nanotrasen retheme/rebrand

[corresp0nd]

tldr; reconsider why the station is even there and wtf nanotrasen is doing. i hate the current approach of a vague "research" so this rethemes nt to be a defense contractor corpo (and also considers all the ways the game needs to change in order to actually communicate this)

pleaseeee review this but it is still a wip. this is my first draft sooooooooo i might rewrite it (and i need to expand on the shit i didnt)

[TheHolyAegis]

The only thing I can imagine plasma with science is the anomaly generator. But I feel like fully recreating the core mechanic of science is a bit much?

[MoxieIsMoxie]

I think it is important to note that NT is a conglomerate. They are not a company, they are THE company. They have a hand in every market, in every scientific field, and every corner of the galaxy. What may seem like other companies can still be owned or mostly owned by NT. In the grand scheme of things, the station we play on is just another small blip on the radar.

I think this idea has merit, though. Maybe not so much on the NT side, but the station side. Having a station designed purpose beyond a research outpost and being owned by subsidiaries would be the peak. Then the stations would be different not only in layout but also in function.

[ferynn]

I think the research station aspect is fundamentally good to the conception of the station. Not as them learning how to make jaws of life and the like, but keeping those as a "licensing reward" for gathering data in fucked up dangerous experiments for further analysis.

It does make sense that NT would want to keep extremely hazardous research isolated, in a station that they could quarantine or even nuke if needed. It explains why there's a nuke on station. It gives a reason for there being such a well stocked medical system.

Regarding other aspects, why like cargo exists, all that needs to be said is that NT is super cheap and wants to make profits on things they "really" shouldn't need to if they were being truly efficient in. That's why the support is so sparse.

It's meant to be a disposable, relatively self sustaining outpost for them to do all the weird science they want.

All the repeated fucking with reality also gives a reason for why so many magical antags focus on the station itself. Science keeps messing with the fabric of reality, and it lets other things bleed through.

[willowzeta]

I think Moxie and Ferynn have said what I would have, calling Nanotrasen an "defense contractor" is like, say, calling Comcast a "cable provider". It's not strictly inaccurate, but it undermines the bigger picture in that Nanotrasen likely has millions of stations and trillions of employees (if not greater). Nanotrasen is, at this point, some kind of quasi-governmental organization, likely with entire solar systems and vast parsecs of open space under their direct jurisdiction. One tiny fuckass mass-produced station in the middle of nowhere isn't gonna register anything more than a single readout going dead on some regional manager's monitoring console.

I hope to eventually give a proper reframing of bluespace research and why things are the way they are in-setting whenever I get around to writing my science doc.

[ferynn]

I do think tying sec more to a Nanotrasen military theme would be good. It’s the sovereign entity out there, and it would be better to drill home that space law is Nanotrasen’s law they’re applying

[MoxieIsMoxie]

It is on brand for them to own a private military, probably even a few. We already have ERT and Deathsquad, and I liked the closed doc that expanded on them.

In addition to ferynns comment, it would also make the station feel less civilian and more outpost-like.