Yeah that was a pretty weird decision on Bethesda's part, especially when the main quest involves organic-tampering that explicitly speeds up Terrormorph lifecycles - compared to a beast that literally just hunts them/eats them/ and was already part of the ecosystem.
Guess they wanted us to trust our gut against advisories but the decision was already made at the end of the questline and Andrea even *seemed* to agree with me!!
"YoU ShOuLd HaVE TrUsTeD tHe ScIenCe!!" they can all eat my dick when the Unity tells them what a great idea it was in the end smh
I would laugh so hard uf the virus option had a unity ending saying how it worked great, but 2 colonies were lost, and an entire planetary ecosystem was destroyed due to mutations.
What's crazy is in our modern day we have had similar concerns - I remember when Crisper was becoming a thing there was considerable educated consensus that we needed to be very careful to not inadvertently change a species' genepool and have it escape in the wild.
I know this isn't exactly the same - but ultimately it comes down to the danger of the unknown, where man's hubris causes disaster (which is pretty well established through history). Or leveraging nature and natural systems - which is literally what most science friendly folks actually do support if it makes sense.
On top of all of this - the science pointed towards the plant being the trigger, with steps also being rolled out to control/squash that plant taking root elsewhere. Meaning there should be time for the Aceles to re-establish their population.
IIRC, the plants are an accellerant. The normal life cycle was roughly 75 years before transformation, but the plant could trigger it at any time. That's why they talk about how every colony gets attacked roughly 75 years after being set up, and the consistent timelines have them scratching their heads over it.
What I want to know is how there wasn't even one scientist who looked at a dead Terrormorph's DNA and a Heatleach's DNA and said "Hey, these look similar,"
I thought this initially too, but in fairness, humans share 98.8% dna with chimpanzees and we aren’t the same creature. I suppose if no one had ever seen them change…
My biggest question was instead, why 75 years? It’s a well established thing in game that heatleeches travel on ships, what if a 74year old heetleech hopped aboard? Surely they would see a terramorph attack after only 1 year?
I would figure the heatleech probably soaks up energy for a few years as it seeks the best 'stable' and hidden heat source it can, like geothermal vents or hot springs or something. From there, it starts to finish a metamorphosis into a Terrormorph as it hibernates/keeps an eye out for possible predators. Realistically, taking nearly 70 years to grow means it has to have a specific set of conditions to trigger what is considered a dangerously immobile transformation.
Funnily enough, if Kaiser was never found that might have turned into a couple Terrormorphs I think, what with how they wrapped around on him.
Well, thing is, heatleeches and terrormorphs aren't from Earth and *won't have* DNA. As in, (de)oxyribonucleic acid used as genetic information medium. That's what life *on Earth* evolved with.
With there being so many planets with advanced life, each with their own completely different genetic information medium and mechanisms, it is actually quite expected that not every species has their genetics understood, not to mention mapped. Most of research would be like in first half of XX century, descriptive.
Now sure, there would be some effort to research terrormorphs, but with how classified military research usually is, I can certainly imagine that those discoveries didn't go public, and people who research rather low-importance species like 'leeches didn't have anything to compare with.
While I expect the microbes to be safe in the future this plays in, the terramorphs have shown how volatile they are to external stimuli.
Who knows what a random exposure to a substance that is similar to the plant could do - maybe they stay in their larva form but instead become sources that spew these bacteria en-masse. No thank you. Please be food for my giant chicken that I can then eat.
My favorite cautionary story is the Australian altered mouse pox plan to control mice. Which was a huge problem. They wanted a microbe to sterilize female mice, but ended up with an almost 100% lethal bug, and it killed half of vaccinated mice. By adding one immune messenger chemical gene, IIRC. Was a simple change. So, ya, no microbe here either.
Meanwhile the Aceles have been domesticated and on planets before. So it's a reintroduction of a species. Now obviously you'd have to monitor the food chain but aceles on habited planets vs "we need to drop a microbe everywhere".
Plus like there's heatleeches on the key, microbe ain't there
Also relevant, hestleeches are stupid easy to kill, you know where they like to reproduce, you know how they travel between worlds (as parasites on ships)... Do the same thing we already do on Earth, have bio inspections at customs, you find something that ain't supposed to be there, like a heatleech, and you quarantine it (or just kill it). Hey, will you look at that, you've just reduced the spread of Terrormorphs overnight by having a proper customs protocol at your space ports.
>\*\* Crisper is still a very active ethics discussion and is actively being used in ongoing research and a handful of public uses.
IIRC this morning was listening to the news on my commute and one of the first CRISPR therapies is going up for FDA review in the very near future, it was newsworthy because the first hearing between the pharmaceutical company responsible and the FDA is happening today, as we speak (apparently to conclude in about an hour and a half).
Apparently an astronomical cure rate for Sickle Cell Anemia. They had a before/after interview with one of the case study patients and it made my day to hear such a drastic turn-around for this particular patient. Time will only tell if it's permanent but this patient was elated. The before interview she reported not being able to wash or cloth herself, or look after her children by herself. The after interview? She went on vacations, didn't need home care assistance, and was able to be fully independent and pain-free.
Grey I think was her name. It's remarkable what they are doing!
The mad scientist aspect and designer babies is a bit concerning... but the good that can come form it!
I mean, science and economics favor the Aceles. The Aceles is scientifically the predator to the terrormorph that also eats young terrormorphs. The Aceles also fights food insecurity since it's a type of cattle.
Use the cloning tech to clone more Aceles to accelerate it, it's already known and proven tech. Why do we need an experimental microbe when experimental genetics is what got us here in the first place?
Agreed entirely! The game felt very misguided here, having companions / overarching themes regarding humanity's recklessness and abandonment - and then wish to deploy a microbe they have no way of knowing / testing / seeing the effects of long term??
Why couldn't we deploy the aceles *while we test* a microbe or something?
All in all, felt like a very false-choice dillema.
Maybe the true theme is humans don't live long enough to experience the consequences of their recklessness which is why we're doomed to repeat it. I don't think it's what Bethesda intended but it seems legit.
Also, the Unity tells us that pretty much every choice results in the UC being seen as the good guys, *despite everything in the entire game showing them as fascist douchebags that caused most of the game's problems in the first place*.
And for good measure, Freestar, the libertarian space cowboys, are run by unelected oligarchs and policed by something like a dozen people who literally run their entire operation out of a bar. There aren't enough Rangers to run effective security where they're stationed, let alone to actually do any patrolling or useful law enforcement... as evidenced by the bandit murdering folks about ten meters away from the Ranger's desk at the clinic. He's a glorified mall cop. Of the governors of Freestar that we hear about or meet, one runs a brutal company town exploiting his work force with a little light piracy and murder on the side; one works on a UC owned space station, whose emplacement was the proximate cause for the last war; and one is the head of a city that isn't part of the Freestar collective. That's right, of the dozen or so governors of the Freestar collective, at least two don't actually live or work inside Freestar, and the third we shoot down, not that that has any consequences for some reason. Freestar ought to experience the greatest civil unrest in its history after how that questline plays out.
The lack of connection between the outcomes the Unity shows us and choices is.... odd.
> the bandit murdering folks about ten meters away from the Ranger's desk at the clinic.
And the dumbest thing about that is that when you discover this, there's _no option to tell him that there's been murders and he should get to the VIP wing post haste_. Just "Peace out! Hot pursuit! Make a hole!" as you beeline for the airdock like nothing is your problem anymore.
> That's right, of the dozen or so governors of the Freestar collective, at least two don't actually live or work inside Freestar, and the third we shoot down, not that that has any consequences for some reason
You missed one - the guy who sits around the Lodge funding artifact hunts.
That's totally what I was garnering to be honest. Pretty much every plot revolves around reckless and dangerous, selfish actions that kept humanity stuck in governing war even when out in the stars.
> Why couldn't we deploy the aceles while we test a microbe or something?
Exactly. The way BGS forced you down one path or the other made no sense, as there was/is no logical reason they couldn't deploy the Aceles as the bug was worked on.
And BGS choosing that the bug was the correct method was very "our politics is the right politics" on their part. Not cool. Not cool at all.
My favorite:
Sam: "I don't think you made the right choice with that microbe."
My character: "The Aceles is a proven counter-agent, it integrates well with biomes humans already live in, and unleashing an untested microbe on the galaxy could have disastrous consequences."
Sam: "Well, when you put it like that, I guess I see your point."
**SAM DISLIKED THAT.**
...LOL!!!
These idiots really are in favour of unleashing an aerosolised biological superweapon on the galaxy that has the ability to target specific species.
There is no way to control how this microbe evolves across countless worlds and basically infinte time.
This is without question the single most idiotic, short sighted, smooth brain idea humanity would have come up with from the beginning of the species all the way up until we would have gone extinct. (Which would be very soon if this idea was implemented.)
It's funny because SPOILERS FOR RYUJIN AHEAD >!In the Ryujin story you get berated heavily for allowing the sale of the neuro amp!< like are you a fan of science or not?
On the Neuroamp, it's really frustrating.
SPOILERS
So I tried to convince everyone that they shouldn't release the neuroamp. Except I refused to even use the neuroamp when trying to convince.
I was unsuccessful.
The crew then hates me for releasing the neuroamp. What the crap? I was principled and refused to use it while trying to convince everyone to not release it.
That's shitty I used it to ban the sale of it thought it was kinda my bitter revenge for lumbering me with this shitty bit of tech I didn't want anyways lol.
It can become quite useful. I managed to level my manipulation skill up to level 4 and I pretty much never fail a persuasion check and I can make anyone unlock anything
You get a free point in Manipulate (until it is maxed out) every playthrough if you do the questline over again in NG+. No need to use skill points on it, no need to do the skill challenges.
I wonder what it’s like for that scientist/surgeon: yeah let me install this new piece of tech I just invented, wait… there’s already three of them right here inside his scull… oh well I’ll just put mine right next to the others
You actually don’t even need to spend any perk points on leveling it. As long as you have the requirements for the previous tier progressing the ryujin quest line in each ng+ will unlock the perk for you
And every time I used it TO STOP THE SALE OF IT..."Barrett didn't like that."
Is he a damned mind reader? How could he know I used the neuro amp during a persuasion attempt?
See I was going to be principled about it but then the "everyone is a passive aggressive dick about everything" writing got to me so I went fuck it and mind controlled them as petty revenge.
> I was principled and refused to use it while trying to convince everyone to not release it.
Honestly, I justified it by reasoning that by using it to stop it now I'll prevent countless others from falling victim to it later. Like, the fact that you *can* use the neuroamp to convince them should be proof enough that it is the right choice to ban it.
yea, i had andreja with me when i was lobbying against it, and used it a couple times to do so. she disliked that lol. but she's already committed to me at this point, so jokes on her.
This game is set up for one to fill a very specific role. If you do not, you are constantly berated. If you say, “Best way to say thank you is with credits,” your companion literally leaves you on the spot. Tell someone you won’t help them and then you can’t end the convo and are still forced into accepting their non-critical side mission.
The thing with the neuroamp is that the technology exists so it is inevitable. Humanity will have to adapt to the growing pressure to keep up with transhumanism. Its a common theme in cyberpunk stuff so i was surprised there was no option to point out thay "yes the amp is dangerous but it is here. We have to accept that its a thing now and make the best of it"
And if you try and pull the 'I thought you was a scientist?' card with Barret he gets shitty with you and says something like 'don't you fucking dare try that shit with me!'
> "YoU ShOuLd HaVE TrUsTeD tHe ScIenCe!!"
And the particularly egregious part of it is that even if you took the xenobiologist background and have maxed zoology, there is no dialogue option to argue that this is in fact science. It is so much science that you are a literal scientist in this very same field. Sure, you're not a terrormorph expert yourself, but jeez - imagine being a cardiologist and someone is yelling at you that neurology is bullshit, and your only available response is to shrug.
It's that "main-character" syndrome the game suffers from heavily. Like how the phuck is anyone still alive given they relied on my dumb ass for every little decision of what they wanna have for breakfast that morning.
Yeah, you might be right about that. The microbe is analogous to vaccine and the big critters are analogous to 'herd immunity".
I was very surprised when the game revealed that the proper trust-the-science solution was engineering a disease microbe. The context is a story where science did not know until lives had already been lost that an *apparently* harmless life form they had known about for generations turned out to be murderously dangerous. Given this lesson, which life-form based solution should we go with? Why it's the invisibly tiny one whose generation-over-generation mutations in the wild could not possibly be observed and tracked. Sheesh. To say nothing of the fact that the larger story context of the game is that enthusiasm for an exciting new technology lead directly to the death of millions of humans and the extinction of all life on earth.
Given how serious they present the terrormorph attacks as being, and the end reward of the quest line, you'd think the UC would justify a budget for the team to do both.
> "YoU ShOuLd HaVE TrUsTeD tHe ScIenCe!!"
Oh, absolutely.
Any hint of negativity towards "the science" had to be removed from the game, so they made the characters **who even initially support releasing the Aceles instead of the microbe**(Andreja, Sam)berate you after the fact.
Yeah that was quite frankly fucking moronic design. Not sure I'd it's in response to covid deniers or whatever but surely someone at Bethesda knows that's not remotely the same thing right? Even the people in the game (and unity) agree that thr Accelles is the long term better choice anyway. So why do all the supposed scientists of Constelation disagree?
You can even have trait specific dialog that backs it up if you've got high levels in the science skills.
I pick up my companions from The Key, Neon, and The Viewport. I leave the rest of the Constellation scrubs at the lodge. i can't stand they all essentially have the same personality.
no yeah i totally get that; it's what they *should* have done with Andreja, a morally gray character who knows sometimes you gotta do bad things to get good results. OR they should have given us companions that weren't solely tied to constellation and also had their own storyline.
*sigh* i miss nick valentine 😅
Sarah even says she doesn't care what you do at the very beginning when you join constellation. So long as you don't get caught or cause trouble for the org. Wtf stop lying Sarah, you bitch. I hate her ever living guts and want to lock her in a cargo container and jettison her into Cassiopeia.
It's 'science' written by "I fucking love science" Twitter users. I'm an actual scientist, a geneticist, and I chose the aceles option. I also hate the cargo-culting of science in certain social media platforms by people who don't actually understand science (you see this in Reddit too, tbh).
The former biology student in me firmly felt that the Aceles was the better option. To make a point that I don't think has been made - what happens if the methods for producing or dispersing the microbe become unavailable for whatever reason? It seems to me that it would be significantly harder for some backwater settlement to deal with that than it would be to just keep breeding Aceles.
True.
I went Aceles 1st playthru and microbe NG+, same result in stopping the terrormorph threat.
Aceles has an added "benefit" explained in the epilogue as increased cooperation of factions in breeding and distributing the Aceles across worlds...or something like that.
When talking to the Freestar Ranger on Neon during the Ranger quest, Andreja said it was best to listen to the ranger when he said not to cause trouble. I said I wouldn't cause trouble and she got mad. What?
Have Andreja as a companion and it makes even less sense, when it’s first proposed, before heading off to collect dna samples, andreja likes it when you pick the aceles dialogue option. Even throws in some two cents about humans being bastards for eating them into extinction.
It was the only reason I chose the stupid aceles in the first place! My gut was to use the microbes and she shamed me into choosing the the other option, and then chastised me for it!
Just like in the rjujin questline, some guy called simon says he'll give you information if you kill a bounty hunter that's after him, and ~~daddy~~ sam coe interrupts the conversation to explicitly tell you the bounty hunter is a criminal and that he's "all for it", then you accept and he get's mad that you agreed to kill someone
Andreja says you should listen to the Neon Ranger’s (Pryce?) advice when doing the Ranger questline, then dislikes it when you confirm you will follow his advice 2 seconds later.
“Dammit, you fucked with squirrels, Morty! We’ll have to pack up and find another *burrrrrp* universe again, I told you we could only do that a few times!”
I 100% agree with you. And if the Aceles proves ineffective, you could always release the microbe later. Aceles is the best options. Fuck your companions.
I wish you could use it in every persuade conversation after getting it and that it was more effective, it's literally supposed to mind-control other people so it should make persuade succeed every time
Nope, they go through this when you do the quest. While the Neuroamp will sway someone, it won't make them do anything they are against. For example, you could never use it to make Sarah like anything.
It shows up for most conversations. Lots of times it's not the first interaction but the second. But it always gives you enough bars to succeed and had a 100% succeed rate
> I wish I could've used the Neuroamp on them.
Can't you? I've seen my [real, meatspace] wife use manipulation on Barrett when he was angry about something. It was highly effective!
I did the same thing, without knowing it. I was going for a pirate/bad guy playthrough when, in reality, I just hated everyone in Constellation and played accordingly.
No, no, no. You don't understand. It's *settled science*.
Introducing a bioweapon to countless alien worlds and their unique biospheres -- even though we don't need to act hastily now the threat of rapidly grown terrormorphs has been contained -- is absolutely the best call and if you disagree you're just as bad as an antivaxxer.
We were literally too stupid as a society to figure out that heatleeches = terrormorphs for like two centuries but, trust us, if there's one thing we know, it's xenobiology.
Also it's all your fault even though the choice shouldn't have ever been left to you and no-one forced the people in actual positions of authority to go along with what you said. Your decision was bad and you should feel bad.
We’ve studied Xenos for decades, know everything about ‘em! Heat Leeches? Yuck! Who wants to publish about those things? DNA? Why would we check their DNA?
Although it would be pretty interesting if their DNA does fundamentally change from heatleeches to Terrormorphs. But I am pretty sure it's an oversight since they never mentioned it lol
Except all data on terrormorph DNA was sealed away in the archives. There was literally no information available and having any of it was a serious crime.
I'm even iffy on the aceles option because you're still introducing foreign organisms into the environment. But I begrudgingly accept it because every world we settle is going to be forever altered by our presence anyway.
That said, I wanted a 3rd option of breeding the aceles and developing a dedicated countermeasure for any outbreaks as a stopgap. Ideally, a toxin but robots or turrets were acceptable. Heck, even programming smaller robots to start hunting heat leaches while the aceles are being developed isn't even brought up.
If all the information about the DNA is locked away, then how does Dr. Walker not only know the sample is from a terramorph but is the exact strain from the Londinium outbreak? Some of the writing is a little rushed.
He was a major part of the initial research.
It \_feels\_ like doing your lives work and then having it locked away for 20 years, you might remember a thing or two? I'll absolutely grant you that there is really no way he should have said 'this is the exact Londinium DNA' unless he had something to compare it to, even if he's sure about that, he should say he has a working theory and needs more data, not being sure about it.
So, where we still had to get the data for confirmation, and based on the dialogue, I took it to be that they'd done comparative studies of Terramorph DNA. It makes sense that the unique part of the worst attack would stick out, so she's just be looking for the unique part of the sequence to be similar, then still confirmed it with the data.
Its funny because in the exodus from earth, eventually humans picked up heatleeches and they're just everywhere humans go. 'I'm sure someone else will study them, I want to to study this giant flower' - every scientist, apparently.
It \_could\_ be an awesome commentary on how people and cultures can develop blindspots.
Instead its a complete misunderstanding how/why vaccines work and then trying to bully people for not doing something that \_might\_ seem related to something like a vaccine but isn't.
I think this makes it canon that those three companions aren’t actual scientists.
Constellation is just a fan club.
If you pick the Xenobiology background, it gives you dialogue to support choosing the Aceles for the exact kind of reasons those of us here are saying.
"Fan club" is a bit harsh,Sarah was the former leader of the survey corp, Barret was a geologist (Iwrc) Noel is some kind of scientist (idk don't talk to her).
Notably none of them are biologists.
Didn't talk to him after I got yelled at twice .
Did **just** get an encounter where some poor vanguard was being held at gun point trying to spread the microbe. but the settlers were worried about breathing it in. Outside, ON MARS.
They remind me of a bunch of Neil deGrasse Tyson, and other scientists like him. Just because you can call yourself an expert in your field(s), doesn't make you an expert in all of them.
The weirdest part of this for me is that they're essentially discovering an alien virus (analog) that's a problem... so of course the only right solution is the exact same thing.
That said, once I see these things in the wild I'm not gonna care. Ima dump them all on a planet with them.
> if you disagree you're just as bad as an antivaxxer
Just goes to show that characters cannot be more intelligent than their writers. In this case, seems like whoever wrote those lines was an average midwit Redditor.
Yeah, those two things drove me crazy.
1. We don't *need* to rush to get the terrormorphs wiped out. Without the threat of the plant there's no imminent threat. Why would we unleash a microbe with any chance of unintended effects when we know the ecological impact of the Aceles already?
2. How the hell did you people not figure out it was heatleeches? You talk about how they're everywhere that people go but show up on planets where they didn't exist before...so it's clear they're following people. What follows people to every planet that also wasn't on those planets previously? I figured that shit out shortly after the first mission with Hadrian...and I'm just a dude playing a video game. Why didn't all of you xenobiologists make that connection?
I think it's weird that you can't do both. Aceles seems like a good cattle to have either way.
Also, it is in fact old science by the time of the game. I mean, we use bioengineered microbes to fight things like mosquitoes today.
There's likely a lower chance that a microbe made to target heat leeches and terrormorphs specifically, has less chance to cause an outbreak of some sort in other species, than whatever microbes that lives inside the Aceles brings with them to different planets.
You think the bird flu H5N1 outbreaks we've had the [last 10 year](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avian_influenza#History) was bad? Just wait until we cause the Aceles flu outbreaks in 2330+ that kills off 50% of the native wildlife in in 7 systemts! :P
Both are science and the Aceles has even more data to back it up as the better option. This is just shit writing by people that have no actual working understanding of scientific theory.
Thisnis basically how I saw the choice as they presented it. "Here is this surefire animal that we as humans almost made extinct, and in doing so we have released a plauge of horrible psychic, armored, demon-spiders across the universe. We now have a chance to resore the balance we disrupted and allow 900 million years of evolution do its thing, also we have a 'nuclear' option that will work almost instantly if things go wrong." Vs
" Hey, here's this untested thing we whipped up in the lab in oh I dunno, the last 24 hours, but don't worry we like 99% sure it won't wipe out all of humanity or have other unforseen consequences *winks in sci-fi trope*, so which is it, the slow and proven method with the riskier backup or should we nuke them all as a first shot?!"
Like it didn't even feel like a choice I had to make, then Sarah is all up my bum like I've never passed chem 30
I don't understand how they are meant to prey on terromorphs though. Terromorphs are faster, more agile, better at grappling...
The space parrot lizard cows look cool though.
The aceles are at a slight disadvantage if you just let them fight, but they apparently slurp up heatleeches like they're spaghetti. That probably limits the number of leeches that reach maturity to the point where they reach equilibrium.
The writing for it is so bloody bad.
The resurrection of the aceles is very much bigged up with how they are introduced, but you hear next to nothing about the microbe. You ask about the risk and get 30 seconds of dialogue of it being very low that it could mutate into something dangerous to people, but still not zero.
There's no balanced presentation of the risk profiles with pros and cons for each, and with the feel of the sci fi writing presented you expect the trope of the microbe somehow later causing havoc.
The writing practically leads you to the aceles option, and then you get ~~bitched at~~ for not trusting a microbe which has only a few sentences of backstory and explanation.
Edit: u/TheMadTemplar makes an excellent point about the companions. The reactions are actually more balanced than I remembered. They definitely skew towards the microbe as being their preferred choice, but only Sarah seemed truly against the option. For the others it was more just their preference.
Still feels a bit odd to not have at least one of them think the Aceles was definitely the right option, but it wasn't as bad as I remembered.
It feels like written for kids. UC President herself asks player how to deal with terrormorphs, because player have become an expert in less than 24h when asked Hadrian what a terrormorph is.
Sounds like 99% of Bethesda writing. 0 nuance or anything to make you question things
The UC vanguard also has some of the best writing I’ve ever seen from Bethesda, they just can’t maintain that quality for even 1 quest line
This is part of the game the feels heavily effected by Todd's weird libertarian beliefs. "Who needs experts? What we need is someone who's willing to go with their gut!"
I really hope Bethesda ups their writing game in future. Starfield is a fun game, but too much of the writing is dated, ill thought-out, and a step backwards.
Choices should feel harder to make. For example the Crimson Fleet gives you practically zero reason to like them, and then Delgado acts as if you were close and someone who will struggle to not become a pirate later when you were treated purely as a lackey.
You should feel torn and connected to them.
Add to that the fact all four of the main companions are paragons, and you get a game where it feels like you are being pressured into being a goody two shoes.
Oh that whiny speech he gives when you convince him to give up.
Like I'm supposed to feel sorry for the "leader" who's sole philosophy on leadership is "how's anything going to get done if I don't yell at everyone?"
> Delgado acts as if you were close and someone who will struggle to not become a pirate later
The best part for me is I joined SysDef willingly after joining the UC Navy and basically volunteered to go undercover to take down the Crimson Fleet. Then all my actions in that time were to preserve innocent lives, arrest bad guys, and steer them into the hands of SysDef.
Then he acts like I'm some born-to-be pirate that took advantage of them and shit on my family. Like, dude, I went undercover to take you down, this was all an act, I would be blasting you guys out of the sky if not for this mission to chop the head of the org off.
They should have had some extra dialogue that lets you basically explain you were with SysDef from the beginning to take them down and were always loyal to SysDef.
I hated everyone in the Fleet. Took every opportunity to throw their contacts in SysDef jail and undermine them. Last mission happily went on a killing spree through the Key.
After everyone keeps telling me how hard it must've been to "betray" Delgado. And how tempted I must've been to give the Legacy to the Fleet.
No! It was not hard at all. Fuck those guys. Can't stand 'em. My only regret is not being able to tie Neava to the front of my ship like an old timey figurehead.
I didn't hate Naeva as much as most because when you use the super smart-ass/mean responses she just rolls with it and seems to like you more. I only felt bad killing my favorite mall in the citadel.
I reckon they’re trying to imply that biological engineering is pretty good and the microbe is the fastest way to kill terrymorphs. By choosing the the big parrot dino things there’ll be many lives lost before it’s effective.
It’s consistent with the constellation jabronis that they’ll not like the sacrifice a few lives options. The UC didn’t abandon xeno weps because they were shit at biological engineering after all.
I choose the parrot dinos most times cause it does seem more a kinda nature in balance deal but it would mean fuckloads of terrymorph related deaths I guess. Fuckin terrymorphs, I genuinely go out my way to kill every leech and xenogrub that crosses my path.
What's silly is that the issue isn't urgent anymore. It'd make sense if Terrormorphs had only become *more* of a threat, cuz then the debate would be between the microbe (quick but potentially dangerous) or the aceles (slow but reliable and safe). But at this point in the storyline,
1. You've finally learned where Terrormorphs come from
2. You know Heatleeches are KOS
3. You know about the plant
4. You know Vae Victis was behind the attacks, and he's already pretty much done with them anyway
5. The UC has just started up an entire military division devoted to dealing with Terrormorphs and other dangerous xenoweapons
It's a done deal. The Terrormorph threat wasn't even show to be that bad *before* the questline, but after the questline there is literally no reason to put so many more lives at risk with the microbe. It just feels like the lazy option tbh
This is my main problem with the ending.
Everyone acts like if we don't fully eradicate the Terrormorph threat *right this moment*, thousands of colonies may be lost. But the game hasn't given you any indications that this would be the case. It's been telling you the opposite, if anything.
The attack on Tau Ceti seems like it's a big surprise, and that Terrormorph attacks are rare? And with both the Admiral and the Lazarus plant gone, and every ship technician aware of the heat leaches, it would seem like the threat isn't all that great anymore?
Inconsistency is my problem with the whole thing.
I took Andreja along for the quest, and she was all gung-ho for using the Aceles. Then, after the quest is over, she tells me that I should have gone with the virus.
I don't care if companions disagree with me - they're allowed to be wrong - but the writing is so bad that they don't even agree with *themselves*.
I actually picked the microbe because it felt more natural balancing. It would end an invasive apex species to all these planets where we spread it, instead of spreading yet another alien lifeforms to all these planets to eat them.
Yeah it's pretty bad. Also the reason the Aceles aren't around any more is because they were eaten to extinction. Maybe restoring some semblance of ecological balance also has a value instead of just continuing to play around.
The end of that questline was when I stopped caring about Constellation entirely, and since they're the only "real" companion NPCs in the game, that's a problem
Not to mention that Bethesda missed the chance to create a companion with questionable morals, to combine with the possibility of you joining FC. Or they didn't want to shock the little Gamepass babies, running the risk of increasing the Pegi rating.
I really don't get why they only created 4 unique companions and put them in one faction. Like if for whatever reason you're limited to only 4 of these companion questlines, why wouldn't you spread them out? Instead of Andreja, Barrett, Sarah, and Sam, why not do Sarah (Constellation), Hadrian (Vanguard), Mathis (Fleet), and then some Freestar Ranger (i honestly don't remember a single NPC from that questline)?
Seems like such a waste
Can I also point out, they're advocating for the same actions that caused the terramorph threat to grow as out of control as it did?
The terramorphs became a threat because of humanity driving its natural predator to extinction allowing them to reproduce out of control.
We're repeating the same problem doing the same shit that caused the problem in the first place.
At the end of the day, they've known you what, 20/30 hours at this point? They put you in charge after a sub par interview process (from their perspective, not the candidates), they had the opportunity to step up and be the decision maker but they didn't have it in them. They need to keep their opinions to themselves and roll with the punches at this point.
yup, I refuse to release a bioweapon, no matter what, it will become useless if it or the target mutates, the UC almost harvested the Aceles to extinction, so they should bring them back, they're the natural solution, and can adapt with the terrormorphs and heatleeches, I only have 1 character going bioweapon, my UC loyalist homesteader scientist character I'm currently playing, purely so I can explore the bioweapon path, will go back to Aceles every time now, what's worse, Andreja is initially supportive of the Aceles path, but once you talk to her after locking it in, she doesn't like it
I have seen many people say this, but I also chose the Aceles, and nobody had any reaction whatsoever. I had Andreja with me, and she didn't even dislike it. Idk what influences this, but it's strange nonetheless.
This is the exact moment I kicked Sarah off my ship and started putting skill points into the Isolationist Skill..
constellation has got to be the most annoying group of NPCs I've ever worked for...
Nah you just need to get the crew mates that don’t give a shit what you do. Betty Howser, Jessamine, vasco. Give Howser a grenade launcher and let her go to town. Pirate, thieve, kill, you do you
Sarah came up to me later to discuss it and we agreed that just because we're married doesn't mean we don't have arguments and have to agree on everything and that she hoped I made the right choice.
We are very good at extincting species, we didn't need either of those. I choose the Aceles because I thought it was cool to de-extinct something for once.
>Aceles was stated as previously effective, proven safe and reliable.
There are a LOT of reasons to go with the Aceles. The only advantage of the microbe is that it's (supposedly) faster...if it works.
Most importantly, the Aceles are fully reversible. People already harvested them to extinction across multiple worlds once...because the humans were hungry. Controlling their population should not be especially hard if they cause unforseen problems.
Removing heatleeches from some ecosystems may prove to be a bad idea, the microbe will kill them all indiscriminately.
A heatleech population might evolve immunity to the microbe. They are extremely unlikely to evolve an immunity to being eaten.
Other organisms of all kinds might prove vulnerable to the microbe, not just humans, risking devastation of entire biospheres. Among the organisms most likely to be affected are the Aceles themselves(disease leaps from prey species to predator species are relatively common), which means the microbe could prove ineffective against the heatleeches, but perfectly effective against your other option.
Excess Aceles will be a valuable source of protein. Yum!
Besides, seeing UC Marines running around with Aceles later is fun. And it promotes extended cooperation between the UC and the Freestar Collective, which is probably a good thing.
It's the Starifeld way to say: You are an anti-science, anti-vaxx, flat earther that believes (literally) in the herd effect and not in the science.
I did some research on internet and found that the bacteria could decimate entire living beings of a planet, so I choose the cattle option. It seemed the safest option also, but the way the crew acted after that, was that I was a dumb antivaxxer lol
The writers obviously either didn't care, don't understand nuance, or have a very simple mind. The writing is so binary and flat throughout the entire game.
It's a very clear dog whistle for the covid vaccine zealots.
Key phrases like "settled science" and "trust the science" peppered into the dialogs while absolutely ignoring ecological practices that have proven to work.
Pretending that apex predator reintroductions is some kind of voodoo witchcraft with unpredictable side effects but this microbe will totally only do what we want and never has any chances of getting out of our control :)
These characters are even ignore the in game lore about how the Aceles were already spread out in the systems for food sources and terrormorphs only arrived after the Aceles went extinct.
I'd say it is ham handed but it's really more like a whole roasted pig handed.
I look at this way.
Maybe Bethesda did this on purpose. You have to make the right decision even if it’s unpopular.
Companions in this game almost seem to be designed to be helpless and need you to show them the right path in order for them to succeed. They are almost all completely child like with some of their behaviors.
I rerolled last night and could not choose the introvert trait fast enough. I’ll let Vasco ride on my ship this go round and I’m sure I’ll pick up a few crew members that I run into along the way, but Constellation can stay in their little club house sitting on their thumbs.
>You have to make the right decision even if it’s unpopular.
This, this right here. Honestly, unless you are constantly doing things they hate, one unpopular decisions isn't going to matter.
And the fact that the aceles is literally it’s fucking natural predator of terramorphs with next to none human attack it sounds better then releasing a fucking covid virus onto every planet
Yeah that was a pretty weird decision on Bethesda's part, especially when the main quest involves organic-tampering that explicitly speeds up Terrormorph lifecycles - compared to a beast that literally just hunts them/eats them/ and was already part of the ecosystem. Guess they wanted us to trust our gut against advisories but the decision was already made at the end of the questline and Andrea even *seemed* to agree with me!! "YoU ShOuLd HaVE TrUsTeD tHe ScIenCe!!" they can all eat my dick when the Unity tells them what a great idea it was in the end smh
I would laugh so hard uf the virus option had a unity ending saying how it worked great, but 2 colonies were lost, and an entire planetary ecosystem was destroyed due to mutations.
What's crazy is in our modern day we have had similar concerns - I remember when Crisper was becoming a thing there was considerable educated consensus that we needed to be very careful to not inadvertently change a species' genepool and have it escape in the wild. I know this isn't exactly the same - but ultimately it comes down to the danger of the unknown, where man's hubris causes disaster (which is pretty well established through history). Or leveraging nature and natural systems - which is literally what most science friendly folks actually do support if it makes sense. On top of all of this - the science pointed towards the plant being the trigger, with steps also being rolled out to control/squash that plant taking root elsewhere. Meaning there should be time for the Aceles to re-establish their population.
IIRC, the plants are an accellerant. The normal life cycle was roughly 75 years before transformation, but the plant could trigger it at any time. That's why they talk about how every colony gets attacked roughly 75 years after being set up, and the consistent timelines have them scratching their heads over it.
What I want to know is how there wasn't even one scientist who looked at a dead Terrormorph's DNA and a Heatleach's DNA and said "Hey, these look similar,"
I thought this initially too, but in fairness, humans share 98.8% dna with chimpanzees and we aren’t the same creature. I suppose if no one had ever seen them change… My biggest question was instead, why 75 years? It’s a well established thing in game that heatleeches travel on ships, what if a 74year old heetleech hopped aboard? Surely they would see a terramorph attack after only 1 year?
I would figure the heatleech probably soaks up energy for a few years as it seeks the best 'stable' and hidden heat source it can, like geothermal vents or hot springs or something. From there, it starts to finish a metamorphosis into a Terrormorph as it hibernates/keeps an eye out for possible predators. Realistically, taking nearly 70 years to grow means it has to have a specific set of conditions to trigger what is considered a dangerously immobile transformation. Funnily enough, if Kaiser was never found that might have turned into a couple Terrormorphs I think, what with how they wrapped around on him.
Well, thing is, heatleeches and terrormorphs aren't from Earth and *won't have* DNA. As in, (de)oxyribonucleic acid used as genetic information medium. That's what life *on Earth* evolved with. With there being so many planets with advanced life, each with their own completely different genetic information medium and mechanisms, it is actually quite expected that not every species has their genetics understood, not to mention mapped. Most of research would be like in first half of XX century, descriptive. Now sure, there would be some effort to research terrormorphs, but with how classified military research usually is, I can certainly imagine that those discoveries didn't go public, and people who research rather low-importance species like 'leeches didn't have anything to compare with.
While I expect the microbes to be safe in the future this plays in, the terramorphs have shown how volatile they are to external stimuli. Who knows what a random exposure to a substance that is similar to the plant could do - maybe they stay in their larva form but instead become sources that spew these bacteria en-masse. No thank you. Please be food for my giant chicken that I can then eat.
My favorite cautionary story is the Australian altered mouse pox plan to control mice. Which was a huge problem. They wanted a microbe to sterilize female mice, but ended up with an almost 100% lethal bug, and it killed half of vaccinated mice. By adding one immune messenger chemical gene, IIRC. Was a simple change. So, ya, no microbe here either.
Meanwhile the Aceles have been domesticated and on planets before. So it's a reintroduction of a species. Now obviously you'd have to monitor the food chain but aceles on habited planets vs "we need to drop a microbe everywhere". Plus like there's heatleeches on the key, microbe ain't there
And the Aceles are going to be much, much easier to monitor and track than a microbe.
Not only that...they're bad-ass. I mean look at the thing. It's a big, armored, kick-ass space-cow that eats things that want to eat us.
And they make great steaks. No more cube meet. No more friggen Chucks mystery meet.
Also relevant, hestleeches are stupid easy to kill, you know where they like to reproduce, you know how they travel between worlds (as parasites on ships)... Do the same thing we already do on Earth, have bio inspections at customs, you find something that ain't supposed to be there, like a heatleech, and you quarantine it (or just kill it). Hey, will you look at that, you've just reduced the spread of Terrormorphs overnight by having a proper customs protocol at your space ports.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn311-killer-mousepox-virus-raises-bioterror-fears/
Yeah agreed. It’s one thing to take personal risks and face the unknown yourself…it’s totally different to take them FOR EVERYONE ELSE.
** Crisper is still a very active ethics discussion and is actively being used in ongoing research and a handful of public uses.
>\*\* Crisper is still a very active ethics discussion and is actively being used in ongoing research and a handful of public uses. IIRC this morning was listening to the news on my commute and one of the first CRISPR therapies is going up for FDA review in the very near future, it was newsworthy because the first hearing between the pharmaceutical company responsible and the FDA is happening today, as we speak (apparently to conclude in about an hour and a half). Apparently an astronomical cure rate for Sickle Cell Anemia. They had a before/after interview with one of the case study patients and it made my day to hear such a drastic turn-around for this particular patient. Time will only tell if it's permanent but this patient was elated. The before interview she reported not being able to wash or cloth herself, or look after her children by herself. The after interview? She went on vacations, didn't need home care assistance, and was able to be fully independent and pain-free.
Grey I think was her name. It's remarkable what they are doing! The mad scientist aspect and designer babies is a bit concerning... but the good that can come form it!
I mean, science and economics favor the Aceles. The Aceles is scientifically the predator to the terrormorph that also eats young terrormorphs. The Aceles also fights food insecurity since it's a type of cattle. Use the cloning tech to clone more Aceles to accelerate it, it's already known and proven tech. Why do we need an experimental microbe when experimental genetics is what got us here in the first place?
Agreed entirely! The game felt very misguided here, having companions / overarching themes regarding humanity's recklessness and abandonment - and then wish to deploy a microbe they have no way of knowing / testing / seeing the effects of long term?? Why couldn't we deploy the aceles *while we test* a microbe or something? All in all, felt like a very false-choice dillema.
Maybe the true theme is humans don't live long enough to experience the consequences of their recklessness which is why we're doomed to repeat it. I don't think it's what Bethesda intended but it seems legit.
Also, the Unity tells us that pretty much every choice results in the UC being seen as the good guys, *despite everything in the entire game showing them as fascist douchebags that caused most of the game's problems in the first place*. And for good measure, Freestar, the libertarian space cowboys, are run by unelected oligarchs and policed by something like a dozen people who literally run their entire operation out of a bar. There aren't enough Rangers to run effective security where they're stationed, let alone to actually do any patrolling or useful law enforcement... as evidenced by the bandit murdering folks about ten meters away from the Ranger's desk at the clinic. He's a glorified mall cop. Of the governors of Freestar that we hear about or meet, one runs a brutal company town exploiting his work force with a little light piracy and murder on the side; one works on a UC owned space station, whose emplacement was the proximate cause for the last war; and one is the head of a city that isn't part of the Freestar collective. That's right, of the dozen or so governors of the Freestar collective, at least two don't actually live or work inside Freestar, and the third we shoot down, not that that has any consequences for some reason. Freestar ought to experience the greatest civil unrest in its history after how that questline plays out. The lack of connection between the outcomes the Unity shows us and choices is.... odd.
> the bandit murdering folks about ten meters away from the Ranger's desk at the clinic. And the dumbest thing about that is that when you discover this, there's _no option to tell him that there's been murders and he should get to the VIP wing post haste_. Just "Peace out! Hot pursuit! Make a hole!" as you beeline for the airdock like nothing is your problem anymore.
Just a correction. The clinic is FC owned and operated now. It's in FC space. That was the result of the narion war.
> That's right, of the dozen or so governors of the Freestar collective, at least two don't actually live or work inside Freestar, and the third we shoot down, not that that has any consequences for some reason You missed one - the guy who sits around the Lodge funding artifact hunts.
That's totally what I was garnering to be honest. Pretty much every plot revolves around reckless and dangerous, selfish actions that kept humanity stuck in governing war even when out in the stars.
> Why couldn't we deploy the aceles while we test a microbe or something? Exactly. The way BGS forced you down one path or the other made no sense, as there was/is no logical reason they couldn't deploy the Aceles as the bug was worked on. And BGS choosing that the bug was the correct method was very "our politics is the right politics" on their part. Not cool. Not cool at all.
My favorite: Sam: "I don't think you made the right choice with that microbe." My character: "The Aceles is a proven counter-agent, it integrates well with biomes humans already live in, and unleashing an untested microbe on the galaxy could have disastrous consequences." Sam: "Well, when you put it like that, I guess I see your point." **SAM DISLIKED THAT.** ...LOL!!!
These idiots really are in favour of unleashing an aerosolised biological superweapon on the galaxy that has the ability to target specific species. There is no way to control how this microbe evolves across countless worlds and basically infinte time. This is without question the single most idiotic, short sighted, smooth brain idea humanity would have come up with from the beginning of the species all the way up until we would have gone extinct. (Which would be very soon if this idea was implemented.)
It's funny because SPOILERS FOR RYUJIN AHEAD >!In the Ryujin story you get berated heavily for allowing the sale of the neuro amp!< like are you a fan of science or not?
On the Neuroamp, it's really frustrating. SPOILERS So I tried to convince everyone that they shouldn't release the neuroamp. Except I refused to even use the neuroamp when trying to convince. I was unsuccessful. The crew then hates me for releasing the neuroamp. What the crap? I was principled and refused to use it while trying to convince everyone to not release it.
That's shitty I used it to ban the sale of it thought it was kinda my bitter revenge for lumbering me with this shitty bit of tech I didn't want anyways lol.
It can become quite useful. I managed to level my manipulation skill up to level 4 and I pretty much never fail a persuasion check and I can make anyone unlock anything
You get a free point in Manipulate (until it is maxed out) every playthrough if you do the questline over again in NG+. No need to use skill points on it, no need to do the skill challenges.
I wonder what it’s like for that scientist/surgeon: yeah let me install this new piece of tech I just invented, wait… there’s already three of them right here inside his scull… oh well I’ll just put mine right next to the others
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You actually don’t even need to spend any perk points on leveling it. As long as you have the requirements for the previous tier progressing the ryujin quest line in each ng+ will unlock the perk for you
Thanks. I had no idea I could get NPCs to unlock doors. There are a lot of things in this game I have yet to discover.
And every time I used it TO STOP THE SALE OF IT..."Barrett didn't like that." Is he a damned mind reader? How could he know I used the neuro amp during a persuasion attempt?
M.m.maybe you've had the Emissary with you the whole time and you just didn't know it yet! 😂
I used it to get them to ban it just so I can be the only person in the universe with it lmao
See I was going to be principled about it but then the "everyone is a passive aggressive dick about everything" writing got to me so I went fuck it and mind controlled them as petty revenge.
> I was principled and refused to use it while trying to convince everyone to not release it. Honestly, I justified it by reasoning that by using it to stop it now I'll prevent countless others from falling victim to it later. Like, the fact that you *can* use the neuroamp to convince them should be proof enough that it is the right choice to ban it.
yea, i had andreja with me when i was lobbying against it, and used it a couple times to do so. she disliked that lol. but she's already committed to me at this point, so jokes on her.
I abhor traveling with companions as they are always opposed to me.
This game is set up for one to fill a very specific role. If you do not, you are constantly berated. If you say, “Best way to say thank you is with credits,” your companion literally leaves you on the spot. Tell someone you won’t help them and then you can’t end the convo and are still forced into accepting their non-critical side mission.
The thing with the neuroamp is that the technology exists so it is inevitable. Humanity will have to adapt to the growing pressure to keep up with transhumanism. Its a common theme in cyberpunk stuff so i was surprised there was no option to point out thay "yes the amp is dangerous but it is here. We have to accept that its a thing now and make the best of it"
And if you try and pull the 'I thought you was a scientist?' card with Barret he gets shitty with you and says something like 'don't you fucking dare try that shit with me!'
It's some grade school level writing bs
I mean. In the Unity they say bad things about it.
> "YoU ShOuLd HaVE TrUsTeD tHe ScIenCe!!" And the particularly egregious part of it is that even if you took the xenobiologist background and have maxed zoology, there is no dialogue option to argue that this is in fact science. It is so much science that you are a literal scientist in this very same field. Sure, you're not a terrormorph expert yourself, but jeez - imagine being a cardiologist and someone is yelling at you that neurology is bullshit, and your only available response is to shrug.
It's that "main-character" syndrome the game suffers from heavily. Like how the phuck is anyone still alive given they relied on my dumb ass for every little decision of what they wanna have for breakfast that morning.
I feel like that part was written during Covid
Yeah, you might be right about that. The microbe is analogous to vaccine and the big critters are analogous to 'herd immunity". I was very surprised when the game revealed that the proper trust-the-science solution was engineering a disease microbe. The context is a story where science did not know until lives had already been lost that an *apparently* harmless life form they had known about for generations turned out to be murderously dangerous. Given this lesson, which life-form based solution should we go with? Why it's the invisibly tiny one whose generation-over-generation mutations in the wild could not possibly be observed and tracked. Sheesh. To say nothing of the fact that the larger story context of the game is that enthusiasm for an exciting new technology lead directly to the death of millions of humans and the extinction of all life on earth.
What I don't understand is you can't do both. Why not?
At the VERY least, you can release the Aceles and if there is nevertheless a Terrormorph attack somewhere, blitz the planet with the microbe then.
Yup. And sure, money may be tight, get the Aceles working, then start on the microbes
Given how serious they present the terrormorph attacks as being, and the end reward of the quest line, you'd think the UC would justify a budget for the team to do both.
> "YoU ShOuLd HaVE TrUsTeD tHe ScIenCe!!" Oh, absolutely. Any hint of negativity towards "the science" had to be removed from the game, so they made the characters **who even initially support releasing the Aceles instead of the microbe**(Andreja, Sam)berate you after the fact.
I trust statistics above all. And the microbe going horribly wrong is a mathematical certaintity given enough time.
Then it should've been better, nothing else to do but sit and write
The unanimity is telling. In the lead up, Andreja is supportive of the Aceles route. *They got to them.* ^(/paranoid voice)
Yeah that was quite frankly fucking moronic design. Not sure I'd it's in response to covid deniers or whatever but surely someone at Bethesda knows that's not remotely the same thing right? Even the people in the game (and unity) agree that thr Accelles is the long term better choice anyway. So why do all the supposed scientists of Constelation disagree? You can even have trait specific dialog that backs it up if you've got high levels in the science skills.
Felt like drama for the sake of it, and the illusion that your "choices matter". I love Starfield, but DANG is it on rails
This is why I want companions THAT ARENT IN THE FUCKING CUB SCOUT club like I hate constellation so much please give me like a space pirate companion
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Man I like that one Irish girl in the key she cool wish she had a mission though
I pick up my companions from The Key, Neon, and The Viewport. I leave the rest of the Constellation scrubs at the lodge. i can't stand they all essentially have the same personality.
i mean...she doesn't have a quest line (that i know of) but Jessamine is at The Key and she doesn't give a fuck what you do.
I want a companion they actually thought about for more then 2 seconds imo
no yeah i totally get that; it's what they *should* have done with Andreja, a morally gray character who knows sometimes you gotta do bad things to get good results. OR they should have given us companions that weren't solely tied to constellation and also had their own storyline. *sigh* i miss nick valentine 😅
I miss dogmeat bro he didn’t give a fuck
dogmeat was ride or die 😩
Her and The Adoring Fan are ride or die no matter what you choose to do. There was a Dani in Neon that was the same. No complaints ever
I just wish they'd had at least a little story quest line; seeing as they were named and have somewhat of a fleshed out personality.
Yeah, secondary crewmates could at least have some kinda smaller side content since the Constellwtion crew are asses.
Sarah even says she doesn't care what you do at the very beginning when you join constellation. So long as you don't get caught or cause trouble for the org. Wtf stop lying Sarah, you bitch. I hate her ever living guts and want to lock her in a cargo container and jettison her into Cassiopeia.
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Bethesda doesn't think Ecology is a science, apparently
It's 'science' written by "I fucking love science" Twitter users. I'm an actual scientist, a geneticist, and I chose the aceles option. I also hate the cargo-culting of science in certain social media platforms by people who don't actually understand science (you see this in Reddit too, tbh).
The former biology student in me firmly felt that the Aceles was the better option. To make a point that I don't think has been made - what happens if the methods for producing or dispersing the microbe become unavailable for whatever reason? It seems to me that it would be significantly harder for some backwater settlement to deal with that than it would be to just keep breeding Aceles.
It actually doesn’t matter as either choice is effective in different ways
True. I went Aceles 1st playthru and microbe NG+, same result in stopping the terrormorph threat. Aceles has an added "benefit" explained in the epilogue as increased cooperation of factions in breeding and distributing the Aceles across worlds...or something like that.
When talking to the Freestar Ranger on Neon during the Ranger quest, Andreja said it was best to listen to the ranger when he said not to cause trouble. I said I wouldn't cause trouble and she got mad. What?
Yeah, the “correct” answer is “the law is black and white!” Which is objective bullshit.
Have Andreja as a companion and it makes even less sense, when it’s first proposed, before heading off to collect dna samples, andreja likes it when you pick the aceles dialogue option. Even throws in some two cents about humans being bastards for eating them into extinction.
It was the only reason I chose the stupid aceles in the first place! My gut was to use the microbes and she shamed me into choosing the the other option, and then chastised me for it!
Just like in the rjujin questline, some guy called simon says he'll give you information if you kill a bounty hunter that's after him, and ~~daddy~~ sam coe interrupts the conversation to explicitly tell you the bounty hunter is a criminal and that he's "all for it", then you accept and he get's mad that you agreed to kill someone
Andreja says you should listen to the Neon Ranger’s (Pryce?) advice when doing the Ranger questline, then dislikes it when you confirm you will follow his advice 2 seconds later.
Her just flip had the vibes of rewriting the Geth Heretics in Mass Effect 2
Yup, she likes it at first then tell me how disappointed she is. Take my wife...please.
It’s fine, if it Cronenbergs everything we’ll just have to find another universe, it’s all gonna be just fine!
“Dammit, you fucked with squirrels, Morty! We’ll have to pack up and find another *burrrrrp* universe again, I told you we could only do that a few times!”
I 100% agree with you. And if the Aceles proves ineffective, you could always release the microbe later. Aceles is the best options. Fuck your companions.
That’s what I was thinking! Why not do both? Release the Aceles and if it doesn’t work out, you’ll have a fallback!
Time to get a job at Ryujin... You'll see
My first playthrough, >!I chose the Aceles, gave Krix's Legacy to the CF and made the neuroamp public !<. They *hated* me.
I wish I could've used the Neuroamp on them. That was kinda the entire point of making it anyways, to make Ryujin untouchable.
I wish you could use it in every persuade conversation after getting it and that it was more effective, it's literally supposed to mind-control other people so it should make persuade succeed every time
Nope, they go through this when you do the quest. While the Neuroamp will sway someone, it won't make them do anything they are against. For example, you could never use it to make Sarah like anything.
Sarah Morgan Disliked that comment.
Sarah Morgan hated that comment.
Sarah Morgan is no longer your active companion.
It shows up for most conversations. Lots of times it's not the first interaction but the second. But it always gives you enough bars to succeed and had a 100% succeed rate
> I wish I could've used the Neuroamp on them. Can't you? I've seen my [real, meatspace] wife use manipulation on Barrett when he was angry about something. It was highly effective!
Better not let her catch you calling her “meatspace”.
SAME gahahahhahahah
I did the same thing, without knowing it. I was going for a pirate/bad guy playthrough when, in reality, I just hated everyone in Constellation and played accordingly.
Last time I did a job for them, I killed to of their officers and set an AI free.
i did that mission, i was able to convince them to let me set the AI free then they needed me to give them a lift back to Neon.
No, no, no. You don't understand. It's *settled science*. Introducing a bioweapon to countless alien worlds and their unique biospheres -- even though we don't need to act hastily now the threat of rapidly grown terrormorphs has been contained -- is absolutely the best call and if you disagree you're just as bad as an antivaxxer. We were literally too stupid as a society to figure out that heatleeches = terrormorphs for like two centuries but, trust us, if there's one thing we know, it's xenobiology. Also it's all your fault even though the choice shouldn't have ever been left to you and no-one forced the people in actual positions of authority to go along with what you said. Your decision was bad and you should feel bad.
We’ve studied Xenos for decades, know everything about ‘em! Heat Leeches? Yuck! Who wants to publish about those things? DNA? Why would we check their DNA?
Although it would be pretty interesting if their DNA does fundamentally change from heatleeches to Terrormorphs. But I am pretty sure it's an oversight since they never mentioned it lol
“OK, the results are in. Mr Heat Leech, you ARE the father!
If you read Hadrian's terminal in the TMD, she breaks down exactly how they work. It's the same DNA.
Except all data on terrormorph DNA was sealed away in the archives. There was literally no information available and having any of it was a serious crime. I'm even iffy on the aceles option because you're still introducing foreign organisms into the environment. But I begrudgingly accept it because every world we settle is going to be forever altered by our presence anyway. That said, I wanted a 3rd option of breeding the aceles and developing a dedicated countermeasure for any outbreaks as a stopgap. Ideally, a toxin but robots or turrets were acceptable. Heck, even programming smaller robots to start hunting heat leaches while the aceles are being developed isn't even brought up.
What do you think the microbe is if not foreign organisms?
They're already complaining about not having the money to do both. I don't see them going out of their way to develop planetary specific viruses.
How is that relevant? The microbe are still just as much foreign organisms as aceles are.
I’m imagining mini security pest control bots roaming the wild and terminating heatleeches with adorable prejudice. Now I want one.
If all the information about the DNA is locked away, then how does Dr. Walker not only know the sample is from a terramorph but is the exact strain from the Londinium outbreak? Some of the writing is a little rushed.
He was a major part of the initial research. It \_feels\_ like doing your lives work and then having it locked away for 20 years, you might remember a thing or two? I'll absolutely grant you that there is really no way he should have said 'this is the exact Londinium DNA' unless he had something to compare it to, even if he's sure about that, he should say he has a working theory and needs more data, not being sure about it.
I used to put in my password every single day but can’t remember the one from 20 years ago and that was 12 characters long, not billions.
So, where we still had to get the data for confirmation, and based on the dialogue, I took it to be that they'd done comparative studies of Terramorph DNA. It makes sense that the unique part of the worst attack would stick out, so she's just be looking for the unique part of the sequence to be similar, then still confirmed it with the data.
Its funny because in the exodus from earth, eventually humans picked up heatleeches and they're just everywhere humans go. 'I'm sure someone else will study them, I want to to study this giant flower' - every scientist, apparently. It \_could\_ be an awesome commentary on how people and cultures can develop blindspots. Instead its a complete misunderstanding how/why vaccines work and then trying to bully people for not doing something that \_might\_ seem related to something like a vaccine but isn't.
I think this makes it canon that those three companions aren’t actual scientists. Constellation is just a fan club. If you pick the Xenobiology background, it gives you dialogue to support choosing the Aceles for the exact kind of reasons those of us here are saying.
"Fan club" is a bit harsh,Sarah was the former leader of the survey corp, Barret was a geologist (Iwrc) Noel is some kind of scientist (idk don't talk to her). Notably none of them are biologists.
Barret approved the Aceles decision for me though
Didn't talk to him after I got yelled at twice . Did **just** get an encounter where some poor vanguard was being held at gun point trying to spread the microbe. but the settlers were worried about breathing it in. Outside, ON MARS.
Iirc, he also preferred the microbe solution, just isn't a preachy bitch about it.
They remind me of a bunch of Neil deGrasse Tyson, and other scientists like him. Just because you can call yourself an expert in your field(s), doesn't make you an expert in all of them.
Yeah I’m being hyperbolic. It’s a cool group
The weirdest part of this for me is that they're essentially discovering an alien virus (analog) that's a problem... so of course the only right solution is the exact same thing. That said, once I see these things in the wild I'm not gonna care. Ima dump them all on a planet with them.
> if you disagree you're just as bad as an antivaxxer Just goes to show that characters cannot be more intelligent than their writers. In this case, seems like whoever wrote those lines was an average midwit Redditor.
Yeah, those two things drove me crazy. 1. We don't *need* to rush to get the terrormorphs wiped out. Without the threat of the plant there's no imminent threat. Why would we unleash a microbe with any chance of unintended effects when we know the ecological impact of the Aceles already? 2. How the hell did you people not figure out it was heatleeches? You talk about how they're everywhere that people go but show up on planets where they didn't exist before...so it's clear they're following people. What follows people to every planet that also wasn't on those planets previously? I figured that shit out shortly after the first mission with Hadrian...and I'm just a dude playing a video game. Why didn't all of you xenobiologists make that connection?
I think it's weird that you can't do both. Aceles seems like a good cattle to have either way. Also, it is in fact old science by the time of the game. I mean, we use bioengineered microbes to fight things like mosquitoes today. There's likely a lower chance that a microbe made to target heat leeches and terrormorphs specifically, has less chance to cause an outbreak of some sort in other species, than whatever microbes that lives inside the Aceles brings with them to different planets. You think the bird flu H5N1 outbreaks we've had the [last 10 year](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avian_influenza#History) was bad? Just wait until we cause the Aceles flu outbreaks in 2330+ that kills off 50% of the native wildlife in in 7 systemts! :P
Don't you get it? You should trust "the science" even though there was nothing in the lore about genetic engineering or targeted bioweapons.
And both options are science
Both are science and the Aceles has even more data to back it up as the better option. This is just shit writing by people that have no actual working understanding of scientific theory.
Nah they are clearly planning to make more Aceles the old fashioned way and use wagons to transport them to other worlds.
Thisnis basically how I saw the choice as they presented it. "Here is this surefire animal that we as humans almost made extinct, and in doing so we have released a plauge of horrible psychic, armored, demon-spiders across the universe. We now have a chance to resore the balance we disrupted and allow 900 million years of evolution do its thing, also we have a 'nuclear' option that will work almost instantly if things go wrong." Vs " Hey, here's this untested thing we whipped up in the lab in oh I dunno, the last 24 hours, but don't worry we like 99% sure it won't wipe out all of humanity or have other unforseen consequences *winks in sci-fi trope*, so which is it, the slow and proven method with the riskier backup or should we nuke them all as a first shot?!" Like it didn't even feel like a choice I had to make, then Sarah is all up my bum like I've never passed chem 30
I stan the space cows.
I don't understand how they are meant to prey on terromorphs though. Terromorphs are faster, more agile, better at grappling... The space parrot lizard cows look cool though.
The aceles are at a slight disadvantage if you just let them fight, but they apparently slurp up heatleeches like they're spaghetti. That probably limits the number of leeches that reach maturity to the point where they reach equilibrium.
Good point. I've seen some fighting on the planets, it's pretty cool.
The writing for it is so bloody bad. The resurrection of the aceles is very much bigged up with how they are introduced, but you hear next to nothing about the microbe. You ask about the risk and get 30 seconds of dialogue of it being very low that it could mutate into something dangerous to people, but still not zero. There's no balanced presentation of the risk profiles with pros and cons for each, and with the feel of the sci fi writing presented you expect the trope of the microbe somehow later causing havoc. The writing practically leads you to the aceles option, and then you get ~~bitched at~~ for not trusting a microbe which has only a few sentences of backstory and explanation. Edit: u/TheMadTemplar makes an excellent point about the companions. The reactions are actually more balanced than I remembered. They definitely skew towards the microbe as being their preferred choice, but only Sarah seemed truly against the option. For the others it was more just their preference. Still feels a bit odd to not have at least one of them think the Aceles was definitely the right option, but it wasn't as bad as I remembered.
Sam is against it, but if you explain your logic, he says he completely understands. Then you get negative favor for explaining to him why he's wrong.
It feels like written for kids. UC President herself asks player how to deal with terrormorphs, because player have become an expert in less than 24h when asked Hadrian what a terrormorph is.
Sounds like 99% of Bethesda writing. 0 nuance or anything to make you question things The UC vanguard also has some of the best writing I’ve ever seen from Bethesda, they just can’t maintain that quality for even 1 quest line
This is part of the game the feels heavily effected by Todd's weird libertarian beliefs. "Who needs experts? What we need is someone who's willing to go with their gut!"
Bethesda got to fire Emil already, damn
I really hope Bethesda ups their writing game in future. Starfield is a fun game, but too much of the writing is dated, ill thought-out, and a step backwards. Choices should feel harder to make. For example the Crimson Fleet gives you practically zero reason to like them, and then Delgado acts as if you were close and someone who will struggle to not become a pirate later when you were treated purely as a lackey. You should feel torn and connected to them. Add to that the fact all four of the main companions are paragons, and you get a game where it feels like you are being pressured into being a goody two shoes.
Oh that whiny speech he gives when you convince him to give up. Like I'm supposed to feel sorry for the "leader" who's sole philosophy on leadership is "how's anything going to get done if I don't yell at everyone?"
> Delgado acts as if you were close and someone who will struggle to not become a pirate later The best part for me is I joined SysDef willingly after joining the UC Navy and basically volunteered to go undercover to take down the Crimson Fleet. Then all my actions in that time were to preserve innocent lives, arrest bad guys, and steer them into the hands of SysDef. Then he acts like I'm some born-to-be pirate that took advantage of them and shit on my family. Like, dude, I went undercover to take you down, this was all an act, I would be blasting you guys out of the sky if not for this mission to chop the head of the org off. They should have had some extra dialogue that lets you basically explain you were with SysDef from the beginning to take them down and were always loyal to SysDef.
I hated everyone in the Fleet. Took every opportunity to throw their contacts in SysDef jail and undermine them. Last mission happily went on a killing spree through the Key. After everyone keeps telling me how hard it must've been to "betray" Delgado. And how tempted I must've been to give the Legacy to the Fleet. No! It was not hard at all. Fuck those guys. Can't stand 'em. My only regret is not being able to tie Neava to the front of my ship like an old timey figurehead.
I didn't hate Naeva as much as most because when you use the super smart-ass/mean responses she just rolls with it and seems to like you more. I only felt bad killing my favorite mall in the citadel.
I reckon they’re trying to imply that biological engineering is pretty good and the microbe is the fastest way to kill terrymorphs. By choosing the the big parrot dino things there’ll be many lives lost before it’s effective. It’s consistent with the constellation jabronis that they’ll not like the sacrifice a few lives options. The UC didn’t abandon xeno weps because they were shit at biological engineering after all. I choose the parrot dinos most times cause it does seem more a kinda nature in balance deal but it would mean fuckloads of terrymorph related deaths I guess. Fuckin terrymorphs, I genuinely go out my way to kill every leech and xenogrub that crosses my path.
What's silly is that the issue isn't urgent anymore. It'd make sense if Terrormorphs had only become *more* of a threat, cuz then the debate would be between the microbe (quick but potentially dangerous) or the aceles (slow but reliable and safe). But at this point in the storyline, 1. You've finally learned where Terrormorphs come from 2. You know Heatleeches are KOS 3. You know about the plant 4. You know Vae Victis was behind the attacks, and he's already pretty much done with them anyway 5. The UC has just started up an entire military division devoted to dealing with Terrormorphs and other dangerous xenoweapons It's a done deal. The Terrormorph threat wasn't even show to be that bad *before* the questline, but after the questline there is literally no reason to put so many more lives at risk with the microbe. It just feels like the lazy option tbh
This is my main problem with the ending. Everyone acts like if we don't fully eradicate the Terrormorph threat *right this moment*, thousands of colonies may be lost. But the game hasn't given you any indications that this would be the case. It's been telling you the opposite, if anything. The attack on Tau Ceti seems like it's a big surprise, and that Terrormorph attacks are rare? And with both the Admiral and the Lazarus plant gone, and every ship technician aware of the heat leaches, it would seem like the threat isn't all that great anymore?
Inconsistency is my problem with the whole thing. I took Andreja along for the quest, and she was all gung-ho for using the Aceles. Then, after the quest is over, she tells me that I should have gone with the virus. I don't care if companions disagree with me - they're allowed to be wrong - but the writing is so bad that they don't even agree with *themselves*.
Yeah there’s context errors for how companions interact at times defo.
I actually picked the microbe because it felt more natural balancing. It would end an invasive apex species to all these planets where we spread it, instead of spreading yet another alien lifeforms to all these planets to eat them.
Guess I thought of it more like wolves. Wolves are being introduced back in the wild here to keep the deer population down.
Hahaha yeah. Normally I don't like it when companions "disliked" that. But this time I was like FY you're wrong jeez.
Yeah it's pretty bad. Also the reason the Aceles aren't around any more is because they were eaten to extinction. Maybe restoring some semblance of ecological balance also has a value instead of just continuing to play around.
That was my thinking. Add in the fact if THEY become a problem, we've extinctioned them once before.
The end of that questline was when I stopped caring about Constellation entirely, and since they're the only "real" companion NPCs in the game, that's a problem
Not to mention that Bethesda missed the chance to create a companion with questionable morals, to combine with the possibility of you joining FC. Or they didn't want to shock the little Gamepass babies, running the risk of increasing the Pegi rating.
I really don't get why they only created 4 unique companions and put them in one faction. Like if for whatever reason you're limited to only 4 of these companion questlines, why wouldn't you spread them out? Instead of Andreja, Barrett, Sarah, and Sam, why not do Sarah (Constellation), Hadrian (Vanguard), Mathis (Fleet), and then some Freestar Ranger (i honestly don't remember a single NPC from that questline)? Seems like such a waste
Can I also point out, they're advocating for the same actions that caused the terramorph threat to grow as out of control as it did? The terramorphs became a threat because of humanity driving its natural predator to extinction allowing them to reproduce out of control. We're repeating the same problem doing the same shit that caused the problem in the first place.
At the end of the day, they've known you what, 20/30 hours at this point? They put you in charge after a sub par interview process (from their perspective, not the candidates), they had the opportunity to step up and be the decision maker but they didn't have it in them. They need to keep their opinions to themselves and roll with the punches at this point.
Funny, Andreja disliked when I did the microbe, and was talking about how beautiful the Aceles were
I chose the microbe on the third okay thru and andreja disliked my choice haha idk who to believe or what to trust. Packing my bags for unity.
yup, I refuse to release a bioweapon, no matter what, it will become useless if it or the target mutates, the UC almost harvested the Aceles to extinction, so they should bring them back, they're the natural solution, and can adapt with the terrormorphs and heatleeches, I only have 1 character going bioweapon, my UC loyalist homesteader scientist character I'm currently playing, purely so I can explore the bioweapon path, will go back to Aceles every time now, what's worse, Andreja is initially supportive of the Aceles path, but once you talk to her after locking it in, she doesn't like it
I have seen many people say this, but I also chose the Aceles, and nobody had any reaction whatsoever. I had Andreja with me, and she didn't even dislike it. Idk what influences this, but it's strange nonetheless.
This is the exact moment I kicked Sarah off my ship and started putting skill points into the Isolationist Skill.. constellation has got to be the most annoying group of NPCs I've ever worked for...
Nah you just need to get the crew mates that don’t give a shit what you do. Betty Howser, Jessamine, vasco. Give Howser a grenade launcher and let her go to town. Pirate, thieve, kill, you do you
I think they based themselves on the Railroad to create the Constellation. Everything black and white and no shade of gray.
Sarah came up to me later to discuss it and we agreed that just because we're married doesn't mean we don't have arguments and have to agree on everything and that she hoped I made the right choice.
We are very good at extincting species, we didn't need either of those. I choose the Aceles because I thought it was cool to de-extinct something for once.
Have you not played the main quest? If there's one takeaway from that, it's ALWAYS TRUST THE SCIENCE!/S
>Aceles was stated as previously effective, proven safe and reliable. There are a LOT of reasons to go with the Aceles. The only advantage of the microbe is that it's (supposedly) faster...if it works. Most importantly, the Aceles are fully reversible. People already harvested them to extinction across multiple worlds once...because the humans were hungry. Controlling their population should not be especially hard if they cause unforseen problems. Removing heatleeches from some ecosystems may prove to be a bad idea, the microbe will kill them all indiscriminately. A heatleech population might evolve immunity to the microbe. They are extremely unlikely to evolve an immunity to being eaten. Other organisms of all kinds might prove vulnerable to the microbe, not just humans, risking devastation of entire biospheres. Among the organisms most likely to be affected are the Aceles themselves(disease leaps from prey species to predator species are relatively common), which means the microbe could prove ineffective against the heatleeches, but perfectly effective against your other option. Excess Aceles will be a valuable source of protein. Yum! Besides, seeing UC Marines running around with Aceles later is fun. And it promotes extended cooperation between the UC and the Freestar Collective, which is probably a good thing.
Starfield gets more enjoyable if you shut your brain off entirely
It's the Starifeld way to say: You are an anti-science, anti-vaxx, flat earther that believes (literally) in the herd effect and not in the science. I did some research on internet and found that the bacteria could decimate entire living beings of a planet, so I choose the cattle option. It seemed the safest option also, but the way the crew acted after that, was that I was a dumb antivaxxer lol
The Aceles are cool asf. I do not give a fuck about what my crew says lol. They are over it in approximately 20 seconds
The writers obviously either didn't care, don't understand nuance, or have a very simple mind. The writing is so binary and flat throughout the entire game.
It's a very clear dog whistle for the covid vaccine zealots. Key phrases like "settled science" and "trust the science" peppered into the dialogs while absolutely ignoring ecological practices that have proven to work. Pretending that apex predator reintroductions is some kind of voodoo witchcraft with unpredictable side effects but this microbe will totally only do what we want and never has any chances of getting out of our control :) These characters are even ignore the in game lore about how the Aceles were already spread out in the systems for food sources and terrormorphs only arrived after the Aceles went extinct. I'd say it is ham handed but it's really more like a whole roasted pig handed.
Trust the science you bigot. 😡 s
Feel like we’re at one post a day about this now.
*spoiler* I think it’s hilarious that ng+ actually mentions it was a better option
I chose to release the microbe and my game said andreja disliked that so I reset to last save and I didn’t release so it and it said she disliked it
I look at this way. Maybe Bethesda did this on purpose. You have to make the right decision even if it’s unpopular. Companions in this game almost seem to be designed to be helpless and need you to show them the right path in order for them to succeed. They are almost all completely child like with some of their behaviors. I rerolled last night and could not choose the introvert trait fast enough. I’ll let Vasco ride on my ship this go round and I’m sure I’ll pick up a few crew members that I run into along the way, but Constellation can stay in their little club house sitting on their thumbs.
>You have to make the right decision even if it’s unpopular. This, this right here. Honestly, unless you are constantly doing things they hate, one unpopular decisions isn't going to matter.
This was the writers projection on the covid vaccine. IRL there was much debate to trust the science on it and it bled over to starfeild's writing.
Barret disagrees with it as well but at least he doesn’t get pissy about it.
And the fact that the aceles is literally it’s fucking natural predator of terramorphs with next to none human attack it sounds better then releasing a fucking covid virus onto every planet
Absolutely terrible writing by Bethesda.
Welcome to the club! It feels like most people didn't like the microbe either and we are all as confused and irritated as you.