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FreeSpacers: Where are They Now?

Grey Library

Inactive Member
Just a random musing: What happened to the Rifters? What are they exactly doing within the Blue Rift Expanse? Are they still refugee communities or actually a hidden major interstellar power by now?
 
So with how the Freespacers have been undergoing changes since this thread occurred, maybe it's about time to have @Primitive Polygon and anyone else involved to try and get a more solid spot on where we've confirmed Freespacers and the like to be? There's been many groups/fleets abound, so tracking them might be difficult... but it seems like it could be a good starting point for a new wiki if we compiled what info we do have in one spot? It seems logical to helping phase out the old stuff, too.
 
Most Freespacers are still nomads, after everything, so trying to pin down their location when they can travel at light-years per minute is futile. The factions that have settled down could be worth details, but not all of them need to be established; if they are, players can't submit new ones at will. Several of them have been spelled out, already, so I don't think we need any special effort on this front that we haven't been making already.
 
Well, it's more exactly for the fact there are a few that have settled/claimed areas. Not to mention (as one can see through quick looks) there is a split in the wiki from the old lore and the new lore/canon being worked on and included. It's not so much spelling them out as a "final list", but to help us pool information to make more readily available for new members. Because honestly, there's a low enough amount on the current confirmed fleets that we might have similar ones break out when we could have people from the same fleets. We're missing out on opportunities for shared info and backgrounds (I know, super scary).
 
I want it on record that I really frickin' hate this thread necromancy thing specifically because it's incentivizes people to dredge up old lore that never got used, which we wanted to let lie like a sleeping dog.

We're trying not to use a lot of the old proposed lore like this specifically because of the virtriolic behind the scenes stuff from old players. Polygon and Myself are trying to make whatever the Free State is set to become out of whole cloth specifically to move away from old behind the scenes drama which we've inherited and still gets dragged up all the damn time.

We are working on new stuff, but we do both have a lot of heavy lifting with University lately.

There are several factions which we're outlining: See Astral Locksmiths, Viridian Array, Grand Bizarre. Incoming soon are Mumopogo, Cult of Discord, Iconoclasts and the like.

For the most part we are working on updating the lore, starting with a massive new comprehensive character creation guide that's getting hacked away at when we have spare time, and will replace a lot of the old articles.

General answer to the actual 'where are the freespacers' is that the population is nomadic and diasporic. They've been scattered. There is however a legally recognised 'freespacer territory' which is recognized by Nepleslia as generally 'everywhere north of the Nepleslian Colonial Expanse. This is generally in reference to the Free State which was taken under the wing of Nepleslia following the genocide. However a good chunk of the different Freespacer fleets consider the Free State to be dead following the genocide (this mostly due to the defense treaty requiring the Free State to give up a portion of its profits, which a lot of 'spacers don't wanna do). The name itself still only being used by those who want to huddle under mommy Nepleslia's skirts in case Yamatai gets bloodthirsty again.
 
There are several factions which we're outlining: See Astral Locksmiths, Viridian Array, Grand Bizarre. Incoming soon are Mumopogo, Cult of Discord, Iconoclasts and the like.

For the most part we are working on updating the lore, starting with a massive new comprehensive character creation guide that's getting hacked away at when we have spare time, and will replace a lot of the old articles.

General answer to the actual 'where are the freespacers' is that the population is nomadic and disaporic. They've been scattered. There is however a legally recognised 'freespacer territory' which is recognized by Nepleslia as generally 'everywhere north of the Nepleslian Colonial Expanse. This is generally in reference to the Free State which was taken under the wing of Nepleslia following the genocide. However a good chunk of the different Freespacer fleets consider the Free State to be dead following the genocide (this mostly due to the defense treaty requiring the Free State to give up a portion of its profits, which a lot of 'spacers don't wanna do). The name itself still only being used by those who want to huddle under mommy Nepleslia's skirts in case Yamatai gets bloodthirsty again.

Not trying to drag up the old lore as much as say this might be a time to present what you guys are working on to replace it. Which this reply did =3=. And it's why I even said at the end of my first/necro post.

"It seems logical to helping phase out the old stuff, too."

At this point, it was simply an attempt to get us to talk about what we DID have so we could phase out the old. The event is about bringing up discussions and getting people talking. At least, that's what I thought this was. Calling for us to gather info doesn't mean anyone has to even do it as much as we could just discuss where the Freespacers are now... ESPECIALLY with the break and attempt at fresh lore.
 
New stuff is in the works. It is in the wiki if it has already been submitted. New things will be presented when finished.

The problem is that in the particular case of the Freespacers we do not want old stuff brought up because it's a big stinking pile of drama that none of the current 'spacer FM's; or even most of the current playerbase on this site were here for, or participated in. It's something we're aiming to leave behind us.

My recommendation is that if you want more information about current Freespacer stuff, that you start a new thread and not dredge up what could potentially be a drama minefield. And my request is that this thread be locked, unless Primitive Polygon has anything to add.
 
First off, thanks for jumping on this, Dumont. The amount of time I've spent on trains lately cannot be good for one's mental well being.

As for the actual question at hand, the real problem is this; How do you update something which still technically belongs to people who left on a bad note, without risking a much bigger stink should they return? I've been doing my very best to stick to the spirit of what Lamb and I discussed before he left, but the more odd loose ends I dig up, the more that I realize even the existing lore has trouble sticking to his personal ideas of what direction things should be heading in... The Don Quixote is the perfect example, since it actually fits my original ideas of what the Skeleton Ensemble ship should have been far more than the final Phantasm-based design.

To be completely frank and open, how can anything really evolve and grow dragging that kind of baggage behind it? How can either me or Dumont expect to please everyone and still make something that is fun and as free-spirited as the spacers really should be?

You've seen my immediate short-term solution. The new sub-factions and specialist cults were designed to exist alongside the Free State rather than just bulldozing the old pages. Adding new things, succeeded... But, is it helping the new player confusion? Not really.

As above mentioned, we are working on a completely new style of organisation that is more friendly and all-encompassing. I think I mentioned in chat that non-spacers will be allowed into the fold in the future, to absolutely max out the customization options available to player characters. This is also an important step because it makes Spacer plots less critically isolated in Spacer-centric affairs.

The last unanswered question is exactly how drastic this integration is, and at what point we are creating an organisation that no longer even resembles the values which makes the Freespacers look and feel so darn intriguing. The only real way to answer that one is to put the proof in the pudding, I guess.

As for territory, I'm dancing around the issue because it basically looks like it would be nicer to exist within the current territories of other nations at the moment. It makes sense for them as an evolutionary step, and integration with 188604 is really the biggest help that they could have asked for. So more of that. Like heck we are fortifying colonies in the north and fighting the Kuvexians head-on. This ain't Yammieville.

Thank you for all your patience. Rest assured that the spacers are getting plenty of new pages and kit worked on, even if it isn't exactly obvious just how and why those new things might fit together just yet. It's the player experience that has always been my focus, and frankly I'm not too bothered about finishing up things like the new space fighter I've modeled to go with that tank, not until it looks likely that a player might actually get to use it. ;I
 
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