Editing Stellaris (section)

== Setting and Timeline ==

The game starts in 2200, with a galaxy and several independent cultures. The game has three phases, adjustable in options: '''Early Game''', '''Middle Game''' and '''Late Game''', each with their own events. You win when you conquer a majority of the galaxy, solely or in a federation. Tangible resources are: minerals for generic construction and processing, food, energy (as credits), alloys for military and high-tech construction, and consumer goods.  Each species has different needs for these resources as well -- organics need food, lithoids need minerals, robots need energy, cyborgs need a combination of those and so on. Then there are intangible resources like amenities (signifying ease of citizens's lives and infrastructural comforts) and unity (which is gained by cultural activities like joyous festivals or the holy slaughter of aliens). Tradable special resources are exotic gasses (super powerful space fuel), volatile motes (quasi fantastic space explosive), Zro dust (spice from Dune), "crystals" (lots of superstrong gems for lensing), Dark Matter, Living Metal (yup Necrodermis). Super rare resources are on the other hand, Nanites and Precursor artefacts (which are gained from archaeological excavation sites and from a super rare extragalactic cluster). Instead of barbarians and natives, we have pre-FTL civilizations and space monsters, relics, ancient drones ready to be destroyed...or researched and even adapted to.

To simulate a [[Europa Universalis]] atmosphere, the game has obstacles and shenanigans of empires familiar to those from the medieval era of ancient Earth, it doesn't get any more anthropocentric than that.

In '''Early Game''', empires expand and start their national quest-lines according to their natures. Minor space monsters will be encountered, making the player explore and research/kill them.

In '''Middle Game''' (if enabled), a culture of hostile and bickering space-nomads somewhere in the galaxy will have an some orphan with protagonist disease aiming for greater things and uniting the tribes for galactic conquest with a dark start but noble goals in mind.  It's Alexander of Macedonia, or Charlemagne, or Genghis Khan but in sppaaaaaaccceeee.

In '''Late Game''' (if enabled), the galaxy gets an endgame crisis (one of many possibilities from several shout-outs to many settings) like Middle Game but it's [[Genghis motherfucking Khan|an outsider who'll fuck everyone's shit]] on steroids, forcing everyone to contribute or see the whole gameboard wiped clean.  Fallen Empires (younger than Precursors, older than the Early Game empires), can awaken in this phase and will be as friendly and helpful as [[Eldar]] and [[Necrons]].

Nemesis (of course it costs you) also  brought a '''Post Crisis Era''' for neckbeards. During a Late Game Crisis event the Galactic Community can declare a Galactic Custodian moment where one of the empires are given massive powers similar to a Roman Dictator (which, for [[Roman Empire]] noobs, was actually a fairly voluntary and democratic gamble) to lead the rest of the galaxy to war whatever is threatening them with an implicit promise to let go of the dictatorial powers. But, obviously, a player can [[Meme|say they're the Senate]] and declare a Galactic Imperium as freedom dies in thunderous applause and start dismantling all federations to bind to themself. [[Star Wars|And yes, a Rebel Alliance will happen]]. You can play the Star Wars Main Theme with your mouth now.

The Galaxy Crises are inevitable, but extremely nuanced and challenging. A single player game will be difficult to handle its crisis in Ironman mode, doubly so if the player is a Megacorp who usually profits by being buddies. They are as follows:

#'''Prethoryn Swarm:''' Extra-galactic bug swarm who invades your galaxy to eat up everything and run away. [[Tyranid|Where did we see that before?]] [[Rape|Sucks if you start at the specific edge of the galaxy they will burst in from]]. If you capture a queen (need to be a psionic empire) and then defeat the swarm, after some time she starts telling your scientists that "they" are coming. The scientists take a look at the galaxy they came from... [[Story:The Shape Of The Nightmare To Come 50k|only to notice it missing from the cosmos itself.]]
#'''Extradimensional Invaders:''' A bunch of not-[[Daemons]] who look like the Drej from that western cartoon Titan A.E invade from [[Warp|the Shroud]]. They create "anchor" structures that signal-boost their presence in the universe and open up portals to spawn new fleets in other systems, then start seeking out planets so they can psychically mind-rape the population to death and eat their souls. These guys are all shields and no hull, so pack shield penetrators and keep your ships long range; find their anchor(s), then the portal systems and destroy them. They may or may not be a species that pulled a Zroni and underwent some kind of [[Daemon Prince|psychic ascension]].
#'''The Contingency:''' The best storyline crisis along with extensive writing (because the extra parts of the plot need a DLC), basically the Reapers from Mass Effect, seasoned with a pinch of Skynet. Long time ago some ancient race made a fuckhuge computer at the edge of galaxy to prevent a Singularity. Per stereotype, the computer decides all organics need to be exterminated regularly, [[Bioware#Mass_Effect|starting with its makers]]. When Late Game Trigger happens, every empire gets a "strange radio signal" simultaneously emanating everywhere across the galaxy. Robot units and ship AI's start going bad, and Robot populations start building makeshift ships and fuck off into the edge of the galaxy. If you are a robot empire, it's even more of a frying pan/fire situation to find the source and dampen the signal with an engineering project. [[Dune|And yes, those least harmed are the empires that outlawed all A.I]] [[Imperium of Man|and use biological labor whenever possible.]] When enough time passes, or the signal is muffled, random uninhabitable planets across the galaxy split open, revealing nearly endless robot armies and fleets with the entire planet being a gargantuan machine making them. These can spawn anywhere, [[Troll|including your undefended, trade-focused capital system]]. Bombard all four while fighting them off, and you get to find the final planet at the edge of the galaxy. Destroy that via orbital bombardment, and it's over.
#'''[[Fall of the Eldar|End of the Cycle]]:''' Not a crisis ''per se'' but any psychic empire can decide to make a dark deal that results in the empire getting empowered by a spirit of excess for 50 years, going faster, harder and researching more (the bonuses being truly excessive compared to other sources)... [[grimdark|yet there is a price to pay]]. After 50 years, the empire is destroyed - all planets (along with the vassal's planets) are converted to [[Daemon World|Shrouded worlds]] (i.e. permanently removing them from play) and the entire population's souls are devoured by a [[Slaanesh|gigantic psychic monstrosity]], supported by a host of lesser soul fleets, which will promptly begin rampaging across the galaxy and destroying everything they run across. All you are left with is a [[Exodite World|single colony, called the Exile]], with just a few pops to start over with.... and an entire galaxy that now hates you for bringing about the end. In other words, new game plus with all the tech, minus a whole lot of planets and a universally hostile galaxy. [[Awesome|Bring it on.]]
#'''[[Xeelee Sequence#Interim Coalition of Governance|The Player]]''': The new ''Nemesis'' DLC, in all its buggy glory (get your AI unfucked, Paradox!) has brought a new crisis. Basically the player can choose to be the endgame crisis faction after its third cultural tree completion. This "Menace" storyline is a revisit of the Zroni precursor storyline, making the player finish what the Zroni started, merging the [[Great Rift|Shroud with the realspace]]. Long story short, the player needs to amp up its empire's psychic power by committing [[Chaos|wanton and often senseless acts of violence]], genocide and conquest to fill the citizens' minds with [[Khorne|visions of war and conquest]] (fun fact: pissing off the galactic United Nations by kicking kittens [[Counts As|counts as]] menace points). Every 2000 Menace points gives the player a project, with the fifth and final one giving you a giant machine to shatter the galaxy, if you can spare an enormous amount of Dark Matter (140000!) which you'll harvest by blowing up stars with gigantic star eaters. Obviously once you reach the "Stage Five" menace the entire galaxy (including Fallen Empires!) will declare war on the player faction; to counter this you get tons of bonuses to combat and "menacing" spaceships resembling [[Ork]] [[Rok|Roks]] who don't need complicated alloys to build to bulk your fleets, letting you spend the alloys for fortifications and defence platforms which you'll have to erect to keep endless swarms of enemies at bay as you destroy the universe. 
#*tl;dr: [[DOOM: Repercussions of Evil|No, player, you are the Crisis.]]