Star Citizen: Loremaker's Guide to the Galaxy - Orion System

Transcript — every row opens the video at that moment

1. 00:00:36

   Hello everybody. My name is Dave Hadock. I'm the lead writer over here at Cloud Imperium Games and this is another episode of Lore Maker's Guide to the Galaxy where we take one of the many systems in the Star Citizen universe and give you not only an overview of the system and its background but some insight into the process and the choices that were made during its creation. So today the spotlight's going to be cast on a pretty big one. We're going to talk about the Orion system which is historically known as the site of first contact with the uber friendly Vanduul. So let's jump right in and open up our trusty star map. We're on Earth. So All right. as you can see where we going. We are going to Orion which is over here on

2. 00:01:24

   sort of the western side-ish. Now some of you may be wondering why is the system blurred and classified when I can see planets and stars and you know I would see select things and read information and stuff like that. And that would be an excellent question. The answer to it is that basically the classified status prevents new and current information about the system from being displayed to the public in the fiction of the universe. So for the name sort of Vanduul systems it's important to remember that uh basically these were part of the UEE for hundreds of years before they were invaded. So there's kind of a wealth of knowledge that the people already know about the planets and stuff like that because they they lived there for a while. So but because we have Sherry uh

3. 00:02:13

   guardian of the galaxy on our side we're going to actually disable some of the things so it's a little easier to see. So hold on one second. And bazam. So now it's all gone. as you can see here basically uh there are pa pa pa pa pa little Okay, so we'll we'll get kick started off here with just some of the backstory for it. So Orion was first discovered in 2650 uh and was originally basically kind of planned to be used in sort of basically or sort of a resource hub. Of the four planets that are here basically only uh one of them Armitage right here is habitable.

4. 00:03:02

   So the the sort of idea was that the vast plains of it were basically it was going to be kind of used as like an agricultural sort of like a food a food world until a government initiative called Project Farstar uh sort of that was trying to promote colonization and and particularly like distant colonization just as sort of a look how awesome we are uh type thing uh decided to uh put a bunch of money into developing the world so it was basically became like sort of a you know a real breadbasket. Uh which was super cool uh until 2681 until when the Dell Township uh was wiped out overnight. So a small small town got hit and authorities basically had no idea what was going on. It was a sudden obviously brutal attack that left everybody dead except for one person who was unaccounted for.

5. 00:03:49

   And it wasn't until they managed to find some security footage uh that revealed who the attackers were and that's when they sort of figured out who or what they were dealing with and but unfortunately without any real sense of where the Vanduul came from the military kind of came into the system secured it but were just sort of standing around like you know they were they were obviously gone so they didn't really have much to do. Uh so basically it wasn't until like almost a month after the attack on Armitage that the clan that had attacked before came back again and the UEE and the Vanduul had their first kind of stand up fight. And uh fortunately for us however it was a new and really really small clan uh so the UEE was actually able to destroy them uh and after that Orion was pretty quiet for a while.

6. 00:04:37

   Like so much so that it wasn't for about five years until the next clan showed up and although it was a bigger clan uh the military was still able to sort of fend them off and but uh we didn't kill them all but in the plus side we figured out where the jump point was and on the downside we sort of made our presence more known to them. Uh at the time obviously they didn't know that the sort of clan structure uh basically was the Vanduul were sort of not set up as like a kind of a traditional culture or civilization with like a central government and stuff like that. All these clans are sort of independent. the idea was that basically when those first two clans hit we weren't sort of known to the to the Vanduul by and large because they don't really talk to each other. Clans can actually be at war with each other and and stuff like that. So

7. 00:05:25

   uh it wasn't until the second clan went back into the jump point that they started to the more and more Vanduul started to realize that there were there were humans here which uh was kind of bad for us. basically for the next few decades attacks were starting to happen sporadically and stuff like that you know kind of hit and run type stuff to the point where the military is actually starting to believe that the Vanduul were were basically like a disorganized annoyance not a real threat and uh that lasted until about 2712 when the system was invaded by a kingship which I'm sure you've seen some of the stuff that we've been putting out. Kingships are sort of the big massive chief capital ship and sort of the flagship of of larger clans and stuff like that and

8. 00:06:14

   they are mean. And so basically it just devastated the front line. They had they were not expecting something of that size and destructive capability and it was that battle that basically just broke the UEE and they just dropped and ran. Uh and since then so years uh the van the Orion system has basically remained under Vanduul control. uh And just to throw it out here cuz it's something I really like uh the fourth planet over here uh is a gas giant uh nicknamed Abyss uh which is one of my favorite names. And aside from that uh it was actually inspired by a National Geographic article that had come out about a Jupiter-sized gas giant uh that the Kepler uh telescope

9. 00:07:03

   satellite discovered called TrES-2b. Uh and basically an astronomer from Harvard-Smithsonian said quote uh if we could see it up close it would look like a near black ball of gas with a slight glowing red tinge to it which just sounds awesome uh particularly for a system like this. So hence the name Abyss the sort of black you know almost void-like gas giant perched on the edge of the uh system was a super fun kind of detail to throw into an already kind of ominous and and intimidating uh system. So aside from those two planets Armitage over here which is Orion 3 and Abyss over here on the edge you have Orion 1 which is just a small kind of planet uh that's been charred by the the red dwarf at the center and then Orion 2 which I believe is a smog

10. 00:07:51

    planet. Yeah smog. Uh So uh that's pretty much it. But um Okay, so to jump from sort of the in-fiction you know lore background to it to some more meta background stuff uh Orion actually was was one of the earliest systems actually we had in the in the game. Uh it was first mentioned in the 2681 time capsule uh which was the the Vanduul reveal and uh we released the first system unlock for it at 3.5 million and reviewing it for the section revealed that we actually need to revise that write up to bring it into the current lore which I would need to make a note to do. Uh So needless to say it's it's been around for a really long time. Um Sort of the appeal for this system for

11. 00:08:38

    me at least was was having a system that was sort of this war-torn shattered remnant of human civilization and uh that obviously was no more apparent than in the I don't know if we can Oh we don't see it. Oh that's right cuz it's classified. Uh in Port Conrad which is the sort of prime landing zone on Armitage. part of the plan just to give some more some background knowledge uh when coming up with these landing zones uh particularly in the days when we were coming up with this one cuz at the time uh we actually the the Star Citizen universe was considerably smaller. It was actually I think it was 40 some odd systems as opposed to the current 100 or so. Uh but with all of them you basically you want to make sure that you know each one

12. 00:09:26

    has a very distinct you know atmosphere and character to make it stand out. So there's there's something kind of unique and interesting and like a flavor to it that you can't quite get anywhere else. And it's it's also one of the things that you have to look at it from from multiple perspectives too. So it's not only like what makes it visually distinctive but you know what types of stories will you experience there you know uh missions what type of characters you'll interact with. Like these are the types of things that can help give it that little bit of flavor to to make it feel like it's it's sort of its own place. And so already from the jump basically like poor Conrad was going to be a very different uh type place particularly with the the other ones that we we had already put together. and cuz it had that sort of

13. 00:10:13

    post-apocalyptic feel to it uh cuz the idea was that basically when the UEE abandoned the system uh and remembering of course that this was during the Messer era so people weren't really high on their list of priorities. Uh basically when when the military abandoned the system they they just ditched a bunch of the civilians when they ran. Uh so basically there were people that were and still are living here uh despite the presence of Vandal. And you know I always kind of saw it as like you know sort of a weird bunch of like ragtag outsiders and lunatics and outlaws and and stuff like that. Since they've effectively been living on their own and under constant threat of attack there was also this idea that like you know how would the city need to be modified uh to uh protect because basically at a moment's

14. 00:11:00

    notice like Vandal could kind of just roll into the system start churning up some resources and leave and you don't want to let them know that you're there uh cuz they don't tend to look kindly on on squatters. Uh so you know it's a question of like start these discussions of like you know to to building these kind of like seal up or do they have these sort of things that make them look abandoned and stuff like that. You know I'm I'm you know these are things that are kind of still getting discussed and we'll see what we can kind of get away with. Um and again it's probably important to reiterate that that these initial system write-ups have been around for a while. So once the team starts to focus on Orion you know for active development you know things might expand or shift slightly but the important thing to remember is that the the flavor of it the character of the system uh will you know be the same. So even though the specifics might be a little bit more fluid you know this is the kind of the the hook if you call

15. 00:11:47

    it that in into the system itself. that's it for Orion. Uh thank you all for hearing me ramble. Uh big thank you goes out to the subscribers of course for allowing us to do this attic content. Uh as always I recommend that you wander around the star map if you like seeing the various systems of the Star Citizen universe and get a sense of that sort of flavor of of of the worlds and the landing zones and stuff like that. And it's just you know it's pretty as hell so it's just cool to kind of you know wander around in. the star map of course is accessible via the Star Citizen tab on the top of the the home page. Uh so if you're having difficulty finding it that's where it is. Um but yeah my name's Dave Haddock. This has been Lore Maker's Guide to the Galaxy and I'll see you next time. Thank you for watching. So if you want to keep up with the latest and greatest

16. 00:12:34

    in the Star Citizen and Squadron 42 development please follow us on our social media channels. See you soon.