Is the human race able to survive Cataclysm?

Game Talk The Bunker
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You know it’s rather sad when someone has to retcon past lore in order to try and make a situation more dismal because they really want their apocalypse to be a “humanity has zero chance” situation and got upset that it turns out humanity isn’t exactly made of fine china.

I mean, if the guy writing the lore wants to stomp his fight like a angry child and go “no human survival cause I say so” then fine but at that point “Death of the Author” comes into effect cause frankly, in this case canon is running on stupidity apparently.

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84

Just because its cannon does not mean its true, it just means that is what the writers want it to be, not what makes sense/reflects reality/reflects gameplay.

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Nobody is retconning anything. I’m citing sources from documents written months ago to answer these kinds of questions, and getting arguments like moonbases on earth and perpetual motion cockroaches back.

This isn’t the story of mankind’s proud revival from the ashes of the apocalypse. It never has been. The biggest clue is the title of the game.

DemAvalon, I really don’t even know how to reply to a sentiment like “just because it’s canon doesn’t mean it’s true”.

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If you were to write that “gravity has no effect on the blob and the zombies” it would be cannon, but it would not make any sense, that is basically what I said means.

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I’m not going to argue that the situation isn’t hopeless but go read the time line on the wiki, check what info is CURRENTLY in the game then tell me how I was wrong about what I said with the information I had.

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When canon is stupid people tend to stop listening to it, and yes, switching things from 99% death rate to things even lower because someone felt pissy that 99% isn’t the instant Deathblow it may have seemed is a retcon.

But hey, if canon wants to run on stupidity that’s fine, plenty of fanbases manage to enjoy settings just fine while ignoring the dumber things to come out of the authorial mouth. Extra in this case since anyone using the mods aren’t even running around in the canon setting to begin with.

Ultimately the answer to the thread question is: Realistically, yes, canonically, no.

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Reducto ad absurdum: I’m not writing new canon as I go here, I’m citing a consensus document that I had a hand in writing. If I were adding new strange stuff to it, you might have a point, since Kevin would have to approve it.

Crazykiddeath: the wiki timeline is irrelevant… I don’t think that’s ever been canonical. I don’t even really remember what’s on it. Even in that light, the biosphere collapse stuff and the massively outnumbered populace would apply even without having read the current design doc. The 99% figure, sure, that throws it for a loop… But since you guys are arguing from a “what appears in game” perspective I’ll point out that numbers like that are very obviously not represented in the game world.

Broken mirror, not sure why you’re intent on the most asshole interpretation of things. We settled on a high death rate because there’s no way to represent millions of survivors in the game area, and it would require a total shift of game style to have that many survivors.

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Then why was it even put on there, with a spoilers warning no less?

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I don’t know, I don’t write the wiki.

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The longest record of a closed ecosystem actually operating, as far as I can tell, was the second run of Biosphere-2 which failed for various reasons 6 months into a 10 month trial. That’s hardly a demonstration that we know how to solve all of the challenges of living on a barren moon today.

Also, what are the obvious reasons that we aren’t using this self sustaining technology on space stations? Food supplies for a single person for 1 day require something like 60 lbs of rocket fuel, which isn’t cheap.

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Space stations don’t come with ready supplied fertilizer and in the case of astroids, water.

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Neither does a planet after biosphere collapse. Water, for a while, but eventually that will be gone or undrinkable without significant processing. Fertilizer, no, not without extensive engineering. I don’t think you understand the gravity of total eradication of forests and oceans. There’s a reason biosphere projects are expensive, rare, and haven’t yet yielded a perpetual habitat.

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Water doesn’t just disapear. Neither does bio matter.

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I really don’t feel like teaching ecology here.

Biomatter doesn’t disappear, it degrades and erodes away.

Water doesn’t disappear, but there is a limited range of water that is useful to human purposes.

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It degrades and erodes into what?
It’s limited by cost and not much else, remember I’m talking about an isolated system.

Regardless, you’ve made your point. Even if something like this was done survivors would still be buried in super Z and everyone dies.

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I think you misunderstood what I said, I’m not saying that you are adding stuff to the lore to make it so humanity has to lose, or that the previous lore didn’t put humanity in that situation.

What I meant is: if the cannon says something (regardless of what or who wrote it, or if it was added later) that does not mean it would happen as the canon dictates, or that the cannon is correct, the Godzilla canon, for example Godzilla is anything between 50 meters to 150 meters tall and exists in the same earth as we do, however that does not reflect reality as he would be crushed under his own weight.

In Cataclysm DDA, you keep telling me that the blob is invincible when in reality its really not, the blob without a host is no threat at all, and the zombies are too stupid to the point that they could easily be overcome with trench warfare regardless of their size and might. a survivor (player) can form (with time and effort) a literal army of super soldiers, your answer to that is, “you can’t because the canon says so”, at which point one thinks “The lore makes no sense just ignore it”, which is what I do, the cannon is simply wrong at what the player can accomplish, regardless of future updates, this game lore is only as good as what it shows “show don’t tell” and regardless of what you do the blob will always be a surmountable obstacle (show) regardless of what canon tells me (tell)

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How do you assert that the blob is weak? You realize that blob enemies in game aren’t the blob, right? They’re just individual molecules of its makeup. The only presence gameplay wise that demonstrates anything of the actual blob is the Cataclysm itself, where it expended a tiny effort to overcome the entire human race. Everything else is just its passive immune system, basically (edit: that includes the player and anyone using mutagen or drinking water). If there’s ever any role for the blob in game, it would be to basically squash a humanity that managed to get its attention. I currently have no idea how that would be accomplished, but it’s conceivable.

As to this, all of this, you yourself cited gameplay and story segregation. I feel like you really didn’t understand the article.

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ever been to a slime pit?

Again what is the blob? the moment you put in the game I’m going to figure out how to kill it
I don’t care if it can one hit kill me, I don’t care that its the size of the largest observable object in space.

Also this “tiny effort” was oppening portals all over the place, allowing other things to come in (like triffids and fungus) that is when humanity is overwhelmed.

All this again, the blob supposedly can do that yet it doesn’t, it supposedly intelligent yet it doesn’t display any degree of intelligence, and the mutagen is nothing more than humanity using the blob as a resource, if cremation was standard and every carcass was nothing but bones left what would it have done then?, squashed humanity with its supposed “powers” why doesn’t it do that then?, why bother with the zombies, if you are this super being, and don’t give me that crap of “the blob’s mind, is unknowable its far beyond human comprehension” that is just an excuse to not admit your creation is very dumb (in the intelligence sense, not design sense)

The blob has a lot of cool tricks in lore but nothing in game-play, unless you just say “its invincible the moment you see it you are dead” at which point how good is that for storytelling? the old boring invincible enemy.

Another example if I’m playing a tabletop wargame, and the lore says “this is Drak Edge supreme, he is the best that ever was, he once killed 10.000.000.000. mega cyber dragons by sneezing!” and in gameplay he sucks and loses to even the most basic unit it gives me the impression that mister “Drak Edge” wrote that bit of lore himself to hype himself up, which is what the C: DDA lore feels like.

Like the blob is writing a fanfic about how its this cool super being that can crush anything and is omnipresent and is soooo smart, you can’t even get how smart it is.

I guess that is what people mean when they say the blob is intelligent, it writes fan fic.

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So, “Dark Edge Supreme”, you’ve very much established here that this is all an exercise in power fantasy for you. You have your answer, feel free to maintain your delusions of grandeur, but that is not what the game is canonically about.

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“It’s mind is too alien and unknowable” is just a excuse for lazy writing.

And while Dem does go into personal Power fantasy (seriously, “I’m going to find a way to kill it even if it’s the largest observable object in space?” The response to a stupid Canon should not be to go even dumber), they aren’t wrong about the Blob being nowhere near the threat the Lore claims it is.

Frankly it’s quite clear at this point that the lore as was written did not portray a “Guaranteed Human Extinction” scenario, and now those in charge of writing are trying to retcon things into their 100% Doomsday fantasy, and will be promptly ignored because “and everyone died” is boring dreck.

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