Stardock's Brad Wardell Talks to Arstechinca about the Star Control Title in Development

Read the interview.  Thanks for the sneak peek!

We now have at least two 'official' Nitrous titles to look forward to now (the other being that Mars game)

Sounds great! Can't wait to see this take shape

Hmmmmm.....They are going the way of alternate timeline....."Since Paul and Fred can't officially be involved, we decided we would create a new continuity that splits off from the Ur-Quan continuity starting 250,000 years prior where something happened to the Precursors."

So the split begins with the precursors. As I look back on the history of Star Control 2, the precursors themselves had only a handful of individual influences on the evolution of the races. The most notable was the Sumatra. Lets say they keep it simple and simply remove the Samatra from the timeline where would that leave the universe? 

Well, for one thing it would leave the Ur-Quan extinct long before the events of the existing games, and that's no fun. 

Why in the world would that leave the UrQuan extinct? Please enlighten me. The UrQuan did not use the Sumatra against anyone but themselves before the events of the existing games. It was Kzer za that discovered it during the civil war with the Kohr Ah and used it to end the Civil War.... Remove the Sumatra from existence, then the Sentient Milleu could still exist, the Dnyarri Slave Empire could still exist, the UrQuan revolt and subsequent war with the Alliance could all still happen. The only differences would be the UrQuan Civil War  may or may not be over, and the UrQuan would not be able to use it against the Alliance. The removal of the Sumatra, opens up tons of potential story lines without straying too far from the original time line.

First things first: It's Sa-Matra, not Sumatra. The latter is an island in Indonesia.

You mentioned the reason the Ur-Quan would likely be extinct in your post: The civil war. The presence of the Sa-Matra allowed them to end the war before they fought themselves to mutual extinction. Even had they survived that war, they would have been so weakened as to not become a factor in galactic politics. 

Hmm so lemee see if I understand you. Your entire argument is based on the ASSUMPTION that an extended UrQuan Civil War would have led to extinction? That's like saying if the Atomic Bomb was never created you KNOW humans would be extinct because we would have fought ourselves to extinction in WWII. Im sorry man but that's way out on a limb.

Also your assumption that the UrQuan could not rebuild their society enough to be relevant in "Galactic Politics" in the span of 20,000 years following that war is absurd.....I suppose your expertise on "Galactic Politics" COULD eclipse mine BUT since The Captain brought Earth back to relevance a mere 20 years after they lost the war with the UrQuan I tend to think 20,000 years after the UrQuan Civil War is enough time to re-establish relevence.

For the record correcting spelling on a fictional word is weak.

There's no need to be snippy. I pointed out the spelling simply because you were clearly uncertain about it (you've spelled it two different ways in this thread alone), and your snide comment about expertise in galactic politics is completely unnecessary. I'm not sure what you're trying to prove here. There's no need to take that tone of "voice" in what is essentially an inconsequential discussion about an entertainment product. 

The Star Control lore establishes that the Kohr-Ah and Kzer-Za were so evenly matched that they were likely to fight themselves to mutual extinction. Only the discovery of the Sa-Matra allowed the Kzer-Za to stop the war before it got to that point. 

But don't take my word for it. Here's what the Ultronomicon has to say about the subject: "With both the Kzer-Za and the Kohr-Ah fleets nearly evenly matched, the civil war would likely have resulted in the complete destruction of the entire Ur-Quan race had the Kzer-Za not found a mysterious Precursor warship. This vessel, later called the Sa-Matra, broke the stalemate and ended the decades long war in a matter of days."

And that's the foundation for my claim that the Ur-Quan would have been extinct. Arguing details is a bit silly seeing as we're discussing what-ifs of fictive ancient history. Could the Ur-Quan have survived without the Sa-Matra? Sure, thanks to the wonders of fiction. Anything can happen if it's dramatically appropriate and not entirely unbelievable. 

This is one of those ethical-legal scenarios.  We won't use the lore created by Paul Reiche and Fred Ford without their performance or at least explicit blessing.  As far as we're concerned, it belongs to them.

The other issue has to do with trying to write a story that has some suspense in it.  If people already know all about the Ur-Quan and the other aliens from day 1, it gets hard to have any interesting plot twists that didn't involve massive retconning that would upset everyone.

We'll still be actively supporting and promoting the classic Star Control as well.  If there's time and resources, I'd love to see us work with the community to do a Star Control 2 HD type game.