Star Control II

Star Control II, the sequel to the original Star Control, is a space adventure game that features role-playing elements alongside a robust 2D combat system. It was a milestone for non-linear gaming and an undeniable influence on modern space travel games such as Homeworld; many consider it one of the best computer games of all time. The player assumes the role of the captain of a single starship wandering a detailed environment of solar systems, gradually gathering information and resources in order to defeat a mysterious and implacable enemy; the plot contains numerous mysteries and other half-explained elements that contribute to the beauty of the game,¹ along with a rare sense of humor that manifests numerous times, inevitably having the player rolling on the floor laughing.

It is difficult to pin SC2 down to a single genre; it contains elements of exploration, scavenging, diplomacy, role-playing, and combat, blended together seamlessly. Intense, real-time, ship-to-ship melee is sprinkled throughout your interstellar travels. The Flagship can be outfitted with various modules to change and improve how it functions, as well as bolstering its effectiveness in battle. The meat of the game, however, is information gathering and the acquiring of unique inventory items through conversation and exploration to unravel the numerous mysteries of space.

Game play is divided into six basic modes:

• Conversation - Interact with other sentient species; Learn from them, trade with them, and form alliances (or attack them). The dialogue was written in five months by various people after Paul Reiche III's plot structure.²
• Solar system exploration - Navigate solar systems with your flagship, exploring the various planets and moons, while contacting or avoiding other ships in the region.
• Planetary exploration - Control the Planet Lander to collect minerals and biological data while avoiding earthquakes, hotspots, lightning, and aggressive life forms.
• HyperSpace travel - Travel from star to star in HyperSpace (and later, QuasiSpace) while being chased by unidentifiable alien ships, represented as gravity wells.
• Flagship/fleet management - Spend your accumulated Resource units (RUs). Outfit your flagship for whatever lies ahead. Construct a fleet of up to 12 escort ships. Add crew and fuel to you fleet.
• Space combat - Fly your armada against alien ships in an all-out brawl to the death (unless you run away...).

Created by Toys For Bob, Star Control II was released for the PC in 1992, and the 3DO in 1994. The 3DO port included remixed music, spoken dialogue, and 3D-rendered cut scenes, among other version differences. The Ur-Quan Masters source code is derived from the 3DO code, as the original PC source was lost.

Plot

The events of the plot occur twenty years after the Ur-Quan Slave War pitting the New Alliance of Free Stars against the Ur-Quan Hierarchy.

The Hierarchy has won. The old Alliance is in ruins; the only members that are not slave shielded, the Yehat, have become Battle Thralls of the Ur-Quan Kzer-Za. The two Ur-Quan subspecies, the Kzer-Za and the Kohr-Ah, are locked in a Doctrinal Conflict, and the Hierarchy is left unattended. Meanwhile, on the second planet of the Vela system, Unzervalt, a huge underground installation of the Precursors is found by a group of stranded scientists turned colonists, an installation that soon turns out to be a starship factory. The colonists build a ship which they hope to use to return on Earth, and assign The Captain to lead it.

Soon, The Captain finds out about the situation and sets on a quest to return freedom to the races in our region of space. He eventually succeeds to destroy the Ur-Quan's most powerful weapon, the Sa-Matra, and speed up the hybridization of two old Alliance races, the Chenjesu and the Mmrnmhrm. The resulting race, the Chmmr, using their powerful Avatar battleships and aided by the other races of the New Alliance, are able to vanquish the fleets of the Ur-Quan, bringing peace to the region at last.

Some plot elements could not be finished in the time alloted and are not present in the final product. This includes an easter egg dialogue with the game creators at Groombridge, a cloaking device for The Flagship, and strange events caused by bringing Orz ships in QuasiSpace. ³

Notes and references

¹From a mail by Fred Ford to a Star Control II player:

I think one of the reasons SC has endured is that Paul and I were conscious of hinting about things, but ultimately letting the game-player use his or her imagination to fill in the picture. Frungy is the poster-boy for this technique.

From a mail by Fred Ford to a Star Control II player:

We left ourselves and you enough unexplained and interesting mysteries that we would have a wide variety of choices for expanding into a sequel. Neither Paul nor I are meticulous planners -- that takes all the fun out of exploring ones capabilities. So we had many possible avenues, one or more of which we would have explored, if a sequel had been in the cards.

²From the 1998 IRC chat with Toys for Bob (Fwiffo is both Fred Ford and Paul Reiche III here):

<_Stilgar> <Spyhunter> Fwiffo: "How many people was involved in writing the huge amounts of dialoque in SC2?"

<Fwiffo> Regarding the dialog: I defined the conversations structurally and wrote pieces of all of them, however, Greg Johnson was responsible for the majority of the Orz, Arilou, and Pkunk. Mat Genser wrote the Utwig and Ilwrath. Robert Leyland wrote the Supox, and Leonard Robel wrote some of the Thraddash. Iain McCaig did much of the VUX.

<Fwiffo> The dialog took about 5 months.

From the 2007 IRC chat with Toys for Bob (robot is Fred Ford, PR3 is Paul Reiche III):

<+PR3> The Orz dialog was begun by Erol Otus, fleshed out by Greg Jognson [sic] (off of plot structures by me) and then I added a little wackiness.

³From a mail by Fred Ford to a Star Control II player:

[Groombridge] was basically going to be an easter egg where you would be able to progress through a conversation tree much like any of the other alien race conversations. We were going to reveal interesting trivia and possibly pose questions to you which were impossible for you to answer correctly -- like which do you like better about this game: the design or the programming? And suddenly you might find yourself in the middle of Urquan [sic] space (ala the Talking Pet).

From a mail by Fred Ford to a Star Control II player:

O.K., O.K. I must admit the conversation threads relating to the cloaking device have been the most amusing to someone who knows the truth and after six years I don't think it will diminish the game to put this matter to rest. No, there is no cloaking device. Yes, there was going to be one, but we couldn't figure out a way, given the limitations of two players fighting on the same screen, to make it functionally better/more interesting than the Ilwrath's.

From a mail by Fred Ford to a Star Control II player:

The first [interesting plot line left out of the final product] that comes to mind is that we wanted the Orz to be much scarier and if you ever took them into Quasi-space with you bad things would happen. We really wanted them to creep you out so that you were never sure whether or not it was a good idea to be allied with them.