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Star Control: Difference between revisions
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{{tropelist|The original ''Star Control'' provides examples of:}}
* [[All There in the Manual]]: The story is never explained in-game.
* [[Artificial Human|Artificial Humans]]: The Androsynth.
* [[The Alliance]]: The Alliance of Free Stars.
* [[Asteroid Thicket]]: In tandem with every starship battle being centered on a planet, they also all feature asteroids spawning from the edges of the "arena". They don't damage you, though, only throw off your momentum.
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* [[Turn-Based Strategy]]: The Full Game mode.
* [[The Unpronounceable]]: The Mmrnmhrm. (MUR-na-hurm)
* [[Unfortunate Name]]: The Third (Paul) Reiche.
* [[Word of Gay]]: The Androsynth, [http://uqm.stack.nl/forum/index.php?topic=2719.msg34333#msg34333 according to Paul Reiche III.] It's subtly indicated even in the original material — look closely at their in-game art, and you'll notice that they have little pink triangles on their uniforms. {{spoiler|Given the end they meet in the sequel, it could be the greatest case of [[Bury Your Gays]] ever.}}
* [[You Require More Vespene Gas]]: [[No Celebrities Were Harmed|Starbucks]], generated via mining colonies and Starbases.
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* [[Alien Kudzu]]: The Mycon's Deep Children, which burrow into the lower crust and turn the planet into lava hell.
* [[All There in the Manual]]: The game manual provides 220 years' worth of history in the introduction, starting from how radio waves sent in the 1930s attracted the attention of the Ur-Quan and other benign races, proceeding through the 2000s and various technological advances humanity made, passing into the 2100s when Earth was made part of the Alliance of Free Stars, describing how the player's ancestors got stranded around Vela, and finally ending in 2155, literally 48 hours away from the start of the game. However, the manual only gives information that your people, in Vela, would know and so omits some rather vital information. The game itself provides a greatly abbreviated version.
* [[
** Blatantly parodied with the Ilwrath, who [[Card-Carrying Villain|tout their own evil so proudly]] the player can introduce criticism of the trope into a conversation with them. See [[Bad Is Good and Good Is Bad]].
** Played straight with the Dnyarri.
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* [[The Eeyore]]: The Utwig, after they broke their sacred Ultron. They get better.
* [[Either World Domination or Something About Bananas]]: The Orz speak a really strange language, so much that the flagship's translation software fails spectacularly at deciphering it. While it can poorly translate most of its speech, it cannot grasp the true meaning of certain key words, and so picks other words to fill the blanks.
* [[Egocentric Team Naming]]: there's a part where you can pick the name of your new coalition. Options include "The New Alliance of Free Stars," "The Concordance of Alien Nations," "The United Federation of Worlds," and "The Empire of [[Hello, Insert Name Here|(Your name)]]." Hayes is a bit put off if you choose the Empire of Me option, but goes along with it.
* [[Eldritch Abomination]]: The authors manage to give rather subtle overtones of this to {{spoiler|the Orz, a bunch of ridiculous round parrotfish-things who appear to have obliterated the Androsynth for the hell of it and seem to be from... ''elsewhere''}}.<ref>They told you, they don't want to *dissolve* you, only to get *connected* for some *camping*. Even better if you'll *change*. Still, "they" are not *many bubbles* but is one with many *fingers*. From *below*.</ref>
* [[Enemy Civil War]]: The Doctrinal Conflict.
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* [[The Fair Folk]]: The Arilou, aloof [[Little Green Men]] that they are.
* [[Fantastic Measurement System]]: Briefly mentioned for laughs by the Zoq-Fot-Pik.
* [[Fan Sequel]]:
** ''TimeWarp'', which was supposed to replace ''SC3'' and contains a fairly hefty selection of fan-created starships to use in Melee, including the planet landers. Unfortunately, the project eventually collapsed and split into several forks, which also did not fare too well.
** ''XR'', or ''Expanding Realities'', was another attempt at making a [[Fan Sequel]], which did not go beyond a small and buggy melee demo. Then the project switched to making a movie, but even then nothing was released.
** Now there is another [[Fan Sequel]] in development, called ''Project 6014'', which uses UQM's engine.
* [[Fantasy Counterpart Culture]]:
** The Melnorme, or Mael-Num, are similar to the Jews. They were nearly exterminated by the Ur-Quan and forced to flee their homeworld. They have survived for thousands of years as interstellar merchants and financiers ''par excellence''. They are brilliant scholars: they are the source for all the upgraded designs for your ship, and they are themselves willing to pay for any biological data you find on your voyage. Additionally, it is strongly implied that they seek to discover the fate of the Precursors in the hopes of some day being redeemed from their exile. They are portrayed fairly positively, however, so they aren't quite [[Space Jews]].
** The Shofixti are the [[Theme Park Version]] of the Japanese, with emphasis on their warrior traditions, especially on the kamikazes, and, unfortunately, [[Japanese Ranguage|the broken, heavily-accented English]].
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== Tropes G–M ==
* [[Game Mod]]: There are actually quite a few, including one that ''greatly'' lengthens the time limit and makes time pass slower.
* [[Gambit Pileup]]: The races known to have large-scale plots going on are the Arilou, Druuge, Dnyarri, Humans (i.e., you), Melnorme, Mycon, Orz, and Umgah.
* [[Gendercide]]: The Syreen homeworld was destroyed by a cataclysmic disaster, and their spaceships were almost entirely [[Lady Land|crewed by women]].
* [[Genetic Memory]]: Mycon, neo-Dnyarri, Ur-Quan. And newborn Shofixti are getting skills from ''somewhere'', possibly this.
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* [[Hitbox Dissonance]]: Averted completely. Each sprite has a 1-bit mask for each of its frames that matches its shape and serves as its "hitbox".
* [[Hit and Run Tactics]]: Standard tactics with Spathi Eluders, though they were designed with Run first and Hit second. Several others ships are also effective with this strategy.
* [[Honest John's Dealership]]: Two races, in different ways:
** The Melnorme, who will sell you fuel, technology and plot points in exchange for [[Knowledge Broker|information they find interesting]], are a benevolent version. Their culture considers giving away free information immoral, but their prices are fairly reasonable, and they are generally very helpful. Lampshaded if you get the Melnorme to tell you about the Druuge — when Greenish complains about how their only concern is profit, he notes that your character is smirking at him.
** The Druuge are a race of [[Corrupt Corporate Executive|Corrupt Corporate Executives]], looking only to make a profit off of you, no matter what, and the resources they are most interested in are [[Human Resources]]. Some of the stuff they sell is useless, making them [[Snake Oil Salesman|Snake Oil Salesmen]] as well. (By contrast, everything the Melnorme offer has ''some'' potential use.)
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* [[Informed Ability]]: Ironically, the one ship specifically advertised in-game as being able to "defeat any ship in space," the Chmmr Avatar, is ''not'' as effective against the heavy Ur-Quan ships as a number of other ships in the game. They're not ''too'' bad against Dreadnoughts with some damage, but there are better ships to use. Marauders eat them for breakfast<ref>Though to be fair, the Chmmr designed them before they knew of the existence of Marauders.</ref>.
* [[Intentional Engrish for Funny]]: The Orz.
* [[In
* [[It Amused Me]]: The Umgah's motivation for doing anything.
* [[I Shall Taunt You]]: The Pkunk's modus operandi. Couples well with rapid fire, almost range-less spread guns, considering that taunting actually [[Practical Taunt|reloads their ship batteries]].
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* [[Nightmare Fetishist]]: ZEX does, in fact, find humans and most other species ugly, just like all the other VUX. That's why he... ''enjoys'' them.
* [[No Canon for the Wicked]]: [[Averted Trope|Averted.]] The Alliance of Free Stars lost the war depicted in the first ''Star Control''.
* [[No Hero Discount]]: Even though all life in this sector of the galaxy is threatened with extinction, and the Melnorme have an abundance of knowledge and technology that could be given to you to prevent it from happening at any time, you won't get anything from them until you pay up. [[Justified Trope|Justified]] by the fact that their culture is completely fixated on business transactions and considers giving things for free to be crass and insulting, and by the fact that the Melnorme [[Screw This, I'm Outta Here|will be leaving this sector of the galaxy]] shortly before the extermination begins.
* [[No Name Given]]: Officially, the player-character is merely called "the Captain", so as to work within the confines of [[Hello, Insert Name Here|being able to name him/her whatever the player wishes.]] The 3DO version gives the Captain and his flagship default names, Zelnick and the Vindicator respectively.
* [[Nonstandard Game Over]]: If you surrender to the Kzer-Za or play with the Utwig bomb you get dumped into the opening screen.
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* [[Starfish Language]]: Orz again.
* [[Start of Darkness]]: Of the [[Freudian Excuse]] variety. You can get slightly different perspectives of the story from the Melnorme/Mael-Num, both Ur-Quan subspecies, and — if you don't mind [[Blatant Lies]] — the Talking Pet.
* [[Stealth in Space]]: Ilwrath specialty. Many factors usually give away the location though, and its main use is that the homing weapons are rendered ineffective and when decloaking the ship automatically positions itself towards the enemy.
* [[Stripperiffic]]: The Syreen. [[Lampshaded]] thoroughly.
* [[Stunned Silence]]: The Captain after Pkunk's proclamation of giving love.
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* [[Surreal Horror]]
* [[Suspended Animation]]: The Shofixti Maidens.
* [[Tactical Rock-Paper-Scissors]]: While the end result of a battle is heavily influenced by skill, there are a lot of predatory relations between ships given the wide range of ship specifications and weaponry. [[Gameplay and Story Integration|This often shows in the backstory and the scripted events in the game]]. For example, Illwrath ships are very effective against Earthling cruisers thanks to their cloaking devices, and the Illwrath will constantly boast about how they kill humans for sport.
* [[Take Your Time]]: Averted with the main quest. Played straight with the Sylandro Probe sidequest, where despite everyone urgently telling you to wipe them out before they grow exponentially, their growth rate stops eventually, so they never grow too numerous no matter how long you wait.
* [[Taking You with Me]]: The purpose of the Shofixti Glory Devices. They then took the concept to the next level by ''blowing up their own sun'' to destroy a good part of the Ur-Quan fleet.
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* [[Turned Against Their Masters]]: The Androsynth, against humans.
* [[2-D Space]]
* [[Uncanny Valley]]: In-universe example. The VUX also see the humans as this, mentioning that when the necks move on a human, it looks like it's broken and they look like a talking corpse.
* [[The Un-Reveal]]: You are told the Rainbow Worlds were left as possible clues to the ultimate fate of the Precursors, left behind before they departed. Discover all the Rainbows Worlds, connect them on the Hyperspace map, and you'll find {{spoiler|they form an arrow that points northeast.}} Follow the clues an you'll find... absolutely nothing.<ref>[[Word of God]] says that they originally led to a secret [[Developer's Room]] type planet that was [[Dummied Out]].</ref>
* [[Uplifted Animal]]: The Shofixti were already sentient, but they were given technology by the Yehat, which is called "Uplifting" [[In-Universe|in-game]].
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* [[Vichy Earth]]
* [[Video Game Cruelty Potential]]:
** You can sell your own crewmates into slavery to the Druuge, allow the Kohr-Ah Death March to begin so that you don't have to talk to people and can just pick their [[Plot Coupons]] off their planets as soon as they are destroyed, and refuse to intervene when the Zoq-Fot-Pik or the Pkunk are endangered.
** When preparing for the final battle, almost all the space on your flagship is taken up by the modified bomb, making it impractical for you to equip it with much in the way of weapons or other defenses; the one thing you can do to make sure your ship has a good chance of making it close enough to the Sa-Matra to blow it up is to buy as many crew pods as you can fit on the ship, and fill them up completely, since crew act like hit points. Just one problem, though: the escape pod your ship has only holds one person, you.
* [[Video Game Cruelty Punishment]]: See [[What the Hell, Hero?]], below.
* [[Video Game Geography]]: Explorable planets behave like cylinders — going off one side of the map brings you back on the other side; the top and bottom edge of the map are impassable barriers.
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* [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]]: The Ur-Quan enslavers insist they do what they must to protect sentient life from genocide, extinction and things... ''[[Cosmic Horror Story|far worse]]'' than that.
* [[What Measure Is a Non-Cute?]]: In the first ''Star Control'', most of the "evil" species were ugly, but no one would find any of the Alliance species disgusting. ''Star Control II'' rectified this somewhat by enabling the player to ally with one of the old Hierarchy species and introducing some more non-cute allies.
* [[What the Hell, Hero?]]:
** If you sell enough of your crew to the Druuge, your crew costs will skyrocket and the commander will flat out tell you that he'd kill you if you weren't their only hope.
** The Yehat who remain loyal to their queen attack you, after pointing out that you ended a thousand years of peace among their people. But then, they hated you even before that, so it's not like it makes any difference.
* [[Will Not Tell a Lie]]: The Ur-Quan will willingly put their busy schedule of slaughter and enslavement on hold to truthfully tell you their [[Start of Darkness|full backstory]] - if you just ask nicely enough... {{spoiler|They're probably telling the truth, too, and the story puts a significantly different cast on their actions. The only account of these events that directly contradicts the Ur-Quan version comes from the most unreliable source of all and is clearly [[Blatant Lies]].}}
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{{tropelist|''Star Control 3'' provides examples of:}}
== Tropes ==
* [[
* [[Alien Animals]]: The Ortogs, who are [[All There in the Manual|mentioned in the previous game's manual]], {{spoiler|play a much larger role in this game. They are revealed to be [[The Precursors]].}}
* [[Ambiguously Jewish]]: Unlike the nasal, electronically distorted tone of ''SC2'', the voice actor for ''SC3'''s Spathi uses a [[Woody Allen]]-ish voice.
* [[At Least I Admit It]]: The Lk openly admit that they are going to betray you when it suits them, and expect the same of the other races.
* [[Brother Chuck]]: Good number of races from second game missing without explanation.
* [[Canon Discontinuity]]: The creators of the first two games, who had nothing to do with the third, have stated that they don't consider it canon.
* [[Compelling Voice]]
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