WMG / Spore

Humanity went to a different Galaxy

After we improve our space travel, we leave through the center of the Galaxy and eventually, after so many years, any past remnants of our influence on earth is destroyed. While Steve remains behind in the center of the Galaxy in his own personal ship and remains living due to the fact that either the cord keeps anyone in it from dying or he met Spode/The God who will come and was granted immortality and the staff of life. He also keeps anyone who meets him from going through the other side to avoid humanity being conquered or them destroying the one who meets them.

Spore is in the same universe as Creatures

If you do it right, you could actually MAKE Norns that would like almost identical to the ones from there, not only that, but it's also plausible within both games lore. The reason the Grendels and the Norns and the Ettins exist is because they were made by a race of aliens known as the "Shee", who left their planet of Albia to find a new planet know as "Sphericus". Which from what we know they did, but since they are such great scientists with a knack for Organic Technology and manipulating genetics, it would make sense that before they finished their journey, or if they decided to go back out and continue exploring space then after, they would try and make new genetic species on planets with spores they created inside "asteroids" and coming back to check on them later (Or, since they ARE a race of Absent minded professors and Neglectful Precursors, forget about them) Thus making nearly every species in the galaxy.

This also explains the Grox too, they look like a cyborg combination of Norns and Grendels. In Docking Station we find out about the "Banshee", which are a branch of shee that like experimenting with gadgets and preferred Grendels over Norns, most likely they are a hybrid Grendel/Norn that they made and added "Gadgets" to. Grendels also were predisposed genetically to violence in the original Cretaures games, only able to hiss and bite instead of normal greetings, meaning that mixing them with cybernetics and an entire empire will probably result in aggression and becoming the most hated beings in the galaxy.

If sexual services do exist in Spore, they probably originated from the Charm ability.

When you and the rest of creatures use this move, you and they twerk and shake their bottoms. On Spore Wiki, it is also said to be the quickest way to fill the social bar, in order to befriend a creature.

Spore is the distant past of Planetary Annihilation

The main idea behind this theory is the fact that they both have somewhat similar aesthetics, and both have a lot of focus on Baby Planets, though PA caps itself at simply covering one system, and for the most part only covers single-star systems with a star like the one our planet orbits.

At some point in time, a great war wipes out immense numbers of the sentient creatures that inhabit the galaxy, causing the few that remain (likely more peaceful types) to reform into the Progenitor Coalition (which, while seemingly implied to be humanity at multiple points, are never specifically labeled as such). We shall make the following assumptions: This version of the Spore Galaxy never had a "player race" to destroy the Grox, but they did discover the Center of the Universe and converse with Steve. After this event, at some point, the Grox attacked the peaceful races of the Galaxy - thus necessitating the creation of Commanders, which would manage and fight the war on behalf of the various species, who create the Commanders in their own image (thus why Commanders, while following some rough templates, are so different looking even within the same class). The war was long but lead to the refinement of weapons like Planet Busters into reusable weapons, as well as "disposable" engines that could be used to move astroids too large to be effected by "asteroid call" to act as a higher step of weapon of mass destruction. Many of these technologies were the result of races sharing tech; others were stolen from the Grox.

After a bitter, hard-fought war that lasted likely thousands of years and cost the lives of uncountable creatures and entire species - let alone planets - the Coalition then tried to retire the Commanders so that they could not be used for ill - which resulted in many of the Commanders protesting, having been granted the gift of life from ones that ventured to the Galactic Core. The new "species" of completely mechanical creatures used the technologies and battle strategies they had gained during the War against the Grox against their creators, many of them forming into the Machine Liberation Army. As a result of this, the Progenitor Coalition as the Machines knew it reformed themselves into a permanent government, producing not only new Commanders but also attempting to learn an art many of them had long since forgotten so that they would have un-repgrogramable troops to use against the Machines. However, because of some "groxifications" that had occurred on part of the Commanders, there would never be enough troops to actually have a meaningful effect on an unyielding tide of hardware, and their own peaceful technologies, corrupted and transformed by their creations, were used against them until sentient life in the galaxy completely ceased to exist.

Without a true purpose anymore, the Commanders fell dormant, becoming relics to a bygone era in the galaxy until, thousands of years later, the Awakening occurred.

Spore is the distant Future of Planetary Annihilation

The robots rebelled against the Progenitors and largely wiped them out. At the time of PA the few survivors (such as Steve) are holed up in the galactic core waiting for the robots to annihilate each other. In their war the robots cleansed all planets of organic life but missed a few microbes in asteroids. By the time of Spore the microbes have found their way to planets and evolved into multicellular life. The Grox evolved on the hellhole that was the site of the final battle between the factions, with no one to recycle the wreckage it was left there to poison the environment and eventually be salvaged by the life forms that emerged in that toxic dump.

Spore is the distant future of the Warhammer 40,000 universe.

Just read this article from the Warhammer 40K wiki. Eerily familiar, isn't it?

• To extend on this:
  • During the late M41, the ancient C'tan Void Dragon has awoken on Mars. Once again enslaving Necrons under his rule, he also turned a large amount of Adeptus Mechanicus on his side, who also modified various animals (i.e Grox) as servants for his master. Eventually, Void Dragon has conquered most of the galaxy, bending the Imperium, Eldar, and other species of the galaxy to the knees - until a strange ally appeared - the Chaos God Tzeentch (perhaps supported by other Chaos Gods) , who did not want C'tan to win, as their victory would result in Chaos' fall as well. He casted a powerful spell upon the Void Dragon's minions, twisting them horribly and mutating them into small, weak cybernetic humanoids who were forced to retreat to the Galactic Core, that was safe from the Chaos Gods for some reason. However, the horrible forces of the Warp have also resulted in the destruction of humanity, Eldar, Tau, etc - but allowed new species to grow on devastated worlds. However, Chaos Gods were not going to lose their grip on the galaxy, and have started to mastermind the evolution of the player species...
• Grox spaceships DO look a lot like Necron flyers.
• planet buster = exterminatus
• So what kind of empire would the imperium of man be? Zealot?
• You're kidding right? The only similarity 40K's Grox have to Spore's are the ability to survive in environments hostile to man.
  • Spore Grox: Small humanoids that are pathetically weak even with cybernetics, toxic, can only survive in very hostile environments, terraforming kills them.
  • 40K Grox: Five-meter armored reptiles with More Teeth than the Osmond Family, fully capable of living on Earth-like worlds, delicious and nutritious, domesticated by the Imperium of Man.

Darkspore IS the prequel to Spore, but in different way.

• The Mutation Wars ended. The Corruptor was defeated and without him, the remaining Darkspores were left without control and have devolved into the primitive E-DNA-based animals. The Crogenitors have started to rebuild their empire from the scratch. They started their campaign of recolonising the worlds and eradicating remaning Darkspores. However, that turned out to be difficult, as the E-DNA was hard to uproot. As a result, the Crogenitors move to the only place in the galaxy where Darkspores could not survive (due to Hawking radiation) - the area around the Galactic Core. In order to make themselves capable of living on the lifeless worlds, Crogenitors remade themselves into the cyborgs. From the Galactic Core, they started to cleanse the planets of the Darkspore and settle there. I.e Crogenitors became the Grox.

However, E-DNA is still mutating in the areas of the galaxy far from the Core. This time, the Darkspores to become sentient, no more relying on the single leader (Corruptor). New Darkspore start to evolve quickly due to the E-DNA, mutating into the new forms over few generations (Creature Stage). They quickly learn fire and basic crafts (Tribal Stage), then electricity and motorised vehicles (Civ Stage) and finally, the New Darkspore construct spaceships and start to colonise and infect new planets. The Crogenitors/Grox are trying to fight against them, but fail as they are far more dangerous than the old ones due to being sentient and capable of building machines. They now fight a desperate war to prevent the New Darkspore from conquering the entire galaxy.

Yep, that makes the player a Hero Antagonist and Grox the Villain Protagonist.

The WMG below about Darkspore was right the first time. It IS a prequel.

• The Progenitors won in the end, and the new safe method of utilizing E-DNA was used to create the Grox. However, the Grox were created as an experimental combination of cybergenetic and necrogenetic E-DNA. We can tell how that turned out. Fortunately, new life sprouted from the galaxy due to a "glitch" in the old, unsafe DNA. When the Hive Mind of Darkspore was destroyed, the E-DNA quickly degraded into ordinary DNA, which spawned new life on all the planets that were once corrupted. Thus began Spore.
  • And the Staff of Life? It uses safe E-DNA to quickly repopulate an entire planet. The reason it only has 42 uses is because it uses fuel which it is extremely hard to get your hands on (i.e. impossible in-game).
    • Not exactly canon, but considering that Game Mods can make the Staff of Life have infinite uses, perhaps the comment below about "42" being the reward for discovering the nature of life, the universe and everything was right and it's powered by human imagination. However, although the source is like an infinite supply of gasoline, the staff has a limited gas tank. Which means there would be two ways to refuel it. Hook it up to a "pipeline" that taps the source directly, which can only be executed by the humans who hold said fuel source... or leave the Spore universe to refuel it in our universe. Which would make an interesting fanfic save for the fact that all Spore characters are both fan characters and canon simultaneously due to the nature of the game.

Sol? It's real, and humanity is right beneath your nose.

• The humans of Earth have let global warming or some other disaster affect the planet and bring it down to a T1 score. The people are all living in domed cities.
  • So why do you not see said domed cities? Take a look at that other WMG below. The one about plants and animals being huge. Somehow the Square-Cube Law doesn't apply to the Spore universe, and humanity is one of the unseen races who are basically microscopic to the empires you deal with on a day-to-day basis.

EA is actively trying to kill Spore.

EA doesn't like games that encourage creativity and freedom of choice. Hence the years of waiting, the gradual degradation of gameplay, the DRM backlash, the overpriced expansion packs, the infamous "Mech-parts" scandal, and hundreds of other slaps in the face.

• Explain Darkspore, then.
  • Another nail in the coffin.
• Likely case is that Spore wasn't as profitable as EA would've hoped it to be so they just dropped it to focus on more profitable franchises like The Sims, Battlefield and the EA Sports titles which had highly profitable monetization systems in place and didn't see Spore being a worthwhile investment by comparison. As a general rule of thumb when developing titles under EA: They don't mind what you make or how you make it, as long as it's the next FIFA Ultimate Team.

Steve created the Grox.

He didn't want to be bothered so he built an army of killer cyborgs in order to deter all but the most determined customers.

Steve is Spode.

Makes sense- he lives in the center of the universe, posesses a powerful Staff of Life, and is seemingly omnipotent.

An Alien with an itchy Monolith finger helped you out.

Every time you finished a stage he helped you evolve. That's why things don't work like they did for you for other species.

To make friends with another species, you convince them you are one of them.

Consider: Why is making friends social combat when it should be mutually beneficial? Because the species evolved to work with each other (within a species) by developing actions that elicited a positive response - certain movements and vocalizations. Creatures from other species evolved to mimic their actions. Its a standard evolutionary arms race as more and more accurate parts make it easier to find the fakes - and easier to fake. Note that it's not difficult at all to make friends with your own species, because you have the same skills.

• Then why don't they reject you for being too good at the skills(filling up the bar faster than they do)? You'd think that'd be a red flag that you're not the same type of creature they are.

The asteroid containing your cell originated inside your solar system.

At the beginning of the game, you see an asteroid (containing various microbes) fly past the sun and hit your chosen planet. Much later, when you get to Space Stage, one of your first tasks involves a crashed starship. The ship was (according to the game) trying to answer a distress call but was shot down. It could be logical that in a last-ditch effort to continue their task, they shot the asteroid to your home planet, thus starting your evolution (hoping that you would redeem them once you became space-faring).

• Of course, you realize what that implies...

Sol? Just a fake.

This would explain why "Mars" and "Mercury" are so plain compared to their real-life counterparts. It would also explain why "Earth" is a T1 planet with high atmosphere. And in super Mario galaxy, Luigi's clone/twin/look alike/whatever thinks that the universe can be big enough for two of them. So, if the universe can be big enough for two Luigis, then it could be big enough for two "Earths". The real Earth is in the real Milky Way Galaxy and this is just a system with identical planets.

• Earth could just be a T1 due to different environmental needs between your species and humans. Also, it could be a long-since-abandoned version of Earth that became desolate and dead after humans left, possibly due to pollution. The air left there could be mostly waste products and thus unbreathable.
  • Dinosaurs were wiped out and dozens of species have been extincted. T1's pretty reasonable.
• Also, Ganeymede is hot, despite the fact that it's frozen over in Real Life.

The comet that contained your cell organism was made by some other divine being.

It explains how your cell just comes from a chunk of stone thus bypassing the "almost living ooze" stage of development.

Adventure Town is a hallucination caused by copious amounts of narcotics.

• After being appointed captain, your space hero celebrates by overindulging in every drug known to man or alien before arriving at the orientation meeting. Because something must explain it.
  • Alternatively: Another candidate for the title of Captain was jealous that you were appointed instead, so he drugged you somehow in hopes that your resulting erratic behavior would make the ones that chose reconsider.

The Comet that contained your cell came from the either "asteroid call" or "Ice Comet" tool

• It would explain why every planet is a T3.

Mankind is responsible for the Grox.

In the far future, mankind unlocks the secrets of the universe and discovers the nature of their reality. Somewhere along the line, mankind either bioengineers the Grox or gives a pre-existing species mechanical parts. However, because A.I. Is a Crapshoot, the Grox gradually turn against all other life forms. Because mankind had placed a Restraining Bolt forbidding them from attacking humans, the Grox instead turned against other life forms. They moved to the center of the galaxy, where habitable planets were few, and used mankind's advanced technology to conquer the galaxy. Mankind became a galactic pariah for creating such horrible monsters, so the rest of the galaxy turn against them. Earth was rendered barren of life and mankind was nearly exterminated. The few remaining humans decided to move to the very center of the galaxy where they would be safe: the Grox could not harm them, but they were too few to do any serious damage to the Grox. However, they hatched a plan. They would spread rumors of an incredible secret within the secret of the galaxy, hoping that one day other sentient species would reach the center. There, the human known as Steve would appear, giving the Staff of Life in the hopes that it would be used to strike back at the Grox. (Alternatively, the Grox themselves wiped out humanity. Steve is a human-built probe sent to the center of the galaxy in the hopes that a race sufficiently powerful enough would find the Staff of Life and use it against the Grox)

Grox are descendants of cats

If you think about it, a civilization of sentient domestic cats would have the exact same attitude as the Grox. Give them power to annihilate species, mutate them, and voila, Grox.

Spode is Haruhi.

What? Somebody was gonna say it.

Spode is Cthulhu.

And the ever-so-annoying Zealots are cultists. I could seriously swear that one Zealot's Simlish once gave way to "CTHULHU FTAGHN" in my game, so this is just obvious.

Spore takes place during PlanetSide.

During the timeline, the Vanu rose and created the Warp-gate System, which races throughout the galaxy used. Until an attack disabled contact to Auraxis and the Vanu went extinct, not knowing of the immortality the system provided (Which is why in the space stage you don't truely die as there is "advanced cloning technology"). Nobody ventured to the system due to an anomaly rendering the space around it, making travel impossible. However a wormhole existed near the planet, and that's how the Humans of the Terran Republic got there. The wormhole collapsed some time afterward.

Steve is human.

He knows the existence of Earth, after all.

• He also has a human name and speaks English.

Your planet, along with every other one, was seeded by the Staff of Life, and the whole game is After the End.

Imagine this scene: Life is losing the war against the Grox. The situation looks dim, when what is now an insignificant T1 planet called Earth's leading scientists made technology that can seed any planet with life. Panicking, they proceed to use it on every freshly dead planet (which is to say all of them), hoping that something, someday, will reignite the spark of life. The Grox immediately finished off that last planet, took the Staff (along with the ship it was contained in), and guarded it in the center of the galaxy, just in case. After millions of years, spacefaring life rises from the post-apocalyptic galaxy, and the war goes on. Plus, the opening cutscene looks an awful lot like the Staff of Life, and the original Staff must have had more than 42 uses for it to be useful against the Grox.

Spode is Spode

It just makes sense.

Clark & Stanley are Time Lords.

Just really stupid ones... But it would explain as to how they manage to be in nearly everyone's adventures, be able to mess up many a captain's career, and continually die.

Spore takes place in a rebuilt Milky Way after the end of the Universe.

The universe is dying because of the entropy and an ascended humanity, trying to fight this, rebuilds the Milky Way, which by that point had evaporated, only since resources are much more limited, they have to make the worlds and stars that tiny. Steve is one of the ascended humans, the Solar System is just a memorial. The Grox are not really evil, they are the workforce of the ascended humans; they inhabit T0 worlds and their activity slowly raises the terrascore to an inhabitable one (maybe they produce a lot of greenhouse gases). Some of the ascended humans consider things are advancing too slowly so they create the staff of life to speed up things. Obviously this does not pleases The Grox.

All plants and animals in SPORE are in fact multiple miles in height.

This would explain why planets appear so very tiny, and why Earth's continents are so small.

• That would not make sense; a creature that size would be crushed under its own weight ^{on the other hand}  A planet 800 meters in diameter and that has enough gravity to retain an atmosphere does not make much sense either. .

'The Grox' are what Thrintun are called millions of years after Kzanol disappeared.

Every race in the galaxy used to be their slaves, but now their empire is losing to thousands of races suddenly becoming sapient and attacking them. After a few thousand years of this, the Grox destroy almost all sentient life. One of their planets becomes habitable over the next two billion years, and the Grox are forced to evolve into the Grogs.

The Darkspore is somehow connected to the Grox.

The Darkspore seems to have a habit of creating evil, megalomananical creatures, and the Grox were an early creation of it.

Spore gives us the Ultimate Question for the Ultimate Answer.

Obvious one, but one that needed saying. You can dress it up from a boring "How many charges are there in the Staff of Life?" to a more mysterious "How many Charges are there left on the Staff of Life after it was used to create the universe?" if you want... Not a good WMG, was this?

• Actually, that could be it... And the Staff of Life is the source of life in all the universe, but when it runs out of charge...
  • Not necessarily a bad thing, since all that happens when the staff runs out of charges is it can't be used again. How is this good when supposedly no more life can be created? Maybe "42" isn't the answer itself, but the reward to finding the answer. The question is "What is the nature of life, the universe and everything?", which is kind of obvious if you think about it. Unfortunately for the digital creatures in the game, the answer is that they are merely toys for the race that created their universe. The upsides are that they discover the amazing power of the human imagination, and that said power is the real and limitless source of life and not the staff, so they need not worry about no new life. And they get a neat toy of their own that harnesses this power. Because the staff has to be powered by something, right?

The race that's always crashing those ships that you scan in your first mission?

They're evolved from the Butteyes.

You are Spode.

You control large numbers of creatures, and you never actually find out who Spode is. You don't play as the creature. You actually are Spode filling its body with your presence.

Spore is set thousands of years into the future.

• This is why the continents and life forms on Earth look different.

Spode is... a spud.

• Wouldn't it be perfect if God of a game like Spore was really Mr Potato Head?

Darkspore is a prequel to Spore, or the reverse.

• If DS came first, the Crogenitors defeated the Darkspore.
• If Spore came first, you ARE a Crogenitor in the time before the Darkspore. Which leads to:

The players of Spore are the Crogenitors.

Clark and Stanley are immortal

At the time you began Cell Stage, the Grox were a friendly culture.

Billions of years constitute far more than enough time for a total cultural overhaul and species rework. And the pre-Face–Heel Turn proto-Grox may even have seeded the worlds.

Spore is set in the Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann universe.

Humans were just driven underground by the time your species has reached the space stage, Teppelin has jet to be built.Interstellar travel is DRIVEN by spiral energy, so does all your weapons(excluding missiles and bombs). Oh yeah. The Grox are the anti-spirals.

• Alternatively, the Spore galaxy is in an After the End state because it was one of the galaxies used as a weapon...
• The Grox are the Anti-Spirals prior to becoming a Hive Mind.

All archetypes are general categories.

Each empire will have traces of other archetypes in its culture.

Earth is a post apocalyptic SimEarth

Something, probally a war, caused most life to go extinct and ruin the environment. Thais would explain why Mars and Mercury look different; they are not the same planet.

The Grox are the descendants of humanity.

Think about it: their writing has similarities to our own, their bodies kind of look like our own...the question is how this happened.

Notice how the Earth is T1. At some point, humanity was suffering a critical problem when it came to pollution. In order to survive, they relied more and more on cybernetics. A Zealot-based spaceship ended up crashing on the planet, revealing information about the centre of the universe. You see, the Staffs of Life had been around long before the Grox and even Steve: they were part of an Eldritch Abomination many know as [[God Spode.]]

At the time, mankind was incapable of interstellar travel, so they were forced to take the long route. A group decided to spend their lives piloting the "Steve" ship, and locate the Staffs of Life so that the End of the World as We Know It would be averted. Hundreds of thousands of years passed. By the time they had reached their destination, these people had atrophied and no longer cared about habitable planets. When the Staffs of Life were found, they reverse-engineered them so that they could survive in the far more plentiful "uninhabitable" worlds.

Steve, however, was intelligent and still planning on completing its mission. A battle broke out, and Steve was banished into the supermassive black hole. Due to countless millennia of isolation, the descendants of humanity had become extremely irritable and aggressive. The Grox are the result: beings driven so hostile they will attack just about anything they don't like. Humanity ultimately died out on Earth, and their insane descendants became the feared Grox.

Spore is an alternate universe of 'Battlestar Galactica'.

Problem?

• By that logic, Spore is an Alternate Universe of Star Wars and Star Trek. Not to mention Real Life.
  • It would not be an alternate universe of Star Wars because that happened "... in a galaxy far, far away.". But anything that is set in our own little part of the 'verse, sure, why not?

Humanity seeded the galaxy

A billion or so years ago we spread out and found the universe a barren, lifeless place. So we went out and terraformed thousands of planets. Eventually, it came time for us to Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence and we sent comets containing cells with the potential to evolve sapience at our former colonies so there would be several species to inherit the galaxy.

• Steve remained behind for some reason, probably to reward anyone who managed to make it to space.
• Earth is dying because the sun has started to expand, that's it.
• The Grox are the only species with no relationship to humanity, that's why they can't stand environments that are paradise to everyone else.

Spore takes place in the same universe as Neon Genesis Evangelion...

And all the races, including yours, are all seeded by Black Eggs. Clearly the FAR learned not to take any chances after Earth and just designated whole galaxies as Black or White recipiants rather than individual planets or systems.

• Seconded. This perfectly explains why Earth is what it is: everyone got hugged, man's civilization crumbled to nothingness, and all life on Earth died during Instrumentality. Eventually, toxicity levels in the ocean disappeared, and the atomsphere was supported by only a few plants that survived Instrumentality. Some time after Earth got to T1, a brief interdimensional jump was made by Shinji and Asuka to assess the planet's condition. They concluded it was a "total loss", and decided to return to their new home dimension, eventually sending another scout to another dimension: another Rei clone, under the assumed name Yuki Nagato. This scouting mission was interrupted by… you know who.

Some of the other archetypes have non-militant forms of Spodism.

Diplomat empires, definitely.

Warrior and Knight empires may or may not tolerate Spodism, depending on the empire. Trader, Scientist, and Bard empires, who knows if they permit religion or not? (If not, Spodists and Shamans might actually do an Enemy Mine.)

Some archetypes would certainly persecute Spodists:

• The Shamans would not tolerate their mortal enemy in their realm.
• The Ecologists' population control boards would not tolerate the concept of loving those deemed "superfluous".

The reason why there is no (NPC) Knight Empire

So, the bio says that knights are fighting for the good, and not for personal gains, and you quickly learn that grox are the Big Bads, that must mean that there was a big fight between the grox and knight empire, where the knights lost and went Extinct. why are the other empires still alive? After they've seen what the grox can do, they did everything to avoid them, they know what would happen otherwise.

All Spore creatures reproduce by pollination.

Those hearts you see in the "mating" scenes? They're not emotes. They're pollen.

The "Energy" bar on your spaceship is meant to analogous to oil, not fuel.

In reality, when your vehicle runs out of fuel, it comes to a stop. However, when you neglect to change the oil in your vehicle for too long, the engine seizes up, burns out, and can even explode. Which one of these two scenarios occurs when you continue to fly your spaceship on an empty energy bar?

Upgrading your energy bar is just upgrading to a higher-quality "oil" that can go longer without needing to be changed. Portable energy packs are just your own extra "oil" supply that you can change on the spot.

The Grox are Absolute Xenophobes because of one too many well-meaning empires in the past.

One way to improve relations with an empire is to improve the conditions of their colonies via terraforming. However, doing this with the Grox is a bad idea because terraformed planets are lethal to them. Before this became common knowledge, several empires who wanted to ally with the Grox attempted to terraform their colonies, killing off all the Grox that lived there. By the time the reason behind why you shouldn't do this became better known, it was too late; too many empires had inadvertently destroyed Grox colonies and the Grox decided that from now on they'd chase any other empire away before they had the chance, resulting in them gaining the bloodthirsty reputation they have now.

In addition, they are more resistant to other methods of building relations because past empires didn't always resort to terraforming straight away, so the Grox are wary that you might be just biding your time and trying to get them to let their guard down. This is also why they don't stop attacking until you are formally allied with them, no matter how high your relations get prior(most empires only attack at orange or red face). And once you do terraform a Grox colony, your relations immediately tank to the point you'll never get them back to "green face"(which is needed to ally, though already allied empires will remain allied even if relations dip to "blue face") because now you've proven to be no different than the others that supposedly just wanted to be allies. Breaking the galactic code via superweapons(Planet Buster, Gravitation Wave, Fanatical Frenzy) demonstrates to them just how different you are from other empires, most of whom would never dream of doing such things, so they trust you more as long as you don't use the former two on them(they don't seem to care about being on the receiving end of Fanatical Frenzy).

The apparent species change when you purchase, conquer, or fanatical-frenzy a planet is merely symbolic.

After all, how is the computer supposed to render your cities when your population has, in addition to the original species, substantial Aver, Bluebee, Bunny Froo-Froo, PunPun, and Snorfling populations?

• Counter-Argument: Use Fanatical Frenzy on a Grox colony(for some reason, this won't anger them). If you leave the planet without terraforming it(all Grox colonies are T0 barring rare glitches), the colonies will be destroyed when you re-enter. If you terraform it, the colonists will be unharmed. Since Grox thrive on T0 worlds and die in anything higher, the fact that the fate of the post-Frenzy colonists depending on T-Score syncs with literally any other species points to the colonists actually being replaced with your own species. You could make a similar argument for purchasing and conquering systems, though for them it's easier to believe from the start that the old species left when you took over(especially if the system was taken by force).
  • Counter-Counter-Argument: The Grox are a special case. Anyway the game is very stylized, and just because the game only renders the one space station at the core doesn't change the fact that (sans stylization) they'd be necessary all over the place anyway.

Super Mario Bros. takes place in the spore Universe.

They both feature interplanetary empires, superpowers, and wildly varying technology levels

When Bards mention eating other sentient beings, they are just joking.

The Bard empires you meet in the game are fond of saying they literally had friends over for dinner and have a habit of greeting you by asking if you're ready to be eaten. However, given there is no indication they every actually act on it and they are explicitly entertainment-oriented archetypes, it seems far more likely the Bards are just indulging in a bit of Dead Baby Comedy than actually eating other sentient life forms. Especially since even herbivorous Bards make these kind of jokes.

The creatable/encounterable aliens come from the same source. The Grox and Steve are exceptions to that.

Every alien, despite presumably being spawned from a comet within their same solar system like you/grew on their homeworld, has the same requirements for their T-score. You'd think independent ecosystems could have a bit of variety, but no. Out of universe, this is for gaming purposes. In-universe? Might mean they're all related. The Grox may seem Always Chaotic Evil, but they rarely attack beyond trespassers in the galactic center, and while they have high standards for alliances they aren't incapable of doing so. The reason why almost all aliens in Spore have such similar environmental conditions is because they are all descended from a race of Precursors. Why are the Grox the only different race? These precursors removed the competition. Steve belongs to this precursor race, and given he speaks English that doesn't speak well to us...though maybe the real reason Earth is T1 is simply because we're not one of the precursors or their descendants so we prefer different environments, instead of an After the End scenario. The Grox are so hostile to other life because they're descendants of the forces who slaughtered/usurped much of the galaxy, and Steve is in the Galactic Core because they're keeping him prisoner. Part of the precursor's views are No Transhumanism Allowed, which is why asides from one very limited patch you can't make you creature a true cyborg. Why are the Knight and Wanderer Archetypes not available to NPCs, and the Grox Archetype completely inaccessible? Because the original Knights and Wanderers were exterminated by the Abusive Precursors and it's only by coincidence and your power as the player that you can recreate them. And the Grox Archetype used to be spread among the Grox's allies, but they were all exterminated and the precursors made sure their descendants wouldn't even conceive of such an archetype.

If NPC Knights were part of the game, Bards would like new acquaintances and Ecologists (as the Scary Dogmatic Aliens their card describes them as) would distrust strangers.

Alternatively, NPC Knights would like new acquaintances.

It's commonly agreed that, as strong fighters who fight for the safety of the galaxy, are the Good Counterpart of Warriors, who fight for their own gain. Not only would liking new acquaintances be another parallel (Warriors distrust strangers), but after hearing of the chronicles of the Player Character, would come to respect their strength and would appreciate having them by their side to protect the galaxy and potentially destroy The Grox, so they would try to get on their good side to gain their trust. On the other hand, the weapons they sell would be more expensive than the ones from Warriors, since it's easier to befriend them, but cheaper than from Traders, as they would focus on weapons more than the Proud Merchant Race would.

Knights are Warriors who seek to use their military might to stop evil throughout the galaxy.

• As we know, Knights appear and function the same as Warriors when met with a separate save file. However, this is because Knights aren't a real archetype. It's moreso a certain class of Warrior that wants to use their military to bring peace throughout the galaxy. The Knight empires themselves don't want to call themselves brutal berserkers who want to fight everyone, so they go with the idea of being Knights. Nobody else believes in this separation, and, to them, all Knights are simply trying to act as if they're better than they are.
  • The same general idea applies to Pirates, too. Warriors can summon pirates, and both Pirates and Knights have the Summon Mini-U ability, meaning that Pirates are likely connected to Knights, who in turn are Warriors. Of note is the fact that only Knights can have the Summon Mini-U ability, as they do not have a set of Galactic Adventure equipment or a quest and thus other empires cannot have their superpower. Plus, Pirates generally are similar to Warriors, but have less standards than their playable counterparts, who do not wage war for the sake of war or attack those who stand little threat against them.

The God That Will Come's true identity.

• The Scrolls of Harmony explain that, since every being is different, their beliefs are different as well, and thus it does not matter what you believe so long as you believe in something. Thus, there is no way that any one religion can represent the empire as a whole, and if there is no one religion, there is no one highest power. Thus, they instead refer to the God That Will Come as an agnostic term referring to the god that your religion prays to. Zealots are the exact opposite of Shamans and only believe in one faith, that of Spode, and thus they deride all other religions as false and their gods as false. They refer to these gods collectively as the False God That Will Come, much as the Shamans. Any believer of any god follows the God That Will Come, as the God That Will Come is who you believe to be your god.

There are multiple Clarks and Stanleys

The reason they seem to come back every time they die isn't because they're immortal or anything like that. The reason is because no two Clarks or Stanleys you see are the same. That's why sometimes they sometimes seem Out of Character in other adventures. If this isn't convincing, in the Maxis adventure Dancetopia, you can see, surprise surprise, multiple Clarks dancing about, name and all!

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