Awesome video! Can't praise you enough for putting together all the puzzles pieces in such a coherent manner! Listening to it while taking a walk gave me the goosebumps. It's so much darker than I remembered it... However, I do have a few corrections, and an explanation why the information is at times disparate. First, the corrections: Saya Kho was NOT married. I have no clue who translated that part of the Encyclopedia and what gave him the idea, but it's not in the original German version! It frustrates me when translators inject their own ideas into things they have no business injecting anything into... This particular mistake has been bugging me for ~15 years. So no, they weren't married. They didn't even know each other personally before they met up on the Torus. Sherman Hiatu was an (Earthborn) covert agent for the Argon. Furthermore, they did not come up with the plan to disable the Torus by themselves; it was a pre-planned and meticuously executed series of events... that ran into unforseen complications. It was also never planned as a suicide mission. It went awry. When Saya asked Sherman why he agreed to the operation, he said "Because I like Ordano juice" (a declisious beverage that is available only in the Argon Federation, but not usually on Earth). Obviously, that was a BS answer by Hiatu, but it stopped Saya from asking any further. Her thoughts were elswhere at that time. Now to the reason why the "canon wobbles". The Encyclopedia was written in 2009 or 2010; in-game events after then haven't made it into it. Half of the Encyclopedia was translated into English by the original Author (me), and half of it by someone else. My translation may have not the best English (because I'm German after all), but it's accurate. The other guys translation may have better English, but it contains inaccuracies. I'm also the author of all five official novels, and a large part of the back lore, but since I wasn't previously a permanent member of the team, I wasn't able to steer the direction of the lore at all times. The guys at Egosoft did their best, though, to coordinate with me from time to time. However, I'm now, as of june, a permanent menber of the team, and we're determined to clean up the Enyclopedia, fill up the blanks, while attempting to retcon as little as possible... :-) Keep up the good work, Captain!
The man himself! Thank you so much for your comment, corrections, and kind words. And congratulations on joining Egosoft full-time! I love the lore you've written and am very excited to hear it's getting the attention it deserves.
Oh boy the guy himself :O Awesome to see you finally joining Ego! Man I'm so happy you guys are commited to continuing the X timeline and lore in general. I had the feeling when X4 came out the story and lore were somewhat dead...
So cool to read this. I just re-read the last 3 official novels again and asked myself about some discrepancies. Really exciting books. I hope at some day you write a new one ^^ By the way, Helge, I always wonder if Siobhan survived after she went into hibernation in the "Blue haired girl" rock opera. Do you have any first-hand info on that? :D
@@kaffeeundsims I first want to write "Nopileos 2" to fill the gap between "Nopileos" and "Yoshiko", but I do have plans for a trilogy of novels that play "one thousand times a thousand days" in the future (you will know what that alludes to :-)) In my brainstorm notes, Siobhan is mentioned as having arrived alive in the Sol system, but Terrans remember her less as a theoretical Quantum physicist than as a biogeneticist (is that a word in English?) Apparently, she used her time well before she went into cryostasis... I do not know yet whether we're going to meet her again. We'll see 🙂
"There are no heroes in [this] war." - I always loved the Lore of x. Not to a small degree thanks to the detail that terra is not good-guy-underdog fighting superpower aliens, but is this elusive hyper-paranoid superpower, with the small problem that the paranoia is not without reason.
Thank you so much for this incredibly informative and expertly assembled video! The information in this is a very pleasant surprise as I was honestly gobsmacked by the beginning to Albion Prelude. It made it seem like there had yet to be a hot war at all save for the seizure of Heretic's End as creating a buffer zone for the Terrans which is a far smaller transgression that what the Terrans actually did. The intro to Albion Prelude made it sound like Saya was convinced that destroying the taurus (likely killing 10s of millions at least!) would somehow prevent an escalation which, at least to me, seemed like it would almost certainly do the exact opposite. This makes sooo much more sense and definitely makes Saya's actions understandable to say nothing of why things turned hot and the motives and methods behind the conflict. Honestly Egosoft should just admit that they didn't have the time and resources to properly adapt the actual events at the time and just retcon Albion Prelude without trying to make it fit. EDIT: I forgot to mention that while I remembered the intro showing the Xenon attack had occurred before the sabotage of the Taurus my confusion was because I did not remember it specifying that the attack was with Winters' Xenon working with the Argon intelligence.
As someone who just started the series with X4- thanks for making a Lore video! A bunch of things in the game are starting to make sense now :) I do have a minor disagreement; Earth joining the Federation would not have made it an "equal" to Argon Prime, it would be just another planet in the Argon Federation, and just another "faction" in the Community of Planets. Earth would never be Argon's equal, it would be subordinated *to* Argon Prime and the CoP. The Terrans would have been giving up their political and military independence and national sovereignty for the status of "Provence" in the Argon Federation. To me that sounds like selling your house to buy a soda- giving up way too much for too little gain.
As best I can tell from the primary sources, all member planets in the Argon Federation are equal to one another, even Argon Prime. They convene their government on Argon Prime, but no one's legal status would change if they convened on some other world in the Federation - Montalaar, for example. So, legally speaking, Federation membership would make Earth the equal of Argon Prime, and the two planets would have equal status in the Community of Planets. There are still a lot of unknowns: what are member planets' obligations to the Federation's central government; what rights do individual Federation planets have within the CoP; would the Federation's name or center of government would have changed if Earth joined; etc. Ultimately I just had to report the sources as faithfully as I could, and the Encyclopedia's word choice was very deliberate here.
@@CptSnuggles07 Very Fair. The Encyclopedia does seem to be written from an "in universe" perspective, and is purposefully vague about certain things. A degree of ambiguity is good for gameplay, allowing the player to take their own perspective on the games events. I do wish the series would be more forward with it's Lore and story. I started my first play through as a Terran and had no idea why half of the Universe hated me. I've been really enjoying your videos, you do a good job explaining things. If you were ever thinking about making a Lore series- I would watch it. :)
Very well done, I like how you classify which source material and extra's are in the franchise. Thanks for the lore video, this never gets old ^^ Have fun Captain Snuggles
Very seldomly leave comments, but this was such a well-produced, well put-together video. Hope to see many more like it on this channel, both in terms of lore and gameplay! :)
i love this. i have been playing the X series since the first game and it always bugged me as to why saya destroyed the Torus and why she died doing it.
Amazing video. You kept my attention through the whole of the story. In my current X4 Foundations 7.0 game the Argon is invading Zyarth's space and murdering everyone. I have good standing with both so I'm not intervening. All I can do Is (once I have more money) buy all Split schematics. The way it is going Zyarth's Patriarchy won't last much longer. Also the Xenon are destroying their stations, sometimes even ignoring my ships attacking them. Almost looks like a concerted effort to bring the Patriarchy down.
I saw a 40 min lore video by one of my new favorite X4 content creators. Havent even started it yet but im def gonna grab some popcorns for this one. (Still catching up on your new E variant destroyer video)
* *Corrections Thread* * Please post any corrections here so that viewers can find them all in one place. Please cite sources from the main timeline. And please be aware that even within the main timeline there may be some sources that contradict one another, especially when looking at things like NPC dialogue. If a piece of info is contradicted by an equal or stronger source, it won't make the cut. Corrections that are verified and Snuggles-approved will be marked with a heart. Thank you in advance for your contributions!
First correction (originally submitted by @FortuneHunters): at 7:05, I say "In 2115, the first CPU ship gained self-awareness." I simplified that a bit too much. It would be more accurate to say "In 2115, the Second Terraformer Fleet began a pattern of erratic behavior, outwardly manifesting their previously-internal drift towards hostility and self-awareness." The story here is that AGI experts on Earth ran some calculations and realized that there was imminent danger of the Terraformer fleets going rogue, potentially with violent results. They rushed out a patch to install a self-destruct command, but a dissenter, Marteen Winters, modified the patch at the last second to prevent it from being installed. His modification had the desired effect of blocking the patch, but it also had the unintended effect of disabling the Terraformers' "sandbox", which was an internal software environment in which their self-evolving AGI could test out new behaviors. Without the internal sandbox, the AGI had to test its new behaviors externally. Little tests like "I wonder what would happen if I lobbed a giant asteroid at Earth". As evidenced by the calculations of Earth's experts and the later behavior of the Xenon, the Terraformers would have become both self-aware and hostile anyway, possibly not long after 2115. The X Encyclopedia is very clear on that point. But the botched patch allowed them to manifest those behaviors early. Source: X Encyclopedia C-10-12, C-26-27, I-30
@@CptSnuggles07 27:35 The image used on the top left is of Miri Mariani. The redhead character that plays in X3 Reunion. The image is often wrongly associated with Saya, who had dark hair.
@@Ketraar The portraits of Saya and Elena came straight from the X Encyclopedia. Egosoft has been known to take some liberties with their character designs (e.g., Ban Danna), so I wouldn't be surprised if they recycled one or both of the portraits for other space ladies.
I always been frustated by the lack of in game plots concerning this second terraformer war. But, as you said, there is big holes in this part of X Universe story. PS: I Hate Saya Kho. A traitor to the humanity!😛
Most games are developed first, with the story being hastily added towards the end of development. X lore appears to be exactly this: a hodge-podge of different narratives and writers, spanning over 20 years of franchise expansion, all trying to contrive meaning to a universe that was always conceived as a commercial gaming product, not a story. I've played X since the first release, yet was utterly ignorant of the universe's lore. Thank you for attempting to provide clarity, to a confusing and often clumsy story.
Hey, thank you for putting this together. I'd read the wiki and such but it was nice to have all of it compiled together into a single entertaining narrative. I didn't know the connection between the Khos and the rest for example, and I enjoy that despite the plot holes. That said, my 2 cents: The Terrans are xenophobic authoritarians, yes, and maybe if they had more diplomatic savvy things might have taken a less tragic course. However, I do think they have a self-evident superiority going for them, as well as obvious concerns about being weighed down by the community of planets that it's not unreasonable for them to refuse joining. Additionally, without the sovereignty violation sparking a war the chance exists that Winters and AGI research would have found another crisis to exploit Argon naivette as to the extent of the threat posed by AI, and we would have a different resurgence of AI research and drone production. Either way the actual course of events I think you can say legitimized their fears, and the disastrous consequences for Earth proves their abundance of caution "right" in the end - not to mention the "creators" of the jump network also sharing their view that AI poses an existential threat beyond anything the meanie-beanie Terrans and their CIA meddling could ever do giving the "ends vs means" moral arithmetic a powerful nudge in the Terran's favor.
I actually don't think either the Terrans or the Argon are "right" in their approach to the Xenon. No one except the Ancients fully understand the scope of the Xenon territories or the level of their technological advancement. The Ancients have kept the vast majority of Xenon sectors within the Jump Gate Network sealed off, and the infestation has spread beyond the Network as well. And even 200 years before X4, some Xenon groups could field tech far more advanced than anything anyone possesses in the X4 era (stellar manipulator). Point being, defeating the Xenon will require major technological breakthroughs and, IF it's even achievable through conventional warfare, will also require a massive military campaign with forces well in excess of all major X4 factions' navies combined. The Terrans have a powerful military-industrial complex and a strong anti-Xenon doctrine, but they're actively stifling technological advancement and haven't achieved any major breakthroughs since the X-Shuttle 200 years ago; if anything, they've regressed since then. Meanwhile, the Argon are maintaining the freedom to innovate and forging strong alliances, but their forces suffer from constant attrition, and they lack the focus to direct their technological or military efforts at the heart of the Xenon problem. The factions are going to have to resolve their differences and work together if they ever want to actually defeat the Xenon.
Thank you for the time and effort you put into this video. I am a very new fan of these games and this setting, I recently watched Perun starting a let’s play of X4 and I’m thinking about trying the games myself. So I wanted to learn more about them and the lore, your videos made that much easier. With that being said and with the outlook of a very new fan of this very messy lore and setting. The Terrans were absolutely in the wrong and mostly deserved what happened to them. You don’t start a agressive war of conquest then push your opponent into a corner where they are fighting for their lives then expect them to hold back if fate offers them a weapon to strike back. The Commomwealth never asked for that war and I highly doubt they would have ever used AI as weapons if they hadn’t been invaded and almost wiped out.
I love that Perun is playing this game. I watch his non-gaming videos pretty regularly. This seems like the perfect franchise for him! I don't disagree with your view of the war, but just for context, I do think the Terrans are meant to evoke some level of sympathy. I've previously described them as "pathetic in the Shakespearean sense". They are antagonistic and deeply flawed, which leads them to cause all sorts of problems for themselves and everyone around them, but they ended up this way almost entirely as a result of their one bad decision to deploy hyperintelligent self-replicating murderbots. They've spent almost 1,000 years trying to make up for that mistake, but they always fail due to their own character flaws, then those failures deepen their flaws, etc etc. That doesn't excuse their antagonism, but it might make it a little bit more understandable. Welcome to the X Universe!
@@CptSnuggles07 Thank you very much for the welcome and the response! It’s deeply appreciated. It really does fit him so well and I’m really interested to see where he goes with it. I understand where you’re coming from completely, I very much agree with you that the Terran Protectorate has a strong feeling of classic tragedy about them. Like you said they had the chance to be the galaxies savors but their own trauma and paranoia drove them to make the worst possible choice and become the villains instead. It is a very compelling story and it actually makes the X universe more interesting than more cookie cutter setting. I have a bad habit of seeing the world a bit too much in black and white rather than shades of grey, it is something I’m working on, so that’s where my view came from.
I do like to take an approach that the history recorded in a game universe is flawed like real history. So the different versions recorded by the different factions are flawed by the limited Intel and propaganda. So the discrepancies come from the imperfect recording of history in song.
This is further backed up with things like dragging the lore out of long derelict data vaults and such in the course of gameplay. Lots and lots of collecting data and potentially letting the ship computer's chatgpt equivalent piece together a translation into modern language and viewpoint.
Gota fix you here: The un-tested update caused xenon to get sentient and start attacking humans. As in albion prelude there are terraformer ships with no update that happened and player can drive them. Torus was destroyed by hacking and overloading it with virus. And they had inside help.
Thank you for this video! I tried to get into the X lore but I just couldn't. Too many holes and not the interesting kind but the annoying and confusing kind. I really wanted to like it, the different races especially have so much potential but if I can't piece anything cohesive together then I just won't bother anymore, unfortunately.
Wow, that's cool! I guess it's the typical Egosoft moment, if you don't like something they made - give them a couple years. But hey, that means they're constantly improving so I'm all for that!
What AGI crime could the Argon have committed to warrant an attack from the terrans? Argon's military Xenon missions in X4: So we have this group of rogue scientists experimenting with xenon technology, you need to take them out. Yes we know it's happened like 300 times already, and no we can't be bothered to have the actual police go after them.
Funny how things work... I never played any other game from the X series besides X4, and to me all this is like ancient history, as the roman empire is ancient history irl, i feel like i am a person from a different time.
Thank you, that was so interesting. I had no idea of most of these things and I played since X:BtF .... Is it known what happens to Brennan and his son Julian after X3:Reunion?
Prior to the start of the Second Terraformer War, Kyle's last known location was Earth, and Julian was still listed as "in service with the Argon Federation". Unfortunately, there was no further info in any of the sources I referenced for this video.
@@CptSnuggles07 I think the last we hear of Julian is in X3TC, in the Hub Plot. If i remember right, the player finds a wreckage with a blackbox, indicating that Julian and, i think Bala Gi?, found the Xenon Hub but then disappeared. Thats the last i know of Jules. Its been "a few" years since i was there. so take it with a grain of salt.
The Albion Prelude intro does use Xenon fighter models. The Beryll fleet used Terraformer tech, not Xenon, so the drones probably would have been stylistically similar to the F.
Ok, this explains why we dont See the Kho family anymore and fixes some gaps I didnt understand between X3 and X4 but I still have questions. what happened to the Brennan family?
The X Encyclopedia says Kyle Brennan returned to Earth but that "what befell him during the Second Terraformer War and his whereabouts since then remain unknown." It lists Julian as "in service with the Argon Federation" at the time of the jump gate shutdown, but there are also no details about exactly what he's been up to.
@@CptSnuggles07 The last mention of Julian Brennen is along with boron scientist Mi Ton, if I remember, they are mentioned in a log you find when tracing their expedition in a Xenon sector - They found the gate hub installation that you can take ownership of in X3 Terran Conflict. And probably built the interface on the Gate hub to interact with it. But noone heard of them after. (Conjecture from me: The Hub is devastated and its cities in ruin - probably from millennia ago, they might be lost somewhere in it exploring - or Some Sohnnen guardian of the installation took them away (unless they were fried by the Xenon, but that would be anti-climactic)) - At least I´d like to think that Julian would pursue mysteries of gate network origins after coming in personal contact with Sohnnen (X3 Reunion) instead of taking part in war between human brethren.
I’m just getting into X4, and it’s my first of the series. (I _tried_ to like X3:TC but…no, just no. For whatever reason it didn’t stick.) I played Timelines and most of the time was just like “what?”
What about the two 'good' CPU ships? I don't mean the DECA in Aldrin on which Winters hibernated. I mean the two that 'escaped' the known jumpgate network with the help of... probably the Sohnen? Their names were made up of 4 characters, letters and numbers. I think they were something like EFAA and DEFF? Don't remember if they were part of one of the books or an Add-On plot for X3. It's probably been over a decade since I read the books and played X3:TC.
"TF/CPU #efaa was to be absorbed by the Ancient's presence cloud, continuing its existence inside of it indefinitely. TF/CPU #deff, however, was eventually destroyed by Yoshiko Nehla." - X Encyclopedia C-23-24. I'm still a little hazy on exactly what the presence cloud is, but basically #efaa transcended its physical form and its consciousness will live on forever alongside other notable beings from the X Universe.
@@CptSnuggles07 Thank you! I still hope that the Xenon will eventually develop past their current 'pre-sapient' status. But... considering what happened with #efaa, every AI that gets to this point would probably be removed by the Ancients? So... the Xenon as a whole could possibly be artificially kept at their current point of development regarding intelligence and self-awareness. Kinda strange behavior, since the Ancients seem to regard the Xenon as a genuine threat to organic life. Did they perhaps 'absorb' #efaa into their 'presence cloud' to better understand how Xenon tick? To figure out how to deal with them or help them along in a potential future 'uplift'? But honestly, I don't really expect coherent motivations in the X-Universe plot anymore. :D
@@kehrbaer90 Yep. X Encyclopedia D-29: "In an attempt to learn their secrets, the Ancients began to study the design and evolutionary model of the Terraformers in detail after virtualising several thousand VN units, including many TF/CPU ships and the self-aware TF/CPU ship #efaa." I imagine there's a twofold issue with the Ancients formulating a "solution" to the Xenon problem. First, the Ancients operate on an enormous scale of space and time. Them eradicating the Xenon is like humans eradicating a virus or bacteria; they have no way of killing them through conventional means because they're simply too small. They have to do tons of research and come up with some sort of tool to deal with them systematically. And second, the Xenon aren't monolithic; they have numerous "sub-species" in various stages of evolution, meaning the Ancients need to understand their entire evolutionary process as opposed to just the current state of a single group. So killing them off is less like eradicating a single pathogen and more like eradicating every single strain of the flu all at once. That is all my interpretation though.
@@CptSnuggles07 I think the ancients also don't want to actually exterminate the Xenon. I believe it was mentioned somewhere that they give every sapient species the right to ascend to a higher plane of existence, so they just want to prevent biological and synthetic species from wiping each other out.
A) I think it's likely that Albion Prelude intro is Terran propaganda B) Jumpdrives, they all had jumpdrives back then. Terran fleet should have been able to jump back. plotholes plotholes plotholes
I'm not sure, I haven't played X3FL yet. My understanding is that its purpose is just to let players experience the chaotic universe of the post-shutdown era, as opposed to telling a cohesive story. Based on that, I'd assume that the plot of X3FL isn't part of the X4 era canon, or at least isn't a major part of it. But someone else might know better than me.
The song title is "Wings of the Wind (Variations on a theme of Borodin)". It's from the X4: Cradle of Humanity soundtrack. Not sure when/where it plays in-game.
@@CptSnuggles07 That songs seems to borrow a verse from a theme song in Rah Xhephon, an anime that aired years ago. I wondered if it was a remix of it or one that came earlier than that. I forget the name of it but the similarity are uncanny.
I'm not familiar with Rah Xhephon, but it's very possible that the composer borrowed from it. Egosoft isn't always subtle about their sources of inspiration!
Even with your best attempts to clarify the lore, this Video just highlights the lack of a strict Timeline from Egosoft. An official timeline if you will. I can't believe that the Terrans wouldn't be able to bring their Navy back to defend their Homeworld in 2 years. 2 years is a long time. Never underestimate 24 months/ 730 Days. Obviously this is just another lore hole. Not a big one mind you, but still there. The Torus Eternal was destroyed, either by the Terraformers/Beryll or Saya Ko.
Yes, it is extremely frustrating. I don't want to do another "deep lore" video ever again, although I probably will anyway. You mentioned "strict timeline" and "official timeline". There genuinely is an official timeline, but the problem is that Egosoft isn't strict at all with how it's developed or how it's portrayed in-game. That's led to a lot of plot holes and a lot of not-so-healthy disagreement within the community, and also a couple of gray hairs for me.
The Jumpgates are deactivating and Earth is cut off. From the Book Wächter der Erde and translated to english. He paused briefly to look at everyone present, then continued: "Two days ago, twenty-nine enemy ships entered the solar system, most of them terraformers. After that, the connection to the other side was lost. It has not yet been restored." Elena was suddenly jolted. She jumped to her feet. "Excuse me?" "You see, Kho-san," the general concluded with a sour smile, "even if we wanted to help, any help would come too late. The solar system is isolated." "How far had the retreat of our forces progressed, General?" Lea Singer spoke up. "Unfortunately, not very far yet, Major Singer. Personnel twenty-seven percent, fleet only about eight percent." Lea gasped for breath. For a moment, she forgot that she was talking to her highest superior. "Are you kidding? Eight percent? Of - how much? Around three hundred? Three hundred cruisers? Earth is however not defenceless. Been years since I ready the Book but the fate of the USC Africa is burnt into my brain. The USC Africa is the only Carrier in the Sol System and is being swarmed by a sea of drones. The drones unable to penetrate the shields start throwing themselves into the thrusters which on mass leads to a anti matter Explosion as the Africa is forced to fire its thrusters to prevent its decaying Orbit. If you have any further questions feel free to ask.
@@Pkkno07 Fascinating, thank you very much for the translation! That does make much more sense in terms of Earth's tactics. It seems like the timing of Lea's death and the start of the jump gate shutdown are slightly different in the novel compared to the X Encyclopedia. The differences aren't hard to reconcile, but it is strange considering they were written by the same author at roughly the same time. Did I correctly summarize the novel version of Saya Kho's death?
@@CptSnuggles07 The Events of the Torus Eternal are correct. My reading is that Saya did not intend suicide. Been ages since I read the book so I can not remember her exact motivation for destryoing the Torus and what she hoped to achieve by doing it. Kinda want to read the books again. These are the last moments of Saya also from the Book "Wächter der Erde". So you can reach your own conclussion. Excuse the formatting. Translation via Google because Deepl will only allow up to 1500 Characters. In the last tether station, what Saya had been expecting and fearing all day finally happened. As Hiatu returned from a control cabinet with a module under his arm and walked past the terminal, he noticed the lock symbol at the top of the display panel. "Don't touch anything," he said, pointing to the symbol. "A silent alarm has been triggered. The system has just been locked. They may already know which tether station we are in. If not, just don't touch anything, okay?" "Does that mean our plan has failed?" "No!" Hiatu shouted from the other end of the room. He was already kneeling in front of a cabinet where he inserted the module. "My changes completely bypass the system, so they can lock whatever they want. Unless, of course, ATF and USC are right outside the door." Saya forced herself to calm down, as she had learned in the countless hours behind the controls of her fighter jet in the Argonian fleet. They had no weapons. If the ATF showed up, there was very little they could do about it. "Okay, done. Saya, that's it!" Hiatu called after a few minutes. He plugged in the optical link, switched it to the onboard power, and came over to her. "We have to get out of the station before we disconnect the tethers. Otherwise we'll be blown into space." "Someone's going to blow us into space anyway," she replied. "We're about to destroy the damn Torus Aeternal!" "It will be days or weeks before the Earth government can search the segments for survivors, Saya. The chaos will be indescribable. They won't find us, you can count on it. Nobody will die." Saya nodded. "Let's go then." She opened the door and looked around carefully. As with all the other tether stations, there was little public traffic here, especially since the tethers had been shut down for more than a day. There was no one to be seen. Saya climbed into the mobility scooter and turned to look at Hiatu, who was just leaving the station. Suddenly the area immediately in front of the station was filled with figures in black combat uniforms carrying projectile weapons with their safety off. Adrenaline ripped through Saya's body. "Sherman, back!" she screamed as she jumped out of the mobility scooter and stumbled back to the control room. "Stop!" someone shouted, then a shot rang out. Saya felt the projectile whizz past her head and hit the wall. She reached the entrance to the control room and dove in with a well-aimed jump. More shots were fired. They easily pierced the closing door and bounced off control cabinets and the observation window ten meters away. "Shit, shit, what are we going to do now?" screamed Sherman Hiatu. The technician hid behind a control cabinet. "Where is the trigger?" Saya asked as she crawled over to him. The door to the control room opened, boots thudded on the floor. "What?" Hiatu snapped. "Are you crazy? Are you crazy? Do you want to die? Do you want to die?" "Yes." She wrestled with him to get to the control device that he had tucked into the leg pocket of his pants, but he was surprisingly strong and fought back with all his might. "Come out, Saya Kho," someone shouted. "Hands over your head and get out. You have five seconds, then we'll get you." "I'd think about it if I were you, man!" she shouted. She cast a cautious glance through the gaps between the modules mounted in the control cabinet. "One step closer and the torus is history!" Hiatu was still fighting back. Panting, Saya hit him in the face; he fell unconscious. With one grip, she held the control device in her hand. An antenna symbol indicated the connection to the on-board network. "Then you're history too," said the man, but stopped. "That would be a shame, wouldn't it," she said, to stall the man. She definitely didn't want to give the impression that she was going to blow herself up. They would open fire immediately, regardless of losses, and the gaps between the modules were large enough for projectiles to reach them. The system reported "ready" on the tiny display. Saya pressed the button that connected the five tether stations to the trigger via the on-board network. From now on, it would only take minutes until the on-board computer discovered the data connection and switched it off. She hesitated for a second before sending the command to uncouple the tethers. But then she boldly pressed the send button. "Don't!" Sherman Hiatu wheezed weakly next to her. "I don't want to die!" "Too late," she said quietly, then straightened up. "Here I am!" she shouted. "I'm going over to the window now. I'm unarmed. I suggest you come over and watch the spectacle." Five men stormed around the control cabinet, weapons at the ready. "On the floor, on the floor!" A crashing blow shook the entire room. Saya stumbled, but caught herself. The men shouted in confusion. Outside, a tether cable came rushing towards them, slipped under the station... and lost its grip on the frictionless guide, which had now opened. It slipped out, whipping around like an angry snake. The guides in the four neighboring segments had also opened. Tethers entangled themselves, separated again, splintered. Fragments shot off, some into free space, others hurtled down to Earth. The control room shook and wobbled, the noise was indescribable. Saya clung to the railing in front of the window and stared out in icy rigidity. The torus segments belonging to the five manipulated stations began to rise into a higher orbit. The orbital imbalance spread like a wave, soon reaching distant segments, which now also uncoupled their tethers and broke the bonds. The Torus Aeternal broke, the entire, massive station disintegrated! Partitions hissed down and sealed off adjacent segments hermetically. The forces acting on the transition zone became so strong that the glass of the window began to shatter. Saya took a step back and noticed that she was floating. The gravity generators had stopped working. Saya was shaking all over. "I'm sorry, Elena, I'm really sorry!" she screamed in sudden, wild fear of death, then the metal glass pane burst. Saya Kho was whirled into space.
I know one of them is Wings of the Wind, from the Cradle of Humanity soundtrack. There are a couple of others, all from the X4 soundtrack, but I can't remember all the track titles.
A hyper-advanced civilization that's transcended their physical forms. "Godlike" is an understatement. They created the Sohnen, who themselves are pretty godlike, to look after their affairs in the physical realm. They have great plans for the supercluster, which were thrown off somewhat by the rapid technological advances of Old Earth. Oh, and they're trying to fight off an invasion by a civilization several orders of magnitude more advanced than them. The war is fought on such a massive scale of space and time that we can't even perceive it. Real cosmic horror stuff.
@@peppershakergaming3793 The X Encyclopedia Section D deals entirely with the Ancients. That's where I've gotten almost all my info on them. It isn't exactly light reading, but it's organized pretty well.
Man, don't you just love it when authors throw popular characters into the meat grinder for some cheap drama? As for the initial Terran attack, is it just me or does it sound a lot like the invasion of Iraq? As in, a completely unjustified war of aggression with the excuse that the target had WMDs (or in this case AGI) that needed to be taken out. The Beryl would be the Al-Qaeda in this analogy I suppose.
I read it as being more Cold War influenced, but you might be on to something. Iraq was certainly on everyone's mind around the time this story was being written.
@@CptSnuggles07 The only thing missing to make the analogy perfect is a singular incident which kicked the hornet's nest and actually got the Terrans riled up enough to take the actions they did. Maybe a rogue AGI experiment gone wrong or something like that. The fact that they apparently just went for it for shits and giggles strikes me as a clear case of bad writing tbh. Like, all the elements to make this a morally grey conflict are there and yet, the way things were actually written makes the Terrans look like an evil (and stupid) empire. It would be one thing if they were actually supposed to be a villainous faction, but from the way I've seen them acting in X4 so far that was clearly not the intention...
@@nineflames2863 The Terran hornet's nest is basically "permanently kicked" as a result of the First Terraformer War. It was a long time ago, but that shared trauma is the foundation of Terran society, so it remains fresh in their collective consciousness. As for their portrayal in X4, Egosoft has tried to make all the factions a bit more subdued compared to X3, at least on the surface. If you dig into the Terran Protectorate's lore and storylines, you find that the Intervention Corps has little regard for human life and can be straight up genocidal at times, the Terran Secret Service is still idiotic and tends to sabotage the Protectorate's anti-Xenon mandate, the central government tends towards the darker side of moral neutrality, and the Solborn Militia can be either neutral or good depending on the player's choices. In all fairness, most X4 factions are like that: neutral on the surface, with their best and worst traits only coming out when you dig deep into their storylines. X3-era lore was way more heavy-handed with its morality.
Just remember, if it wasn't for Terran arrogance and poor foresight to begin with when they basically created the Xenon, we wouldn't have a game to play.
Awesome video! Can't praise you enough for putting together all the puzzles pieces in such a coherent manner! Listening to it while taking a walk gave me the goosebumps. It's so much darker than I remembered it...
However, I do have a few corrections, and an explanation why the information is at times disparate.
First, the corrections: Saya Kho was NOT married. I have no clue who translated that part of the Encyclopedia and what gave him the idea, but it's not in the original German version! It frustrates me when translators inject their own ideas into things they have no business injecting anything into... This particular mistake has been bugging me for ~15 years.
So no, they weren't married. They didn't even know each other personally before they met up on the Torus. Sherman Hiatu was an (Earthborn) covert agent for the Argon. Furthermore, they did not come up with the plan to disable the Torus by themselves; it was a pre-planned and meticuously executed series of events... that ran into unforseen complications. It was also never planned as a suicide mission. It went awry.
When Saya asked Sherman why he agreed to the operation, he said "Because I like Ordano juice" (a declisious beverage that is available only in the Argon Federation, but not usually on Earth). Obviously, that was a BS answer by Hiatu, but it stopped Saya from asking any further. Her thoughts were elswhere at that time.
Now to the reason why the "canon wobbles". The Encyclopedia was written in 2009 or 2010; in-game events after then haven't made it into it. Half of the Encyclopedia was translated into English by the original Author (me), and half of it by someone else. My translation may have not the best English (because I'm German after all), but it's accurate. The other guys translation may have better English, but it contains inaccuracies. I'm also the author of all five official novels, and a large part of the back lore, but since I wasn't previously a permanent member of the team, I wasn't able to steer the direction of the lore at all times. The guys at Egosoft did their best, though, to coordinate with me from time to time.
However, I'm now, as of june, a permanent menber of the team, and we're determined to clean up the Enyclopedia, fill up the blanks, while attempting to retcon as little as possible... :-)
Keep up the good work, Captain!
The man himself! Thank you so much for your comment, corrections, and kind words. And congratulations on joining Egosoft full-time! I love the lore you've written and am very excited to hear it's getting the attention it deserves.
Oh boy the guy himself :O Awesome to see you finally joining Ego! Man I'm so happy you guys are commited to continuing the X timeline and lore in general. I had the feeling when X4 came out the story and lore were somewhat dead...
So cool to read this.
I just re-read the last 3 official novels again and asked myself about some discrepancies. Really exciting books. I hope at some day you write a new one ^^
By the way, Helge, I always wonder if Siobhan survived after she went into hibernation in the "Blue haired girl" rock opera. Do you have any first-hand info on that? :D
@@kaffeeundsims I first want to write "Nopileos 2" to fill the gap between "Nopileos" and "Yoshiko", but I do have plans for a trilogy of novels that play "one thousand times a thousand days" in the future (you will know what that alludes to :-)) In my brainstorm notes, Siobhan is mentioned as having arrived alive in the Sol system, but Terrans remember her less as a theoretical Quantum physicist than as a biogeneticist (is that a word in English?) Apparently, she used her time well before she went into cryostasis... I do not know yet whether we're going to meet her again. We'll see 🙂
By the way will we get an updated version of the X encyclopedia PDF eventually or just the one ingame?
The Albion prelude intro was just an Argon propaganda movie 'based on a true story' directed by Michael Bay.
"There are no heroes in [this] war." - I always loved the Lore of x. Not to a small degree thanks to the detail that terra is not good-guy-underdog fighting superpower aliens, but is this elusive hyper-paranoid superpower, with the small problem that the paranoia is not without reason.
Thanks for putting this all together.
Thank you so much for this incredibly informative and expertly assembled video!
The information in this is a very pleasant surprise as I was honestly gobsmacked by the beginning to Albion Prelude. It made it seem like there had yet to be a hot war at all save for the seizure of Heretic's End as creating a buffer zone for the Terrans which is a far smaller transgression that what the Terrans actually did. The intro to Albion Prelude made it sound like Saya was convinced that destroying the taurus (likely killing 10s of millions at least!) would somehow prevent an escalation which, at least to me, seemed like it would almost certainly do the exact opposite. This makes sooo much more sense and definitely makes Saya's actions understandable to say nothing of why things turned hot and the motives and methods behind the conflict.
Honestly Egosoft should just admit that they didn't have the time and resources to properly adapt the actual events at the time and just retcon Albion Prelude without trying to make it fit.
EDIT: I forgot to mention that while I remembered the intro showing the Xenon attack had occurred before the sabotage of the Taurus my confusion was because I did not remember it specifying that the attack was with Winters' Xenon working with the Argon intelligence.
As someone who just started the series with X4- thanks for making a Lore video! A bunch of things in the game are starting to make sense now :) I do have a minor disagreement;
Earth joining the Federation would not have made it an "equal" to Argon Prime, it would be just another planet in the Argon Federation, and just another "faction" in the Community of Planets. Earth would never be Argon's equal, it would be subordinated *to* Argon Prime and the CoP. The Terrans would have been giving up their political and military independence and national sovereignty for the status of "Provence" in the Argon Federation. To me that sounds like selling your house to buy a soda- giving up way too much for too little gain.
As best I can tell from the primary sources, all member planets in the Argon Federation are equal to one another, even Argon Prime. They convene their government on Argon Prime, but no one's legal status would change if they convened on some other world in the Federation - Montalaar, for example. So, legally speaking, Federation membership would make Earth the equal of Argon Prime, and the two planets would have equal status in the Community of Planets. There are still a lot of unknowns: what are member planets' obligations to the Federation's central government; what rights do individual Federation planets have within the CoP; would the Federation's name or center of government would have changed if Earth joined; etc. Ultimately I just had to report the sources as faithfully as I could, and the Encyclopedia's word choice was very deliberate here.
@@CptSnuggles07 Very Fair. The Encyclopedia does seem to be written from an "in universe" perspective, and is purposefully vague about certain things. A degree of ambiguity is good for gameplay, allowing the player to take their own perspective on the games events. I do wish the series would be more forward with it's Lore and story. I started my first play through as a Terran and had no idea why half of the Universe hated me. I've been really enjoying your videos, you do a good job explaining things. If you were ever thinking about making a Lore series- I would watch it. :)
Very well done, I like how you classify which source material and extra's are in the franchise.
Thanks for the lore video, this never gets old ^^
Have fun Captain Snuggles
Very seldomly leave comments, but this was such a well-produced, well put-together video. Hope to see many more like it on this channel, both in terms of lore and gameplay! :)
Please more X lore videos! Love your voice, style of telling and your editing you deserve so much more views and subs!
With your research you therefore earned your Bachelors degree in X-Universe History. Here you go! Well done!
🎖🏅🥇
Been playing this game for years. Back since Albion. Thank you for all this😊
i love this. i have been playing the X series since the first game and it always bugged me as to why saya destroyed the Torus and why she died doing it.
Amazing video. You kept my attention through the whole of the story. In my current X4 Foundations 7.0 game the Argon is invading Zyarth's space and murdering everyone. I have good standing with both so I'm not intervening. All I can do Is (once I have more money) buy all Split schematics. The way it is going Zyarth's Patriarchy won't last much longer. Also the Xenon are destroying their stations, sometimes even ignoring my ships attacking them. Almost looks like a concerted effort to bring the Patriarchy down.
I saw a 40 min lore video by one of my new favorite X4 content creators. Havent even started it yet but im def gonna grab some popcorns for this one. (Still catching up on your new E variant destroyer video)
* *Corrections Thread* *
Please post any corrections here so that viewers can find them all in one place. Please cite sources from the main timeline. And please be aware that even within the main timeline there may be some sources that contradict one another, especially when looking at things like NPC dialogue. If a piece of info is contradicted by an equal or stronger source, it won't make the cut.
Corrections that are verified and Snuggles-approved will be marked with a heart. Thank you in advance for your contributions!
First correction (originally submitted by @FortuneHunters): at 7:05, I say "In 2115, the first CPU ship gained self-awareness." I simplified that a bit too much. It would be more accurate to say "In 2115, the Second Terraformer Fleet began a pattern of erratic behavior, outwardly manifesting their previously-internal drift towards hostility and self-awareness."
The story here is that AGI experts on Earth ran some calculations and realized that there was imminent danger of the Terraformer fleets going rogue, potentially with violent results. They rushed out a patch to install a self-destruct command, but a dissenter, Marteen Winters, modified the patch at the last second to prevent it from being installed. His modification had the desired effect of blocking the patch, but it also had the unintended effect of disabling the Terraformers' "sandbox", which was an internal software environment in which their self-evolving AGI could test out new behaviors. Without the internal sandbox, the AGI had to test its new behaviors externally. Little tests like "I wonder what would happen if I lobbed a giant asteroid at Earth".
As evidenced by the calculations of Earth's experts and the later behavior of the Xenon, the Terraformers would have become both self-aware and hostile anyway, possibly not long after 2115. The X Encyclopedia is very clear on that point. But the botched patch allowed them to manifest those behaviors early.
Source: X Encyclopedia C-10-12, C-26-27, I-30
@@CptSnuggles07 27:35 The image used on the top left is of Miri Mariani. The redhead character that plays in X3 Reunion. The image is often wrongly associated with Saya, who had dark hair.
@@Ketraar The portraits of Saya and Elena came straight from the X Encyclopedia. Egosoft has been known to take some liberties with their character designs (e.g., Ban Danna), so I wouldn't be surprised if they recycled one or both of the portraits for other space ladies.
I always been frustated by the lack of in game plots concerning this second terraformer war.
But, as you said, there is big holes in this part of X Universe story.
PS: I Hate Saya Kho. A traitor to the humanity!😛
Most games are developed first, with the story being hastily added towards the end of development. X lore appears to be exactly this: a hodge-podge of different narratives and writers, spanning over 20 years of franchise expansion, all trying to contrive meaning to a universe that was always conceived as a commercial gaming product, not a story.
I've played X since the first release, yet was utterly ignorant of the universe's lore. Thank you for attempting to provide clarity, to a confusing and often clumsy story.
thank you for awesome X universe history :-) I have play X Universe since beginning X beyound frontier 1999
Thank you for all the work and putting this together for all of us.
This was very interesting.
Thanks for the video and all the hard work! Love your X4 content.
Hey, thank you for putting this together. I'd read the wiki and such but it was nice to have all of it compiled together into a single entertaining narrative. I didn't know the connection between the Khos and the rest for example, and I enjoy that despite the plot holes. That said, my 2 cents: The Terrans are xenophobic authoritarians, yes, and maybe if they had more diplomatic savvy things might have taken a less tragic course. However, I do think they have a self-evident superiority going for them, as well as obvious concerns about being weighed down by the community of planets that it's not unreasonable for them to refuse joining. Additionally, without the sovereignty violation sparking a war the chance exists that Winters and AGI research would have found another crisis to exploit Argon naivette as to the extent of the threat posed by AI, and we would have a different resurgence of AI research and drone production. Either way the actual course of events I think you can say legitimized their fears, and the disastrous consequences for Earth proves their abundance of caution "right" in the end - not to mention the "creators" of the jump network also sharing their view that AI poses an existential threat beyond anything the meanie-beanie Terrans and their CIA meddling could ever do giving the "ends vs means" moral arithmetic a powerful nudge in the Terran's favor.
I actually don't think either the Terrans or the Argon are "right" in their approach to the Xenon. No one except the Ancients fully understand the scope of the Xenon territories or the level of their technological advancement. The Ancients have kept the vast majority of Xenon sectors within the Jump Gate Network sealed off, and the infestation has spread beyond the Network as well. And even 200 years before X4, some Xenon groups could field tech far more advanced than anything anyone possesses in the X4 era (stellar manipulator). Point being, defeating the Xenon will require major technological breakthroughs and, IF it's even achievable through conventional warfare, will also require a massive military campaign with forces well in excess of all major X4 factions' navies combined. The Terrans have a powerful military-industrial complex and a strong anti-Xenon doctrine, but they're actively stifling technological advancement and haven't achieved any major breakthroughs since the X-Shuttle 200 years ago; if anything, they've regressed since then. Meanwhile, the Argon are maintaining the freedom to innovate and forging strong alliances, but their forces suffer from constant attrition, and they lack the focus to direct their technological or military efforts at the heart of the Xenon problem. The factions are going to have to resolve their differences and work together if they ever want to actually defeat the Xenon.
Thank you for the time and effort you put into this video. I am a very new fan of these games and this setting, I recently watched Perun starting a let’s play of X4 and I’m thinking about trying the games myself. So I wanted to learn more about them and the lore, your videos made that much easier.
With that being said and with the outlook of a very new fan of this very messy lore and setting. The Terrans were absolutely in the wrong and mostly deserved what happened to them. You don’t start a agressive war of conquest then push your opponent into a corner where they are fighting for their lives then expect them to hold back if fate offers them a weapon to strike back. The Commomwealth never asked for that war and I highly doubt they would have ever used AI as weapons if they hadn’t been invaded and almost wiped out.
I love that Perun is playing this game. I watch his non-gaming videos pretty regularly. This seems like the perfect franchise for him!
I don't disagree with your view of the war, but just for context, I do think the Terrans are meant to evoke some level of sympathy. I've previously described them as "pathetic in the Shakespearean sense". They are antagonistic and deeply flawed, which leads them to cause all sorts of problems for themselves and everyone around them, but they ended up this way almost entirely as a result of their one bad decision to deploy hyperintelligent self-replicating murderbots. They've spent almost 1,000 years trying to make up for that mistake, but they always fail due to their own character flaws, then those failures deepen their flaws, etc etc. That doesn't excuse their antagonism, but it might make it a little bit more understandable.
Welcome to the X Universe!
@@CptSnuggles07 Thank you very much for the welcome and the response! It’s deeply appreciated.
It really does fit him so well and I’m really interested to see where he goes with it.
I understand where you’re coming from completely, I very much agree with you that the Terran Protectorate has a strong feeling of classic tragedy about them. Like you said they had the chance to be the galaxies savors but their own trauma and paranoia drove them to make the worst possible choice and become the villains instead. It is a very compelling story and it actually makes the X universe more interesting than more cookie cutter setting.
I have a bad habit of seeing the world a bit too much in black and white rather than shades of grey, it is something I’m working on, so that’s where my view came from.
Wow. Thank you I wish egosoft had more expansion on the story in x4
I do like to take an approach that the history recorded in a game universe is flawed like real history.
So the different versions recorded by the different factions are flawed by the limited Intel and propaganda.
So the discrepancies come from the imperfect recording of history in song.
*setting
This is further backed up with things like dragging the lore out of long derelict data vaults and such in the course of gameplay. Lots and lots of collecting data and potentially letting the ship computer's chatgpt equivalent piece together a translation into modern language and viewpoint.
Most German Story ever, This video is amazing Thank You
My god thank you, I want more split lore!!! So little
This is great! More lore please!
Great video, thanks!
Thank you for all the research and video
Super Video 🌌🤘❤️!!
Thank you!
Gota fix you here:
The un-tested update caused xenon to get sentient and start attacking humans. As in albion prelude there are terraformer ships with no update that happened and player can drive them.
Torus was destroyed by hacking and overloading it with virus. And they had inside help.
Thanks for the summary. I enjoyed it. O7
Excellent video, please do more on X lore!!!
Thanks a lot, we can See that it has been a lot of work.
the time between X³TC and X4 is to be regarded as a dark age
Finally a good channel.
golden work, thank you! o7!
Thank you for this video!
I tried to get into the X lore but I just couldn't. Too many holes and not the interesting kind but the annoying and confusing kind. I really wanted to like it, the different races especially have so much potential but if I can't piece anything cohesive together then I just won't bother anymore, unfortunately.
Based on the pinned comment, it sounds like Egosoft is working on fixing that!
Wow, that's cool! I guess it's the typical Egosoft moment, if you don't like something they made - give them a couple years. But hey, that means they're constantly improving so I'm all for that!
OG XBTF Xenon Ships had the best design EVER and i loathe their new looks
What AGI crime could the Argon have committed to warrant an attack from the terrans?
Argon's military Xenon missions in X4: So we have this group of rogue scientists experimenting with xenon technology, you need to take them out. Yes we know it's happened like 300 times already, and no we can't be bothered to have the actual police go after them.
More Lore Please.
great job, thanks!
Great job thx a lot !
Funny how things work...
I never played any other game from the X series besides X4, and to me all this is like ancient history, as the roman empire is ancient history irl, i feel like i am a person from a different time.
Nice one!
Thank you, that was so interesting. I had no idea of most of these things and I played since X:BtF .... Is it known what happens to Brennan and his son Julian after X3:Reunion?
Prior to the start of the Second Terraformer War, Kyle's last known location was Earth, and Julian was still listed as "in service with the Argon Federation". Unfortunately, there was no further info in any of the sources I referenced for this video.
@@CptSnuggles07 I think the last we hear of Julian is in X3TC, in the Hub Plot. If i remember right, the player finds a wreckage with a blackbox, indicating that Julian and, i think Bala Gi?, found the Xenon Hub but then disappeared.
Thats the last i know of Jules.
Its been "a few" years since i was there. so take it with a grain of salt.
Aren't those Drones what we now know as Xenon N? They look like them
The Albion Prelude intro does use Xenon fighter models. The Beryll fleet used Terraformer tech, not Xenon, so the drones probably would have been stylistically similar to the F.
Ok, this explains why we dont See the Kho family anymore and fixes some gaps I didnt understand between X3 and X4 but I still have questions.
what happened to the Brennan family?
The X Encyclopedia says Kyle Brennan returned to Earth but that "what befell him during the Second Terraformer War and his whereabouts since then remain unknown." It lists Julian as "in service with the Argon Federation" at the time of the jump gate shutdown, but there are also no details about exactly what he's been up to.
@@CptSnuggles07 The last mention of Julian Brennen is along with boron scientist Mi Ton, if I remember, they are mentioned in a log you find when tracing their expedition in a Xenon sector - They found the gate hub installation that you can take ownership of in X3 Terran Conflict. And probably built the interface on the Gate hub to interact with it. But noone heard of them after. (Conjecture from me: The Hub is devastated and its cities in ruin - probably from millennia ago, they might be lost somewhere in it exploring - or Some Sohnnen guardian of the installation took them away (unless they were fried by the Xenon, but that would be anti-climactic)) - At least I´d like to think that Julian would pursue mysteries of gate network origins after coming in personal contact with Sohnnen (X3 Reunion) instead of taking part in war between human brethren.
I’m just getting into X4, and it’s my first of the series. (I _tried_ to like X3:TC but…no, just no. For whatever reason it didn’t stick.)
I played Timelines and most of the time was just like “what?”
arigatou gozai masu. good job
So Basicly the Ancients where like : so kids enough fun for the next years now let daddy fix your fuck ups
thank you
What about the two 'good' CPU ships? I don't mean the DECA in Aldrin on which Winters hibernated. I mean the two that 'escaped' the known jumpgate network with the help of... probably the Sohnen? Their names were made up of 4 characters, letters and numbers. I think they were something like EFAA and DEFF? Don't remember if they were part of one of the books or an Add-On plot for X3. It's probably been over a decade since I read the books and played X3:TC.
"TF/CPU #efaa was to be absorbed by the Ancient's presence cloud, continuing its existence inside of it indefinitely.
TF/CPU #deff, however, was eventually destroyed by Yoshiko Nehla." - X Encyclopedia C-23-24. I'm still a little hazy on exactly what the presence cloud is, but basically #efaa transcended its physical form and its consciousness will live on forever alongside other notable beings from the X Universe.
@@CptSnuggles07 Thank you!
I still hope that the Xenon will eventually develop past their current 'pre-sapient' status. But... considering what happened with #efaa, every AI that gets to this point would probably be removed by the Ancients? So... the Xenon as a whole could possibly be artificially kept at their current point of development regarding intelligence and self-awareness.
Kinda strange behavior, since the Ancients seem to regard the Xenon as a genuine threat to organic life.
Did they perhaps 'absorb' #efaa into their 'presence cloud' to better understand how Xenon tick? To figure out how to deal with them or help them along in a potential future 'uplift'?
But honestly, I don't really expect coherent motivations in the X-Universe plot anymore. :D
@@kehrbaer90 Yep. X Encyclopedia D-29: "In an attempt to learn their secrets, the Ancients began to study the design and evolutionary model of the Terraformers in detail after virtualising several thousand VN units, including many TF/CPU ships and the self-aware TF/CPU ship #efaa."
I imagine there's a twofold issue with the Ancients formulating a "solution" to the Xenon problem. First, the Ancients operate on an enormous scale of space and time. Them eradicating the Xenon is like humans eradicating a virus or bacteria; they have no way of killing them through conventional means because they're simply too small. They have to do tons of research and come up with some sort of tool to deal with them systematically. And second, the Xenon aren't monolithic; they have numerous "sub-species" in various stages of evolution, meaning the Ancients need to understand their entire evolutionary process as opposed to just the current state of a single group. So killing them off is less like eradicating a single pathogen and more like eradicating every single strain of the flu all at once.
That is all my interpretation though.
@@CptSnuggles07 I think the ancients also don't want to actually exterminate the Xenon. I believe it was mentioned somewhere that they give every sapient species the right to ascend to a higher plane of existence, so they just want to prevent biological and synthetic species from wiping each other out.
A) I think it's likely that Albion Prelude intro is Terran propaganda
B) Jumpdrives, they all had jumpdrives back then. Terran fleet should have been able to jump back.
plotholes plotholes plotholes
The "everyone has jumpdrives" era was wild. I would not have wanted to be a lore writer back then!
Does this also mean that X3FL is non-canon to the main timeline?
I'm not sure, I haven't played X3FL yet. My understanding is that its purpose is just to let players experience the chaotic universe of the post-shutdown era, as opposed to telling a cohesive story. Based on that, I'd assume that the plot of X3FL isn't part of the X4 era canon, or at least isn't a major part of it. But someone else might know better than me.
The song that plays in 7:00. is that inspired by rah xhephon, or is that also adapted from an OG song?
The song title is "Wings of the Wind (Variations on a theme of Borodin)". It's from the X4: Cradle of Humanity soundtrack. Not sure when/where it plays in-game.
@@CptSnuggles07 That songs seems to borrow a verse from a theme song in Rah Xhephon, an anime that aired years ago. I wondered if it was a remix of it or one that came earlier than that. I forget the name of it but the similarity are uncanny.
I'm not familiar with Rah Xhephon, but it's very possible that the composer borrowed from it. Egosoft isn't always subtle about their sources of inspiration!
@@CptSnuggles07The clue is in the X4 title - the song originally comes from Alexander Borodin’s opera, Prince Igor (Polovstian Dances)
Even with your best attempts to clarify the lore, this Video just highlights the lack of a strict Timeline from Egosoft. An official timeline if you will.
I can't believe that the Terrans wouldn't be able to bring their Navy back to defend their Homeworld in 2 years. 2 years is a long time. Never underestimate 24 months/ 730 Days. Obviously this is just another lore hole. Not a big one mind you, but still there. The Torus Eternal was destroyed, either by the Terraformers/Beryll or Saya Ko.
Yes, it is extremely frustrating. I don't want to do another "deep lore" video ever again, although I probably will anyway. You mentioned "strict timeline" and "official timeline". There genuinely is an official timeline, but the problem is that Egosoft isn't strict at all with how it's developed or how it's portrayed in-game. That's led to a lot of plot holes and a lot of not-so-healthy disagreement within the community, and also a couple of gray hairs for me.
The Jumpgates are deactivating and Earth is cut off. From the Book Wächter der Erde and translated to english.
He paused briefly to look at everyone present, then continued: "Two days ago, twenty-nine enemy ships entered the solar system, most of them terraformers. After that, the connection to the other side was lost. It has not yet been restored." Elena was suddenly jolted. She jumped to her feet. "Excuse me?" "You see, Kho-san," the general concluded with a sour smile, "even if we wanted to help, any help would come too late. The solar system is isolated." "How far had the retreat of our forces progressed, General?" Lea Singer spoke up. "Unfortunately, not very far yet, Major Singer. Personnel twenty-seven percent, fleet only about eight percent." Lea gasped for breath. For a moment, she forgot that she was talking to her highest superior. "Are you kidding? Eight percent? Of - how much? Around three hundred? Three hundred cruisers?
Earth is however not defenceless. Been years since I ready the Book but the fate of the USC Africa is burnt into my brain. The USC Africa is the only Carrier in the Sol System and is being swarmed by a sea of drones. The drones unable to penetrate the shields start throwing themselves into the thrusters which on mass leads to a anti matter Explosion as the Africa is forced to fire its thrusters to prevent its decaying Orbit. If you have any further questions feel free to ask.
@@Pkkno07 Fascinating, thank you very much for the translation! That does make much more sense in terms of Earth's tactics. It seems like the timing of Lea's death and the start of the jump gate shutdown are slightly different in the novel compared to the X Encyclopedia. The differences aren't hard to reconcile, but it is strange considering they were written by the same author at roughly the same time.
Did I correctly summarize the novel version of Saya Kho's death?
@@CptSnuggles07 The Events of the Torus Eternal are correct. My reading is that Saya did not intend suicide. Been ages since I read the book so I can not remember her exact motivation for destryoing the Torus and what she hoped to achieve by doing it. Kinda want to read the books again.
These are the last moments of Saya also from the Book "Wächter der Erde". So you can reach your own conclussion.
Excuse the formatting. Translation via Google because Deepl will only allow up to 1500 Characters.
In the last tether station, what Saya had been expecting and fearing all day finally happened. As Hiatu returned from a control cabinet with a module under his arm and walked past the terminal, he noticed the lock symbol at the top of the display panel. "Don't touch anything," he said, pointing to the symbol. "A silent alarm has been triggered. The system has just been locked. They may already know which tether station we are in. If not, just don't touch anything, okay?" "Does that mean our plan has failed?" "No!" Hiatu shouted from the other end of the room. He was already kneeling in front of a cabinet where he inserted the module. "My changes completely bypass the system, so they can lock whatever they want. Unless, of course, ATF and USC are right outside the door." Saya forced herself to calm down, as she had learned in the countless hours behind the controls of her fighter jet in the Argonian fleet. They had no weapons. If the ATF showed up, there was very little they could do about it. "Okay, done. Saya, that's it!" Hiatu called after a few minutes. He plugged in the optical link, switched it to the onboard power, and came over to her. "We have to get out of the station before we disconnect the tethers. Otherwise we'll be blown into space." "Someone's going to blow us into space anyway," she replied. "We're about to destroy the damn Torus Aeternal!" "It will be days or weeks before the Earth government can search the segments for survivors, Saya. The chaos will be indescribable. They won't find us, you can count on it. Nobody will die." Saya nodded. "Let's go then." She opened the door and looked around carefully. As with all the other tether stations, there was little public traffic here, especially since the tethers had been shut down for more than a day. There was no one to be seen. Saya climbed into the mobility scooter and turned to look at Hiatu, who was just leaving the station. Suddenly the area immediately in front of the station was filled with figures in black combat uniforms carrying projectile weapons with their safety off. Adrenaline ripped through Saya's body. "Sherman, back!" she screamed as she jumped out of the mobility scooter and stumbled back to the control room. "Stop!" someone shouted, then a shot rang out. Saya felt the projectile whizz past her head and hit the wall. She reached the entrance to the control room and dove in with a well-aimed jump. More shots were fired. They easily pierced the closing door and bounced off control cabinets and the observation window ten meters away. "Shit, shit, what are we going to do now?" screamed Sherman Hiatu. The technician hid behind a control cabinet. "Where is the trigger?" Saya asked as she crawled over to him. The door to the control room opened, boots thudded on the floor. "What?" Hiatu snapped. "Are you crazy? Are you crazy? Do you want to die? Do you want to die?" "Yes." She wrestled with him to get to the control device that he had tucked into the leg pocket of his pants, but he was surprisingly strong and fought back with all his might. "Come out, Saya Kho," someone shouted. "Hands over your head and get out. You have five seconds, then we'll get you." "I'd think about it if I were you, man!" she shouted. She cast a cautious glance through the gaps between the modules mounted in the control cabinet. "One step closer and the torus is history!" Hiatu was still fighting back. Panting, Saya hit him in the face; he fell unconscious. With one grip, she held the control device in her hand. An antenna symbol indicated the connection to the on-board network. "Then you're history too," said the man, but stopped. "That would be a shame, wouldn't it," she said, to stall the man. She definitely didn't want to give the impression that she was going to blow herself up. They would open fire immediately, regardless of losses, and the gaps between the modules were large enough for projectiles to reach them. The system reported "ready" on the tiny display. Saya pressed the button that connected the five tether stations to the trigger via the on-board network. From now on, it would only take minutes until the on-board computer discovered the data connection and switched it off. She hesitated for a second before sending the command to uncouple the tethers. But then she boldly pressed the send button. "Don't!" Sherman Hiatu wheezed weakly next to her. "I don't want to die!" "Too late," she said quietly, then straightened up. "Here I am!" she shouted. "I'm going over to the window now. I'm unarmed. I suggest you come over and watch the spectacle." Five men stormed around the control cabinet, weapons at the ready. "On the floor, on the floor!" A crashing blow shook the entire room. Saya stumbled, but caught herself. The men shouted in confusion. Outside, a tether cable came rushing towards them, slipped under the station... and lost its grip on the frictionless guide, which had now opened. It slipped out, whipping around like an angry snake. The guides in the four neighboring segments had also opened. Tethers entangled themselves, separated again, splintered. Fragments shot off, some into free space, others hurtled down to Earth. The control room shook and wobbled, the noise was indescribable. Saya clung to the railing in front of the window and stared out in icy rigidity. The torus segments belonging to the five manipulated stations began to rise into a higher orbit. The orbital imbalance spread like a wave, soon reaching distant segments, which now also uncoupled their tethers and broke the bonds. The Torus Aeternal broke, the entire, massive station disintegrated! Partitions hissed down and sealed off adjacent segments hermetically. The forces acting on the transition zone became so strong that the glass of the window began to shatter. Saya took a step back and noticed that she was floating. The gravity generators had stopped working. Saya was shaking all over. "I'm sorry, Elena, I'm really sorry!" she screamed in sudden, wild fear of death, then the metal glass pane burst. Saya Kho was whirled into space.
@@Pkkno07 Great passage. Thanks again!
What’s the music track?
I know one of them is Wings of the Wind, from the Cradle of Humanity soundtrack. There are a couple of others, all from the X4 soundtrack, but I can't remember all the track titles.
that's the one! Thanks brother! Such a haunting theme :)
It was worth it… for the player who makes billions off it all 😅😊
Didnt beryl and plutarch get in bed for rebirth
Wait, ehat the fuck? Albion prelude is not canon?
Ancients?
A hyper-advanced civilization that's transcended their physical forms. "Godlike" is an understatement. They created the Sohnen, who themselves are pretty godlike, to look after their affairs in the physical realm. They have great plans for the supercluster, which were thrown off somewhat by the rapid technological advances of Old Earth. Oh, and they're trying to fight off an invasion by a civilization several orders of magnitude more advanced than them. The war is fought on such a massive scale of space and time that we can't even perceive it. Real cosmic horror stuff.
Thanks
@@CptSnuggles07 Do you have any recommendations for reading material in this regard?
@@peppershakergaming3793 The X Encyclopedia Section D deals entirely with the Ancients. That's where I've gotten almost all my info on them. It isn't exactly light reading, but it's organized pretty well.
PffFFttttt Argon propaganda!
Man, don't you just love it when authors throw popular characters into the meat grinder for some cheap drama? As for the initial Terran attack, is it just me or does it sound a lot like the invasion of Iraq? As in, a completely unjustified war of aggression with the excuse that the target had WMDs (or in this case AGI) that needed to be taken out. The Beryl would be the Al-Qaeda in this analogy I suppose.
I read it as being more Cold War influenced, but you might be on to something. Iraq was certainly on everyone's mind around the time this story was being written.
@@CptSnuggles07 The only thing missing to make the analogy perfect is a singular incident which kicked the hornet's nest and actually got the Terrans riled up enough to take the actions they did. Maybe a rogue AGI experiment gone wrong or something like that. The fact that they apparently just went for it for shits and giggles strikes me as a clear case of bad writing tbh.
Like, all the elements to make this a morally grey conflict are there and yet, the way things were actually written makes the Terrans look like an evil (and stupid) empire. It would be one thing if they were actually supposed to be a villainous faction, but from the way I've seen them acting in X4 so far that was clearly not the intention...
@@nineflames2863 The Terran hornet's nest is basically "permanently kicked" as a result of the First Terraformer War. It was a long time ago, but that shared trauma is the foundation of Terran society, so it remains fresh in their collective consciousness.
As for their portrayal in X4, Egosoft has tried to make all the factions a bit more subdued compared to X3, at least on the surface. If you dig into the Terran Protectorate's lore and storylines, you find that the Intervention Corps has little regard for human life and can be straight up genocidal at times, the Terran Secret Service is still idiotic and tends to sabotage the Protectorate's anti-Xenon mandate, the central government tends towards the darker side of moral neutrality, and the Solborn Militia can be either neutral or good depending on the player's choices. In all fairness, most X4 factions are like that: neutral on the surface, with their best and worst traits only coming out when you dig deep into their storylines. X3-era lore was way more heavy-handed with its morality.
Just remember, if it wasn't for Terran arrogance and poor foresight to begin with when they basically created the Xenon, we wouldn't have a game to play.
Technically that would be human arrogance and poor foresight, since that was before Terran and Argon split. But I agree with the sentiment!