Hehe, nice. Pleasantly surprised that you can have different ethics from your benefactor FE, but it does sound like they keep tabs in their very subtle way
I switched tacks to a new start: Militarist xenophobe. Very unusual for me, but it's because I'm trying Voidborn. I also, don't @ me, created a race of jerkass lithoids and forced them to spawn. You see, my last game drove home that all resources are effectively infinite... except minerals. Minerals were fluctuating between 4-5 energy on the market even when I wasn't buying any myself.
But there is one limitless source of minerals in the game, and I don't mean black holes: using lithoids as livestock. Time to be the monsters for once
I chose a kinda human-reticulan hybrid portrait and called my group the Laputans, a reference to the UFO Aftermath series of xcom-like games. The second game had a faction of humans who were forcibly displaced by Reticulans onto floating space stations called Laputa as they... to make a long story short, "terraformed" Earth. That game was about a later generation of Laputans rediscovering Earth in the wake of the Reticulans going mysteriously and suddenly braindead.
This is a little different in that we're displaced (and somewhat hybridized such that we won't recognize any Humans who happen to exist) but far from Sol. I named the star Ares and chose Latin names, then named the home planet Sidonia because I'm an uncultured rube who got confused by the suggested name (Sildonia). (It's supposed to be Cydonia, like the Mars location in XCOM 1).
Anyway, it's going pretty well in 2219 - already conquered a neighbor for those precious landbound mineral slaves! I also share a border with another Advanced Start despite turning that shit off, presumably because they have a Lost Colony somewhere. annoying.
Edit: I forgot how tough it is to occupy planets instead of just vassalizing empires. It's particularly tough since my own race has 0% habitability, so sending them to be rulers (which increases stability due to their political power) is, frankly, expensive. They even eat twice as much. I'm going to headcanon that as various forms of alcohol, which they suck in through their fancy hazmat suits. It's that show Colony up in here.
On the plus side these unfortunates were Mechanists (excellent choice!), and their robots are now unequivocally mine. That's a little disturbing to think about, so I won't! Besides, they're too simple to use as enforcers (for now).
Edit2: Quirk of the Void Dweller trait - it's actually two traits, depending on whether the pop is on a habitat or not. Either the +15% specialist/worker production, or the -60% growth. As a consequence, Void Dwellers forced to live on planets are literally a subspecies - which means different rights can be applied to them. Not sure how to use that yet, but it's interesting. I wish I could give mine Stratified Society rights since they're almost all rulers, which would increase their political power considerably (and make them happier). Giving them Utopian Abundance would make them happier, but practically remove their political power (and I'm not egalitarian for once).
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Topic: Stellaris: Paradox Interactive IN SPACE (Read 1671719 times)