Stellaris Dev Diary #65: Music from Utopia

[shadowclasper]

@Wiz @Metal King
If I might ask, who is M.R?

This next tune I want to share is one of those bonus songs. I am extra pleased that we got to record this one because it is a lament to one of the greatest scientist Stellaris has ever produced!
The song is called “In Memory of M.R”

Sorry if I'm being insensitive? (I don't think I am, the statement appears to imply it's about a game character?)

 

[henzington]

Scientist from the first blorg stream

 

[crowdemon]

Beautiful

 

[Nyanako]

The Music Player was perhaps the best of the innovations brought in by Paradox over all its games. Brilliant stuff!

 

[binn05]

We have a basic "Next Song" function in the game which you can find in the lower right corner. Otherwise I don't know if there is a plan to develop a Music Player for CK2.

Thanks for replying.

 

[Kolonel]

That track dedicated to to MR is stunningly beautiful. Simply breathtaking!

 

[mergele]

The Mercedes Romero track gives me Kinetic Void flashbacks.

 

[Ultimuh]

Sounds like a cool idea but no, they won't get any special theme.

Will we be able to mod it then? Perhaps at some point in the future?

 

[shadowclasper]

Scientist from the first blorg stream

ah cool. Thanks.

 

[th3freakie]

Dear paradox:

I like Andreas Waldetoft, I really do. But you've been using him pretty much exclusively for 12 years now. The man's got range, but he's only human, and after so many games that has led to all your games since EU3 having ultimately similar soundtracks, which end up fusing together in the minds of people who play most of your games.

So by all means, keep working with him. But mix things up a little and get other people in to make some tracks. Stellaris, leaving behind "History", would have been a nice staging area for this. Can still be.

Also the music player looks awesome, thanks!

 

[Metal King]

Will we be able to mod it then? Perhaps at some point in the future?

Currently we don't have system to trigger music like that now and I can't say if that is something we're going to create in the future at the moment.

 

[Jularbo Kizn]

Love the soundtrack for Stellaris as I'm a huge Vangelis fan.
The new Utopia soundtracks are awesome, though I'm partially more inclined to listen to the original Utopia

 

[essi2]

Finally, I'll leave you with a cryptic little note: There's something special that's been added to the audio for Banks by none other than our Audio Director, Björn Iversen, himself. Keep your eyes peeled for it in the patch notes...

So.... Space death screams...? Or a Blorg soundboard..?

 

[Okawoa]

I loved the CK soundtrack. The theme music to Stellaris is great but most the others are a bit dreary. It could've used more Philip Glass influence.

 

[Elthy]

You said the "in Memory of MR" was played without any preparations. I wonder what wuld have changed if you dedicated more time into it. I dont have a good ear for music, but i dont think there have been any audible mistakes or similar, it sounds just as perfect as the remaining soundtrack.

Will it be in the expansion? Its my favorite piece of Stellaris OST, i hope we will get it in the game (or at least in a youtube video without the audio effect at the end).

 

[Elfwind]

Sounds like a cool idea but no, they won't get any special theme.

Darn D= I was thinking something like how the unbidden and preythorians sound now but metal xD

Thanks anyways! Your music is nice =D

 

[SnakeInATopHat]

The Blorg are a fungoid race of socially unsuccessful and extremely lonely species which by a cruel twist of fate wish for nothing but friendship with everyone or atleast anyone. Their society is best described as a Friendtopia, where the individuals with the most friends rise to the top. The ruler most often has 3 friends upon ascension and might even reach 4 before dying of age at nearly 200 years old, common for the species.

In 2199 the Blorg sensors picked up something unheard-of, a radiotransmission from somewhere within their own galaxy. Once deciphered and translated the Blorg nations were shocked and awed to realize the transmission was called "Friends" and it displayed a world called Earth where the locally dominant species had managed to create a culture, a lifestyle, where having 6 or more friends was commonplace, a figure not even the most blatant liers nor the greatest heroes of Blorg past could boast.

The Blorg now had hope for the first time in their existence and the numerous Blorg nations quickly united under a singular goal to find the source of Friends and possibly even other species in their galaxy to befriend. In their zeal they also picked up the tradition giving names to each individual, a practice not used before as the Blorg were used to calling the others as "the friend" or perhaps even "the 2nd friend", the new names they took from the transmissions.

Only a year after receiving the first transmission the Blorg were completely united and ready for their first flights to space. Mercedes Romero was the first Blorg scientist to leave their homeworld in search of the enigmatic source of the Friends-transmissions known as Earth.

The first contact with another species came quicker than expected, barely 4 systems away. A nation of warlike reptilians bound by honour. Bound by honour to destroy anything they deemed unfit, Blorg most definitely included.

For a few years the situation was stagnant: the Blorg trying to figuratively wrap their gripping appendiges around the reluctant reptiles for a hug with the latter trying to cut off said appendiges. The relation struggle permanently mutated the Blorg diplomacy as they realised that to make friends the other must also want to be friends or atleast not try to kill the befriender, which was at one point amended to "should not possess the means to kill the befriender." This led to the first Blorg befriending, which others would call a war, which the Blorg won with the first, and for a long time only, friend the Zrocolli.

During the befriending Mercedes Romero applied many times for lasercannons to be mounted on her scienceship so that she could help in making friends but each time the request was denied. She remained an ardent activist and figurehead for the first contact befriending movement. However great success came another way as meanwhile her reports on the friend finding were gaining great popularity and she even managed to gain a fifth friend before midage, a feat almost totally unheard-of.

The succesful befriending and a greatly beneficial friendship with the Zrocolli and great military strategies helped the Blorg to gain ascendancy in the galaxy with many other species integrated into the Blorg frienderation. The victories were however hollow in the hearts of many Blorg as the individuals were still as friendless as before - it's an entirely different thing to say that the Blorg have 6 friendly species than that a Blorg has 6 friends, afterall. And as such the search for Earth continued with everlasting vigour, even though some scientists were suggesting that with recent technological breakthroughs they could craft their own friends. However such machinations were objected to by the Blorg's gargantuan neighbor which was rumoured to have held hegemon over the entire galaxy long aeons since before being nearly destroyed by their own robotic workers. Creating new life out of metal even for just friendship would lead to unavoidable destruction.

In the middle of the robotic-argument the Blorg received a worldshattering report from M.R. They had found Earth and confirmed that friendships were indeed common, but they also found out that the Humans were allied to the leading nations of a grand alliance determined to annihialate all things Blorg and despite M.R's abundant charisma their government would not steer from that path.

Feeling more than slightly despaired, although still believing that everyone could be befriended, the Blorg created the first mechanical friend.

The very next day armageddon began. As the Blorg closest to the Gargantuan's border Mercedes Romero was the first to make befriending contact. Still without even rudimentary lasers she did not have a chance against the amassed fleets, but like a true Blorg and scientist she went out all sensors scanning.

To this day rumours abound that before her death, still only barely midaged, she would have made a 6th friend, a divine feat on Blorg standards, with a human sympathizer and a namesake no-less.

This story was entirely unfact-checked and overdramatised and the timeline all f'd up, but the keypoints and the feel of things should be more than accurate enough to give a description on who's Mercedes Romero.

Thank you for your explanation

 

[Sanny]

Andreas, you sir are a legend.

The Budapest Film Orchestra were fantastic also. Very eager to hear the rest of the new stuff.

 

[25 Blorg Baked in a Pie]

As someone else in the thread expressed, I would love to be able to purchase these tracks for download once the expansion is released (as well as the tracks from Leviathans). Please take my money!

 

[Little One]

And so it's all coming together.

I'm glad they're spotlighting the music work that went into the expansion- and that there IS music work at all for it. That's not something many other developers do, sad to say. The music in Stellaris is incredible, and I've actually had my family listen to it without context just so that they could enjoy it too.

Cheers, Paradox. Keep up the amazing work from design, to art, to music, and beyond!