History VideoGame / Starsiege

* ShoutOut: A short story in the manual that directly precedes the human campaign has an Imperial officer identify himself as "[[JohnCarterOfMars Barsoom]] Control."

** To compound things further, in ''Cyberstorm'' the mineral "Ore" is said to be the remnants of some unknown alien technology process, in ''Tribes'' the number of habitable planets is - frankly - impossible to happen by chance, and some maps from the original game actually say 'Alien Ruins' are the objective; To this troper, it seems fully reasonable that the devastation of Earth was at the hands of an alien species.
* WorthyOpponent: For all of ITS hatred of humanity, Prometheus developed a grudging respect for [[FourStarBadass Ambrose Gierling]] over the course of the two ''[=EarthSiege=]s'', and upon hearing of his death, had him noted in the "Great Record" as being a key contributor to the evolution of the Cybrids.

* IHateYouVampireDad: [[AllThereInTheManual the compendium]] reveals that Harabec Weathers is in fact [[spoiler: Victor Petresun, the emperor's son. Victor's brain, like his father's, underwent the [[BrainUploading "Methuselah" process.]] The real Harabec Weathers [[FateWorseThanDeath suffered irreparable brain damage]] in an accident as a child in 2801, his brain was replaced with Victor's, and Victor [[NightmareFuel grew up living a lie.]] Not even Caanon knows who he really is. Victor despises his father, one of his reasons for going to Mars and inciting a revolt.]]

It must be noted that ''Starsiege's'' backstory preformed a major retcon on the backstory presented by the earlier ''[=EarthSiege=]'' games, and although quite a bit of it can be justified as fleshing out the backstory, enough is incompatible between the two that you could safely put ''[=EarthSiege=]'' to ''[=EarthSiege 2=]'' in their own separate continuity that was later copied, modified, and built upon for ''Starsiege'' and beyond. There are still arguments over which backstory version is better. The game recieved a pseudo-sequel in the form of ''[[{{VideoGame/Tribes}} Starsiege: Tribes]]'', and that series subsequently underwent AdaptationDisplacement, cleaving itself from ''Starsiege'' in the same manner it separated itself from ''[=EarthSiege=]''. ''Starsiege'''s backstory is still canonical for the ''Tribes'' series though.

* GoldenAge: The time before The Fire was considered one of these: [[MeaningFulName The Age of Hope,]] an age of high technology. [[BigBad Prometheus]] [[EndOfAnAge brought that to a violent end.]]]

* GoldenAge: The time before The Fire was considered one of these: [[MeaningFulName The Age of Hope,]] an age of high technology. [[BigBad Prometheus]] [[EndOfAnAge brought that to a violent end.]]

->''[[TheEmperor Little old peter,]] [[ManInTheMachine missing his leter,]] while [[HumongousMecha Herky]] plays [[TheRedPlanet in the red.]] [[DeathFromAbove Down came the]] [[AIIsACrapshoot glitches]] [[RobotWar and burned us in ditches]] and [[{{Squick}} we slept after eating our dead.]]'' - [[IronicNurseryRhyme Schoolyard chant,]] [[TheFuture c. 2800.]]

->''"When [[BigBad the Dark]] [[AIIsACrapshoot Intellect]] escaped [[RobotWar The Fire,]] [[PyrrhicVictory man stood in the ashes of mother Earth.]] For 200 years the [[{{Immortality}} immortal]] [[TheEmperor emperor]] built Earth's armies... [[TheEmpire But only Earth's.]] [[LaResistance Then the colonies of Mars and Venus revolt]] against unjust imperial law. Harabec, [[AcePilot the greatest Imperial Knight,]] [[DefectorFromDecadence joined the rebellion.]] [[CainAndAbel His brother]] Caanon led [[EliteMooks the Knights]] to [[TheRedPlanet Mars]] to suppress it. When [[BigBad Prometheus]] [[RobotWar attacked again,]] [[CivilWar human blood already stained the ground.]] Mother Earth lay helpless. [[CrapsackWorld The time of terror had indeed returned.]] I tell the story of the [[RuleOfThree third and final coming of Prometheus.]] [[{{Narrator}} I tell the story of us all.]]"''\\

* TheRedPlanet: Where the game opens. The human player character's homeworld, presumably.
** Actually, the player character is from The Empire on Earth. His family was disgraced and fled to Mars two generations back, and the character, Tyris Larkin, identifies with the struggling Martian people, even though his original dream was to return his family to good standing.

** There is a bit of this in the human ending as well, with the death of [[spoiler:Harabec Weathers]]. Not to mention the [[PhyrricVictory ruin the Cybrids made of human civilization]].

** There is a bit of this in the human ending as well, with the death of [[spoiler:Harabec Weathers]].

* TheRevolutionWillNotBeCivilized: The Martian rebels are not magnanimous in victory, and waste no time lynching the police administrator once they get his hands on him. He ruled by [[AssholeVictim violence and terror]], however, so it [[PayEvilUntoEvil wasn't a surprising outcome]].

* VoiceOfTheResistance: Petresun served as one during The Fire, feeding intel to Gierling and gathering support for his eventual power grab.

** The Metagen Cybrids, who disapprove of the genocide of humanity for a variety of reasons. Some would rather explore deep space, or respect humanity too much to exterminate them, or simply don't think we're worth the trouble. They may be even more relentlessly oppressed than the human rebels, as Prometheus brooks no dissent towards his FinalSolution for humanity.

* BlindIdiotTranslation: In-universe. Early in the game, the Cybrids are shown to have a very poor understanding of English, and use a lot of bizarre vocabulary when trying to communicate their invitations to surrender to the humans. They get better over time, however, and by the end of the game they are speaking perfectly.

* BrainUploading: The minds of Solomon Petresun and a number of his most loyal confidants, collectively called "The Immortals," were transferred onto cybernetic substrates that render them, well, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin immortal.]] This is what enables Petresun to continue his reign as emperor for two centuries, though his body continually decays and has to be hooked up to increasingly complex life support devices. It's also the cause of much {{Angst}} for his son Victor, who also underwent this process.

** This troper favored tanks for quite a while in the single player campaign. Lower profiles serve better on hills, and tanks tend to mount a small but effective weapon selection. On some missions, nothing beats a properly equipped Avenger with long range weapons.

* TheRival:: With the ''MechWarrior'' series.
* TheyLookLikeUsNow: The Cybrid "Machinator" sect created "Trojan Horse" units by implanting Cybrid processors into human bodies in a manner very similar to Petresun's "Methuselah" project. These were used to infiltrate human society and gather information- and occasionally as [[ActionBomb suicide bombers.]], until humans wised up and starting shooting anyone returning from Cybrid territory on sight.

* BottomlessMagazines: [[AvertedTrope Averted]] ''hard''. Be sure to carry an energy weapon or two for when you inevitably run out of ammo.

* ItGotWorse: See CrapsackWorld Above. Everything gets worse in this game, whether it's the tone of the story or the strength of the enemies you face, and it's almost always the Cybrids' fault.

It must be noted that ''Starsiege's'' backstory preformed a major retcon on the backstory presented by the earlier ''[=EarthSiege=]'' games, and although quite a bit of it can be justified as fleshing out the backstory, enough is incompatible between the two that you could safely put ''[=EarthSiege=]'' to ''[=EarthSiege 2=]'' in their own separate continuity that was later copied, modified, and built upon for ''Starsiege'' and beyond. There are still arguments over which backstory version is better. The game recieved a pseudo-sequel in the form of ''[[StarsiegeTribes Starsiege: Tribes]]'', and that series subsequently underwent AdaptationDisplacement, cleaving itself from ''Starsiege'' in the same manner it separated itself from ''[=EarthSiege=]''. ''Starsiege'''s backstory is still canonical for the ''Tribes'' series though.

* AppropriatedTitle: The series began as ''[=MetalTech: EarthSiege=]''. Metaltech was dropped, making the sequel ''[=EarthSiege 2=]''. Then the sequel to that [[OddlyNamedSequel2ElectricBoogaloo changed the name entirely]] to ''Starsiege''. The sequel to Starsiege, which was mostly unrelated gameplay-wise, was ''StarsiegeTribes'', which then became simply ''Tribes''

* KarmaHoudini: Prometheus is capable of such precise statistical calculation that IT can essentially predict the short-term future, which is what allowed IT to escape destruction during The Fire and on the moon. [[spoiler: IT pulls it ''again'' at the end of this game, as though IT is destroyed, [[FlingALightIntoTheFuture IT sends out Cybrid agents in the hopes of resurgence.]]]] Given what goes on in the ''[[StarsiegeTribes Tribes]]'' games, [[TheRemnant this didn't entirely work.]]

* NoCanonForTheWicked: The ''StarsiegeTribes'' series assumes the human ending to be canon. Kind of a requirement; see DownerEnding above.

** To compound things further, in Cyberstorm the mineral 'Ore' is said to be the remnants of some unknown alien technology process, in Tribes the number of habitable planets is - frankly - impossible to happen by chance, and some maps from the original game actually say 'Alien Ruins' are the objective; To this troper, it seems fully reasonable that the devastation of Earth was at the hands of an alien species.

''Starsiege'' is also a game with a fairly rich BackStory, told through a "compendium" found in the box alongside the game manual, a rich text that deserves a page unto itself. Here's the basics: [[TheFuture It is the year 2829.]] Earth is under a [[OneWorldOrder single unified]] [[TheEmpire Empire]] ruled by the [[{{Immortality}} Immortal]] [[TheEmperor Emperor]] Solomon Petresun. He has instituted the "Fortification Proclamation," a massive buildup of arms and defenses on Earth, at the expense of the colonies on Mars, Venus and the Moon. Why? Because he fears the return of the Cybrids, [[AIIsACrapshoot genocidal robots]] led by [[BigBad Prometheus]]―an artificial intelligence that [[EmperorScientist Petresun himself]] created centuries before.

[[ProperlyParanoid He has good reason to fear them, of course.]] [[AIIsACrapshoot The Cybrids, created by humans, rebelled against them.]] Twice, the Cybrids drove humanity nearly to extinction, as depicted in the Earthsiege games. and twice [[HumansAreWarriors humanity overcame impossible odds and won.]] The first time they were beaten, the Cybrids fled to the moon, and then when they were defeated again they fled into the depths of the Solar System, regrouping near Pluto. There they watched, [[WeWait and waited for humanity to weaken.]] They got their chance when the colonies decided they didn't like being stripped of their resources and [[LaResistance started a rebellion against]] TheEmpire. With Imperial police and military forces tied up fighting the rebellion, the Cybrids saw their chance to strike. A new siege began ― [[TitleDrop Starsiege.]]

It must be noted that Starsiege's backstory preformed a major retcon on the backstory presented by the earlier Earthsiege games, and although quite a bit of it can be justified as fleshing out the backstory, enough is incompatible between the two that you could safely put Earthsiege to Earthsiege 2 in their own separate continuity that was later copied, modified, and built upon for Starsiege and beyond. There are still arguments over which backstory version is better. The game recieved a pseudo-sequel in the form of ''[[StarsiegeTribes Starsiege: Tribes]]'', and that series subsequently underwent AdaptationDisplacement, cleaving itself from ''Starsiege'' in the same manner it separated itself from ''Earthsiege''. ''Starsiege'''s backstory is still canonical for the ''Tribes'' series though.

* AIIsACrapshoot: Prior to the events of ''Metaltech: Earthsiege'', a young Solomon Petresun, then a computer engineer, successfully brought online the first AI: a being he called Prometheus. From ITS design were created the Cybrids, robots designed primarily to operate war machines in the place of humans. Sometime later, when Petresun was undergoing the "[[MeaningfulName Methuselah]]" [[BrainUploading process,]] Petresun and his "child" made mind-contact, and the two were mutually repulsed by one another. Not long thereafter, Prometheus took control of all Cybrids and started a revolution. IT would later give them free will, and in return, they labeled IT [[MeaningfulName First Thought//Giver Of Will.]]

* AppropriatedTitle: The series began as ''[=MetalTech: EarthSiege=]''. Metaltech was dropped, making the sequel ''Earthsiege 2''. Then the sequel to that [[OddlyNamedSequel2ElectricBoogaloo changed the name entirely]] to ''StarSiege''. The sequel to Starsiege, which was mostly unrelated gameplay-wise, was ''StarSiegeTribes'', which then became simply ''Tribes''

* BlueBlood: As part of the dictates of his new Empire, Petresun restored a system of nobility. However, only those who had earned their keep during the Earthsieges and their families would hold this honor, and each new generation would have to earn it anew.

* ContinuityNod: {{Retcon}} or not, the Compendium depicts HERCs during the events of The Fire as they appeared in ''Earthsiege.'' And Prometheus was mentioned by name in the intro to ''Earthsiege 2''. His role is greatly expanded here.

* KarmaHoudini: Prometheus is capable of such precise statistical calculation that IT can essentially predict the short-term future, which is what allowed IT to escape destruction during The Fire and on the moon. [[spoiler: IT pulls it ''again'' at the end of this game, as though IT is destroyed, [[FlingALightIntoTheFuture IT sends out Cybrid agents in the hopes of resurgence.]]]] Given what goes on in the [[StarsiegeTribes Tribes]] games, [[TheRemnant this didn't entirely work.]]

* MeaningfulName: Happens a lot with the characters, such as Harabec Weathers' codename being Phoenix. He has a habit of being NotQuiteDead. Caanon's codename is "Icehawk"―he's cool, collected, and [[SeriousBusiness dead serious]]. This trope is also seen in every single vehicle, with examples such as the Basilisk, [[AGodAmI Olympian]], [[GoddamnedBats Goad]], or [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt Apocalypse]] (a returning heavy HERC from the Earthsiege games that comes with ''[[MoreDakka six weapon hardpoints.]]'')

* OddlyNamedSequel2ElectricBoogaloo: The series went from ''Metal Tech: Earth Siege'' to ''Earthsiege 2'' to ''StarSiege'', plus the various spinoffs.

* RobotWar: Three, technically. The first is called "The Fire", represented by the first ''Earthsiege'' game. ([[{{Retcon}} somewhat]]). It lasted from 2602 when the Cybrids first rebelled, to the end of the first Earthsiege in 2622. The second Earthsiege began in 2624, when Prometheus rallied the Cybrids for a second assault, and ended in 2627 when ITS moonbase was destroyed. The third unfolds over the course of this game.

* WorthyOpponent: For all of ITS hatred of humanity, Prometheus developed a grudging respect for [[FourStarBadass Ambrose Gierling]] over the course of the two Earthsieges, and upon hearing of his death, had him noted in the "Great Record" as being a key contributor to the evolution of the Cybrids.

''Starsiege'' is a mecha-style vehicle simulation game developed by Dynamix and released in 1999. It is set in the "Metaltech" universe, which contains its predecessors ''Metaltech: Earthsiege'' (1994), ''Battledrome'' (1994), ''Earthsiege 2'' (1995), the PlatformGame Hunter Hunted (1996), as well as the CyberStorm TurnBasedStrategy games. There are two campaigns. One casts the player as a member of the human Martian resistance against an oppressive Earth empire, and the other as a Cybrid "pilot-form." The gameplay sees you piloting [=HERCULANs=], or [[AMechByAnyOtherName HERCs]], and tracked tanks. In between levels you configure your vehicle's components and select squadmates. Missions generally involve shooting other [=HERCs=], tanks, turrets, and buildings.