 November 20, 2011 - 12:12pm | The great UPF conspiracy is that they know the locations of the homeworlds. The UPF high leadership knows that the Sathar destroyed all life on the homeworlds shortly after the Vrusk, Dralasites, and Humans established the first colonies in the Frontier. The Sathar attack all races that they detect developing interstellar travel and cross-species cooperation. The Sathar do this to maintain their dominance and security as a race. The Sathar detected the communications between the three races and learned of the homeworlds. In a decisive coordination of preemptive strikes they attacked and ravaged the homeworld systems. Only after the attacks did they learn that the Vrusk, Dralasites, and Humans had launched colony missions. Some colony ships were found and destroyed. Most were lost to the Sathar and became the new obsession for the Sathar Hierarchy. Meanwhile the colonial leadership of the three races secretly agreed not to alarm the populace until they had established the fate of their home systems. All initial missions failed to return. Then one Vrusk mission made it back by way of a long round about path using waypoints in the vast expanse to lose their Sathar pursuers. They brought back word of utter destruction by means of nuclear and biological weapons. Recovered records from asteroid mining colonies told of the Vrusk waging all out war to defend themselves. The Vrusk shared their sad news with the Dralasite and Human leaders and new missions were agreed upon to secretly visit they Dralasite and Human home systems. They also agreed to make the jump routes back to the home systems classified because of the pursuit that the Sathar had made on the surviving Vrusk ship. All missions back to the home systems would be done by surreptitious routes. These often capitalized upon random waypoints in the Vast Expanse. The Dralasite and Human ships that eventually did make it back to the Frontier brought the same sad news. The home systems were all destroyed by this un-named enemy in genocidal means. The Human homeworld had been bombarded with meteors. The Dralasite homeworld was consumed by horrific bio-forms that had replaced all dral life. Their enemy was un-named and mysterious, only obscure recordings hinted at their nature and form. The final decision of the founding leaders of the Frontier worlds was to hide the home system jump routes and consider them lost. Eventually word started to get out to the populace of the fate of the homeworlds and these rumors became tales and legends. When space travel became available to smaller independent adventurers missions began to seek out the lost home systems. None have ever succeeded. The modern governments have lost the true accounts but those there are those that are tasked with keeping these secrets. They work tirelessly to prevent the common citizen from discovering the truth. Is this truth or just a conspiracy theory? -iggy |
 November 20, 2011 - 12:25pm | Nice Battlestar Galatica type twist. Though I would keep knowlege of the jump routes more of a secret and maybe only leak a few hints. If the players ever discovered the complete truth of the matter all they would find is the burnt out radiactive waste lands that have no recognizable or confirmable supporting evidence. |
 November 20, 2011 - 5:15pm | Just so you know, the photo of mass skeletal Vrusk remains on MK284 is a hoax. The image is doctored. The original image is well known in achaeological circles. It was just another long extinct alien race. The image is from Hargut. The Vrusk remains spliced in is from a Frontier Geographic article about the missing first rescue party sent to Volturnus. View my profile for a list of articles I have written, am writing, will write. "It's yo' mama!" —Wicket W. Warrick, Star Wars Ep. VI: Return of the Jedi "That guy's wise." —Logray, Star Wars Ep.VI: Return of the Jedi Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? - Felicia Day (The Guild) |
November 20, 2011 - 5:21pm | I love it! Yes I want this explored from both angles. Conspiracy stuff to color the campaign and history that might work out to fill the void of the homeworlds. Either one or both could pan out to be great material. I'd love to see that picture of Vrusk remains on MK284. -iggy |
 November 20, 2011 - 7:48pm | My problem with the premise is that its too neat and tidy from a writing stand point, we need to deal with the homeworlds and well the sathar destroyed them, it sort of begs the question how did the sathar fail to boot stomp fledgeling colonies when they totally obliterated established mature worlds that had a far better chance to survive? I'm not against using the sathar to obliterate a homeworld, just against having a neat clean story "all the homeworlds are unavailable in the setting since the sathar wiped them out. Its like when a studio cuts back on a TV series budget and they skimp on the writers and it shows in the quality of the program that season; simplistic explanations that feel to simple. Still its an idea that is worth exploring. In my timeline article I adressed 3 out of 4 homeworld issues but left the dralasites home world a mystery in the setting with the vrusk discovering a globe ship and after bringing it to their home system (the only vrusk system in the setting with a high population rating, which would latter carry the dralasite name of Fromeltar) When they openned containers of "bio-plasm" they discovered the dralasites inhabitants who had no memory of where they came from or how they got on board the ship. The sathar obliteration of their civilization could be a good explanation of this mysterious globe ship. We know the sathar have been wiping out civilizations for at least 900 years since thats the date on their attacking the eorna on Volturnus. Perhaps some point 200-300 years ago to the dralasites were locked in a death struggle with the sathar and were losing ground. They Dralasite Continum developed a fail safe plan to preserve their civilization by launching an ark to preserve their civilization. Either the memory loss is a security feature (to prevent them from searching for their lost world) or a side effect of the fact that the dralasites were in stasis so long that their memories suffered degredation or that all the dralasites on board were newly separated buds and one or two members of the crew new the truth but kept their mouths shut- again a security feature. A very intriguing idea. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 November 22, 2011 - 12:05am | One thing to throw in would be either that the Sathar were heavily damaged and still have not recovered from their attacks so they have only returned limited attacks on the Frontier or there is another race the Sathar are fighting which is diverting their attention from the Frontier. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
November 22, 2011 - 12:28am | The fledgling refugees whose descendants formed the frontier slipped past the Sathar onslaught and managed in small numbers to escape the fate of the homeworlds. By the time the frontier became colonized the Sathar's ability to combat four races on four fronts was too large a task so they decided to wait and wage a cold war against the races until they secured the upper hand for a full fledged attack on the frontier. Additional military actions with other races also helped to draw the worms attention away from the frontier long enoug for the races to get a foot hold on their new worlds. |
November 22, 2011 - 3:07am | One thing to throw in would be either that the Sathar were heavily damaged and still have not recovered from their attacks so they have only returned limited attacks on the Frontier or there is another race the Sathar are fighting which is diverting their attention from the Frontier. IIRC the Starmist module puts the Klikk abandonment of the heliopes on starmist very close to the time the sathar visited volturnus and wiped out the eorna civilization, the presence of the giant hover tank and the close overlap timewise suggest the klikk and the sathar had to be aware of each other since they are active within a parsec of each other. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
November 22, 2011 - 8:41pm | Interesting points gentlemen. You are providing many angles for a nice confused history ripe with conspiracy theories. I'd love to come up with a history that is 10% fact and 90% fiction that the players unravel over time. Maybe the only the Dralasites were destroyed by the Sathar alone. Maybe the Humans and Vrusk fought first then the Sathar finished them off. But that begs the question, "why is there not bad blood between Humans and Vrusk now?" I like the Klikk / Sathar connection Jedion mentions and will have to check the modules out. This leads me to think that the Sathar had a hatred for the Vrusk and would destroy them, so maybe it is the Vrusk homeworld that gets destroyed. Then the Human homeworld abandons their colonies as a protection to them as they continue to fight this long war. The Dralasites may do the same, but then there might be some other line we haven't thought of yet for the Dralasites. This idea still leads to an idea that the UPF is secretly waiting to grow strong enough to get back in the fight. And the Sathar are not all out war with the Frontier because they are engaged with the homeworlds. SW1 and SW2 could be actions by the Sathar to keep the Frontier from getting back into the game too early for their liking. Another conspiracy theory  !Maybe the Klikk are active in this said war and want to keep the Frontier out as a protection to preserve the races. I'm brainstorming and hating some of my ideas. We'll see what stays hated and what stays loved as this thread progresses. -iggy |
November 22, 2011 - 9:26pm | humans and Vrusk dont get along so well; witness the Free World rebellions, HuSp (human superiority) terrorist cadre of the Volturnus Connection article in Dragon, plus Krataar Liberation Corp from the Dark Side of the Moon and Jack Legrange. Quite a bit of hatred out there from humans toward the vrusk. Defeat in detail is a time honored military strategy, so why didn't the sathar crush the fledgeling UPF? then chop up the home worlds? As to the sathar going after the vrusk because of their resemblance to the klikk? Well there is only one high population density world populated by vrusk in the frontier- Terledrom which they share with dralasites. The implication could be that their homeworld was wiped out and thus would explain the low population numbers in all the other vrusk systems. As for Terledrom the High population numbers come from the moderate dralasite and moderate vrusk numbers which add up a high population rating. I made this the vrusk homeworld and the dralasite sounding name is a quirk from the dralasite linguist that worked on the Pan Gal trade language who came from that system and quite naturally used the names he was familiar with refering to his home system with; dralasite names since spoken vrusk is largely unpronouncable to the other races. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
November 22, 2011 - 9:35pm | There's no proof that the Sathar were after an ancient Tetrarch device housed in the mythical UPF "Sector 12" building in their initial attack (Really, where is this building? What proof is there that Sector 12 exists?), nor any ship carrying it in the follow-up attack. View my profile for a list of articles I have written, am writing, will write. "It's yo' mama!" —Wicket W. Warrick, Star Wars Ep. VI: Return of the Jedi "That guy's wise." —Logray, Star Wars Ep.VI: Return of the Jedi Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? - Felicia Day (The Guild) |
 November 24, 2011 - 4:52pm | And even the sathar know better than to mess with the fierce warrior Yazirians... |
November 24, 2011 - 5:48pm | And even the sathar know better than to mess with the fierce warrior Yazirians...
I was going to dispute that statement but.....IIRC the two sathar wars effectively take place outside yazirian space. AND the sathar turn coat in the Starmist module was a dralasite. Figgin yazirians, too damn cool for even there own sungoggles.I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 November 24, 2011 - 6:31pm | Is this the truth, a conspiracy theory, or just a conspiracy? Any way you answer that, it still has shocking repercussions on the social consciousness! For the sake of an answer, I could go with the follow-through on society as such an unfolding story has it's effects on the political, ecconomic, and social atmosphere... however... I still like the idea of someday reconnecting routes and/or exploring the 'homeworld-centric' stories of the humans, Vrusk and Dralasite... the pre-contact origional homeworld of the Yazirians... and all the other races... perhaps even the Sathar, Enora, Tetrarch, and Clikk themselves... all separately, and species-centric. Oh, and Sector 12 has never been proven to be verifiable, and I accept that, but my nieghbor's former college roommate's sisters first boyfriend's aunt's hairdresser's first-lover's second husband, knew a guy with proof of employment, and showed me pay-stubs marked "Sector 21 - Special R&D - Custodial Engineer Dept."... so that proves the rumors of Sector 12 to be all misinformation and diversionary tactics. Oh humans!!  We discover a galactic community filled with multiple species of aliens, and the first thing we think about is "how can we have sex with them?".~ anymoose, somewhere on the net... so... if you square a square it becomes a cube... if you square a cube does it become an octoid? |
 November 25, 2011 - 7:58am | I have been unamazed at the efficiency of the Fearsome and Unholy Sathar War Machine. They seem to have only half attempted their conquests. This is one (perhaps the second most important for me) reason they great mystery of the Sathar is so important. The game designers had to create a scary threat that was weak enough to be thwarted (but not destroyed) by a player party. I have resolved the inadequacies of the Sathar by imagining that their race was plagued (quite literally) and losing a large percentage of its population. Before the loses tipped their military forces to the breaking point, they initiated preemptive strikes along the borders of their controlled space. The idea was to buy them enough time to recover from their plague (a cure has almost (90%) been developed) so their defense forces could be back up to optimal strength. It will take a few decades according to their science advisors. Of course, that has just been my personal justification for having an all powerful inept evil force. |
November 25, 2011 - 7:45pm | I started a project here called Ekpyrosis that explored this very concept. The Sathar during one of their extra-frontier campaigns contract the Skaranis phage plague that raveges their populations and resulting in heavy reliance on cybernetics to combat the effects of the disease. Replacing infected organs and parts with synthetics and cybernetic ones and purging entire populations infected by the plague. |
November 26, 2011 - 3:26pm | @AZ_GAMER & Inigo Montoya That is all very interesting seed for a plot there... I think I could use some of that for a change of pace and focus in yet-another-sathar-plot-scenario. I still hold to the view that they are large but spread thin over a greater scope than "these few sectors" and appreciate their tie-in with the precursor races... the S'sessu are a part of that thinly spread species for me having become a divergent culture reborn on a lost world many epochs past. other such lost colonies could be around amongst the uncounted bodies in the vast darkness, even in the frontiers backyard.... but like the S'sessu, after so long a seperation they wouldn't be quite Sathar anymore... Oh humans!! We discover a galactic community filled with multiple species of aliens, and the first thing we think about is "how can we have sex with them?".~ anymoose, somewhere on the net... so... if you square a square it becomes a cube... if you square a cube does it become an octoid? |
November 26, 2011 - 4:11pm | @thespiritcoyote It would be fun to watch a group of players who crash land on such a planet as that. I imagine that the automated waste management system of their environmental suits would be pushed to the limit when they scout around and find their first 'apparent' sathar community. |
November 26, 2011 - 9:34pm |  indeed...Just finished watching a movie before I checked in on the posts... [shakes head] first thoughts now have to be shaken out of my head of a primitive Sathar colony... for some reason the worms in white-bonnets and aprons, top-hats and brown-wool coats slithering between haphazardly arranged victorionesqe wooden pillars two-by-two just flashed through my head, and it didn't follow through well with the idea of... intimidating... Sathar... primitives... though the pair bouncing along in an old model-T carriage, was such a sight to behold... i'll think on it again when my eyes are not filled with Doris Day Smiles and Old-fashiond Show tunes... ...now where did I drop that transmision repair manual... have to remeber not to make such a hard shift in genre's... [wanders off into the night muttering and humming showtunes0 Oh humans!! We discover a galactic community filled with multiple species of aliens, and the first thing we think about is "how can we have sex with them?".~ anymoose, somewhere on the net... so... if you square a square it becomes a cube... if you square a cube does it become an octoid? |
 November 27, 2011 - 2:26am | I started a project here called Ekpyrosis that explored this very concept. The Sathar during one of their extra-frontier campaigns contract the Skaranis phage plague that raveges their populations and resulting in heavy reliance on cybernetics to combat the effects of the disease. Replacing infected organs and parts with synthetics and cybernetic ones and purging entire populations infected by the plague. I've heard of robots attempting to replace parts with biological organs to combat the effects of viruses. |
November 27, 2011 - 3:07pm | Sathar agents have been infiltrating well known rock bands hoping to spread their masters evil plans through music. Holovids depicting the "enemy" are shown at concerts, turning unsuspecting teens into thralls.  |
November 27, 2011 - 3:25pm | Is that a dancing Sathar? Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
November 28, 2011 - 3:00am | I've heard of robots attempting to replace parts with biological organs to combat the effects of viruses. Didn't one of those guys get elected president of an entire colony-world and end up dying of old age anyway? Oh humans!! We discover a galactic community filled with multiple species of aliens, and the first thing we think about is "how can we have sex with them?".~ anymoose, somewhere on the net... so... if you square a square it becomes a cube... if you square a cube does it become an octoid? |
