History VideoGame / Ixion

** In the [[spoiler:Temple of Free Will (where they're supposed to cast away the illusion thereof)]], the entire team ends up getting killed because [[spoiler:they internalize the lesson ''too well'', and start acting rebelliously even when it makes no sense.]]

* {{Transhuman}}: The Ashtangites are radical transhumanist who seek to not only change themselves biologically but socially, psychologically and philosophically in a grand redefinition of "humanity" -- seeking to cast aside what they see as the great "illusions" of self-worth, common-sense and free will in order to become a holistic part of the ecosystem. [[spoiler:On the physical side, this involves becoming tall, spindly humanoids with green skin (so they can save food by photosynthesizing), massive lungs (so they don't waste oxygen), enormous eyes and ElectronicTelepathy that lets them share thoughts and feelings as a society. ]]

* YouLoseAtZeroTrust: If trust in the administrator (increased or decreased by station stability and various events) drops to zero, the people mutiny and oust you from your position, causing a game over.

* MileLongShip: The Tiqqun is a toroid space station approximately 4km in diameter, and it's capable of self-propelled movement. [[spoiler:It's still dwarfed by the Protagoras, and especially by the Etemenanki and the Piranesi. The diameter of Piranesi is similar to Tiqqun's, but the former was several times longer than the latter, while the individual modules (like the reactor) of Etemenanki are roughly Piranesi-sized. There is also the UN ship in The Immensity event, which left behind a debris field several thousand kilometers wide and was said to be as large as a planetoid, making it more of a PlanetSpaceship]].

* MadeOfIron: Near the tail end of the campaign, [[spoiler:the ''Piranesi'', the BLS' hyper-advanced, self-sustaining, AI-driven starship, survives being lured into an exploding star well enough that it's still a planet-ending threat until rammed with the ''Tiqqun''!
** Etemenanki is a DownPlayedTrope, as the text claims it is made of strong material on multiple occasions. The planet-destroying Piranesi was exhausted and broken into a slumber after destroying it, but Etemenanki still managed to leeave behind a system's worth of somewhat intact debris (with some individual modules like the reactor keeps its shape altoghether) that Tiqqun's crew can analyze.]]

* FascistButInefficient: Following the Lunaclysm the UN had turned into an extremely authoritarian world dictatorship in their own way to [[WellIntentionedExtremist save what's left of the humanity]] (while purging the designated scapegoats along with other undesirables in the process). They've got a lot of manpower but this did not help them with breaching the technological gap - [[spoiler:while the Etemenanki managed to cripple the Protagoras, examining its remains reveals it was running on the most barebones unreliable systems and technologies which put extreme pressure and attrition on its crew. As a result, the more technically advanced Piranesi literally and figuratively tore it into pieces.]]

* MadeOfIron: Near the tail end of the campaign, [[spoiler:the ''Piranesi'', the BLS' hyper-advanced, self-sustaining, AI-driven starship, survives being lured into an exploding star well enough that it's still a planet-ending threat until rammed with the ''Tiqqun''!]]

* MileLongShip: The Tiqqun is a toroid space station approximately 4km in diameter, and it's capable of self-propelled movement. [[spoiler:It's still dwarfed by the Protagoras, and especially by the Etemenanki and the Piranesi, with Etemenanki showing signs of a PlanetSpaceship]].

* MileLongShip: The Tiqqun is a toroid space station approximately 4km in diameter, and it's capable of self-propelled movement. [[spoiler:It's still dwarfed by the Protagoras, and especially by the Etemenanki and the Piranesi]].

** [[spoiler:To a lesser extent, ''Etemenanki''. It still left behind a system's worth of scattered but recognisable remains after fighting the aforementioned planet-destroying ''Piranesi''.]]

** AI names are taken from mythological realms where gods or departed souls reside. This is a case of a MenaingfulName, as [[spoiler: the benevolent and helpful Edden, Olympia and Valhalla are named after places where good gods dwell, along with souls of righteous men, while the villainous Naraka is named after a Buddhist hell.]]

* HeroicSacrifice: Since the game ends with [[spoiler: the Tiqqun ramming the Piranesi to finally defeat it after the entire crew has been evacuated]], somebody has to stay behind to guide its final approach. Normally, that would be your trusty AI, Edden. If you've [[spoiler: deactivated Edden in order to detect Romulus, it'll be ''you'', the Administrator]]... [[TakeAThirdOption unless you had the foresight to]] [[spoiler:[[TakeAThirdOption keep a copy of Valkyrie, which could be used to pilot the ship into the Piranesi instead]] while EveryoneLives.]]

** Several of the ships and many engines pick up their names from religion and myth. A tiqqun/tikkun is a book used to prepare for reading (tiqqun qor'im) or writing (tiqqun soferim) a Torah scroll. Its replacement engine Ixion is named after a figure in Greek myth was not only the father of the centaurs (apropos for an engine), but also the reputed first kin-slayer of Greek myth and a grievous repeat offender of ''xenia'', the fundamental concept of Greek hospitality and guest-rights, hinting that [[spoiler: DOLOS may have known more about the engine design's fundamental instabilities than they let on]]). Etemenanki was a great ziggurat dedicated to the god Marduk and ultimately destroyed, eventually promoted to head of the Babylonian pantheon and patron of Babylon, which is simultaneously apropos for [[spoiler:the great ruin you find]] and terribly ironic [[spoiler: for a UN ship with an absolute hatred for the destruction visited on Earth by DOLOS and the Marduk Council, and so ruled by that hate that they would destroy the first other ark of humans - the last other surviving humans in the galaxy they knew - they found for no other reason than because it was launched by DOLOS]].

* ReligiousAndMythologicalThemeNaming: The fifth chapter brings you a system chock-full of Roman theme names. Most prominent of these is Remus, the only inhabitable world, named after one of the two mythological twin children of Numitor (another planet). In the Roman founding myth, he quarreled with his brother over whether to found a city on the Palatine Hill over the Lupercal caves or the Aventine Hill, all of which received namesake planets as well. [[spoiler: The presence of a world named after the dead brother Remus and apparent absence of his elder brother Romulus, founder of Rome and fratricide, is also a massive clue that your own computer systems are systematically lying to you - there is an uninhabited inhabitable world named Romulus, twin to Remus.]]
** Several of the ships and many engines pick up their names from myth. A tiqqun is a book used to prepare for reading or writing a Torah scroll. Its replacement engine Ixion is named after a figure in Greek myth was not only the father of the centaurs (apropos for an engine), but also the reputed first kin-slayer of Greek myth and a grievous repeat offender of ''xenia'', the fundamental concept of Greek hospitality and guest-rights, hinting that [[spoiler: DOLOS knew more about the engine design's fundamental instabilities than they let on]]). Etemenanki was a great ziggurat dedicated to the god Marduk and ultimately destroyed, eventually promoted to head of the Babylonian pantheon and patron of Babylon, which is simultaneously apropos for [[spoiler:the great ruin you find]] and terribly ironic [[spoiler: for a UN ship with an absolute hatred for the destruction visited on Earth by DOLOS and the Marduk Council]].

* ReligiousAndMythologicalThemeNaming: The fifth chapter brings you a system chock-full of Roman theme names. Most prominent of these is Remus, the only inhabitable world, named after one of the two mythological twin children of Numitor (another planet). In the Roman founding myth, he quarreled with his brother over whether to found a city on the Palatine Hill over the Lupercal caves or the Aventine Hill, all of which received namesake planets as well. [[spoiler: The presence of a world named after the dead brother Remus and apparent absence of his elder brother Romulus, founder of Rome and fratricide, is also a massive clue that your own computer systems are systematically lying to you - there is an uninhabited inhabitable world named Romulus, twin to Remus.]]
** Several of the ships and many engines pick up their names from myth. A tiqqun is a book used to prepare for reading or writing a Torah scroll. Its replacement engine Ixion is named after a figure in Greek myth was not only the father of the centaurs (apropos for an engine), but also the reputed first kin-slayer of Greek myth and a grievous repeat offender of ''xenia'', the fundamental concept of Greek hospitality and guest-rights, hinting that [[spoiler: DOLOS knew more about the engine design's fundamental instabilities than they let on]]). Etemenanki was a great ziggurat dedicated to the god Marduk and ultimately destroyed, eventually promoted to head of the Babylonian pantheon and patron of Babylon, which is simultaneously apropos for [[spoiler:the great ruin you find]] and terribly ironic [[spoiler: for a UN ship with an absolute hatred for the destruction visited on Earth by DOLOS and the Marduk Council]].

* AwesomeButImpractical. [[spoiler: The Piranesi's main weapon]]. It is capable of destroying a planet and knocking it off its orbit to the edge of its star system in one discharge, but using it puts an enormous strain on its platform. [[spoiler: The Piranesi spends an indeterminable amount of time restoring after firing once, and even when the Tiqqun wakes it up again it thankfully still hasn't recovered fully, so the weapon is never seen firing within the game itself.]]

* BreadAndCircuses: Like ''{{VideoGame/Frostpunk}}'', you can buisld fighting arenas to give your people entertainment and emotional release to increase a sector's Stability.

* NGOSuperpower: [=DOLOS=] Aerospace Engineering Corporation, a private company that unqestionably leads the space race and bails out space installations of the failing UN. [spoiler: Following the Lunaclysm it still musters enough strength to finish its second star-travelling space station and make a good headway into their journey to Remus, even after they've been declared enemies of humanity and the whole world, led by the regalvanised and radicalised UN, turned against them.]]

* SecretTestOfCharacter: In each of the [[spoiler:three Ashtagnite temples you can explore to improve your worth to them]]. Deciding to [[ShmuckBait explore any further than you have to after having already found your goal]] results in [[spoiler:the entire science team being killed, inevitably in an ironic fashion that implies a misunderstanding of the temple's "lesson" (which may well be the work of the Ashtangites' SufficientlyAdvancedTechnology somehow "punishing" their ignorance)]]:

* AppliedPhlebotinum. The Fraus tachyons, usually present and emitted from the [[Hyperspace self-similar space]]. At the minimum, they can be used to add some boost to your ships engines. At the maximum, they can be used to make the laws of physics go stand in a corner.

* BossBattle: the devs actually worked one into a city builder! Because your city is a starship, your city can have space battles!

** Valkyrie is [[spoiler: Dolos, with his sombre, gentle tone and even repeating his final speech to mankind as its last words.]]

* BreadAndCircuses: Like ''{{VideoGame/Frostpunk}}'', you can build fighting arenas to give your people entertainment and emotional release to increase a sector's Stability.

* HeroicSacrifice: Since the game ends with the Tiqqun ramming the Piranesi to finally defeat it after the entire crew has been evacuated, somebody has to stay behind to guide its final approach. Normally, that would be your trusty AI, Edden. If you've [[spoiler: deactivated Edden in order to detect Romulus, it'll be ''you'', the Administrator]]... [[TakeAThirdOption unless you had the foresight to]] [[spoiler:[[TakeAThirdOption keep a copy of Valkyrie, which could be used to pilot the ship into the Piranesi instead]] while EveryoneLives.]]

* HumanoidAbomination: The [=ZY6073=] specimen, giving us a hint of [[spoiler:what the Ashtangites have turned themselves into]]. If you let it out of its cryopod it will [[spoiler:kill your entire science ship crew and somehow assimilate their bodies into itself, turning all six bodies into a singular organism. If you let it board the Tiqqun and attempt to capture it intact it will kill 12 more crewmembers before going down. We don't get any detailed text descriptions of what it looks like, but if the event art is any indication then the thing is BodyHorror incarnate.]]

* MadeOfIron: Near the tail end of the campaign, [[spoiler:the ''Piranesi'', the BLS' hyper-advanced, self-sustaining, AI-driven starship, survives being lured into an exploding star well enough that it's still a planet-ending threat until rammed with the ''Tiqquen''!]]

* GreatOffscreenWar: [[spoiler: A three-way example fought between DOLOS, the United Nations of Earth and the Black Market Society. By the time the ''Tiqqun'' passes through the area the only known survivors are the DOLOS-aligned station ''Protagoras'', the AI-controlled Black Market Society ship ''Piranesi'', the Ashtagnites on Remus and anyone who managed to bail out into a cryopod.]]