Sword of the Stars II: Lords of Winter will follow the original game's engaging space strategy with even larger space battles that have deeper tactical considerations, new diplomacy options, and more ways for you to conquer known space. All the original playable races from the first game and its expansions--the humans, the Hiver, the Tarka, the Liir, the Zuul, and the Morrigi--will return in the sequel, each hungrier for power than before. However, these warring clans face a new competitor--the Suul'ka Horde, the ancient masters of the warlike Zuul who offer only a single choice to their enemies: subjugation or oblivion. Lead writer Arinn Dembo reacquaints us with the game's races and factions, as well as introduces the Suul'ka for the first time.
GameSpot: Give us an overview of the playable races in Sword of the Stars II. How have the races been tweaked and improved for the sequel?
AD: There were six original races in the Sword of the Stars universe. Here they are again for your reference.
First, the humans. The species you see in the mirror every morning! The humans of the 26th century are not that much different from you. A little shorter on average…and of course, they have their own faster-than-light (FTL) engine. The node drive was discovered in the 24th century and lets humans detect gravitational stress fractures in the universe that lead from star to star. They travel down those fracture lines at high speed, like shooting the rapids of a river roaring through a canyon. Traveling through node space is much faster than moving through regular space. So humans, although they are confined to those predetermined channels, have one of the fastest transport systems in the game.
Humans are the viewpoint race for most of the game's fiction as well. The name of the series, Sword of the Stars, was also the name of the first human dreadnought equipped with lancers. The way the universe evolves over time in this series also tends to be slightly more centered around humans. The action of the original Sword of the Stars was set in the year 2408, beginning with the day that the human race attempted to launch its first colony mission to another star system. The action of Sword of the Stars II: Lords of Winter begins in 2508, when the human race is attempting to launch its first Leviathan-class vessel. The loss of the S.F.S. Leviathan is the opening salvo of the era known as the Winter Wars.
Sol Force, the faction of the human race, is very different in 2508 than it was in 2408. Apes have fought two major interstellar wars, survived a rebellion of their artificial intelligences, and learned to hold their own in political intrigues, even versus very ancient and aggressive star-faring races like the Tarka and the Morrigi. The leadership of Sol Force is now both tougher and wiser than the innocents who tried to launch a little ship called the Nova Maria a full century ago.
Second, the Hivers. These mantislike aliens were the first interstellar travelers encountered by humans. Hiver ships appeared in orbit around the planet Earth on the very day that humans tried to launch their first colony mission--and the Hivers weren't friendly! The first interstellar war fought by humankind was against the Hivers, and it was a brutal conflict. Humans fought for decades to punish the race that bombarded their homeworld from orbit. At the time, of course, the humans didn't realize that the rogue Hivers who had attacked them were also considered criminals in Hiver space. Needless to say, war raged on for years while this little misunderstanding was worked out.
Technologically speaking, the most impressive innovation of the Hiver race is its gate system, a series of rings that can teleport entire fleets from one end of the galaxy to the other instantaneously. At the dawn of the Winter Wars, the Hiver Imperium is entering a golden age of peace and prosperity under a strong and popular queen, Radiant Frost. They have developed powerful new gate stations, which will increase their reach and their ability to respond to threats coming from any direction.
Third, the Tarka. The Tarka are a reptilian race, one of the original four playable races from the first release of Sword of the Stars in 2006. The human race accidentally stumbled onto the Tarkas by encountering one of their patrol fleets in deep space while the Tarka fleet was engaged in combat with a few Liir who had strayed into their territory. The Tarka commander finished off his Liir opponents and then spotted the human ships and logically assumed that they were new combatants entering the fray. He treated the human fleet accordingly…and things went downhill from there.
The pride of the Tarka race is in its warp engine, which envelops ships in a warp field and lets them travel FTL from anywhere to anywhere. Although warp drives aren't as fast as node drives or Hiver gates, they are much more versatile. Tarkas don't have to follow the lines, and they can travel in any direction between the stars they wish.
As the Winter Wars begin, the Tarkasian Empire is recovering some of the pride and power it had during its first space age, the Silver Imperium. The Tarka are in the strongest position that they have been for 500 years and ready to flex their diplomatic and military muscles.
Fourth, the Liir. The Liir are a cetacean race. Like humans, Tarka, and Hivers, they were one of the original four races upon first release of the game, and they were the first psionic race in the Sword universe. Liir have very powerful and well-developed psionic abilities, including telepathy and telekinesis. They are also masters of scientific research, with the fastest rate of technological development and the largest number of technological options of any species in the game.
The core technology of the Liir species is its flicker drive, an engine that teleports its ships in millions of microteleports per second. In practice, the flicker drive is similar to the Tarka's warp drive, in that Liir can travel from any place to any other place at will. The difference is that Liir travel more slowly when space time is curved. As they approach large gravity wells, they move significantly slower than when they are traveling through open space. So while their ships rocket through the void between stars, they slow down when they are close to a star.
