Why hasn't the war on Auraxis escalated into a Grey-Goo scenario?

I meant the future of humanity here on Auraxis. Sorry for not being clear.

A fun theory, but we're on the other side of the universe (potentially in another universe) without FTL technology (though I guess that could have changed in the years since your hypothetical truce (but that would be overstretching the plausibility of your story) or motives to attack our old solar system. I have a feeling you're joking, though.

Just what I thought you'd say. I've heard this same thing a dozen times. Even if you ignore the portion of the lore where it explicitly says we're scientists, you still have all the feats we've achieved in-game like plasma weaponry and antigravity. Anyone who can create those must have used the scientific method. Since the core of the scientific method is evidence based reasoning, we can conclude that A: We don't actually have a crazy religion or B: Our beliefs are backed up by empirical evidence. Relevant XKCD.

I'll give you another quote: V6 "Find enlightenment." See the Age of Enlightenment, which Wikipedia defines as:

Enlightenment also refers to the "full comprehension of a situation". You NC and TR don't realize that we've been fighting this war even before we got to Auraxis. We've been fighting it ever since the nucleotide transcription error that made chimpanzees into **** sapiens. Have a list. Add your NC's secession from the TR to that. It has been proven time and time again that we cannot overcome our primitive tendencies to kill each other. Hell, humanity was on the brink of nuclear suicide before Vanu's wormhole banded us together into the old TR. I wonder how they've held up the centuries we've been on Auraxis. Have they descended into war yet?

If you NC win you will eventually be turned into what the TR are now or fall into anarchy. If you decide to allow everyone free access to all the new technologies extracted from the Vanu ruins (which I doubt you will, else you wouldn't be fighting us) then there's nothing stopping a single terrorist from opening up a wormhole on Auraxis or creating the Grey-Goo scenario. If we almost offed ourselves with nukes, imagine what we could do with weaponized Vanu tech. (Beyond what we VS use) So then you impose restrictions. People protest these restrictions. People start a revolution. Rinse and repeat. We can see it happening today with the USA. What started out as a country founded on the simple principle of freedom, much like you NC, now spies on its own citizens. And all it took was some planes flying into some buildings.

This primitive lust for war is a vestigial trait burdening humanity. We used to suppress it, allowing to mutate and fester with every passing day. Now, with technology reverse-engineered from the Vanu, we can tear this festering growth of hate out of our minds forever. You say we've lost touch with our humanity, and you're exactly right.

Your NC bosses, ironically, are halfway enlightened. They don't actually believe the propaganda they feed you about us being a crazy-*** cult, that's just to keep you guys fighting. (Which is hilarious, because you believe you're fighting for freedom yet you're attacking us because you think we believe in a different religion) The real reason they make you mindless sheep attack us is because they're afraid. Our ideas jeopardize your primitive way of life.

You will not stand in my way.

To be perfectly honest it started out as a joke, but the more thought I put into it, parsed the timing and the logic, the more sense it made.

We didn't get to Auraxis by FTL travel. We just slipped through a wormhole.

The first wormhole appeared near Pluto in 2345. It appeared again in 2444 and destroyed Pluto. In 2542 it opened up once more in the Sol System.

In 2640 the wormhole opened up again, and this time President Connery took 75,000 volunteers and 128 ships through the wormhole. However it collapsed in the middle, so only about half the fleet made it. Two years later they found Auraxis, and within another year they had traveled to Auraxis to settle it.

Supposedly the wormhole opens every 98-99 years or so. No one noted a wormhole opening in 2739 or so, but that might have been because everyone was occupied with rebuilding... or that Auraxis was not ready to invade the Earth yet.

Now the year is 2845, and supposedly the wormhole should have opened again around 2838. But what if it was opened, and held open as a means to return to Earth? But not to return in joyous reunion, but to return as conquerors?

I mean think about how easy it would be. Earth, without knowledge of nanites or rebirthing as discovered on Auraxis, would have a finite amount of soldiers and war machines. Auraxians, on the other hand, have the ability to instantly fabricate the most complicated tools of war as well as respawn fallen soldiers.

The battle would be incredibly one-sided.

So here we have a group of "humans", and those who actually lived on Earth and remembered it have probably died off (unless they rebirthed, but that depends on when rebirthing was discovered). Instead we have a generation that was born on Auraxis and knows nothing of Earth apart from the fact that help from Earth never came. Maybe they see Earth as guilty of sending them on a suicide mission. Maybe they see themselves as "better" than mortal Earthlings and as such deserve the sunnier spot. Maybe they just want to attack Earth as a preventative measure, to keep Earth from attacking them. Maybe it's more than one of these reasons.

But mostly because of war. War never changes.

Technicalities.

Yeah, that's a pretty huge oversight in the lore. I personally think that it didn't open up again, further adding to its mystery. If it did, the old TR on Earth would have sent some probes through to check out what had gone down.

False. Genny knows what went down. CTRL-F -> Reading

Again, they know what went down. Earth couldn't send a rescue mission A: Because the wormhole never re-opened or B: the wormhole might have collapsed again, killing the would-be rescuers. Nobody is that spiteful.

The only Auraxians who sort of think like this are the VS, and they're more logical than that. Also Auraxis is arguable more sunny than Earth. We've got a kick@ss gas giant, a sister planet, a really reflective moon, some nice environments, and bounties of exotic purple phlebotinum crystals.

Nobody in their right mind would think this.

Maybe.

Not a technicality at all. It just shows that we don't need to develop any special technology in order to get back to Earth (assuming that wormholes are two-way). Heck, we could take 200 year old spacecraft and even they would work through a wormhole.

So your argument that we would have to develop special technology to get to Earth holds no merit. We can simply go back the way we came.

It's true that they were taught about Earth. But it's also clear that their generation has never been on Earth, and they don't truly know Earth. It's like if you were taught about Kazakhstan in school, but you don't really know (or care) about it too much because you haven't been there.

Essentially there no longer exists a personal connection between Auraxians and Earthlings.

All they know is that they haven't heard from Earth for over 200 years, and as far as they know Earth has forgotten about them or taken them all for dead.

I mean all it would take is rumors that the TR on Earth was just using this expedition as an excuse to get rid of undesirables (like most of the pre-VS scientists). Why else did most of the supply ships not make it through the jump? What if the wormhole had been purposefully sabotaged, to strand the colonists on the other side without adequate supplies? Why did most of the TR military forces remain on the Earth-side of the wormhole when it closed?

True or not, that's how rumors and hatred start. You remember the rumors about how during the 9-11 attacks in New York people of Jewish descent had not gone to work? I mean it was completely false, but in the absence of proper information those rumors can take hold and run wild.

But still it's Earth, and probably has at this point been mythologized into a fairy tale. Lush lands, abundant resources. The historical value alone would be attractive to most, considering the low-cost of an invasion. And everyone (including the VS) might see themselves as superior to what they think existed on Earth. Maybe the TR would want to bring their particular brand of order to what they see as chaotic democracy. Or the NC want to "liberate" the oppressed masses on Earth. It's "white mans' burden" all over again, but in SPACE.

*coughiraqwarcough*

Though technically you're correct, because the people who made that choice were not in their right mind. But it just goes to show that sometimes people not in their right mind can end up running the show.

I don't think either faction are in control over how exactly their nanites are used anymore.

I meant technicalities in that it doesn't matter whether we're actually accelerating matter past the speed of light somehow or sidestepping it with wormholes. If we don't know how to get back to Earth within a reasonable time frame then it doesn't matter. If the wormhole is still opening then sure we could go back.

I guess training for an attack on Earth would be a valid explanation, though it's really far-fetched and turns the game on its head. Really all we'd need to do to cripple the old TR is use kinetic missiles to level major government locations then send in the troops to clean up the rest, so we'd be over-preparing if this were the case.

AFAIK, you can safely deconstruct only AT mines.

Because Nanites.

Well, that's a cute way to open, but it's also deflection. You have absolutely no answer for those quotes the VS throw around *all the time*.

They're not really scientists so much as archeologists and engineers. Any looney can be an archeologist or engineer, even an effective one.


And those that could be considered scientists because they use the scientific method are not excluded from being looneys. Someone using the scientific method while claiming to serve an alien in attempt to do its Will is not credible.

Not really. The situation in the game is more like, "Approximately 1/3 of the people jumped from the bridge, after claiming that aliens told them to do it."

Any intellectually honest person knows the VS characters are speaking of Spiritual enlightenment based on context.

Uh huh. Except for one thing, the VS attacked the NC (and the TR, by the way), not the other way around, as mentioned in the very same Lore article you just posted. You are discredited.

because its a game lol

"Our foes will know the Will of Vanu!"
It's always been my understanding that Papa Vanu was talking about the faction. It wouldn't be weird if that TR guy said: "Our foes will know the Will of the Republic!"

"Vanu smiles upon you."
The Vanu were an advanced race that we look up to. Their way of life, using technology to benefit their species, is like a guideline. It's like saying: "DaVinci/McGyver/Bob Ross/Lebron James/insertrolemodelhere would be proud of you."

"Vanu is with you! Do not falter!"
The word "Vanu" is used to describe our way of thinking, originating when the artifact contacted Briggs. It's like saying "reason is with you, do not falter". Not much different than "Live free in the NC!"

Archaeologists and engineers can't figure out antigravity and plasma tanks. In order to engineer effectively you have to understand the principles you're using. To understand them we must use science.

Also it said in the lore archive I linked: "You scientists don’t take sides."

We're not serving any alien, nor do we claim to. We know all the Vanu are gone. Even if they weren't, what reason would some they have to gain the following of a small fraction of the population?

You misinterpret. The primitive struggle between anarchy and order are the fire and we're "jumping off" not because of the orders of any alien but because we see that there's a better way.

Where does it say we're taking orders from an alien? You keep bringing this up but I can't seem to find it.

Alright, I'll play ball. A quick look at the Enlightenment (Spiritual) Wikipedia article says it can refer to concepts from many different religions.

Let's have a look at Bhuddism. "Enlightenment translates several Buddhist terms and concepts, most notably bodhi, kensho and satori." Bodhi literally means "to have woken up and understood". (Just like the VS has.) Kensho and Satori are Japanese terms used in Zen traditions meaning "seeing into one's true nature."

Sounds a lot like what I was saying. We've seen the true nature of mankind, and now seek to change it.

Interestingly it also says: "This knowledge is an understanding into the causality by which sentient beings come into existence, as well as the operations of the mind which keep sentient beings imprisoned in craving, suffering and rebirth."

Sound familiar? The casualty by which humanity came into existence is a horrible tendency to kill each other.

Let's see what it says about Hindu enlightenment. "In Indian religions moksha (Sanskrit: मोक्ष mokṣa; liberation) or mukti (Sanskrit: मुक्ति; release —both from the root muc "to let loose, let go") is the final extrication of the soul or consciousness (purusha) from samsara and the bringing to an end of all the suffering involved in being subject to the cycle of repeated death and rebirth (reincarnation)."

Again, familiar. We're letting go of our primitive ways.

How about we look at the next section, Jainism. "Its philosophy and practice emphasize the necessity of self-effort to move the soul toward divine consciousness and liberation." Liberation is a hyperlink to: "Mokṣa (Sanskrit: मोक्ष, liberation) or Mokkha (Jain Prakrit: मोक्ख ) means liberation, salvation, or emancipation of soul. It is a blissful state of existence of a soul, completely free from the karmic bondage, free from saṃsāra, the cycle of birth and death."

I don't think SOE receives enough credit for this. The entire game with its rebirthing system is a metaphor for the cycle of reincarnation in religion. Enlightenment is the breaking of this cycle. I actually want to thank you, because you helped me realize this.


So if Vanuism was to be added to that page it would say something like: The Vanu movement believes enlightenment is to realize that humanity is imperfect. They seek to remove this imperfection by using technology to artificially evolve past our warlike tendencies.

The TR and NC "attacked" us long before then. The TR sought to suppress our ideas as well as yours to prevent revolution. You NC sought to profit from Vanu technology, squandering its potential.

Also I said "keep you guys fighting" and "attack" us, as in present tense. I never said attacked. That would have implied you made the first assault. Really we don't know whether bullets or plasma rounds flew first since little about the actual war is talked about in the lore, but it's true that we officially declared war on you. I'm not denying that. I'm just saying that shouting "He started it!" is pointless.