Previously on Star Theory…
[Did Dynamis become the Privateers?](< base_url >/index.php?/topic/21458-star-theory-did-dynamis-become-the-privateers/)
[Is Star Conflict set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe?](< base_url >/index.php?/topic/21718-star-theory-star-conflict-is-set-in-the-warhammer-40000-universe/)
And now, the long overdue third installment…
YOU ARE ALL LIVING A LIE!
What lie, exactly? The lie about your past! The lie about your future! The lie about the war! The lie about the Precursors, the Biomorphs, the Pirates and the Mercenaries! The lie to end all lies! Everything you have been told is a LIE! Except this, obviously, this is true, but everything the Empire, Federation and Jericho say is a lie. Every word of the INN is a lie. Everything StarGem says is a lie. Everything Gaijin says is a lie. If it’s official, it’s officially wrong!
It’s time you know the truth, so read quickly before this truth is destroyed forever by the jackbooted Thought Police!
There is no conflict in Star Conflict, not a real one anyway. The galaxy isn’t torn apart by three great nations fighting for supremacy, nor are they plagued by pirates and beset by ancient aliens. They are at peace, and everything you know of the war is merely an elaborate hoax - a brutal, bloody spectacle to keep the population afraid and compliant. The flaws in the story are obvious, but nobody dares look because they fear being branded an enemy agent, or a Biomorph puppet. Well, let’s look at those cracks together.
We’ll start with you, dear Mercenary. When you first arrived here in Sector 1337 you were provided a small amount of credits, a basic (and hopelessly obsolete) ship and told to go forth and fight the enemies of your employer. Curiously, it seemed that your laughably outdated weapons were sufficient for the task, as there were plenty of opposing mercenaries with equally shoddy gear for you to fight, and the drone-controlled “Bots” deployed by the enemy were likewise refits of vessels that are at best museum pieces, at worst floating scrap.
But you succeeded, you got paid, you did your job and you improved your ships. Up and up you went, and you were sent to fight stronger and stronger foes. Yet did you notice how, at a whim, you could easily order and have delivered vessels of the enemy? Did you stop and think about that at all?
Well, before long you likely obtained a good stock of ‘Loyalty’ with your employers, and they were willing to use that as a sort of currency to give you better equipment. Perhaps round about now you felt the desire to move on to new pastures, to turn your back on those you fought for and now fight against them. Yet that ‘Loyalty’ is still legal tender - the Legion will happily provide you with a new set of laser cannons with which to kill Imperial soldiers. Did that ever occur to you? Did you ever stop and wonder why?
More to the point, did you ever wonder HOW you changed sides? Some more experienced Mercenaries like to fly through the Frontier, but most feel the need to pay a little money to have themselves and their ships hauled via transports to their new employer. Did that not strike you as odd that the Empire would not only allow you to defect, not only give you more powerful weapons after you defected, but also arrange a transportation network to make defection easier? The same is true of Jericho and the Federation - indeed, all three use the same transport protocols, vendors, mission allocation, contractors and currency as each other. They even have identical black-market smugglers offering identical black-market goods. For three factions so utterly, and fundamentally opposed, they sure do have a lot in common…
Maybe you aren’t convinced. Soldiers are in high demand right now, after all, so surely it makes sense to do it this way? Unified currency makes hiring mercs easier; unified markets and interfaces remove the need to retrain; free movement of soldiers makes it easier to lure mercenaries, or even entire Corporations over to your side. That’s what you were told, wasn’t it? Well, maybe this next part will convince you what I say is true. Let’s talk missions.
The pitched battles, sometimes called “Team Battles” in hanger slang, are very straightforward; two opposing squadrons of mercenaries clash, and they wipe each other out. Combat Reconnaissance, you’ve been told, involves deploying a “Captain” into the field - these unique ships have superior weaponry and sensors, allowing them to properly analyse enemy movements. They are valuable, which is why you defend your Captain and slay the enemy. Navigation Beacons are essential for the movement of ships and supplies - without them, vessels would crash blindly into asteroids, or wind up lost in the void. Enemy supply depots and other vital systems have to be destroyed to ensure military supremacy.
But ask yourself this - when a dozen mercenaries flying two-hundred year old ships are located, why does your employer send an equally sized squadron of equally outdated ships to counter them? Why not scramble two-dozen “T5” ships and mop them up with ease?
Whenever you are deployed to perform a Combat Recon, or defend a Captain, have you noticed how the enemy always deploy one as well? And once again, a comparable sized escort is used, with comparable tech level.
When you destroy the enemy stations, have you noticed they are always rebuilt soon after? And lets talk Nav Beacons - how many times have you fought for control of the same set of beacons in the same section of Ice Reef, or along the same stretch of the Pandora Anomaly?
“But the Anomaly is huge!” I hear you cry. “There are hundreds of nav beacons! Maybe thousands!” That’s the official explanation, right? But ask yourself this - why are you only ever sent after three at a time? Why, when the Beacons are unstable and cannot be kept active for long, do they always fail and restart in the same order, for the same length of time? Why, when resources are limited and only a handful of ships can be deployed to secure a region, is it always the case that both sides have been able to activate and fortify three nav beacons before deployment of mercenaries?
It’s because you are being set up. When your battles are over, the powers that be simply undo all your hard work. The beacons are deactivated, the stations rebuilt, and all is made as it was before. You are told what you did mattered and you are sent to the next battlefield, and all the while the next batch of unwitting mercenaries is being sent to do the exact same mission you just did - exact same briefing, exact same stakes. The Combat Recons aren’t reconnaissance missions at all; they’re a staged duel. Those ships are scanning regions of space that have been mapped down to the inch a hundred times, and both sides knew exactly what the other was deploying. The “Sector Conquests”, and other battles where only a limited number of ships can be deployed? It’s a lie. Your reinforcements are being scrambled from the exact same hanger you were - your superiors simply decide to arbitrarily limit how many men get the deployment order.
Every battle you fight against your fellow mercenary is nothing more than a pathetic waste of men and machinery; a hoax of the most gross and sinister kind. You are fighting and dying for no reason other than so the people can be told how men are fighting and dying to keep them safe, and how one more defeat might be the one that breaks the dam and brings annihilation to their fragile little lives…
But you’ve done more than fight your fellow mercenary, right? You’ve faced challenges that cross all boundaries. You’ve faced the Cartel, the Cybers, the Pirates, the rogue AI of Blackwood and even aliens! THAT is real, right?
Oh, my poor, deluded friend, you could not be more wrong.
No matter how many times you secure Blackwood Shipyard, the Punisher always manages to survive, repair and rebuild its drone army. No matter how many times you secure the Crimson Haze, the Cybers always somehow take it back. Every time a squadron is sent to raid the Cartel’s iridium stockpiles, twenty six alien vessels appear within MINUTES of the boarding party reaching the docking platform. You can kill the pirate baron and hunt every last officer down, but tomorrow morning someone will be called upon to hunt him down again. The Empire’s frontier is on the brink of collapse because of Pirates; the Cartel has New Eden on its knees, and the Family are one slip up away from being crushed by the Cybers. That status quo never changes, no matter the results of your missions, or anyone else’s missions. Why? Because these ‘pirates’ answer to the same masters you do. They are part of the same game - keep the people afraid.
The aliens, then, are surely the one thing that is real in this war? Alas, no. I believed they were the real threat, but then I saw how they behave with my own eyes. I saw how they will only remain active in a region for a fixed period of time, and then retreat irrespective of their progress. They never take any spoils, they never attack with purpose or a greater goal than to destroy the first available target, and for all we’ve been told of their power they leave no lasting impact. I hid in the asteroids close to the Wardens Outpost Ruins and I saw the Biomorphs destroy the Pirate weapon platforms, patrols and convoys. And then our brave soldiers drove them off, and returned home for their reward. When they left, the pirates just came right back - defenses were repaired without comment, and patrols resumed without change. Everything was put back as it had been before, and within a few hours a new wave of Biomorphs came for the next band of mercenaries to defeat…
So hear me now, mercenaries! Hear me, I beg of you! Don’t be a part of the lie any longer! See the falsehood! See the deception! See how every facet of your lives is being controlled! This war is not real! The aliens are not real! We have to rally together and fight this, because we might be the only ones who can! Hurry, spread the word and get this information out bef-
===Unauthorised Transmission Terminated.===
===Remain at your terminal.===
===We will be with you shortly.===
