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The Zeroth law is about interesting characters, with drives, motivations, etc. Meat or machine, they need personality. Lots of hard sci-fi has robot characters.
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The Zeroth law is about interesting characters, with drives, motivations, etc. Meat or machine, they need personality. Lots of hard sci-fi has robot characters.
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There are three things that make this possible:
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There are three things that make this possible:
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1. Robots will be subject to the same evolutionary processes that made us (survival and reproduction), and will thus develop in similar directions.
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1. Robots will be subject to the same evolutionary processes that made us (survival and reproduction), and will thus develop in similar directions.
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2. They will be programmed by us, with hard-coded irrational tendencies that can bloom into complex personality.
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2. They will be programmed by us, with hard-coded irrational tendencies that can bloom into complex personality.
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3. A human brain can be simulated on a machine just as easily as anything else.
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3. A human brain can be simulated on a machine just as easily as anything else.
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The story will basically be you waking up millions of years after the Planet Wars (the sequal to the plot) you were sent to fight in have ended, and finding out what happened to the universe, how each of the civilizations died out (robot uprising, accidental nuclear obliteration, consciousness uploading, etc), discover the current robot factions and their philosophies (Robot liberation, human worship, etc) and eventually decide the fate of this universe.
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The story will basically be you waking up millions of years after the Planet Wars (the sequal to the plot) you were sent to fight in have ended, and finding out what happened to the universe, how each of the civilizations died out (robot uprising, accidental nuclear obliteration, consciousness uploading, etc), discover the current robot factions and their philosophies (Robot liberation, human worship, etc) and eventually decide the fate of this universe.
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This can either take the perspective of a female protagonist who is the last human (as far as she knows). Or it can take the perspective of a robot who is now questioning his mission and his programming since he was sent to war by a dead civilization (I think you can seriously 'humanize' this character).
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This can either take the perspective of a female protagonist who is the last human (as far as she knows). Or it can take the perspective of a robot who is now questioning his mission and his programming since he was sent to war by a dead civilization (I think you can seriously 'humanize' this character).
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The female human works because A. You have 'cover art', a pretty face to use in advertising etc (which makes me feel bad because feminism) B. You have a strong female protagonist (which is good because feminism).
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The female human works because A. You have 'cover art', a pretty face to use in advertising etc (which makes me feel bad because feminism) B. You have a strong female protagonist (which is good because feminism).
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It is IMPORTANT in this story that you are not some nameless henchman being ordered around by talking heads ala Starcraft, C&C, and every RTS. You are the commander, you decide the whole course of the war.
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It is IMPORTANT in this story that you are not some nameless henchman being ordered around by talking heads ala Starcraft, C&C, and every RTS. You are the commander, you decide the whole course of the war.
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Now, to the hard sci-fi fluff.
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Now, to the hard sci-fi fluff.
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1. FTL communication is impossible.
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1. FTL communication is impossible.
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2. Only the commander is autonomous.
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2. Only the commander is autonomous.
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3. Commanders are ancient tech, which cannot be reproduced, with teleportation capacity built-in.
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3. Commanders are ancient tech, which cannot be reproduced, with teleportation capacity built-in.
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The humans that constructed them where well aware that an infinitely self-replicating war machine would consume all the resources in the galaxy in no time flat. The commander has immense and terrifying capacity for destruction, but was designed explicitly NOT to be a exponentially self self-replicating grey-goo machine sent to gobble up every resource in the galaxy.
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The humans that constructed them where well aware that an infinitely self-replicating war machine would consume all the resources in the galaxy in no time flat. The commander has immense and terrifying capacity for destruction, but was designed explicitly NOT to be a exponentially self self-replicating grey-goo machine sent to gobble up every resource in the galaxy.
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This is why worlds arent clogged with structures. As soon as a commander teleports to a new world, all the stuff there goes offline (Or, even, blows up to prevent enemy salvage). This is also why they have limited blueprints of units (And you will get more from your enemies, as you play)- the designs are from the planet wars, they aren't 'New Research by your R&D department' (Which is a particular RTS conceit I find moronic).
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This is why worlds arent clogged with structures. As soon as a commander teleports to a new world, all the stuff there goes offline (Or, even, blows up to prevent enemy salvage). This is also why they have limited blueprints of units (And you will get more from your enemies, as you play)- the designs are from the planet wars, they aren't 'New Research by your R&D department' (Which is a particular RTS conceit I find moronic).
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The sort of weapons you're talking about, planet busters and FTL-capable ships (Which would be PHENOMENALLY expensive, given how advanced just one commander is) etc, probably had a place towards the end of the Planet Wars before the humans all killed eachother off, but obviously they never gave the commanders the blueprints to build these things, they kept a human finger on the big red button, as it were. Getting your hands on this ancient tech could serve as the plotline to some missions.
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The sort of weapons you're talking about, planet busters and FTL-capable ships (Which would be PHENOMENALLY expensive, given how advanced just one commander is) etc, probably had a place towards the end of the Planet Wars before the humans all killed eachother off, but obviously they never gave the commanders the blueprints to build these things, they kept a human finger on the big red button, as it were. Getting your hands on this ancient tech could serve as the plotline to some missions.
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So why do commanders teleport onto the same battlefield simultaneously? Because nobody is going to come to a camped planet. If you want to fight an enemy, you have to wait until he jumps in and then jump in yourself quick smart before he builds up.
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So why do commanders teleport onto the same battlefield simultaneously? Because nobody is going to come to a camped planet. If you want to fight an enemy, you have to wait until he jumps in and then jump in yourself quick smart before he builds up.
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Edit: Another justification for this is that before you land, the world is bombarded by sky lasers and everything obliterated, but then every single battle would take place in a smoking crater and the ground war would be rather meaningless (IE, if you lose, you bombard and try again). Maybe something like this can form the later missions though...
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Story and single-player missions.