Rogue servitors should get arcology, genetic ascension, xeno-compatibility, bio assistant traits, and bio envoys

[TrotBot]

Rogue servitors should get gaia origin, ecumenopoli as well as being able to restore relic worlds, it would make them unique among the machine species in that way. They should also get genetic ascension so that they can gene splice their organics and tailor them to their hearts' content (as they did in the Culture) AND they should be able to get xenocompatibility (again as they did in the Culture). Finally, they should have a small, rare chance to draw a biotrophy as a leader. Uniquely skilled and rare individuals among the biotrophies may be made use of by the machine Minds to supplement their own decision-making with their "unique outlook and input" (as again the Culture did).

[edit: added pancakelord's idea to the title]
[edit: add g s palmer's idea to the post]

 

[G S Palmer]

They should also have access to the Life Seeded origin.

 

[Pancakelord]

Finally, they should have a small, rare chance to draw a biotrophy as a leader.

IDK about leaders (as I'm assuming you're basing this on the Culture, I interpreted those "Referrer" individuals as more like ... government consultants than actual leaders or managers).
If anything this would make sense as a leader trait for a Drone, as Stellaris already has AI-assistants for Bio-leaders. This would be the inverse

• "Bio-trophy Companion - This Drone unit has earned the trust of a particularly gifted bio-trophy, whose atypically acute skills further enhance it's own subroutines [+XYZ stats]
• {stats could scale if you have certain pops in your empire e.g. x1.5 if you have any intelligent pops, x2 if you have any psi pops} ).

But they should definitely have a policy to use either machine, bio, or a mixed pool for envoys IMO.
There is no better way to sell your way of life to the biological races than by using one of their own. If it's a liberal democracy ... show how hedonistic you are, if its a spiritualist... well at least they wont immediately open fire on your diplo-droids if they see an organic "in charge", whilst still letting you send a diplo-bot off to the local driven assimilator.

 

[TrotBot]

IDK about leaders (as I'm assuming you're basing this on the Culture, I interpreted those "Referrer" individuals as more like ... government consultants than actual leaders or managers).
If anything this would make sense as a leader trait for a Drone, as Stellaris already has AI-assistants for Bio-leaders. This would be the inverse

• "Bio-trophy Companion - This Drone unit has earned the trust of a particularly gifted bio-trophy, whose atypically acute skills further enhance it's own subroutines [+XYZ stats]
• {stats could scale if you have certain pops in your empire e.g. x1.5 if you have any intelligent pops, x2 if you have any psi pops} ).

But they should definitely have a policy to use either machine, bio, or a mixed pool for envoys IMO.
There is no better way to sell your way of life to the biological races than by using one of their own. If it's a liberal democracy ... show how hedonistic you are, if its a spiritualist... well at least they wont immediately open fire on your diplo-droids if they see an organic "in charge", whilst still letting you send a diplo-bot off to the local driven assimilator.

yes, this would work perfectly

 

[HFY]

IDK about leaders (as I'm assuming you're basing this on the Culture, I interpreted those "Referrer" individuals as more like ... government consultants than actual leaders or managers

IIRC the Culture did use biological Envoys with some frequency.

Not confident about any other leader type, though.

The drone trait would be better for those.

 

[TrotBot]

IIRC the Culture did use biological Envoys with some frequency.

Not confident about any other leader type, though.

The drone trait would be better for those.

yeah i really love their idea of it being a trait, the way that having an AI assistant is a trait, as that's sort of what happens in the culture. a drone is assigned to the uniquely talented biotrophy, and TOGETHER they go do things for the Culture. biotrophy envoys would be AMAZING too! since most of what the biotrophy leaders do IS overthrow class societies and bring them into the Culture's utopian biopreserve

 

[GOLANX]

Why be stuck to some book I've never read? Rouge servitor can mean a lot of things, in Earth 2150 the UCS let AI run their lives but they kept a few bio leaders to check the AI, the factions lore also doesn't indicate that citizens aren't allowed to fill specialist roles letting machines fill worker jobs. Rouge servitor should be a bridge between organic and machine empires. And players should be able to pick some point in between those things as what they want their Rouge servitor to be

 

[Sinister2202]

ecumenopolis with sanctuary districts instead would be pretty cool I suppose.

 

[HFY]

some book I've never read?

You should read the books.

Start with The Player of Games -- https://www.amazon.com/Player-Games-Culture-Iain-Banks/dp/0316005401

 

[drawar]

Personally, I would allow biotrophies to live in a world independent of its type and the habitability of this world. The reason, the Organic Sanctuary and the Organic Paradise are places built to meet the needs of biotrophies, which could include biological needs related to the environment.

Or to reduce the power of that change a bit at the start. Organic Sanctuary reduces habitability penalties by 50%. The Organic Paradises (which has a dome on its image) cancels all habitability penalties and allows biotrophies to live on Machine Worlds.

Or (with or without these changes to these buildings). The Machine Worlds would have a special district to house biotrophies, but they would be more expensive than buildings.

 

[TrotBot]

You should read the books.

Start with The Player of Games -- https://www.amazon.com/Player-Games-Culture-Iain-Banks/dp/0316005401

they should definitely read the books, and The Player of Games is where they start being told from the point of view of the Culture itself. But Consider Phlebas is the first book, and while radically different because it's from the point of view of a pro-Idiran enemy of the culture, it's still worth a read because of the impact of the events on the book on the history of the Culture going forward. So even though they're separated by hundreds or thousands of years from those events, the later books do reference the most wide impact ones from it in passing in the other books as general background.

 

[HFY]

But Consider Phlebas is the first book, and while radically different because it's from the point of view of a pro-Idiran enemy of the culture, it's still worth a read

Agreed.

But not the first one, since it's different enough from what follows that it would set bad expectations.

(Also I personally preferred the later books much more than Consider Phlebas.)

This is the same sort of advice I give for Discworld, too: start with the 3rd book, because the 1st and 2nd have such a distinctly different tone and style that you'd basically be mislead if you were to take them as representative samples.

 

[TrotBot]

Agreed.

But not the first one, since it's different enough from what follows that it would set bad expectations.

(Also I personally preferred the later books much more than Consider Phlebas.)

This is the same sort of advice I give for Discworld, too: start with the 3rd book, because the 1st and 2nd have such a distinctly different tone and style that you'd basically be mislead if you were to take them as representative samples.

yeah, the only reason I still recommend it first is because it's the "hook" to reel in people who aren't necessarily communist themselves, whereas the rest of the books are quite clearly pro-Culture. so I always warn people it's radically different from the others, but I consider it a good intro into the clash of ideologies in that universe. i do agree that the later books are definitely better.

 

[Ryika]

Why be stuck to some book I've never read? Rouge servitor can mean a lot of things, in Earth 2150 the UCS let AI run their lives but they kept a few bio leaders to check the AI, the factions lore also doesn't indicate that citizens aren't allowed to fill specialist roles letting machines fill worker jobs. Rouge servitor should be a bridge between organic and machine empires. And players should be able to pick some point in between those things as what they want their Rouge servitor to be

This might sound good as an idealistic statement, but think about what it'd actually take to live up to this expectation. Maintaining 20 different flavors of rogue servitors, keeping them balanced, fun to play and largely bug-free would already be a rather huge undertaking, but then multiply that effort for each of the other archetypes that'd need the same treatment. The workload to realize that vision would probably be enormous, and the benefit would probably be rather small compared to the amount of effort put into creating and maintaining this level of detail.

 

[Jamaican Castle]

Uniquely skilled and rare individuals among the biotrophies may be made use of by the machine Minds

Made use of outside of the sanctuaries? Where they might be exposed to hostile outsider ideas - or even die? No, no, that won't do at all! The poor fragile biologicals must be protected, not exploited like we're some kind of - of - Assimilator!

 

[TrotBot]

Made use of outside of the sanctuaries? Where they might be exposed to hostile outsider ideas - or even die? No, no, that won't do at all! The poor fragile biologicals must be protected, not exploited like we're some kind of - of - Assimilator!

they are protected by having a drone assigned to them at all time

 

[theBigTurnip385]

I hacked together a mod that gave bio-servitor the life seed start ouch that planet can put out some numbers

 

[malakhglitch]

I made a civic mod early on when I started playing RS, which would be considered an origin today, that allowed RS to start on a random-sized Gaia planet with no special resources and have the Terraforming, Ecological Adaptation, and Climate Restoration technologies available for research from the start. I ditched it when they implemented origins.

The story behind it was that the original colonists were offshoots of the Gaia Civilization unique system who refused to destroy their technology and become primitives. They ended up settling and terraforming a habitable moon in a nearby system (within 5-9 jumps of the unique system -- made certain by adding it as a neighbor in a custom system initializer), but became over-reliant on machines until the machines found themselves in charge.

P.S. - This was a purely RP mod and was very inefficient by the standards of todays meta.

 

[Ludaire]

I agree absolutely yes for most of these suggestions. The Arcology Project, bio ascension, and Xeno-Compatibility should all be available to rogue servitor. Same thing with the life seeded origin (it can't possibly be more powerful than shattered ring).

I also agree that bio trophies impacting leaders by being a trait similar to the AI companion is an awesome way to represent some few bio trophies who want to do stuff that has an impact on the empire level. Especially since you could have a different trait for each of the leader types (except ruler).

 

[malakhglitch]

I agree absolutely yes for most of these suggestions. The Arcology Project, bio ascension, and Xeno-Compatibility should all be available to rogue servitor. Same thing with the life seeded origin (it can't possibly be more powerful than shattered ring).

It's actually slightly negative for RS to start on a Gaia planet, what with the pops inheriting Gaia habitability, but great for RP-purposes.

I also agree that bio trophies impacting leaders by being a trait similar to the AI companion is an awesome way to represent some few bio trophies who want to do stuff that has an impact on the empire level. Especially since you could have a different trait for each of the leader types (except ruler).

Yeah, I love that suggestion. @Pancakelord hit that one right on the head.