Original Faction Names and Logos

[Impaler[WrG]]

I was mucking around in the SMAC directory looking for files that I might be able to alter and I came across one named "NewIcons". You can open it up in Paint and have a look at some interesting stuff.

First off we see some older simpler Nut,min,eng symbols most like early crude place holders made durring development. Most of the material didn't make it into the final game yet its called "new" so their were probably even more primitive versions of all the information displayed.

Their are also 3 simple pictures for Talent, Worker and Drone. Notice that the talents are already assosiated with harps at this early stage. Hense why the symbol for the Paradise Garden is a Harp.

Most interesting of all though are small faction Icons to the right side of the page. Gaian's and Spartans are normal but nothing else matches.

The "Keepers" whom I am assuming are the Peace Keepers are using the Hive logo. At some Point they desided to give that Logo to the Hive and use the UN/Starfleet like logo that the PeaceKeepers now use. The Peace Keepers current logo isn't very original as a result.

The Morgans are using a Dimond shaped logo which mildly resembles what they eventualy use. No idea why that was changed, the old logo looks good to me.

Their is a faction called the Archon's using a logo I have never seen before and which seems to resemble a wrench, I am assuming these guys are the University in discuise. They probably changed name to university to accentuate the tec focus of the faction. Their new logo contains an Atomic sysmol also for tecnology. Perhaps the Archons were not a tec focused faction.

The Beliver Logo is assosiated with the Conclave. If you think about this it makes perfect sense and you just have to slap your head. THE CONCLAVE BIBLE! The belivers must have had their name changes just before the product shipped, all the wav files, facility descriptions and Tec descriptions refer to the conclave bible. Then at the 11th hour they deside that Belivers is a better name for the faction (I agree by the way) and just left all the Conclave bible references in their. I amd I asume most of you out their never suspected a thing, we all naturaly think this is some sophisticated design element.

Lastly we have the Labyrinth faction using another never before seen logo. I am assuming these guys are the Hive also in Discuise. I suspect this because Yang's Undergroung bases would make great Labyrith's. Yang then stole the Peace Keepers logo (which could have been the sourse of deep seeted animosity between them). I guess this also mean that the Hive logo was not concived as a stylized Ying-Yang symbol which had always been my asumption.

Now you might say I got the Archon's and Labyrinth backwards but I have infact found Confirmation that the University = Archons and Hive = Labyrinth. If you also open up the "system" text file and scroll most of the way down you can find a reference to faction colors that use these old faction names, the names of the colors though perfectly match the final faction colors, which makes me belive that the colors fo the factions were desided very early.

One final myster remains, notice the 4 large very simple sysmbols with 4 names, Vehice, Tool, Buillding, Project. These seem to be catagores for things bases can produce, Vehices or Units, Buildings or Facilites and "secret" Projects. But what the heck are Tools? What ever it is it represents something that is significant enough to be put on an equal footing with Facilites and Secret Projects. Perhaps this was some kind of game mechanic or group of construction options that was droped in the early production process of SMAC.

If anyone has any guesses or even better 3rd hand rummors I would be glad to hear them.

[Vev]

The university I thought were more engineering orientated in their previous incarnation. From their text file, they were supposed to have +support for engineering improvisation. Maybe the wrench helped conveyed this idea. As for the word, Archon, I have no idea why the term for rulership was involved. A theme to represent the classical ancient Greece golden age?

[Asmodean]

Nice peace of detection work there, Impaler.

I have never heard of these things. Perhaps one of the more experienced SMAC modders has more information.

Asmodean

[johndmuller]

Just a day or two ago I noticed a faction.txt file for the Outlaws, which seemed to be a variation on the Spartans, but with different qualities:

#OUTLAW
United Noncomplicity Front, The Outlaw, Outlaws, M, 2, Awen, F, -1, 1, 0, 1, 1,
TECH, Tacit3, Commerce, 2, SOCIAL, ++EFFIC, SOCIAL, ++PROBE, UNIT, 1, SOCIAL, --POLICE, UNIT, 6, POPULATION, 2, SOCIAL, +MORALE
Production, Paranoia, PROBE
Protocol, Controlled, nil
...

Note the emphasis on espionage and efficiency and the lesser morale boost. I don't know what Controlled Protocol means and the tech Tacit3, while it strikes a memory chord somewhere, did not reveal itself in the Tech lists.

Some of the text in the faction file actually says Spartans or something to that effect, so I suppose they were derivitave, but the Outlaw-Santi image, while resembling the real thing, is definitely not as alluring.

[Impaler[WrG]]

If we closly examine the Unity Story that Firaxis produced in all thouse many many small instalments we can find additional clues. If your interested the story can be found here

http://www.firaxis.com/smac/assets/journey.rtf


The story tell the origin of each faction leader and how they interact durring the break up of the Unity. In general its safe to say that they build up quite a bit of Animostiy and distrst.

But their are a few inconsistences between the story and the In game descriptions of the Origins of the Faction leader, for one Yang is refered to in game as the "Unity Exexuitve Officer" aka Captain, but as we all know the Captain was called Garland and he died before Planetfall (and got a well know mineral rich Crater named after himself). In the Story Yang is the ships Secuirty officer and is a Martial Arts master with powers bordering on the Super-Natural.

In Game Santiago is called the Security officer but in the story she is a Stow-away. So are all the members of here faction. They were a South American survivalist/terrorist cult which bribed/threatened the U.N. to put them onto the Unit. Santiago did this in the hope of establishing her self and here followers as lords of this new world and to flee the sinking ship of Earth, the U.N. was glad to have here out of their hair and didn't much care what happened to the Unity after it left Earth.

Lal, Deedre, Miriam and Zarkof are all Officers of the ship with Morgan as a righ financere who bought his way onto the ship by paying for a large portion of its construction.

The idea that the University was at first consived as a more Engingering oriented faction is supported by the fact that Zarkof is the one leading the Unities Enginers in the desperate atempts to repair the ship. Yet their are references to his Scientific prowess too so perphas his faction was originaly Science AND Enginer which was later refocused just on Science. It would be interesting too play the "throw back" versions of all the factions if we could deduce what their adsact paramiters were.

Lastly, Vev what text file referest to a University support bost? I dont remember seeing anything to this effect. It sounds unbalancing because Zak would be able to feild an even larger army of high tec soldiars with witch to concour the world.

[Alinestra Covelia]

If you check the poster that came with the game, showing a technology tree, the University's picture in that has the engineering wrench logo on it.

[Pandir]

Originally posted by Impaler[WrG]
for one Yang is refered to in game as the "Unity Exexuitve Officer" aka Captain, but as we all know the Captain was called Garland and he died before Planetfall (and got a well know mineral rich Crater named after himself)

The executive officer would be under the captain.

[Illuminatus]

Originally posted by Impaler[WrG]


The Beliver Logo is assosiated with the Conclave. If you think about this it makes perfect sense and you just have to slap your head. THE CONCLAVE BIBLE! The belivers must have had their name changes just before the product shipped, all the wav files, facility descriptions and Tec descriptions refer to the conclave bible. Then at the 11th hour they deside that Belivers is a better name for the faction (I agree by the way) and just left all the Conclave bible references in their. I amd I asume most of you out their never suspected a thing, we all naturaly think this is some sophisticated design element.

They didn`t change the intro movie ("quote - The Conclave Bible") - truly shows last hour changes.

[Hercules]

Yes good work there Impaler

[Impaler[WrG]]

I belive that Outlaw faction might be a custom faction, Chech the Original CD and see if it also apears their, I have nto been able to find any reference to an outlaw faction in my own SMAC files.

Also I was wondering if any of you were aware of the Male into sound clip, its the same message just read by a male voice, its easily listened too and is named "introm" as oposed to "introf" which is the normal one we all hear when starting the game. Firaxis must have desided they liked the female voiced intro better (it sounds more like Miriam dont it).

As for the Tec tree fold out, I am looking at it right now and their are no discrepancies in the faction logos and what apears in game. The university isn't assosiated whith the earlier wrench logo. This dosn't supprise me though, the tec tree fold out would logicaly have been manufactured AFTER the game whent gold. They would need to perform huge amounts of play testing on the tec tree before it was nailed down and by that time the factions had all matured to their present state. If their were any errors in the Tec Tree fold out I would expect them to be in the tecnologes because these are subject to last minute changes and modification (its a hell of a lot easier to do for one thing), but even here their are know mistakes that I know off.

[waab]

Originally posted by Vev
The university I thought were more engineering orientated in their previous incarnation. From their text file, they were supposed to have +support for engineering improvisation. Maybe the wrench helped conveyed this idea. As for the word, Archon, I have no idea why the term for rulership was involved. A theme to represent the classical ancient Greece golden age?

Sorry Vev, but now I a non-veteran will teach you some SF or I think so:

Archon is a "faction" in Kim Stanley Robinsons book Red Mars, which you will found in suggested reading in the manual. They are actuly a reaserch group and I guess the group behind the Lon. Vacine...

The rest of you: Is there anyone out there who has the beta-factions?

[waab]

Originally posted by Impaler[WrG]

In Game Santiago is called the Security officer but in the story she is a Stow-away. So are all the members of here faction. They were a South American survivalist/terrorist cult which bribed/threatened the U.N. to put them onto the Unit.

Actuly she is not a stow-away, she is a security officer under Yang, as I have understand the text could be wrong english is not my birth language.

Morgan is a stow-away, he payed for a part of the ship...

[Vev]

Originally posted by Impaler[WrG]
Lastly, Vev what text file referest to a University support bost? I dont remember seeing anything to this effect. It sounds unbalancing because Zak would be able to feild an even larger army of high tec soldiars with witch to concour the world.

Inside the Univ.txt file below the section where the text is used for factional description it has:


#DATALINKS2
^+2 RESEARCH: {Brilliant research}
^-2 PROBE: {Academic networks vulnerable to infiltration}
^Free NETWORK NODE at every base
^One BONUS TECH at beginning of game
^Extra DRONE for every four citizens {(lack of ethics)}
^{May not use Fundamentalist Politics.}

#xxx
^+2 SUPPORT: {Engineers readily improvise}

I guess that line was commented out

[Vev]

As for Archon, it had been too long since I've read the Mars series.

Alway fun looking up words and their possible orgins. e.g. Cybernetic : says it is from Greek word meaning governor

[waab]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by Vev
Alway fun looking up words and their possible orgins. e.g. Cybernetic : says it is from Greek word meaning governor [/QUOTE

Nice, something more fun around in the hunt for the "Orginal" factions?

[Impaler[WrG]]

Actualy upon closer inspection of my Tec Tree Fold out, I have found the Eary "Archon" logo that Alinestra Covelia mentioned.

At first I though he had been refering to the Large semit transparent logo that apears over the City picture, but if you look more closly the Wrench like Archon logo can be seen on the Side of the university Building.

Upon closer examination of the other Pictures I noticed that the Morgan buildings are coverd with their Eariler Diamond shaped Logo too so both of these pictures must have been made before the Logo Changes were made.

The Peace Keepers though have their final logo so it would seem that the Hive/PK logo sitching happened before the updates to the University and Morgans or that the City Scape pictures were not all made at the same time.

Nice Eye Alinestra, sorry I doupted you at first you were on the money

[Illuminatus]

I just remembered some things which I spotted long ago. This is from system file. See how it uses old faction names.
#VEHICLECOLORING
95, ALIEN RED--NOT REALLY USED.
142, GAIAN GREEN
250, LABYRINTH BLUE ;This was 208. No longer any good?? jsc
62, ARCHON WHITE
241, MORGAN YELLOW
70, SPARTAN BLACK
219, CONCLAVIST ORANGE
227, KEEPER PURPLE

#ARMORCOLORING
95, PLASMA STEEL
233, SILK STEEL
88, NEUTRONIUM
70, ANTIMATTER PLATE

#ARMORCOLORING_TRANS
62, 30, 60, PROBABILITY SHEATH--color, beginning percent, ending percent

#VEH_LIGHT_DIR_MAP
6, 4, 15

#BOUNDARYPERCENTS
0, ALIEN PLAYER...NOT USED
50, GAIAN GREEN
60, LABYRINTH BLUE ;This was 208. No longer any good?? jsc
50, ARCHON WHITE
50, MORGAN YELLOW
60, SPARTAN BLACK
50, CONCLAVIST ORANGE
70, KEEPER PURPLE

[Illuminatus]

I also remembered that I found out some left out techs and facs - this is from the blurbs file - a last hour removed fac. Has anyone seen perhaps a lost icon for this? Actually when I think about it, it seems to me as it was originaly intented as blurb for stockpile energy (stupid).
##Mass to Energy
#FAC38
I hold a scrap of paper in the darkness and
light it. I watch it burn bright and curl, disappearing
into nothingness, and the heat burns my fingers.
Where has it gone? What has it become? I cannot shake
the feeling that I have witnessed a form of transcendence.
^
^ -- Commissioner Pravin Lal,
^ "The Convergence"

And a forgotten tech.

##Global Energy Theory
#TECH70
"Energy is the currency of the future."
^
^ -- CEO Nwabudike Morgan,
^ "The Centauri Monopoly"

And another one (I like the blurb text)



##Inertial Damping
#TECH24
Until now the battle had been proceeding smoothly: the enemy
was outflanked and had been driven from the reactor housing. But
against the reactor itself the matter cannon were strangely
ineffective. Rounds simply . . . stopped. In mid-air.
^
^ -- Col. Corazon Santiago,
^ "A Tactical History of Sparta"

[Illuminatus]

I also remembered that I found out some left out techs and facs - this is from the blurbs file - a last hour removed fac. Has anyone seen perhaps a lost icon for this? Actually when I think about it, it seems to me as it was originaly intented as blurb for stockpile energy (stupid).
##Mass to Energy
#FAC38
I hold a scrap of paper in the darkness and
light it. I watch it burn bright and curl, disappearing
into nothingness, and the heat burns my fingers.
Where has it gone? What has it become? I cannot shake
the feeling that I have witnessed a form of transcendence.
^
^ -- Commissioner Pravin Lal,
^ "The Convergence"

And a forgotten tech.

##Global Energy Theory
#TECH70
"Energy is the currency of the future."
^
^ -- CEO Nwabudike Morgan,
^ "The Centauri Monopoly"

And another one (I like the blurb text)



##Inertial Damping
#TECH24
Until now the battle had been proceeding smoothly: the enemy
was outflanked and had been driven from the reactor housing. But
against the reactor itself the matter cannon were strangely
ineffective. Rounds simply . . . stopped. In mid-air.
^
^ -- Col. Corazon Santiago,
^ "A Tactical History of Sparta"

[Makahlua]

I wonder if Global Energy Theory was left out because of Adaptive Economics? That tech allows the Planetary Energy Grid which defiently has a global imapct:

##Planetary Energy Grid
#PROJECT36
"The ancient Chinese had a name for it: Feng Shui. We call it energy flow. It is the
same thing, the same thought: energy is everywhere, but only a fraction of it is tapped
by humans for their purposes. Now the Progenitors have taught us that we can tap not only
our own latent abilities, but the latent abilities of the Universe itself."
^
^ -- Prophet Cha Dawn,
^ "Planet Rising"


And here's another fun one - I wonder what they'd been watching?

##Bioenhancement Center
#FAC30
We are all aware that the senses can be deceived, the eyes fooled.
But how can we be sure our senses are not being deceived at any
particular time, or even all the time? Might I just be a brain in
a tank somewhere, tricked all my life into believing in the events
of this world by some insane computer? And does my life gain or lose
meaning based on my reaction to such solipsism?
^
^ -- Project PYRRHO, Specimen 46, Vat 7
^ Activity Recorded M.Y. 2302.22467
^ TERMINATION OF SPECIMEN ADVISED

[Ancyrean]

Originally posted by Makahlua
And here's another fun one - I wonder what they'd been watching?

##Bioenhancement Center
#FAC30
We are all aware that the senses can be deceived, the eyes fooled.
But how can we be sure our senses are not being deceived at any
particular time, or even all the time? Might I just be a brain in
a tank somewhere, tricked all my life into believing in the events
of this world by some insane computer? And does my life gain or lose
meaning based on my reaction to such solipsism?
^
^ -- Project PYRRHO, Specimen 46, Vat 7
^ Activity Recorded M.Y. 2302.22467
^ TERMINATION OF SPECIMEN ADVISED

Actually, afaik the main theme behind the Matrix trilogy, that the world as we know it may in fact be just a neural-interactive computer simulation, predates the Matrix movies, maybe even by a few decades...But my memory fails me about who was the father of the idea or in what year it was put forth in what book or novel...

Still I bow (once more) to the intellectual effort that the guys making SMAC/X put into making this game, going through such a rich spectrum of true science fiction

[Impaler[WrG]]

Hail too that, let us all bow down to the greatness of SMAC!!

[Vev]

Are we all brains in a bottle?

[Impaler[WrG]]

Speaking of the Brains in bottles, though I cant say who the first author to pen the consept of our world being a complex computer simulation inwhich our brains are conected too.

I think Plato deserves most of the credit, his Alagory of the cave pre dates everything by 3000 years! The Matrix is simply a styalized retelling of the Alagory of the Cave with a few Judeo-Christian Messia theams. This brings up an interesting observation on the influence of anchient "Greek" knowalge on Cristianity.

The traditional view that the Greek knowalge was this great anchient achivment destroyed by the rise of Cristianity that resulted in the Dark ages thus leaving us in a much less perfect world then previously existed. This is only half true.

In actuality their were several mutualy oposing Greek Philosphies which developed and battled over more then a thousand years. The Pre Socratic Philosophers were closest to what we would call real scientists, rational, experimentaly driven and interested in spreading that knowlage. This Philosopy though was largly lost.
The Socratic Philosophers which included Plato were interested in purly philosopical things they found the real world messy and imperfect, they prefered the clean unspoiled realms of the mind and thus they divorced the mind from the body which is at the root of the Alagory of the Cave.
Another major group were the Pythagorians who were interested in purly mathematical constructs. They pioneared the conspt of the mathematical proof, the ability to prove a mathimatical postulation based entirely on thoughtfull calculations. Thus they did not belive in performing any real world experiments either. They also had tried to keep everything they discovered secret, they felt the "masses" were unfit to know of their discovers.

These 3 groups comprise the "Greek" tradition, the First though fadded in the time of the Greeks and was suplanted by the latter 2 long before the rise of Cristianity. When Cristianity did arise it assimilated as core values most of the Socratic and Pythagorean principles. This is in stark Contrast to what people are traditionaly told, which is that Cristianity rejected and destroyed the glory of Greek Philosopy. Just the Oposite Cristianity and the resulting Dark Age that resulted IS the legacy of Greek Philosopy. The "lost Glory of the Past" consept IS a Greek Philosophy Thus the whole premisse is self controdicting. Rather then lossing Greek Philosophy the western world retained it in the Guise of Cristianity for a Thousand Years!

It was not untill the Enlightenment began that the Pre-Socratic philosophies began to re-emerge. The Consepts of Science and experimentation now flourish in our modern world, Conservative religious eliments still represent a major threat though (the Conservative Cristians are much more dangeroud then the Muslim ones as the Cristians are in positions to bring down the modern Enligtenment at its sourse). Interesting how history repeats itself.

[Archaic]

*Goes looking through the graphics files*
Hmmm....anyone know who "BKTSP" is? He's marked the flags.pcx file with a tag.

There's also some interesting pics and comments in Icons.pcx, iface.pcx, interface.pcx ("Make this Redder -BR". There's a number of notes by him amongst the files, but this seems to be the only order to the artists.), monicons.pcx, and units.pcx.

[Maniac]

I don't think anyone has mentioned this yet: AFAIK the file fac37.wav in the FX directory is also an unused recording.

[Scytale]

although I read impaler's post I fail to see the connection with the other ones, except for the whole "alegory of the cave" thing; this is mostly a sci-fi forum, thus I have to point out that most of us don't give a flying "alegory of the cave" about greek philosophy. I am content with Yang's cheap aphorisms, and with the whole believer apocripha.

[Corellion]

The discussion had turned vaguely to who first came up with the idea of a matrix-type world (derived from the 'brain in a bottle' quote from SMAC). Impaler was pointing out that Plato's discussion of the Allegory of the Cave, in which an entire people is kept in a cave, unable to see anything other than the shadows of whatever passes behind them. The idea ties directly into "what if our senses are being fooled all the time" from the Matrix (which, in itself was an almost exact copy of some of Bertrand Russel's musings (or was it Descartes?)).

[Clear Skies]

Allegory, please.

And I think William Gibson was the cyberpunk mastermind behind a lot of the concepts that were cobbled together into the Matrix.

[gwillybj]

The University's wrench logo is also the pendant on Zakharov's right ear. It's hard to make out in univ.pcx. It's clearer in bbrd6.pcx on the SMAC CD.

Re the fac##.wav files: None of them are used. What you hear in the game are the mp3 files in the voices folder. And the numbers don't match between the folders.
fac33.wav is fac31.mp3.
fac34.wav is fac32.mp3.
fac38.wav is fac35.mp3.
fac40.wav is fac37.mp3.
fac41.wav is fac38.mp3.
Three wavs have no mp3: 11, 31, 37.
Eleven mp3s have no wav: 3, 7, 8, 11, 17, 20, 21, 22, 33, 34, 36.