Blue Planet

"A blue planet...with vast seas."

Blue Planet is a series of fan-made expansion packs for the video game FreeSpace 2. It is set eighteen years after the original game and details the Galactic Terran-Vasudan Alliance returning to Sol and the aftermath. The Blue Planet saga will eventually consist of three parts, but so far only the first two have been unveiled.

Blue Planet: Age of Aquarius (2007) follows the 14th Battlegroup of the Galactic Terran-Vasudan Alliance as they cross the newly-constructed Sol Gate into the solar system for the first time. The player takes the role of Samuel Bei, an experienced veteran of the Second Great War from the original game. The fleet ends up lost in an Alternate Universe where the Shivans won the Great War and humanity is reduced to a handful of scavengers on the run from the Shivan armada. Samuel Bei ends up playing a pivotal role in discovering the nature of this strange dimension and how they got there, finding his own destiny, and finding a way for the 14th Battlegroup to return to their own universe. Age of Aquarius won much acclaim for its richly realized story and excellent characters, especially Samuel Bei and his father, who have some issues, and its excellent and innovative mission design that featured a scale far larger than most previous campaigns.

Blue Planet: War in Heaven (2010) is set a year and a half after Age of Aquarius. The 14th Battlegroup returned to their home dimension to find the United Earth Federation as the current government of the Sol system. Their standing orders: crush the Federation and forcibly assimilate it into the GTVA. Samuel Bei, his father, and several other members of the 14th Battlegroup defected to the UEF, leaving the blitzkrieg assault the GTVA was hoping for in tatters. However, the GTVA were quick to regroup, and are now slowly grinding the UEF's miltary into dust. The player character this time is Noemi Laporte, a newly commissioned pilot in the UEF navy. Noemi has...issues, most notably a history of mental instability, aggression, and hearing voices. She must face both her own personal demons as well as the forces of the Galactic Terran-Vasudan Alliance, who outnumber, outgun, and generally outclass the UEF's. Currently only the first two-fifths of War in Heaven has been released, and the remaining three-fifths is currently in closed beta status. War in Heaven was hyped extensively prior to release, and so far the general impression has been overwhelmingly positive of the released first part. More than one player has declared it the best FreeSpace campaign ever released.

This game includes examples of:
""I've seen your war record, Admiral. Are you prepared to be the next Koth?""
 * Ace Pilot: Plenty of them. On both sides. One mission is literally two small teams of Ace Pilot's going up against each other.  Unusually for the trope,
 * Action Girl: Noemi Laporte and Lorna Simms. Taylor in Age of Aquarius, along with many others.
 * All There in the Manual: The "intelligence" section of the tech room and various parts of the mod website have vast amounts of information on the setting.
 * Animal Wrongs Group: The Gaian Effort from War in Heaven.
 * Apologetic Attacker: Most UEF pilots will say something like 'May they find peace in death' should they kill an enemy.
 * Attack Pattern Alpha: The UEF has a set of attack plans with codenames to use depending on the situation in Delenda Est. However, these plans and their execution are actually specified.
 * Badass Crew: The Wargods are absolute terrors on the battlefield, to the point that Admiral Steele is forced to plan and execute a series of strategies specifically to wipe them out.
 * Back-to-Back Badasses: The Katana and Altan Orde in the optional single-mission campaign named The Blade Itself. Two humble UEFg Karunas and half a dozen fighters wipe the floor with a pair of Deimos-class Corvettes and numerous other Tev ships long enough to evacuate some of the civilians, deny the station to the Tevs, and finally escape from a Meson Bomb attack. All of this despite a surprise attack and the Katana's dock being sabotaged, forcing her to depart without her full crew complement!
 * Big Damn Heroes: First, the  breaking off what seemingly a Hopeless Boss Fight with 3 Shivan destroyers, and later Samuel Bei leading   to save his father's fleet in Age of Aquarius.
 * In War in Heaven, the only moments where it isn't a Hope Spot is  and.
 * Black and Gray Morality: Each side has a cause they believe in and does some very shady things. Except for the Shivans, who, as usual, are total bastards.
 * Bonus Material: Several single missions that come with the campaign, one of which is basically "What would happen if we stuck every single named capital ship in the story together and had them shoot at each other?" There is also a Racing Mini Game with UEF interceptors. One (good) mission even has you commanding a capital ship during the battle that the opening cutscene of War In Heaven depicts, complete with its own HUD and coding.
 * Both Sides Have a Point: While the the GTVA   You REALLY need to read the supplementary material in the Tech Room database to understand why. Mainly, the GTVA is (legitimately) terrified that   given the cultural, social, political, and economic situation in (at least the Terran portion) of the GTVA. It is very strongly implied (and readily apparent) throughout War In Heaven, and to a lesser extent in the series as a whole, that   Not that accomplishing that will be in any way easy...
 * Chastity Couple: Noemi Laporte and Lorna Simms, to the point where most fans assume the former to be a lesbian.
 * Chekhov's Gun: The transmission from the Vasudan logistics ship contains specs for a miniature quantum pulse transceiver, which is . This is likely to be used in the next part of War in Heaven.
 * The Chosen One: Or, to be more accurate, the Laser Guided Tykebomb's.
 * Cliff Hanger: The first part of War in Heaven ends on a massive one:
 * The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: Ships given the BALLS OF STEELE, or BOS, AI-class. BOS was required to keep some of the most experienced players in the community from Script Breaking some of the missions and give the player competent wingmen without the need of having a large number of them as well as giving the feel that you are really in a squadron of ace pilots instead of red shirts.
 * Cool Ship: The United Earth Federation's Solaris-class destroyer is the biggest example, both in the literal and metaphorical sense. But on the whole, nearly every ship introduced in the Blue Planet series, both on a fighter and capital ship level, are this. Special mentions go to the  Unique mention goes to the GTD Carthage, an FS 2 veteran destroyer that was built near the end of the Great War (FS 1), heavily retrofitted and equipped with experimental technology, and now presents a totally unique and very powerful threat to any battle-group. To give you an idea, this ship would have likely wiped the floor with FS 1's ultimate Cool Ship, the SD Lucifer.
 * Colonel Badass: Captain Lorna Simms.
 * Contemplate Our Navels: Samuel Bei and Elder Mandho do this quite often.
 * Continuity Nod: Many.
 * Xinny and Zero, the SOC wingmen from Into the Lion's Den in the original game, fight you in War in Heaven.
 * The in Age of Aquarius, which was destroyed in the original Free Space timeline.
 * The from FreeSpace 2, now with upgraded armour, as well as this quote:

"Indus Captain: This is Earth, the birthplace of humanity. They will take this station only after it has been stained Mars-red with our blood. Brie: Desperta Ferro you sons of bitches, we die like we lived, on our bloody feet!"
 * The GTCv Marcus Glaive.
 * One of the corvettes in the prologue is named 'Snipes', though this one is hard to see since the player can't change the camera angle.
 * Crazy Prepared: Admiral Steele has contingencies for the contingencies. He, and often the SOC as well, often do things that are disadvantageous, but can potentially end up as crucial elements in setting up a gambit in the future. In other words, they'll take a small loss to set up something that, for the foreseeable future, has no use whatsoever, just because at some point it might be very useful in whatever gambit they come up with down the line. This allows them to pull off Xanatos Gambits with alarming frequency. Thankfully, the UEF officers aren't slouches, either.
 * Cutscene: Both Age of Aquarius and War in Heaven use in-game cutscenes for campaign intro. Age of Aquarius' ends in a playable cutscene from first person view, while War in Heaven ends with something that could be called a cutscene montage. There is also a flashback cutscene in the form of recording  There's also a rendered version of the Age of Aquarius intro cutscene, made by a community member.
 * Darker and Edgier
 * Death Seeker:, in the extra mission included you see why he choose to
 * Demonic Spiders: The GTF Nyx and GTF Atalanta. You will learn to hate them. Although, with the new AI featured in War in Heaven, pretty much every fighter is a Demonic Spider compared to the original game.
 * "Trebuchet strike incoming!"
 * Designated Hero: The UEF, because Blue Planet runs on moral ambiguity.
 * Designated Antagonist: The GTVA.
 * Despair Event Horizon: The UEF seems to be hovering right on the edge of it. And Kassim ultimately, he was not ready to see so many people die.
 * The Dev Team Thinks of Everything: If you
 * Dialogue Tree: One mission involves Noemi having to talk Captain Simms out of a depression through Epiphany Therapy using these. It's surprisingly tricky.
 * Not exactly an Epiphany Therapy, though, as Simms is more on the verge of a specific Despair Event Horizon, rather than actually being depressed or traumatized. The epiphany isn't some new information, it's reminding Simms of a perspective that Simms herself once had, and simultaneously providing reassurance and credibility that that perspective has merit. That, and The Power of Friendship and The Power of Love. Simms doesn't "snap out of it" even then, though, as its a gradual process (but the very fact that Simms takes even a step in the other direction is very noticeable to everyone else and a huge relief.
 * Dysfunction Junction: The pilots of the UEFg Indus.
 * Enemy Chatter: Most likely to have a feel that they are not just your everyday Mooks.
 * Energy Beings:
 * Evil Sounds Deep: The Shivan representative in Universal Truth.
 * Facing the Bullets One-Liner: DESPERTA FERRO!
 * Facing the Bullets One-Liner: DESPERTA FERRO!


 * Fan Nickname: People are taking to calling a certain dialogue-based mission the "Dating Simm".
 * Fantastic Slurs: The GTVA call the UEF "Feds", the UEF call the GTVA "Tevs", everyone calls the Gaian Effort "Gefs", and Gaians call the UEF "Buntus".
 * Four-Star Badass: Admiral Calder on the UEF side, and Admiral Steele on the GTVA side.
 * Game Mod
 * General Failure: At times Admiral Byrne seems to be this. However, knowing the way Blue Planet works, he's probably got a hell of a trick up his sleeve.
 * He has some sort of grand master plan that will evidently require all of Earth's surviving military industrial capacity, virtually all of First Fleet, all of the captured and defected GTVA ships at the UEF's disposal, and substantial additional resources, but it's never explained what the plan entails, and it still hasn't been put into effect yet.
 * Glass Cannon: Appears to be the main functions of the new Chimera and Bellerophon corvettes, they are powerful, but are completely helpless should an enemy capital ship get close or approach them from a blindside.
 * This is because they're intentionally imitating the blitz tactics of the Shivans - drop out of subspace on your enemy's flank and hit them so hard they never get up again. It should come as no surprise that they do not perform as well during prolonged engagements.

"Firing artillery"
 * Gratuitous Spanish: Gratuitous Catalan actually, "Desperta Ferro!" (literally: "Awake Iron!"), which was the battle cry of the Almogavars,a famed group of mercenaries from the medieval kingdom of Aragon, today a part of Spain.
 * Hazy Feel Turn:
 * Hello, Insert Name Here: Averted. Unlike the original games, the player characters in Blue Planet are defined characters with their own names, personalities, and life stories.
 * Heroic Sacrifice: So many times in War in Heaven, on both sides even.
 * He Who Fights Monsters: Noemi muses that as the war drags on, the United Earth Federation seem to be slowly losing their "Ubuntu" nature and becoming more like the GTVA. For instance, in the beginning, protecting civilians was the UEF's top priority. Near the end of War in Heaven part 1, some have become focused in fighting the GTVA that they considered the civilian caught in between to be "Necessary Losses".
 * Hopeless War: The UEF are completely outmatched by the GTVA.
 * Most of the reason they're losing so badly is they are fighting a completely defensive war, rarely if ever performing offensive missions or counterattacks. Word of God is that if the UEF was making the most of their resources, they'd stand a good chance of defeating the GTVA... or at least of driving them out of Sol.
 * Maybe of draining the GTVA's political will, but not of "winning" in terms of military superiority. The overwhelming power of the GTVA's military is one of the reasons why the Elders are so keen on diplomacy rather than force.
 * Hope Spot: War in Heaven likes to toss these out before brutally crushing them.
 * Heroic BSOD: Seemingly happen to Kassim in War in Heaven, early on after his first real combat sorties, he frequently strays from his path during missions, and midway he apparently freaked out, may or may not be Go Mad From the Revelation, could be just trauma of war or having visions similar to Laporte. The same thing happened with Lorna Simms shortly after the Rheza Station battle until Laporte beat some sense into her, and.
 * 100% Completion: Most people will try at some stage, such as making sure almost every friendly capital ships survive, and ensuring the destruction of every single non-plot critical enemy ships.
 * Humans Are Bastards and Humans Are Good, with the clash between the two clearly reinforcing that Humans Are Flawed. However, this is far more important than it might initially seem:
 * Good Is Not Nice: The UEF can do some pretty sleazy things when they have to.
 * Interface Screw: The UEF's favourite tactics to compensate for their lack of brute force is to jam the enemy's beams.
 * It Got Worse: Just when you think things couldn't possibly go worse for the United Earth Federation in War in Heaven...
 * It's Up to You: Averted. Unlike in the original games, trying to do everything yourself instead of using your wingmen tends to end badly.
 * Knight Templar: The Wargods as well as those on the Toutatis have become like this near the end, forgetting their Ubuntu principles, especially when hunting the GTD Carthage: not only is Admiral Lopez not exactly a bad person, but they are willing to sacrifice hundreds of civilians in doing so and label them collateral damage.
 * Last Stand: Many,  Age of Aquarius features at least half a dozen of these, with the player alternating between being the Big Damn Heroes or one of the people going down with a fight. Delenda Est, the final mission of the first chapter of War In Heaven is notable for feeling like this for both sides of the battle, simultaneously and throughout. It even features Facing the Bullets One-Liner's on both sides at the beginning, middle, and end.
 * Late Arrival Spoiler: The fact that the GTVA is attacking Sol was originally a massive Twist Ending to Age of Aquarius. However, it's almost completely impossible to talk about War in Heaven without mentioning this.
 * Lethal Joke Weapon: TAG missiles were known for having a small niche where they were actually more than novelties. But in War In Heaven, where jamming beam weapons' accuracy and coherency is often the only thing preventing UEF ships from getting gutted in short order, getting hit by a TAG missile--which can allow GTVA ships to accurately target UEF ships with their beams--is one of the ultimate Oh Crap moments. This comes into FULL effect in
 * Lightning Bruiser: The Lao Tze advanced fighter used by the White Guard. The Durga bombers may also count seeing how fast they tear through unfortunate GTVA corvettes that are not fast enough to run.
 * Lost in Transmission
 * Macross Missile Massacre + More Dakka: The UEF fighting doctrine, unlike the GTVA which uses powerful beam weapons, involves dakka-venting the enemy ships with multiple railguns and spamming loads of torpedoes at the enemy (hopefully also knocking out several weapons and subsystems).
 * They are still outranged and outgunned by GTVA warships of comparable size. Many UEF tactics revolve around deception and electronic warfare to throw off the GTVA beam cannons' aim and catch GTVA warships in disadvantageous positions. For a UEF ship to fight a "Tev" ship on equal terms is to give the GTVA an almost certain victory.
 * The range of the railguns have been significantly increased before release. A Narayana can actually fight off two Deimos at the same time.
 * The Solaris is the pinnacle of this of course, with 12 torpedo launchers (each fires 4 Apocalypse torpedoes each salvo) and the railguns are mounted on turrets allowing it to engage enemies in any direction. In addition, its numerous burst flaks and PDS will send any enemy bombers that comes close into a Bullet Hell nightmare (just see how many torpedoes the Toutatis unloaded on the Hood).
 * Made of Indestructium:
 * Magnetic Weapons: The secondary armament of most UEF capital ships (the main armament being the torpedoes).
 * Meaningful Name: Many, but the one that arguably takes the cake is the second-to-last mission of War in Heaven's second chapter, titled "Delenda Est", and the primary objective in that mission is to destroy the GTD Carthage. In the Roman Republic, the Latin phrase "Carthago delenda est", translated as "Carthage must be destroyed", was very popular during the war against Carthage, an ancient city in current-day Tunisia.
 * The phrase was apparently uttered at the end of almost every single speech by some speakers, even if the topic of the speech was completely unrelated to the war against Carthage. This could say a lot about the UEF's motivations at this point.
 * Military Maverick: Noemi Laporte.
 * Modern Stasis: Or a distinct lack thereof. The GTVA has actually bothered to get off its arse to design and build some new warships and strikecraft after the end of the original campaign. They are also statistically superior to their predecessors. Fortunately the UEF hasn't been slacking off either.
 * Mood Whiplash:
 * The Mothership: The Vishnan Keeper functions as such, as well as something like a Hive Queen. Killing a Keeper is not easy, but should one manage it,
 * Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The UEF manage to get the Admiral in charge of the invasion removed from command by making him look like an idiot ... only to see him replaced by Admiral Steele.
 * Steele was already there, he just took over completely when the other Admiral was pulled back.
 * No Endor Holocaust: Averted. The story mentions Earth having to deal with huge amounts of falling debris from orbital battles. Softened some by the fact that they apparently have some sort of interception system, but...
 * Not So Different: A running theme in Blue Planet so far is that, in defeating the Shivans, the GTVA are starting to dangerously resemble them in a lot of ways. This is most apparent in their new ship designs, which use reverse-engineered Shivan weapons and are quite obviously heavily inspired by Shivan warship designs, and in their new battle tactics, which emulate observed Shivan fleet behavior almost exactly. It's also rather telling that, on the few occasions in Blue Planet that GTVA and Shivan forces meet each other in a straight-up, even fight, the humans almost always win - which means that they may well be on the way to becoming the new Destroyers.
 * Oh Crap: Pretty much any time a big Shivan capship shows up in Age of Aquarius, and the surprise entrance of the in War in Heaven.
 * "Trebuchet strike incoming!"

- Status message shown when any warship (usually friendly and on your escort list) is hit by a TAG-C in War in Heaven.

""Hahaha! Listen to these dogs! Don't let them close, or they might break a lance on your hull!""
 * Ominous Latin Chanting: Numerous missions, most notably the end of Delenda Est.
 * Point Defenseless: Refreshingly, the UEF ships actually have fairly (relatively speaking) competent point defense systems compared to the GTA's flak.
 * So thoroughly averted that attacking UEF and GTVA cruisers, corvettes, and frigates is going to get you ripped to shreds if you linger more than a short time inside their range. The second mission of War In Heaven starts with you just inside the point-defense range of a GTVA cruiser, and if you don't hit your burners and run away at top speed immediately, it's almost likely for you to die right then and there. It does a nice job of establishing just how averted this trope is.
 * Player Punch: War in Heaven dishes these out early and often, the most significant one probably being
 * Praetorian Guard: The Knights of the White Brotherhood, also known as the White Guard.
 * Psychic Powers: The "Nagari" phenomenon
 * Punch Clock Villain: Most enemies in War In Heaven, especially the GTD Carthage battlegroup.
 * Quirky Miniboss Squad: The Serkr corvettes. No matter how much you hate them at first, they are properly humanizedin their second appearance.
 * Ramming Always Works: Averted really hard.
 * Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The "Wargods" task force of the UEF is not very glamorous, but it is brutally effective.
 * Reason You Suck Speech:
 * Red Baron: Noemi Laporte and Lorna Simms have earned quite a reputation among GTVA pilots, giving them bounties in their heads of unspeakable amount which nobody dares to collect.
 * Sacrificial Lamb: Nehru in Age of Aquarius.
 * Actually, depending on player this can either be played straight or averted, since it is (technically) possible to pass the mission with your whole squad alive. Saving Nehru will be noted in the de-briefing, but does not result in any further branching - Lt. Nehru is never seen or heard of afterwards, and the popular consensus is that if he survives he suffers from nervous breakdown and is confined to the sickbay for the remainder of Age of Aquarius.
 * Sapient Cetaceans: It has uplifted dolphins and whales. Given that the planet the game is set on is almost completely covered in water, it's pretty much a given that they'd be there.
 * Scavenger World: The alternate universe in Age of Aquarius.
 * Somebody Set Up Us the Bomb: Laporte finds a nuclear bomb in the freighter Nauticus, one that can blow up an entire comet. Her immediate reply was pretty obvious.
 * Spirit Advisor: "Ken" seems to be one.
 * Poisonous Friend: The dev team has heavily implied that Ken is a Shivan.
 * State Sec: The UEF's Fedayeen are a (more or less) heroic version of this.
 * Sting: The ending cinematic of War in Heaven where.
 * Stock Scream: Aforementioned Lieutenant Wilhelm Nehru.
 * The dev team actually had some proper voice acting recordings for his death. However, Nehru happened to be the very last minor character to be voice acted, possibly delaying the release by some time. Hilariously, they decided to use the Wilhelm scream instead of the voice acted lines (the originals were the somewhat more dignified "Not like this...").
 * Sword of Damocles: Admiral Byrne has this in mind for his flagship, the Solaris, which also happens to be the lead ship of the Federation's biggest Cool Ship. His other colleagues do not share the same strategy.
 * The Un-Reveal: Just before Elder Taudigani could tell Laporte the secret of the transmission she received from the Vasudans,.
 * Up to Eleven:
 * The Slow Walk: The assault on the Agincourt starts with this, also when breaking through the Hood's blockade.
 * Three Amigos: Bei, Taylor, and Corey in Age of Aquarius.
 * Unexplained Recovery:
 * Updated Rerelease: The Director's Cut of Age of Aquarius.
 * Video Game Cruelty Potential: You can take a hostage in the mission For All the Wrong Reasons in War in Heaven and threaten or even murder her.
 * Or if you are such a bloodthirsty bastard, make sure you equip some anti-subsystem weapons and use them to destroy the engines of enemy ships (most of the time, they just let them go) to ensure their destruction.
 * Voice of the Legion: The . It has the effect of making them sound impressive and awe-inspiring rather than sinister.
 * Xanatos Speed Chess: Admirals Calder and Byrne on the UEF side play this against Admiral Steele of the GTVA.
 * Out-Gambitted: Admiral Calder's big trap for Admiral Lopez is.
 * War Is Hell: War In Heaven features this trope in abundance. However, it is done in unusual ways: it's so much worse, because both sides are full of good people who are in no way evil, forced to kill each other in droves. Little tastes of peace make the war so much more horrific and tragic. Both sides want the war over as soon as possible, but both sides have good reasons for not wanting to be on the losing side when the dust settles.
 * The War Sequence: Universal Truth from Age of Aquarius, and Aristeia and Delenda Est from War in Heaven.
 * "Well Done, Son" Guy: Samuel Bei was never forgiven by his father for failing to protect his mother from being killed by the Shivans.
 * What Happened to the Mouse?: The sleeper ship Sanctuary, along with its entire crew, simply disappears between the events of Age of Aquarius and War in Heaven, and is never mentioned again. So are the fellow GTVA defectors in GTL Solace, GTCv Labouchere, and GTC Duke who decided to follow Admiral Bei.
 * What If: Think of it as "what if Beam Weapons were never invented"... resulting in an interesting balance. The UEF are fond of nuclear missile spam and railguns giving them a range advantage over the GTA, who are of course using heavy beam weaponry.
 * GTVA beam cannons are, however, far more powerful and generally more accurate than railguns, and the nukes can be shot down. The UEF rely on jamming systems to confuse GTVA sensors and prevent them from using their beams effectively.
 * What the Hell, Hero?: The UEFg Hesperia bungles a truce up. Badly.
 * A lot of people are calling the GTVA on this in regard to their invasion of Sol.
 * You Are in Command Now: How Admiral Netreba obtained his position apparently.
 * You Shall Not Pass: Four White Guard fighters facing down a huge horde of Gaian Effort raiders in Deals in Shadows. The Gefs are ... less than impressed by their dramatic speech.
 * You Shall Not Pass: Four White Guard fighters facing down a huge horde of Gaian Effort raiders in Deals in Shadows. The Gefs are ... less than impressed by their dramatic speech.


 * In Delenda Est,
 * Zerg Rush: The preferred way the Gaian Effort deal with their enemies, such as on mission 5 (3 of you versus about 15-20 of them) and mission 13 (2 veteran pilots and 4 elite guards against endless wave of them).