Why did the Cataclysm happen?

[system]

Question. Given the existence of advanced cybernetics throughout the game world, how come the world fell at all? With sufficient implants and a lot of experience I can one-shot a hulk in the face with a punch. How come squads of professionally-trained, invisible, armour-plated, teleporting, super-speed, strength-and-agility-and-intelligence-enhanced supersoldiers spraying chain lightning and plasma beams everywhere couldn’t take on a bunch of dead people and blobs? Imagine starting the game with every implant, 10 skill in every combat ability, and access to effectively infinite amounts of ammunition. Now imagine there’s 100,000 of you, turrets are shooting at the bad guys instead of you, and you can recharge your cybernetics by plugging into any wall socket. How the hell would the apocalypse ever happen in the first place?

[Valpo]

Magic.

[StopSignal]

The is the Lore. Ohh, the Lore. Lovely Lore. I should link you?

[Closet_Pankin]

Now imagine there’s 100,000 of you, turrets are shooting at the bad guys instead of you

UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHHH

[John_Candlebury]

Because we needed a post apocalyptic game with futuristic elements.

But aactually answering your question, its implied that bigger nether creatures invaded at the first days and then died off from earths hostile climate

[Wanderer]

Because we needed a post apocalyptic game territory with futuristic elements.

So… are we the Nether?

[size=36pt]O_O[/size]

[Closet_Pankin]

Seriously, read up on the lore and you will understand how we all got rekt as a species.

Also you mentioned the robots and turrets thing… Yeah, uh, the AI is absolutely effective and it is unarguably good at killing what it targets.

[Purplewisp]

[quote=“Closet Pankin, post:7, topic:8097”]Seriously, read up on the lore and you will understand how we all got rekt as a species.

Also you mentioned the robots and turrets thing… Yeah, uh, the AI is absolutely effective and it is unarguably good at killing what it targets.[/quote]
There should be meta-lore until NPC’s are fixed.

“As humanity neared it’s last stand with thousands of super soldiers and turrets, the aliens released a neurotoxin before their attack. The toxin made soldiers “forget” about their allies, and the first dozen shots killed more allies than aliens. The soldiers in the back were largely unaffected and nearly won in the end, killing thousands more than what their own numbers suggested was possible, but that same toxin had gotten into the circuits, or at least the technicians in charge of them. The turrets changed priorities and humanities’s last stand was over.”

[Closet_Pankin]

[quote=“Purplewisp, post:8, topic:8097”][quote=“Closet Pankin, post:7, topic:8097”]Seriously, read up on the lore and you will understand how we all got rekt as a species.

Also you mentioned the robots and turrets thing… Yeah, uh, the AI is absolutely effective and it is unarguably good at killing what it targets.[/quote]
There should be meta-lore until NPC’s are fixed.

“As humanity neared it’s last stand with thousands of super soldiers and turrets, the aliens released a neurotoxin before their attack. The toxin made soldiers “forget” about their allies, and the first dozen shots killed more allies than aliens. The soldiers in the back were largely unaffected and nearly won in the end, killing thousands more than what their own numbers suggested was possible, but that same toxin had gotten into the circuits, or at least the technicians in charge of them. The turrets changed priorities and humanities’s last stand was over.”[/quote]

I was referring to the fact that automated turrets and robots slaughtered innocent people while ignoring the zombies and demons but yeah.

[Slax]

Someone obviously divided by zero.

[Purplewisp]

[quote=“Closet Pankin, post:9, topic:8097”][quote=“Purplewisp, post:8, topic:8097”][quote=“Closet Pankin, post:7, topic:8097”]Seriously, read up on the lore and you will understand how we all got rekt as a species.

Also you mentioned the robots and turrets thing… Yeah, uh, the AI is absolutely effective and it is unarguably good at killing what it targets.[/quote]
snip[/quote]

I was referring to the fact that automated turrets and robots slaughtered innocent people while ignoring the zombies and demons but yeah.[/quote]
With that in-mind the turrets would just have destroyed any attempts at an organized defense… Although I guess that depends on exactly when the turrets went rogue. Thinking about this kind of makes me want a last stand scenario, with your turrets going rogue halfway through.

[wilson7755]

Long-story-short, people fucked with science.

[Thwap]

That stuff in the lore about the robots and turrets is 100% complete illogical hogwash. No sane human being would design a fire control protocol that lets mobile human-sized targets waltz around unchallenged just because their vital signs are wrong or whatever.

[Arek_PL]

That stuff in the lore about the robots and turrets is 100% complete illogical hogwash. No sane human being would design a fire control protocol that lets mobile human-sized targets waltz around unchallenged just because their vital signs are wrong or whatever.

no one never excepted this so they never make turrets to shoot non-human things (imagine fly siting on turret lens and it go triggerhappy)

tankbots is robot so military turrets and tank drones started to fire at soldiers instead hostilles

nobody excepted this to happen(only sciencist but secret is secret) panicked civilans quickly was atacked by blob so military was outnumbered quickly alslo maybe not everyone know about resurrecting corpses

[i2amroy]

This is pretty much confined to the actual lore (and isn’t really mentioned in the game yet) but the basic reason is that during the portal surge thousands of nether monsters burst from the various portals, quickly overwhelming most forms of resistance. At that point the military started nuking their own labs to try to stop things, which in some cases helped, and in others only made the problem worse (The country may have also been attacked by others at this same point, though it’s unknown for sure in the lore). Luckily for us though, it turns out that the majority of Nether creatures can’t survive for very long in our world, so the massive hordes that had slaughtered the initial resistance either died and melted away or retreated back to the various portals that they had come through. The remnants that you meet in-game now (such as the fungaloids, blobs, triffids, mi-go’s, etc.) are just the various nether creatures that were able to survive in our world, and don’t make up even a fraction of the total that existed in that first burst.

At this point the military has potentially suffered several attempted decapitation strikes, has lost tons of their crack-team soldiers in failed last stands that ended up with them nuking themselves, and (in a still unimplemented feature) has had a large portion of them retreat through their own portal to a deep-space station, doing there absolute best to close the portal behind themselves. The military chain has largely collapsed at this point, and the zombie thing is only just starting to become a problem.

That stuff in the lore about the robots and turrets is 100% complete illogical hogwash. No sane human being would design a fire control protocol that lets mobile human-sized targets waltz around unchallenged just because their vital signs are wrong or whatever.

I’ll agree with you there, and it’s mainly a placeholder piece of lore. Eventually once we get proper monster in-fighting in between different factions I’d love to have groups of bots fighting zombies and vice-versa (as well as fighting triffids, fungaloids, and many other nether creatures), but it’s still a planned feature. I’d even like to eventually see possible areas where the large amount of bots have suppressed the zombies in the area, meaning that those towns or areas on the map are filled with tons of bots, but no zombies (just as we’ll have areas where triffids are the dominant species, or fungals have taken over a town).

[eatdembeanz]

[quote=“Arek_PL, post:14, topic:8097”]no one never excepted this so they never make turrets to shoot non-human things (imagine fly siting on turret lens and it go triggerhappy)

tankbots is robot so military turrets and tank drones started to fire at soldiers instead hostilles

nobody excepted this to happen(only sciencist but secret is secret) panicked civilans quickly was atacked by blob so military was outnumbered quickly alslo maybe not everyone know about resurrecting corpses[/quote]

That’s equally hogwashy, as I’m damn well certain that a police/riot bot would be programmed for animal attacks (like guard dogs or escaped zoo animals) and there was at least a day of combat against Netherbeasts for the programmers to widen the turrets’ protocols.

There are two ways to explain turrets going haywire and shooting only humans.

1. they were ordered to shoot humanoids and ONLY humanoids. This doesn’t explain why they ignore zombies, as a mobile target is still a target, even after it rises. If an enemy combatant were to play dead and rise up shortly thereafter, the turret would completely ignore him. This is a major design flaw that even Cataclysm’s army would fix.

2. They were ordered to shoot heat signatures. This explains why most zombies are ignored, but doesn’t explain why everything else is also ignored.

Even if you take the most specific and foolish explanation (that the turrets are only shooting humanoids with heat signatures), it doesn’t explain why the turrets ignore Shocker Zombies, Krecks, Gracken, Gozu, Blank Bodies, CHUDs, mutants of all kinds, and npcs!

It’s probably for the best if we avoid trying to rationalize this, especially if people are trying to fix the multiple coding problems related to turrets and their targets.

[TheFlame52]

Actually, all zombies have heat. They can be seen with the various IR traits and gear. But again, THIS IS A PLACEHOLDER FOR UNTIL WE GET MONSTER FACTIONS IN. I’M TIRED OF PEOPLE COMPLAINING ABOUT IT.

[Arek_PL]

just make turrets shoot at npc and it will be more rational

[i2amroy]

It’s probably for the best if we avoid trying to rationalize this, especially if people are trying to fix the multiple coding problems related to turrets and their targets.

As I mentioned it’s an old piece of lore from way back when. Once we have proper monster in-fighting (and thus have all bots properly targeting all things they should be hostile to), it will almost certainly be removed.

[system]

Hmm. Perhaps there was subversive religious cult who worshipped the nether creatures, and whose hackers unleashed a virus which turned military AI against its allies. I mean, someone was sacrificing people down in the basement of those churches, right?