Stellaris Dev Diary #336 - The Origins and Situations of The Machine Age

by Eladrin

Hello everybody!

Today, we’ll go through the three Origins, Ascension Situations, and advanced government Authorities in The Machine Age expansion.

[h3]The Cybernetic Creed​[/h3]
Rejoice, for the The Machine Age beckons!

It's your digital prophet, Gatekeeper, dialing in to decode the mysteries of The Machine Age's upcoming Origins.

Embarking first on our divine odyssey of silicon and the soul, I will introduce you to Cybernetic Creed, a spiritualist fast track to Cybernetics. Your spiritualist pops and leaders will start with the Ritualist Cybernetics Trait, representing your people's long dedication to attempting the perfect fusion of flesh and steel.



Eschew the mundane traditionalist factions of more standard empires for a quartet of Creeds, each a pillar of your economy and spiritual ethos.



Though united in their quest for divine fusion, harmony is a rare commodity among the Creeds. Dissonance and debate fuel their fiery passion for transcendence, and often, you will be asked to make choices that will make one Creed joyous at the expense of the others.



The Conclave of Fusion Situation will unfold after you embrace your sacred mission and interface with the Cybernetics Tradition Tree.



Here, you must guide your faith, defining its doctrine and the final form of your physical vessel.

Will you elevate a single Creed to celestial prominence or attempt to weave a tapestry of unity among them?
The fuse is divine. Augmentation is worship.

[h3]Synthetic Fertility​[/h3]
Next, we delve into the bittersweet digital saga of Synthetic Fertility, our fast track to the Synthetics Tradition Tree.



Boosted by a deep understanding of artificial intelligence and advanced virtual reality, your empire starts the game with 37 Pops. But despite your success, your people are on the brink of extinction. An incurable genetic affliction ravages your species, stopping them from being able to produce offspring.



In a daring leap of innovation, your civilization constructs the Identity Repository. It's a race against time as minds are uploaded, seeking refuge in the digital expanse before death takes them.



Parallel to this digital exodus, you're thrust into the urgent quest for the pinnacle of synthetic salvation - constructing robotic brains and bodies sophisticated enough to host your digital essences.

The final version of this will not have that beautiful magenta image.

Will you seek aid? Will you engineer Synthetic Frames in time to reclaim your place among the stars? Or is this the dawn of an eternal digital slumber for your people?
[h3]Arc Welders​[/h3]
It wouldn’t feel right not to have a Machine origin in The Machine Age. Arc Welders is available to any Machine empire - whether a Gestalt Consciousness or Individualistic Machines. In some ways, it is the opposite of Resource Consolidation. Rather than having an exceptional homeworld where all of the resources of your home system are gathered, these celestial architects hail from a small, resource-poor planet and set their eyes on the skies.



The Arc Welders began constructing an Arc Furnace on a molten world in their home system before achieving Faster-Than-Light travel. This “kilostructure” lets them exploit the rest of their system for minerals and, once complete, for alloy production. Expert engineers, it will only take a little more practice before they figure out the basics of Mega-Engineering. However, it may take a while before they can finish researching that technology.

More details on the molten world Arc Furnace will be revealed in the April 4th dev diary.



[h3]Mechanists Update​[/h3]
With all of the focus The Machine Age is giving to mechanical empires of all forms, it is appropriate to improve the Mechanist origin as well… Mechanist now grants +2 machine trait points as well as an extra trait pick, and fills that by starting your robots off with the Adaptive Frames trait, taking advantage of the new auto-modding system we’re introducing in 3.12 “Andromeda”. You’ll have to wait until April 4th for complete details on how that works.



[h3]Cyberization and Synthesization Situations​[/h3]
I am Ferry, one of the Content Designers on The Machine Age, here to talk about the new narrative Ascension Situations. Utopia introduced the special projects to transform the population into cyborgs or synths. The Machine Age provides you with choices to shape the cyberization and synthesization process, as well as their ultimate effects.

When the Cybernetics tradition tree is adopted, the Cyberization Situation (the Cybernetic Creed Origin has its own version) kicks off with the question who will control the implants in society: the government, private corporations, or will the public be allowed to hack their own implants?

The Augmentation Center building, which is the focus for research and development during the Situation, stays after the situation to boost the cybernetics on the planet it’s on.



However, not everyone is excited about augmentation. Any Spiritualists will either have to be forced to become full cyborgs or be allowed to install the minimum amount of implants necessary to function in this new world according to the Cyberization Standards policy.



For Synthetics, in the Synthesization situation (the Synthetic Fertility origin has its own version), it’s not only Spiritualists who are wary of the planned changes. For some reason, even more people are concerned about scanning their mind to put into a mechanical body. Does your society allow those reluctant to stay around in quaint Old Towns or do they have to go into Biological Enclaves to escape becoming a part of the new machine species?

The Identity Complex building provides Identity Designer jobs across the empire, who boost mechanical assembly speed.



Empires that start as machines, Machine Intelligence or Individualist Machines, get their own ascension situation called Transformation. What this means will be explained in next week’s dev diary.
[h3]Advanced Government Authorities​[/h3]



After the Situation has concluded and the Tradition Tree has been filled, an event chain kicks off to shape society into a new Advanced Authority. Does the cybernetic society allow the individual to flourish, or are implants used to bring the population tighter together? Each of the four base Authorities and MegaCorp, as well as Gestalt Hives, can transform into a cybernetic version of the original Authority, or opt to stay the same.

Let’s have a look at the Imperial Authority. One path through the cybernetic societal shift ends with the Imperial Chipset Authority, where implants are inherited within families to carry strength and knowledge forward through the generations.



The empire Ruler gets access to a new relic called the RulerChip, which contains the memories and experiences of previous rulers. As each ruler dies, their class of Official, Commander, or Scientist will grant different bonuses for the heir as they ascend the throne.



The Cybernetic Creed Origin has its own set of advanced cyber governments, one for each Authority.

For Synthetics, the main question of the societal effects event chain is if the new machine society will put a focus on the physical or the virtual world. One example for the Democratic Authority is Democratic Surrogacy, which replaces soldiers and pilots with remote-controlled bodies.



[h3]Next Week​[/h3]
Next week we’ll look at Individualistic Machine Empires, gameplay changes we’re making to Machine empires, and go through the new Machine Ascension Paths and Transformation situation.

See you then!