Star Legends Plot Analysis
When I started writing my novel about a year ago, the first thing I had to do was try and create a overarcing plot that would tie the levels together and let me tell a convincing story. To my surprise, I didn’t have to look far to find one, and was able to base my story around it.
Here’s my theory, in short: Most of the events from Dynastar to Shipyard were orchestrated by The Mysterious Figure as part of a long term plot to undermine UC resistance to the upcoming Scorn invasion, as well as working to create additional weapons and technology to aid the Scorn during that invasion.
The Mysterious Figure (hereafter referred to as TMF) is mostly likely a Scorn of some variety, likely the same type as the Bosses of the Voleria and Crusade expansions. He doesn’t wear the iconic armor (likely to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands should something go wrong), but his general proportions are about equal to the Bosses, and at some points during the fight to slay him, Scorn glyphs will appear on the floor of the arena. His combat abilities are extremely powerful, and given that he is unarmed, they are not the result of weaponry (or at least, not openly carried weapons), a trait shared by the Voleria boss. And finally, he escapes at the end of the boss fight via some kind of teleporter, one that is clearly different from UC teleporters. TMF being a Scorn agent is the only explanation that fits the facts.
If you look closely, you can detect the traces of TMF involvement in most of the early campaigns. Let’s go through them one at a time.
Dynastar: Dr. McCreary’s lab note sound very similar to the brainwashed Dr. Herbert from the UCS Savant. McCreary had a bad case of megalomania instead of the outright Scorn worship that Herbert descended to, but the general tone of their writings don’t differ all that much. McCreary may have been subjected to an early, less refined form of mind control (which didn’t work as intended), or it may have been a more subtle form of the same tech, intended to make him easier to manipulate instead (or perhaps subtle manipulation was all the early tech could do). Forcibly mind controlling him might have attracted too much attention, but slowly altering his personality to make him into a Scorn puppet wouldn’t. Shipyard shows that while TMF is no pushover, he’s hardly invincible, and wouldn’t want his cover blown by engaging in a direct confrontation if other options were available, so the subtle approach was his best opinion. The “Juice” steroid created by McCreary may not have met Dynastar’s goals, but I believe it met TMF’s: Create Juicers. TMF likely could have created Juice on his own, but he would not have access to the industrial scale production assets possessed by Dynastar, thus he used stealth to create it and the Juicers. On the surface Juicers don’t make ideal soldiers, but they’re actually perfect for TMF’s needs. Juicers are strong and tough, their drug addiction makes them easy to control, and given their diminished intelligence (as shown by the fact that they don’t seem to think standing next to explosive barrels is a bad idea) means that even if they were captured and interrogated, they likely wouldn’t know enough to damage TMF’s long term planes. There are three big clues to a Juicer-TMF connection. First off is that the Juicer’s hooded outfits look quite a bit like TMF’s own concealing robe, and were likely adopted as means of imitating their benefactor. The Juicer’s also share the glowing eyes of TMF, hinting that Juice likely has some connection to Scorn Bio-tech. Finally, the “Rebel Yell” heavy infantry encountered on Numa Prime during the Scorn invasion have a strong resemblance to juicers, and are likely the end product of Scorn bio-engineering conducted on the juicers who survived the battle for Dynastar.
Red Sun: The Pirates likely weren’t brainwashed into compliance, rather they were simply paid to go along. They likely weren’t used as a combat force, but were instead used as covert transport system. When Red Sun was taken down by the UC, they were hauling what I believe to be the early version of Scorn Breathers and Maulers (hereafter referred to as Bio-constructs or bio-cons). The giant version of the same creatures was likely an early version of Devastator class bio-cons like Durrex. After the samples being hauled by Red Sun were lost, TMF had to start over (more on this in the Numa Prime section). The other link to the TMF is the loading robot that had been rebuilt into a combat unit, a common tactic that would be reused several times by TMF’s conspiracy. It is unknown if the Red Suns introduced TMF to the idea or if the robot was another prototype being hauled in the same shipment as the bio-cons, but either way TMF was aware of the idea at this time.
The Dynastar and Red Sun incidents likely set TMF’s plans back by several years, as he’d lost his army, the means to created it, and test subjects for his bio-engineer work, all within a short period of time. I suspect that TMF changed tactics at this point, and started working on new means to undermine UC resistance. After the Cycorp incident occurred (I don’t think TMF had a hand in that fiasco), he may have noticed animal rights groups protesting the experiments that Cycorp had performed. That was when he decided to either infiltrate and control one such group, or created one on his own. An animal rights group would be an ideal infiltration tool. They frequently attempt to access secure facilities to investigate reports of animal cruelty, and such attempts are usually ignored (which would let TMF snoop around as much as he wanted without arousing suspicion). They are notoriously inefficient (only 20% of funds donated to PETA are used for animal welfare projects), so TMF could divert funding to his bio-engineering projects with ease. Given the propensity of animal rights groups to attract interest from celebrities and scientists, TMF could also use his to gain influence over UC media outlets and collect talented personal for his bio-construct development.
The Delta 7 incident may have also been a TMF event. I’ve always suspected Scorn mind control to be a technological or biological process rather than a magic one, and in particular I’ve theorized that Scorn mind control uses some kind of biological implant to subvert the victim’s will (like the Goa'uld from Stargate). Crusade shows that Scorn infantry use bio-implants to enhance their combat skills, and that such implants are compatible with humans, so the theory is possible. The Vular head squids encountered at Delta 7 maybe have inspired TMF to create the Scorn mind control tech, or the entire incident may have been a Scorn weapons test. Given that the Scorn have an uncanny affinity with Vular, it’s certainly possible that they were somehow involved in the Delta 7 incident (if not more, since another of my theories postulates that the Vular are themselves a product of Scorn bio-engineering).
Numa Prime: Numa was definitely part of TMF’s long term plan. The Scorn Golem encountered in the area provided definite proof of Scorn involvement. I believe that TMF relocated his bio-engineering project to Numa in the wake of the Red Sun disaster, and had continued to develop new and better bio-cons since then. The burrowing creatures and Vular Tanks scattered around Numa were likely part of that project (either being escaped test subjects or the sources for the DNA used in development), with the burrowers being the next form of the Mauler/Breather bio-cons, and the Tanks have been used as part of the development of Durrex (the Golem was likely deployed to Numa in order to deal with any problematic prototypes). I have no idea what the drone like machines found at Numa were, but they do share enough features with Scorn tech that I can confidently say they were part of whatever was going on. One guess is that they were tracking devices, deployed on Numa to attract UC interest, then be captured and shipped all around the colonies (and thus provide the Scorn with a picture of the UC transport system, R&D labs, and other notable sites). The rebelling squatters may have been an army in-training that TMF had started developing after losing the Juicers. As TMF gathered information via his animal rights group/cult, the Numa rebels would have provided him a means to take action based on that information. A more sinister theory is that the entire Numa Prime rebellion was instigated in order to capture various important figures as hostages, turn them to the Scorn cause, and then arrange for their rescue to get the now-agents returned to UC society. Given that Scorn bio-constructs are very similar to their Numa Prime heritage, the Numa Prime lab clearly succeed in its initial goals, and it’s possible that the player’s actions on Numa may have help to advance the Scorn cause.
Slouch-O: Slouch-O was also likely a TMF plan. I believe it was intended as dry run of Shipyard and also a plan to trick the UC into abandoning robotics technology (which would naturally be immune to Scorn mind control, if it works the way I believe it does). It’s possible that the Scorn repeated their “mind control the hostages” ploy from Numa during the incident as well. Finally, Slouch-O was also intended as kind of “Battle of Verdun” scenario, to suck UC forces into a battle with sole intention of killing as many of them as possible, as part of the set up to Shipyard. It’s hard to prove TMF involvement in Slouch-O, but not impossible. For one, Scorn have been known to reprogram UC robotics technology and use it against them, so doing something like Slouch-O is within their abilities (and would have proved a convenient time to test out Scorn hacking equipment as well). Also the director bot (which was likely just the Slouch-O mascot, and not actually a giant robot camera that directed movies), was reprogramed just like the shipping robot would be, and was likely turned as part of a field test and rehearsal for shipyard.
Shipyard: The first shots of the Scorn-UC war were fired in Shipyard. The entire battle was designed to give the Scorn as big of an edge as they could get before they launched the invasion of Voleria. TMF had two major goals during the battle, and possibly some minor ones. The main goal was to destroy the Shipyard (depriving the UC of a vital installation that would be desperately needed during the coming war). The only reason TMF didn’t blow the place up as soon as the seized it was because the second goals was to follow up the Verdun situation from Slouch-O with a second such battle, in the hopes of A) killing as many UC troops as possible during the battle and after blowing up the Shipyard, and B) since local UC forces would have been low on manpower after the battle for Slouch-O, they would need to call for assistance from far away, drawing UC forces away from their usual postings and toward the rear areas (and in the best case scenario, killing them all when the shipyard exploded, and drawing more forces toward the area during the clean-up and search for survival), leaving the UC frontier as weak as possible. TMF may have mind controlled the hostages again, but I doubt it, since the hostages would have been killed in the shipyard’s explosion anyway (the hostages likely would have been evacuated to one of the UC ships nearby, but the blast would have taken the ship out anyway). TMF may have also been testing how well Scorn mines would work against UC troops (the mine’s circuitry was unfamiliar to the UC officer who gave you a quest to disarm them, hinting that they were Scorn tech), and how UC troops would respond. The information gather at shipyard (that the type of mines used there were ineffective, and UC troops would carefully disarm bombs instead of bypassing them) was likely heeded by the planers of the Voleria invasion, who used mines that most troops couldn’t disarm (thus creating more UC causalities) and scattering them around to try and slow down a UC counter-attack (which didn’t work, since running past the mines was also an option. Had TMF managed to destroy the shipyard, it would have been devastating to the UC, and perhaps would have allowed the Scorn to succeed in their goals on Voleria.
That's all I have to say regarding the pre-Voleria plot of SL. The rest of the game's plot is a little more confusing, and mostly relates to the long-term goals, plans, and strategy of the Scorn. I'll save that discussion for a later time.
