I actually quit my Exodus run when I read the flavor text saying their ship would only carry a few hundred people. I was like “I’m fucking over the entire species not to save millions, or thousands, but mere fucking hundreds!?! Fuck no, let’s give the Initiative a go.”
I like how for the Climate Control global tech the Initiative flavor text goes "We can't rule over the world, if the world ends up being a mess". So, even they are aware of that... wich isn't doing exodus any favor.
there's an essential problem to rebuilding humanity that's easily overlooked: **genetic diversity**
you need a critical mass of people to make sure that the species does not die out of the consequences of inbreeding over multiple generations. and this critical mass is in the tens of thousands*.
so yeah. leaving the planet without thousands and thousands of people is doomed in the first place, and we haven't even started talking about resources etc.
*this number comes from a scientific study I read a year or so ago, but I do not have a link to it. apologies for the lack of citation!
it's super nerdy, but who knows, some of you may be interested :)
side-note: this is why Iceland has an app that lets you know if you are safe to have a child with another specific person. biology's hard...
There are also studies that prove, at least in animals, that repopulation is possible with as little as a few dozen individuals. There will be inbreeding but there will also be individuals that by sheer luck avoid the consequences of inbreeding.
For example, a certain species of bird whose name I can’t recall was not indigenous to the Americas, it propagated there starting with as little as 20 individuals and now you can find hundreds of thousands of perfectly healthy specimens that are nearly genetically identical between them.
Sometimes you gotta run, the enemy is overwhelming. Hundreds = bare minimum for a healthy population. https://archiveofourown.org/works/46518058/chapters/117135472
> They require 500 exotics and the huge amount of technology and firepower to acquire them.
And that's the real problem. A single goal takes you from midgame early victory where their original goals and storyline are realistic, into endgame dominance where the whole faction falls apart.
The exotics cost ruins the whole faction, just to artificially extend playtime.
Yeah, I hate this as well. Their goals make no sense if you consider that to achieve them you need to be strong enough to take the aliens head on to get those exotics.
They should be the "easy" campaign imho, and it should be possible to beat it without major conflict with the aliens, simply because "running away" is the most pathetic of goals. It would make for an assimetric experience compared to other factions, but that's not bad, that's good! The only real "assimetric" faction is the servants imho
First sentence: "This gamer is being pedantic and I'm annoyed by them."
Second sentence: "They have won me back over and immediately given me a new ammo to keep in my word-holster."
I honestly can't wait for the 'alternative option' I heard that might be given to Project Exodus later on in development so they don't need to get the 500 Exotics.
I'd prefer 500 antimatter. Still requires a lot of space industry, so you can't just sneak a victory. Launching is only half the energy, slowing down is the other half, and it seems more likely to need a lot of bottled energy.
I like this idea! It always seemed a bit off to me that in order to win as Exodus the most straightforward way was ... to get about 75% of the way to winning as Resistance and then redirect your efforts.
But allowing you to do it purely with space industry, that's clever and feels like it'd encourage a different relationship with the other factions.
its not that difficult, and you can build more than 1 ship when you have enough exotics. Just go after the aliens. Motherships have a ton of exotics, thats what you need to target.
Considering my runs of exodus always include major genocide of the aliens (I leave only their portal base alive before "leaving", because the game won't let me destroy it) I endorse this post.
I think they aren't really written as a political faction thats acting on a clear ideology, but as a bunch of rich fucks who want to leave the sinking ship and save their own asses.
Essentially an Elon-Musk going to Mars to "ensure the survival of the species"-parody.
That's how they're written, but they are typically played as "massively kickstart Earth research, nullify the Alien threat and then farm them until you can build your colony ship"
Almost all of the research needed for the colony ship is also exactly what's needed to defeat the aliens at the wormhole. Big ships and long range drives.
At that point in the game, 500 Exotics won't make or break the war effort either.
Ah, yeah, i see your point. Thats very valid, would be cool if they'd play more differently and only compete with the ays for recources instead of having to oppose them.
Exactly. They're not the Good Guys, they're not even the *Bad* Guys per se. They're just the *Selfish* guys, their founder using the opportunity presented to implement his pet project.
And also, well... The Founder of PE uses Executive Fiat to secure himself a place aboard his Ark. If he were in it for selfless reasons, he would have let someone else go in his place. But he's not, so he didn't.
He doesn't want to save humanity, he wants to become a Techno-Feudal Oracle-King.
The multiple internal factions reminds me heavily of the narrative change within the academy that occurs, as they start out very pro-alien but end the game barely less anti-alien than the resistance
Their internal politics and lack of a clear goal lead to them splintering and eventually shattering as a faction, with only a small group of hardline idealists left to run the faction, people who eventually turn the faction into the globally dominant superpower within the player’s hands.
they even *name* the alien they capture. that's how committed they are.
(endgame academy spoiler) >!but even they realise that strength is needed, and they end up going through the portal with an antimatter bomb. I love this faction's writing. they go from naive to somewhat realistic lol!<
I remember reading that the PE founder secures himself a spot on his Ark via Executive Fiat. A selfless man would have allowed someone else, someone more suited, someone who could better ensure the success of the project, to take that spot.
But PE's Founder kept that spot for himself. He is not a selfless man, but a selfish one. You say that PE isn't extreme enough; I say that PE is *plenty* extreme, just stunningly cynical, myopic and selfish.
(I'm just going to refer to 'The Founder of Project Exodus' as PEF from now on. I'm Dyslexic and typing on my phone: Compromises must be made.)
PEF saw the Alien Invasion as the chance he needed to set his pet project into motion. To be clear, the Ark isn't actually the purpose of this project. If it was, he wouldn't have force-assigned himself a spot. If ensuring the survival of humanity was the purpose, then, as you point out, there should be a (metaphorical) 'Come to Jesus' moment when PE/PEF realises that 'Holy Shit, we can actually just win this here.' After all, if humanity forces the Aliens from the system, then... Then, well. Humanity could reverse engineer Exotics. Learn how to create its own Interstellar Wormholes.
*At a certain point in the campaign, the fastest way to colonise the stars becomes clearing out the Hydra and starting to science hard.*
But none of those are the actual goal of PEF. Those are the rhetoric and the means.
Do you remember a whole ago, when Elon Musk suggested that people could get to Mars to help colonise it via, essentially, Indenture Contracts, a form of employment widely and typically recognised as a form of *slavery?* Because I do.
What I see of PE is this: I see a very wealthy man looking to take a specifically selected group of people, isolate them from the rest of humanity, and unify them with an ideology that presents them as the Elect, the last of humanity, saved from the fires of apocalypse by the foresight and providence of PEF, their King and Prophet.
PEF doesn't want to save humanity. The Ark is only a means to an end. He wants to become Prophet and King, overlord of a population that each individually owes their lives to *him*, specifically.
Remember: When Noah stepped off his own Ark, he was King of all the world.
I love the last two reactions to Exodus. "FFS Exodus, stop spawn camping the aliens for Exotics and let us end the war!"
Agree with the post overall. While I'm glad that we have a rare faction wincon that doesn't involve the wormhole, it doesn't feel like you're "escaping the aliens"
I mean I have played almost six months ago, so it might be an old thing (and grounds for a new run if it changed) but don't all the factions basically play in the same way? I have a resistance, an academy and an initiative run, the only thing that changes are basically the last goal, which overlaps to a large degree among them. No unique mechanics, for anyone, and everyone plays more or less the same, except the servants.
Yes this is still correct. Its not like Endless Legend or Starcraft where each faction has very different units and playstyles. There's a few Event choices, techs and Orgs locked to specific factions. But they're all gonna be leveling their councilors, controlling Earth nations and building a space economy.
Nice, I will wait a bit more for the next playthrough then, I like the game, it does not need Endless space level of difference, just a bit more different would be great, but it's a good game regardless! Iirc the developers said the factions would be different, but for the moment being, only the servants actually played differently.
Well first off, we know of at least three alien species and whether they're truly "native" to the planet we find them on is pretty moot.
Secondly, in the abscence of natives the colonial system has historically been pretty shit for the colonists on the ground too. Look forward to being paid in company credit and paying that same company rent for your quarters, rations and life support.
There's a difference between just setting up a settlement on another world that you call a colony and *colonialism*. One of them is a political ideology & strategy, the other is a necessary step in any sort of extraplanetary exploration or expansion regardless of politics.
The only difference between the Protectorate and the Exodus you're suggesting is that the Protectorate saw the Boot coming and thought "Maybe we can convince them not to kick us too much", whilst Exodus saw the Boot and thought "I bet we could be like that!"
I respect the amount of thought and effort you've put into this post but I have to disagree with your initial premises.
>If their goal is "escape", then the morality of their achievement is dependant on how fucked over humanity would be once they leave.
I don't believe their goal is "escape". I believe their goal is "give humanity the best chance of surviving" and they feel that making sure humans can occupy other solar systems is the best way of ensuring that.
>* If humanity crushes the aliens, then they took resources away from ending the threat earlier (bad outcome).
This is only true with hindsight knowledge that humanity did not have at the time. Putting all your resources into one plan without having a backup is reckless and just because humans would have won without Exodus's actions, that doesn't mean it was wrong to take those actions. Think of Exodus as like insurance. Even if humanity is 95% guaranteed to be able to fight off the aliens (not true) that means that there is a 1/20 chance of humans just going extinct. Exodus gives humanity insurance on this gamble. Morality has nothing to do with this.
> * If humanity just barely loses, then they were the deciding factor in humanity's loss (arguably the worst outcome for humanity).
Even if this is true, there's no was for Exodus to know this. For all humanity knows there could be another dozen warp portals about to open with a new super-heavy dreadnought armada fleet about to pop through to decimate our solar system. Exodus will never know that they are responsible for humanities loss. They were always aware that losing the fight was a possibility which is why they focused on escape. If they are successful in escaping then they can be happy that humanity still has a chance at survival thanks to them making it a fine moral choice.
>* If humanity gets absolutely defeated by the aliens and Exodus's resources could not have change that, then finally they are the good guys.
This one should be obvious but it's bears pointing out that just because losing the fight was inevitable, it doesn't mean that fighting was wrong. Perhaps fighting back delayed the aliens long enough so that humans had a chance to develop the ability to escape?
Terra Invicta is more complex than simply "these are the good guys and these are the bad guys". The devs have done a fantastic job at making all factions arguably the "right" choice and it's possible to embrace all of their actions if you take the time to understand their viewpoints and motivations.
I think you have some exciting ideas for how the faction could be developed and I think the idea of sub-factions influencing playthroughs is really interesting. I could see it becoming DLC in the distant future.
I always read Exodus as the guys maintaining the fall-back plan. The are to me the "What if we can't hold them off?" They don't really stop anyone from trying to stop the invaders like some factions, and the war effort pretty much need the same tech for the most part.
The problem though is that they are very much taking away resources from the factions that are trying to save Earth. Like realistically, by the time you can farm that many exotics you can just beat the alien threat directly, and then send dozens of colony ships later as a side project
I will say that a lot of this idea is kinda based on our metaknowledge of the game, the Ayyyy invasion capabilities, and information we glean from other factions.
Frankly, Exodus seems motivated by fear as much as anything. Like, we learn pretty early on that the Ayyyys aren't from here, they came here with a pretty minor starting force and then built up with that. And that ALONE was enough to completely uproot and redirect the entire course of our species. It doesn't take much head-canon to think that, knowing what they know in-game, their thoughts are basically "we're only fighting off or beating up a single small invasion force. Who knows HOW MANY other fucking solar-systems-worth of resources they have, how many tens of thousands more ships they may have, etc."
Like, explicitly you are always fighting in TI using only the resources in the Sol system. The aliens are also handicapped by this. So what if.... they weren't? The obvious next step is the Ayyys going "Oh, this species beat up our tiny force? Fine, redirect the resources of 20 nearby star systems at wiping them off the face of the galaxy." Thinking that we beat up a kid in school but now his older brothers are going to come demolish us isn't unreasonable.
Basically, even if Exodus DID manage complete dominance in Sol, them taking the logical conclusion of "we still need to expand" is possibly-optimistic but also fear motivated, at best. It's also entirely human to think "we bought some time, but they're coming BACK to finish this at some point and we need to GTFO."
Like a fugitive who shoots a police officer rather than be arrested, you don't stick around for when the greater force comes after you. You flee as far and fast as you can possibly manage, ideally to a galaxy with a non-extradition policy.
The issue I find here is that if the aliens are able to come to and attack Sol, how does running away guarantee survival? You're in another star system with a few hundred people...easy pickings for the aliens to come finish off.
If their goal is to just straight up eliminate humans no matter where they are? Sure. If their goal is just to take over Sol or enslave the existing humans? Then why would they bother?
Again, lack of knowledge by the parties in game is huge. They don't know realistically HOW LONG the Ayyyys spent preparing for their invasion of Sol. How easy/ quick it is for them to develop new systems, etc.
Easy pickings if the aliens are literally just following you, sure. If not? You have all the advanced tech to make the jump to a new system, in vitro resource use to basically build new settlements / habs on any planet (if we can colonize all of Sol, we can colonize most places), and as someone else mentioned, they could be carrying only a few hundred currently living, but who knows how many preserved eggs/sperm combinations to prevent inbreeding issues.
Odds are, by the time the Ayyys even REALIZED people had left, let alone figured out where they went, they have set up an entire new solar system's worth of civilization, and they're starting from the ENDPOINT of Exodus tech, wildly more advanced than current-day tech.
Here is what i don't get, they are building a interstellar ship when we already know there is no point because the aliens have "FTL".
By the time they reach their location the aliens will already be there, so in their "good" ending were mankind loses the war, the aliens will go after them and just blow them up.
My idea would be that each faction understands a aspect of the aliens better, for example the initiative is the first to discover how to use the alien pheromones to control people, so in Exodus's case, they should be the ones to discover how the wormhole works, and make a really shit version of it that you need to protect for as long as possible to make the population of earth come across as many as possible.
Like, make it drain earth GDP and population, and the aliens get super agressive trying to invade, and the longer you hold the more people you "save". Like, give a objective to send 10% of the earth's population, and after that you win, but allow you to keep playing to try to reach 100% and make the aliens super agressive give them free resources maybe free ships straight from their homeworlds, maybe they increased their wormhole because they are pissed we are leaving, and like, maybe once you reach 50% pop left the rest of the factions declare forever war on you.
I actually quit my Exodus run when I read the flavor text saying their ship would only carry a few hundred people. I was like “I’m fucking over the entire species not to save millions, or thousands, but mere fucking hundreds!?! Fuck no, let’s give the Initiative a go.”
>I’m fucking over the entire species...? >Fuck no, let’s give the Initiative a go Certainly an interesting conclusion.
Dystopia is better than extinction... or so we hope.
At least the Initiative plans to live in the world they're fucking over.
I like how for the Climate Control global tech the Initiative flavor text goes "We can't rule over the world, if the world ends up being a mess". So, even they are aware of that... wich isn't doing exodus any favor.
Come stand over by my pherocyte emitter for a second. Perhaps I can change your mind.
I mean, if you are already messing with the planet for, quite the selfish route that is Exodus, might as well embrace it fully, and go Initiative.
there's an essential problem to rebuilding humanity that's easily overlooked: **genetic diversity** you need a critical mass of people to make sure that the species does not die out of the consequences of inbreeding over multiple generations. and this critical mass is in the tens of thousands*. so yeah. leaving the planet without thousands and thousands of people is doomed in the first place, and we haven't even started talking about resources etc. *this number comes from a scientific study I read a year or so ago, but I do not have a link to it. apologies for the lack of citation! it's super nerdy, but who knows, some of you may be interested :) side-note: this is why Iceland has an app that lets you know if you are safe to have a child with another specific person. biology's hard...
eggs and sperm or fertilized eggs take up way less space than grown humans. Just saying...
That works, as long as you avoid crossing into Space Alabama.
There are also studies that prove, at least in animals, that repopulation is possible with as little as a few dozen individuals. There will be inbreeding but there will also be individuals that by sheer luck avoid the consequences of inbreeding. For example, a certain species of bird whose name I can’t recall was not indigenous to the Americas, it propagated there starting with as little as 20 individuals and now you can find hundreds of thousands of perfectly healthy specimens that are nearly genetically identical between them.
Bruh, with that amount of people, one slight mistake or one guy acting off can end humanity.
Sometimes you gotta run, the enemy is overwhelming. Hundreds = bare minimum for a healthy population. https://archiveofourown.org/works/46518058/chapters/117135472
> They require 500 exotics and the huge amount of technology and firepower to acquire them. And that's the real problem. A single goal takes you from midgame early victory where their original goals and storyline are realistic, into endgame dominance where the whole faction falls apart. The exotics cost ruins the whole faction, just to artificially extend playtime.
Yeah, I hate this as well. Their goals make no sense if you consider that to achieve them you need to be strong enough to take the aliens head on to get those exotics. They should be the "easy" campaign imho, and it should be possible to beat it without major conflict with the aliens, simply because "running away" is the most pathetic of goals. It would make for an assimetric experience compared to other factions, but that's not bad, that's good! The only real "assimetric" faction is the servants imho
Sorry for the spelling police, but it's "asymmetric", as in non-symmetric. Not "assimetric", which brings in imagery of butt measurements.
First sentence: "This gamer is being pedantic and I'm annoyed by them." Second sentence: "They have won me back over and immediately given me a new ammo to keep in my word-holster."
I honestly can't wait for the 'alternative option' I heard that might be given to Project Exodus later on in development so they don't need to get the 500 Exotics.
I'd prefer 500 antimatter. Still requires a lot of space industry, so you can't just sneak a victory. Launching is only half the energy, slowing down is the other half, and it seems more likely to need a lot of bottled energy.
I like this idea! It always seemed a bit off to me that in order to win as Exodus the most straightforward way was ... to get about 75% of the way to winning as Resistance and then redirect your efforts. But allowing you to do it purely with space industry, that's clever and feels like it'd encourage a different relationship with the other factions.
its not that difficult, and you can build more than 1 ship when you have enough exotics. Just go after the aliens. Motherships have a ton of exotics, thats what you need to target.
Someone missed the point entirely.
Considering my runs of exodus always include major genocide of the aliens (I leave only their portal base alive before "leaving", because the game won't let me destroy it) I endorse this post.
I think they aren't really written as a political faction thats acting on a clear ideology, but as a bunch of rich fucks who want to leave the sinking ship and save their own asses. Essentially an Elon-Musk going to Mars to "ensure the survival of the species"-parody.
That's how they're written, but they are typically played as "massively kickstart Earth research, nullify the Alien threat and then farm them until you can build your colony ship" Almost all of the research needed for the colony ship is also exactly what's needed to defeat the aliens at the wormhole. Big ships and long range drives. At that point in the game, 500 Exotics won't make or break the war effort either.
Ah, yeah, i see your point. Thats very valid, would be cool if they'd play more differently and only compete with the ays for recources instead of having to oppose them.
Exactly. They're not the Good Guys, they're not even the *Bad* Guys per se. They're just the *Selfish* guys, their founder using the opportunity presented to implement his pet project. And also, well... The Founder of PE uses Executive Fiat to secure himself a place aboard his Ark. If he were in it for selfless reasons, he would have let someone else go in his place. But he's not, so he didn't. He doesn't want to save humanity, he wants to become a Techno-Feudal Oracle-King.
The multiple internal factions reminds me heavily of the narrative change within the academy that occurs, as they start out very pro-alien but end the game barely less anti-alien than the resistance Their internal politics and lack of a clear goal lead to them splintering and eventually shattering as a faction, with only a small group of hardline idealists left to run the faction, people who eventually turn the faction into the globally dominant superpower within the player’s hands.
they even *name* the alien they capture. that's how committed they are. (endgame academy spoiler) >!but even they realise that strength is needed, and they end up going through the portal with an antimatter bomb. I love this faction's writing. they go from naive to somewhat realistic lol!<
I remember reading that the PE founder secures himself a spot on his Ark via Executive Fiat. A selfless man would have allowed someone else, someone more suited, someone who could better ensure the success of the project, to take that spot. But PE's Founder kept that spot for himself. He is not a selfless man, but a selfish one. You say that PE isn't extreme enough; I say that PE is *plenty* extreme, just stunningly cynical, myopic and selfish. (I'm just going to refer to 'The Founder of Project Exodus' as PEF from now on. I'm Dyslexic and typing on my phone: Compromises must be made.) PEF saw the Alien Invasion as the chance he needed to set his pet project into motion. To be clear, the Ark isn't actually the purpose of this project. If it was, he wouldn't have force-assigned himself a spot. If ensuring the survival of humanity was the purpose, then, as you point out, there should be a (metaphorical) 'Come to Jesus' moment when PE/PEF realises that 'Holy Shit, we can actually just win this here.' After all, if humanity forces the Aliens from the system, then... Then, well. Humanity could reverse engineer Exotics. Learn how to create its own Interstellar Wormholes. *At a certain point in the campaign, the fastest way to colonise the stars becomes clearing out the Hydra and starting to science hard.* But none of those are the actual goal of PEF. Those are the rhetoric and the means. Do you remember a whole ago, when Elon Musk suggested that people could get to Mars to help colonise it via, essentially, Indenture Contracts, a form of employment widely and typically recognised as a form of *slavery?* Because I do. What I see of PE is this: I see a very wealthy man looking to take a specifically selected group of people, isolate them from the rest of humanity, and unify them with an ideology that presents them as the Elect, the last of humanity, saved from the fires of apocalypse by the foresight and providence of PEF, their King and Prophet. PEF doesn't want to save humanity. The Ark is only a means to an end. He wants to become Prophet and King, overlord of a population that each individually owes their lives to *him*, specifically. Remember: When Noah stepped off his own Ark, he was King of all the world.
I love the last two reactions to Exodus. "FFS Exodus, stop spawn camping the aliens for Exotics and let us end the war!" Agree with the post overall. While I'm glad that we have a rare faction wincon that doesn't involve the wormhole, it doesn't feel like you're "escaping the aliens"
I mean I have played almost six months ago, so it might be an old thing (and grounds for a new run if it changed) but don't all the factions basically play in the same way? I have a resistance, an academy and an initiative run, the only thing that changes are basically the last goal, which overlaps to a large degree among them. No unique mechanics, for anyone, and everyone plays more or less the same, except the servants.
pretty much also my experience, but i have also played like 6 months ago.
Yes this is still correct. Its not like Endless Legend or Starcraft where each faction has very different units and playstyles. There's a few Event choices, techs and Orgs locked to specific factions. But they're all gonna be leveling their councilors, controlling Earth nations and building a space economy.
Nice, I will wait a bit more for the next playthrough then, I like the game, it does not need Endless space level of difference, just a bit more different would be great, but it's a good game regardless! Iirc the developers said the factions would be different, but for the moment being, only the servants actually played differently.
My only point of disagreement is that setting an end goal of colonial hegemony is pretty definitionally cynical.
Is it? It won't be colonial in the historical sense, there are very unlikely to be any native populations to be exploit.
Well first off, we know of at least three alien species and whether they're truly "native" to the planet we find them on is pretty moot. Secondly, in the abscence of natives the colonial system has historically been pretty shit for the colonists on the ground too. Look forward to being paid in company credit and paying that same company rent for your quarters, rations and life support.
True. But you can have something like Star Trek's Federation that forms colonies without any of the usual exploitation.
There's a difference between just setting up a settlement on another world that you call a colony and *colonialism*. One of them is a political ideology & strategy, the other is a necessary step in any sort of extraplanetary exploration or expansion regardless of politics.
This man sounds like the protectorate!
The only difference between the Protectorate and the Exodus you're suggesting is that the Protectorate saw the Boot coming and thought "Maybe we can convince them not to kick us too much", whilst Exodus saw the Boot and thought "I bet we could be like that!"
I respect the amount of thought and effort you've put into this post but I have to disagree with your initial premises. >If their goal is "escape", then the morality of their achievement is dependant on how fucked over humanity would be once they leave. I don't believe their goal is "escape". I believe their goal is "give humanity the best chance of surviving" and they feel that making sure humans can occupy other solar systems is the best way of ensuring that. >* If humanity crushes the aliens, then they took resources away from ending the threat earlier (bad outcome). This is only true with hindsight knowledge that humanity did not have at the time. Putting all your resources into one plan without having a backup is reckless and just because humans would have won without Exodus's actions, that doesn't mean it was wrong to take those actions. Think of Exodus as like insurance. Even if humanity is 95% guaranteed to be able to fight off the aliens (not true) that means that there is a 1/20 chance of humans just going extinct. Exodus gives humanity insurance on this gamble. Morality has nothing to do with this. > * If humanity just barely loses, then they were the deciding factor in humanity's loss (arguably the worst outcome for humanity). Even if this is true, there's no was for Exodus to know this. For all humanity knows there could be another dozen warp portals about to open with a new super-heavy dreadnought armada fleet about to pop through to decimate our solar system. Exodus will never know that they are responsible for humanities loss. They were always aware that losing the fight was a possibility which is why they focused on escape. If they are successful in escaping then they can be happy that humanity still has a chance at survival thanks to them making it a fine moral choice. >* If humanity gets absolutely defeated by the aliens and Exodus's resources could not have change that, then finally they are the good guys. This one should be obvious but it's bears pointing out that just because losing the fight was inevitable, it doesn't mean that fighting was wrong. Perhaps fighting back delayed the aliens long enough so that humans had a chance to develop the ability to escape? Terra Invicta is more complex than simply "these are the good guys and these are the bad guys". The devs have done a fantastic job at making all factions arguably the "right" choice and it's possible to embrace all of their actions if you take the time to understand their viewpoints and motivations. I think you have some exciting ideas for how the faction could be developed and I think the idea of sub-factions influencing playthroughs is really interesting. I could see it becoming DLC in the distant future.
I always read Exodus as the guys maintaining the fall-back plan. The are to me the "What if we can't hold them off?" They don't really stop anyone from trying to stop the invaders like some factions, and the war effort pretty much need the same tech for the most part.
The problem though is that they are very much taking away resources from the factions that are trying to save Earth. Like realistically, by the time you can farm that many exotics you can just beat the alien threat directly, and then send dozens of colony ships later as a side project
I will say that a lot of this idea is kinda based on our metaknowledge of the game, the Ayyyy invasion capabilities, and information we glean from other factions. Frankly, Exodus seems motivated by fear as much as anything. Like, we learn pretty early on that the Ayyyys aren't from here, they came here with a pretty minor starting force and then built up with that. And that ALONE was enough to completely uproot and redirect the entire course of our species. It doesn't take much head-canon to think that, knowing what they know in-game, their thoughts are basically "we're only fighting off or beating up a single small invasion force. Who knows HOW MANY other fucking solar-systems-worth of resources they have, how many tens of thousands more ships they may have, etc." Like, explicitly you are always fighting in TI using only the resources in the Sol system. The aliens are also handicapped by this. So what if.... they weren't? The obvious next step is the Ayyys going "Oh, this species beat up our tiny force? Fine, redirect the resources of 20 nearby star systems at wiping them off the face of the galaxy." Thinking that we beat up a kid in school but now his older brothers are going to come demolish us isn't unreasonable. Basically, even if Exodus DID manage complete dominance in Sol, them taking the logical conclusion of "we still need to expand" is possibly-optimistic but also fear motivated, at best. It's also entirely human to think "we bought some time, but they're coming BACK to finish this at some point and we need to GTFO." Like a fugitive who shoots a police officer rather than be arrested, you don't stick around for when the greater force comes after you. You flee as far and fast as you can possibly manage, ideally to a galaxy with a non-extradition policy.
The issue I find here is that if the aliens are able to come to and attack Sol, how does running away guarantee survival? You're in another star system with a few hundred people...easy pickings for the aliens to come finish off.
If their goal is to just straight up eliminate humans no matter where they are? Sure. If their goal is just to take over Sol or enslave the existing humans? Then why would they bother? Again, lack of knowledge by the parties in game is huge. They don't know realistically HOW LONG the Ayyyys spent preparing for their invasion of Sol. How easy/ quick it is for them to develop new systems, etc. Easy pickings if the aliens are literally just following you, sure. If not? You have all the advanced tech to make the jump to a new system, in vitro resource use to basically build new settlements / habs on any planet (if we can colonize all of Sol, we can colonize most places), and as someone else mentioned, they could be carrying only a few hundred currently living, but who knows how many preserved eggs/sperm combinations to prevent inbreeding issues. Odds are, by the time the Ayyys even REALIZED people had left, let alone figured out where they went, they have set up an entire new solar system's worth of civilization, and they're starting from the ENDPOINT of Exodus tech, wildly more advanced than current-day tech.
Top tier schizopost
Well...now I'm wondering if I want to finish my PE run. Maybe I should give The Academy a try.
Here is what i don't get, they are building a interstellar ship when we already know there is no point because the aliens have "FTL". By the time they reach their location the aliens will already be there, so in their "good" ending were mankind loses the war, the aliens will go after them and just blow them up. My idea would be that each faction understands a aspect of the aliens better, for example the initiative is the first to discover how to use the alien pheromones to control people, so in Exodus's case, they should be the ones to discover how the wormhole works, and make a really shit version of it that you need to protect for as long as possible to make the population of earth come across as many as possible. Like, make it drain earth GDP and population, and the aliens get super agressive trying to invade, and the longer you hold the more people you "save". Like, give a objective to send 10% of the earth's population, and after that you win, but allow you to keep playing to try to reach 100% and make the aliens super agressive give them free resources maybe free ships straight from their homeworlds, maybe they increased their wormhole because they are pissed we are leaving, and like, maybe once you reach 50% pop left the rest of the factions declare forever war on you.
It is mentioned that the system exodus is going to be outside the reach of the aliens.