PSI ascended Hive Mind or a regular Hive Mind doesn't strengthen your argument. If anything, it's going to make people dismiss your argument as simply wanting to create the Zerg in Stellaris.
I'm fairly certain this thread has had more posts about Starcraft lore than its actually had about Stellaris

 

[BigPharma]

My only concern is that if they don't add in cybernetic and PSI ascension to Hive Mind. You are already limiting Hive Mind Players choice of game play.

I am not approaching this problem with mind set of I "want Borg, MorningLightMountain, Formics, and whatsoever else" in Stellaris.

My two cents on that, which you're totally free to disagree with since I can see the arguments against it, is that if they were able to ascend the same way as any other empire, the only malus to playing a hive mind would be lower influence production and no bonuses from ethics and happiness, which to me is honestly not very significant. Something has to give for balance's sake.

 

[Tavior]

To that purpose, a 5 page argument about whether or not the Zerg fit a PSI ascended Hive Mind or a regular Hive Mind doesn't strengthen your argument. If anything, it's going to make people dismiss your argument as simply wanting to create the Zerg in Stellaris.
I'm fairly certain this thread has had more posts about Starcraft lore than its actually had about Stellaris

My biggest point is that you can't take starcraft definition of psi/telepathy and carry that over to Stellaris or vice versa.

IE drone/synthetic are incapable of having any PSI power in stellaris is not the same thing as drone/synthetic (equivalent in starcraft) using PSI power.

By the same token you can't treat Zerg as "strictly biological ascension" only especially when you look at Amon's plan and various display of if somewhat limited Zerg PSI power.

The people who disagree with me on this seem to struggle between what is possible and not on different franchises.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

My two cents on that, which you're totally free to disagree with since I can see the arguments against it, is that if they were able to ascend the same way as any other empire, the only malus to playing a hive mind would be lower influence production and no bonuses from ethics and happiness, which to me is honestly not very significant. Something has to give for balance's sake.

Another thing to consider is that Wiz has explicitly stated his intent to give different Ethos distinct and non-reproducible gameplay elements. This was when we first learned Psionics tech was now going to be locked to Spiritualists; Wiz said something along the lines of "We can either have total parity and boring Ethos, or we can restrict certain things to certain Ethos and make them each feel and play differently". Paradox has clearly picked the latter, and restricting the options of Hive Minds is fully in line with that.

 

[Tavior]

My two cents on that, which you're totally free to disagree with since I can see the arguments against it, is that if they were able to ascend the same way as any other empire, the only malus to playing a hive mind would be lower influence production and no bonuses from ethics and happiness, which to me is honestly not very significant. Something has to give for balance's sake.

The trouble is all 3 end-game give every other government the "exact" same bonus regardless of the government type.

IE an emperor dictator government will get x, y, z bonus from PSI while a research democratic will get x, y, z bonus from PSI. Same can be said of Cybernetics.

If the limit is from lack of development time I can understand that but so far I only had an unofficial mention from a third party on this topic in this thread. I would hate for Hive Mind to have a bad end game choice because there is only one. IE no choice at all.

 

[Drakonn]

My only concern is that if they don't add in cybernetic and PSI ascension to Hive Mind. You are already limiting Hive Mind Players choice of game play.

I am not approaching this problem with mind set of I "want Borg, MorningLightMountain, Formics, and whatsoever else" in Stellaris.

I would hate for Hive Mind to have a bad end game choice because there is only one. IE no choice at all.

The three Ascension paths are not the end all be all of an endgame though. It's perfectly viable to not take any of the three Ascension trees and still come out on top. There are 8 Ascension Perk slots you can take in a game and more than (probably at this point) 20 perks in total.

Sure you don't get access to that feature with the Hive Mind but that also defines the Hive Mind style of play. If you're wanting to play through a game to do one of the paths then you pick a a race that can. It's the same way with the other features that locked to specific Ethics (Armageddon bombardment for Xenophobes, and no diplomacy for Fanatical Purifiers as examples)

 

[Tavior]

The three Ascension paths are not the end all be all of an endgame though. It's perfectly viable to not take any of the three Ascension trees and still come out on top. There are 8 Ascension Perk slots you can take in a game and more than (probably at this point) 20 perks in total.

Sure you don't get access to that feature with the Hive Mind but that also defines the Hive Mind style of play. If you're wanting to play through a game to do one of the paths then you pick a a race that can. It's the same way with the other features that locked to specific Ethics (Armageddon bombardment for Xenophobes, and no diplomacy for Fanatical Purifiers as examples)

It doesn't change that they are intended to be game changer because you need to pick two ascension peak and nothing else in Utopia take up two ascension peak as far I am aware.

You are most certainly right that they are optional picks and nothing is forcing me to pick them.

It doesn't change my option that it limits end-game play choices by not having them in the first place.

After all the bonus they give are potentially powerful and game changing. If you want to min-max your empire, you would be somewhat foolish to NOT pick them.

 

[Kat Tsun]

Min-max would probably be biological ascension.

 

[Tavior]

Min-max would probably be biological ascension.

How do you figure? If that is indeed true that biological is the best ascension endgame pick out of 3 choices. Then why do the other two choices matter? Any drawback to Biological?

 

[Kat Tsun]

How do you figure? If that is indeed true that biological is the best ascension endgame pick out of 3 choices. Then why do the other two choices matter? Any drawback to Biological?

Erudite adds +20% Physics/Soc/Eng research bonus, which is the same as Synth, but also adds leader skills, which confers greater initial bonuses to research over Synths.

Synth ascension seems OK if you build your planets as "general" worlds with no real specialization, but if you're properly min-maxing you're building planets solely as energy/mineral/food/research worlds. Then you specialize these planets' pops with traits.

Unless Synth is a badass trait to have in 1.5.x, which is possible, the ultimate min-max will be to pick some decent trait combo like Thrifty/Intelligent and upgrade with the bio ascension options later. Synths won't have the option to add traits so they're kind of stuck where they are (+20% all around), while bio ascension can specialize its planetary populations to be super scientists or super energy creators, etc. A super bio research leader will at least be as intelligent as a Synth, but also live longer and produce more at the start (meaning the Synth has a permanent deficit to overall research production), while producing more research for a longer period overall.

Gene Warriors are also the best army unit, which matters as long as armies remain in the game.

 

[Sopbucket]

A super bio research leader will at least be as intelligent as a Synth, but also live longer...

You're forgetting that synth leaders are immortal