Firstly, forgive any ignorance as I'm still somewhat new to Stellaris (I have over 200 hours logged currently but my laptop is also a bit slower, so it's probably less than that in terms of experience).
Second, I swear that I had seen an empire that had a machine rebellion occur that had normal/non gestalt governing ethics afterwards in a friend's game once, but perhaps I was mistaken.
Recently, I had downloaded some DLC and decided to play as a machine empire. I was disappointed that the only governing option for them is as a gestalt consciousness. I realize that it seems inherently overpowered otherwise, but I think I have a solution to that.
I have an idea on how to put limits on free willed robots. Instead of simply being immortal, machine empires should be presented with one big downside that's akin to leader death. Basically, in all other starts except for the gestalt consciousness, the robots have a flaw in their designs. They have a life-span's worth of time (traits would dictate how long that is) before their operating system needs a hard reset (the date will be listed for them and a warning will pop up when the date comes) that takes a month or two to complete, during which time they are not available. The process would cause the leader to lose all their acquired experience and traits except for their starting trait they had when hired, and then they are returned to the player. If they are not sent in to be reset within 10 or 20 years, they will suffer a catastrophic malfunction and crash completely, and the leader will then die. Aside from adding an extra expense and cost, it effectively kills the leader either way. The main goal of the robot empire is to figure out how to stop this from happening anymore. The easiest and first available option to the player is to convert them into a gestalt consciousness, saving them from being doomed to lose their memories and lives, but in exchange for losing their individuality. The second option is an eventual "cure" or "patch" to their flaw, serving as a replacement for the "flesh is weak" ascension perk or other ways of transcending mortality.
This would mean that robots can inherently not use dictatorial governing systems as they stand (perhaps if modified for them), but democracies, oligarchies, and megacorps would be fine unaltered. The idea is that they'd have to replace their leaders anyways, so perhaps dictators can be replaced via duels or something, or just having enough influence to get him removed or killed by his praetorian guards.
The cause of this malfunction can vary depending on a chosen start. One I've thought of is a replacement for the Prosperous Unification beginning and possibly also the starts that provide an Ecumenopolis or Relic world (if neither, they just get a Tomb World, habitability traits don't matter because robot), and instead would possibly be called something like "Awakened Inheritors", with the robots having been reactivated for some reason with no memory of their past to the ruins of a previous civilization that built them. They find themselves with this sort of technological curse and have to find a way to stop it, either through finding out more of their past or by seeking it independently. This could also mean that some Fallen Empires may remember the robots' creators and either favor or hate them for their past actions.
Of course, being free willed robots, they have altered morality civics. Materialism works roughly the same as before, and leads to the technological solution to the problem, serving as a replacement for the "flesh is weak" perk. Spiritualism is a little different, robot empires cannot make non-sentient robots (it can be said that making a robot "without a soul" is a perversion of their most sacred beliefs) but are also discriminated against by many biological spiritualist empires for being robots. They can be won over, but it will be hard, harder than a fanatic materialist trying to get good with fanatic spiritualists. In short, the robots must prove they have souls to people who believe them to be soulless killing machines who are simply lying to trick them. They would be very much pariahs of the galaxy who are judged more harshly, struggling to survive with few friends. The robot spiritualist ethic would see a more religious end to the problem, with gods or other entities bestowing a blessing on them and curing them of their malfunctions. Depending on the difficulty of playing a robot spiritualist empire, it may be necessary to provide an extra incentive with some psionics access. Leaders would still need occasional resets, but psionics would allow them to retain most of, if not all of their acquired experience.
Finally, xenophilia and xenophobia would be much different in that they only apply to acceptance of non-robots. Robotic empires would have a sort of solidarity as they're all more or less the same underneath with code and silicon. As such, most non-gestalt machine empires would probably need solidarity with other robot empires, or really whoever would give them a second thought, to get by. Not doing so can be difficult.
I've given this a good bit of thought and I'm willing to take criticisms, but it seems a bit of an easy out to say all robot empires are just drones slaved to one giant computer like Skynet or AM, and I think it limits gameplay somewhat. It would seem more likely that robots would function independently rather than all operating on one huge network, no?
I really would like to see machine empires expanded upon more than just "evil unfeeling hive mind 100% of the time", and I think empires would interact better this way too.
Second, I swear that I had seen an empire that had a machine rebellion occur that had normal/non gestalt governing ethics afterwards in a friend's game once, but perhaps I was mistaken.
Recently, I had downloaded some DLC and decided to play as a machine empire. I was disappointed that the only governing option for them is as a gestalt consciousness. I realize that it seems inherently overpowered otherwise, but I think I have a solution to that.
I have an idea on how to put limits on free willed robots. Instead of simply being immortal, machine empires should be presented with one big downside that's akin to leader death. Basically, in all other starts except for the gestalt consciousness, the robots have a flaw in their designs. They have a life-span's worth of time (traits would dictate how long that is) before their operating system needs a hard reset (the date will be listed for them and a warning will pop up when the date comes) that takes a month or two to complete, during which time they are not available. The process would cause the leader to lose all their acquired experience and traits except for their starting trait they had when hired, and then they are returned to the player. If they are not sent in to be reset within 10 or 20 years, they will suffer a catastrophic malfunction and crash completely, and the leader will then die. Aside from adding an extra expense and cost, it effectively kills the leader either way. The main goal of the robot empire is to figure out how to stop this from happening anymore. The easiest and first available option to the player is to convert them into a gestalt consciousness, saving them from being doomed to lose their memories and lives, but in exchange for losing their individuality. The second option is an eventual "cure" or "patch" to their flaw, serving as a replacement for the "flesh is weak" ascension perk or other ways of transcending mortality.
This would mean that robots can inherently not use dictatorial governing systems as they stand (perhaps if modified for them), but democracies, oligarchies, and megacorps would be fine unaltered. The idea is that they'd have to replace their leaders anyways, so perhaps dictators can be replaced via duels or something, or just having enough influence to get him removed or killed by his praetorian guards.
The cause of this malfunction can vary depending on a chosen start. One I've thought of is a replacement for the Prosperous Unification beginning and possibly also the starts that provide an Ecumenopolis or Relic world (if neither, they just get a Tomb World, habitability traits don't matter because robot), and instead would possibly be called something like "Awakened Inheritors", with the robots having been reactivated for some reason with no memory of their past to the ruins of a previous civilization that built them. They find themselves with this sort of technological curse and have to find a way to stop it, either through finding out more of their past or by seeking it independently. This could also mean that some Fallen Empires may remember the robots' creators and either favor or hate them for their past actions.
Of course, being free willed robots, they have altered morality civics. Materialism works roughly the same as before, and leads to the technological solution to the problem, serving as a replacement for the "flesh is weak" perk. Spiritualism is a little different, robot empires cannot make non-sentient robots (it can be said that making a robot "without a soul" is a perversion of their most sacred beliefs) but are also discriminated against by many biological spiritualist empires for being robots. They can be won over, but it will be hard, harder than a fanatic materialist trying to get good with fanatic spiritualists. In short, the robots must prove they have souls to people who believe them to be soulless killing machines who are simply lying to trick them. They would be very much pariahs of the galaxy who are judged more harshly, struggling to survive with few friends. The robot spiritualist ethic would see a more religious end to the problem, with gods or other entities bestowing a blessing on them and curing them of their malfunctions. Depending on the difficulty of playing a robot spiritualist empire, it may be necessary to provide an extra incentive with some psionics access. Leaders would still need occasional resets, but psionics would allow them to retain most of, if not all of their acquired experience.
Finally, xenophilia and xenophobia would be much different in that they only apply to acceptance of non-robots. Robotic empires would have a sort of solidarity as they're all more or less the same underneath with code and silicon. As such, most non-gestalt machine empires would probably need solidarity with other robot empires, or really whoever would give them a second thought, to get by. Not doing so can be difficult.
I've given this a good bit of thought and I'm willing to take criticisms, but it seems a bit of an easy out to say all robot empires are just drones slaved to one giant computer like Skynet or AM, and I think it limits gameplay somewhat. It would seem more likely that robots would function independently rather than all operating on one huge network, no?
I really would like to see machine empires expanded upon more than just "evil unfeeling hive mind 100% of the time", and I think empires would interact better this way too.
- 2
