Star Control: Difference between revisions

== Star Control ==

* [[All There in the Manual]]: The story is never explained in-game.

* [[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.

* [[Battle Thralls]]: The [[Trope Namer]], these are the races that fight for the Ur-Quan.

* [[Suicide Attack]]: Pretty much the Shofixti [[Planet of Hats|hat]].

* [[Turn-Based Strategy]]: The Full Game mode.

* [[Unfortunate Name]]: The Third (Paul) Reiche.

* [[You Require More Vespene Gas]]: [[No Celebrities Were Harmed|Starbucks]], generated via mining colonies and Starbases.

== Star Control 2 ==

* [[Absolute Xenophobe]]: The Kohr-Ah cannot feel safe or secure while a single member of a single other sentient species survives. Their trauma runs too deep.

* [[Action Bomb]]: Theoretically, you can shoot ships down with the Shofixti Scout's [[Cherry Tapping|"main" weapon]]. But usually it's not the most efficient of the Scout's tactics.

* [[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.

* [[Amazon Brigade]]: The Syreen.

* [[Ambiguous Gender]]: Most of the characters, including your human crew members.

* [[Civil War]]: You can start one among the Yehat. Also, the Ur-Quan sub-species, the Kzer-Za and the [[Omnicidal Maniac|Kohr-Ah]], are fighting against each other to determine the fate of other species in the universe. {{spoiler|The Kohr-Ah win in the end, which marks the beginning of their Death March.}}

* [[Cloudcuckoolander]]: The Mycon come off as a fairly non-humorous version of this. It doesn't really matter what you say to them most of the time, they will just ramble on about Juffo-Wup, and then occasionally speak in the voice of a long dead member of their species (due to [[Genetic Memory]]). And then they attack you. The only straightforward conversation you can have with them is when you inform them of a new planet to colonize.

* [[Color Coded for Your Convenience]]: Star systems, planets and minerals. For the former, brighter colors mean hotter stars, and thus planets with better minerals and harsher conditions. For the two latter, vivid and funkier colors mean greater loot quality.

{{quote|'''Hayes''': To remember the color sequence from good to bad... the miner had a mnemonic that went like... ''Very Young Orangutans Could Grow Bananas, Perhaps Rather Well''.}}

* [[Comically Missing the Point]]: The Thraddash Culture Fourteen warned that each civil war results in a setback of 500 years, due to the Thraddash nuking themselves into the stone age. And then they were conquered by Culture Fifteen.

{{quote|'''Thraddash''': And did the change to Culture Fifteen set us back five hundred years? NO! SNORT! Two, maybe three hundred years, tops.}}

* [[Easily Forgiven]]: The first time you meet Fwiffo on Pluto, he (in typical Spathi fashion) mistakes your harmless lander crew for a hostile force and, without any provocation, opens fire and kills several people. He blames his ship's automated defences for the incident, but it's pretty clear that he is lying. A few minutes and one conversation later, he becomes your first alien ally, and his ship forms an important part of your fleet, potentially for the rest of the game. You ''can'' fight him to avenge your dead crew instead, but he's alone on his ship (meaning it has only one hit point), making the victory feel quite hollow, and failing to ally with him makes the game much harder.

* [[The Eeyore]]: The Utwig, after they broke their sacred Ultron. They get better.

* [[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.

* [[Everything's Better with Bob]]: The first two games were developed by [http://www.toysforbob.com/ Toys For Bob]. There's also an Umgah captain called Bob.

* [[Everything's Better with Spinning]]: The Pkunk's "Death Blossom" attack — release the thruster and fire while constantly turning.

* [[Eviler Than Thou]]: The Kohr-Ah pull this one on the Ur-Quan Kzer-Za. And the Ilwrath try to do this on everybody else.

* [[The Fair Folk]]: The Arilou, aloof [[Little Green Men]] that they are.

* [[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]].

* [[Fusion Dance]]: The Chmmr, resulting from the Chenjesu fusing with the Mmrnmhrm.

* [[The Future]]: All the games take place in the 22nd century, after Mankind has become a minor space-faring race.

* [[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.

* [[Hidden Elf Village]]: The Arilou homeworld; appropriately, as they are practically [[The Fair Folk]].

* [[Hilarious Outtakes]]: A set of fake outtakes in the closing credits, preceding the ones in Pixar's movies by a few years, including the Orz complaining about its dialogue and a Pkunk doing an impression of a phone psychic commercial.

* [[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.

** Justified with the Androsynth, who were cloned from actual humans before taking to the stars and becoming a political power of their own.

** Not so justified with the [[Blue Skinned Space Babe|Syreen]]. The characters [[Lampshade Hanging|point out]] that this can't possibly be a coincidence, but no real explanation is given why they are so genetically compatible with humans that they can ''produce fertile offspring''. [[Wild Mass Guessing]] abounds, mostly involving the [[Little Green Men|Arilou]].

* [[Humans Are Leaders]]: Averted. The more advanced Chenjesu were actually the leaders of [[The Alliance]], and {{spoiler|the Chmmr}} retake their role in all but name once you get all the relevant plot coupons to complete the game.

* [[Humans Are Psychic in the Future]]: It's mentioned randomly that some humans have 'esper' capabilities and are sensitive to various items or happenings in the galaxy. {{spoiler|Such as if the Pkunk are killed off for real.}}

* [[Humans Are Ugly]]: The VUX think so, and if you annoy them enough they'll reveal {{spoiler|it's the reason they went to war with them}}.

* [[Humans Are Warriors]]: Variant 2, Humans Are Soldiers.

* [[Hyperspace Is a Scary Place]]:

** Fortunately for everyone, the... *below* level of reality isn't commonly reachable. Yet.

* [[Hyperspeed Escape]]: Ships can flee combat. Since they're expensive to replace, this is often a good tactic, especially if it's your flagship that is threatened (since its destruction means your death, and is an automatic game over).

* [[The Hypnotoad]]: The Dnyarri (literal hypnotoads who came nine years before the [[Trope Namer]]). The reason they didn't conquer the universe before the Ur-Quan stumbled upon their homeworld was because the Dnyarri were ''too damn lazy''. They never bothered to develop spacefaring technology. On the other hand, once they had a race of space-faring predators under their control, they started making up for lost time with a vengeance.

* [[Incredibly Lame Pun]]: {{spoiler|Dnyarri's/Mind controlled}} Umgah's Khan Fusion joke.

* [[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.

* [[Interrupting Meme]]: The Slylandro Probes lend themselves to much chagri'''[[We Come in Peace, Shoot to Kill|PRIORITY OVERRIDE.]]'''

* [[It Amused Me]]: The Umgah's motivation for doing anything.

* [[It's a Wonderful Failure]]: The {{spoiler|[[Kill'Em All|Kohr-Ah Death March]]}}, unless you are ''very'' quick. On the other hand, {{spoiler|if you ARE quick, you can use their genocide to bypass most of the required quests in the game.}}

* [[The Jailer]]: The Ur-Quan Kzer-Za.

* [[Mars Needs Women|Mars Needs Men]]: Admiral ZEX wants to be "friends... perhaps even more" with the Captain, to the point that {{spoiler|he tries to take him by force before being [[Hoist by His Own Petard]]}}.

* [[Mercy Invincibility]]: Applied to ship encounters on the map screen. Unfortunately, though, not in hyperspace, showing why this trope exists in the first place.

* [[Microts]]: The Slylandro in ''[[Star Control|Star Control 2]]'' have "rotation," "Drahnasa," and "Drahn" which are something like their equivalent of days, years, and millennia (not particularly similar in duration to ours though). It would be tricky to decode these except that pretty much everything interesting that's happened on a galactic scale happens in one of three time periods (Quite Recently, A Long Time Ago and A Really, Really Long Time Ago) so luckily it's not too hard to figure out what they're on about.<ref>One "rotation" is one "day" of their planet, 1 Drahn is equal to 4 million rotations and one Drahn is divided into two thousand Drahnasa. [http://uqm.stack.nl/forum/index.php?topic=1169.0 Some code examination] reveals that the rotation of the Slylandro homeplanet is 14.2 earth hours which tells us that one Drahnasa is equal to 1180 earth days and one Drahn is 2370000 earth days.</ref>

* [[Might Makes Right]]: The Thraddash way of life.

* [[The Missing Faction]]: "There are no Androsynth now. Only Orz." {{spoiler|Androsynth ships are still in the game for the Super Melee mode, but they don't show up in the campaign at all.}}

* [[Money Grinding]]: Mineral gathering, which will give you Resource Units to upgrade your ships and fleet. It is quite easy to overdo it, [[Unwinnable by Design|though you will not realise it]] [[Timed Mission|until it is too late]].

* [[My Species Doth Protest Too Much]]:

** Admiral ZEX, the one VUX who is not a frothing xenophobe. Because he's a frothing xeno''phile''.

* [[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.

* [[One-Gender Race]]: The Syreen, with some [[Gendercide|justification]] and a ''lot'' of [[Lampshade Hanging]].

* [[One Nation Under Copyright]]: The Druuge's Crimson Corporation.

* [[Optional Sexual Encounter]]: Take a guess as to what race this is with. Hint: it ain't the Supox.

* [[Organic Technology]]: The Umgah, Supox, and Mycon all use organic technology. {{spoiler|The Mycon ''are'' organic technology.}}

* [[Pig Latin]]: You can get the Thraddash to greet you this way.

* [[Planet Looters]]: The Mycon, who are corrupted [[Organic Technology]].

* [[Planet of Hats]]: Each alien race, in its own way.

* [[Something They Would Never Say]]: It can help a lot when your partner in conversation {{spoiler|has broken sensors and can only judge your ship by gravimetry data.}} Or has been brainwashed.

* [[Space Elves]]: The Syreen are of the blue space babe variety, while the Arilou are of the mystic alien intruder type.

* [[Space Is an Ocean]]: Except for True Space being frictionless, the portrayed universe fits the trope pretty much.

* [[Stalked by the Bell]]: The Death March.

* [[Starfish Aliens]]: Many species, but especially the Orz. The Slylandro are pretty much this as well, being floating translucent gas bags with glowy bits inside them. Glowy bits which you aren't supposed to be able to see and which they get very embarrased if you mention, being their reproductive organs.

* [[Troperiffic]]

* [[Turned Against Their Masters]]: The Androsynth, against humans.

* [[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.

* [[Uplifted Animal]]: The Shofixti were already sentient, but they were given technology by the Yehat, which is called "Uplifting" [[In-Universe|in-game]].

* [[The Very Definitely Final Dungeon]]

* [[The Wall Around the World]]: Slave shields.

* [[Warp Whistle]]: The QuasiSpace Portal Spawner.

* [[We Come in Peace, Shoot to Kill]]: The Slylandro probes.

* [[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?]]:

== Star Control 3 ==

* [[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.

* [[Opening Monologue]]

* [[Proud Warrior Race Guy]]: The Harika. The Ur-Quan also seem to have evolved into this.

* [[Real Is Brown]]: And gray. Mostly gray. Contrast this with the previous game's palette.

* [[Relex]]: Apparently all alien languages are relexes of English, as {{spoiler|the Precursor tells you that "all races who developed mathematics" had the confusion between "Eternal Ones" and "Eternal1".}}

* [[Shout-Out]]: ICOM, your onboard hint machine, looks ''exactly'' like [[2001: A Space Odyssey|HAL 9000]]. Lampshaded, too, in one of the Captain's responses.

* [[Simpleton Voice]]: The Doogs speak in one.

* [[This Is a Drill]]: One of the weapons of the Daktaklakpak Vivisector.

* [[This Loser Is You]]: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STcAhhcqXpU Watch] as the Spathi leader tries to ward off what he believes to be an alien invasion.