Phantoms - Good, Bad or Ugly?

[Izu Riekon]

To the admin(s) implied above - All I would ask is for you to take a few mins to look at the lore and changes I have for this. If after reading it you still feel the same, well, that is up to you.

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[Jimothy]

Well, to weight in, just to waste my breath, 'cos if the whole topic's as closed as it... well, as closed as it most certainly is...

Either way, in theory, yes, to the whole less pewpew more arrpee, if it were doable, however, 'tis not... so I'm out.

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I was formerly know as Spiritar.

It's been a while.

[Sarawr!?]

Phantoms are a thing of the past. They were created and existed in a previous generation of Disco when things didn't really work the same as they currently do. Their lore, equipment and roleplay aside, the very basic of their gameplay no longer fits the present environment of the mod and the server.

Some things are better left dead, and goin full necro on those has never turned out any good.

As a Veteran FL/Disco player and a former member of the Phantom Empire faction that used to exist on this server, I pretty much agree with the quoted text above.

Now, had I been here when the Phantoms initially disbanded, I probably would've fought against that, but unfortunately I wasn't here. So, the way things are now, in regard to the Phantoms, is what's best for everyone.

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[LN] Recruitment | Rachel Baker Bio

[Sugarplum]

I have been around here longer than my forum account would suggest and I have heard many reasons. The ships/equipment are OP. The lore doesn't make sense. The ID is broken. But none of these things are unrepairable so I keep wondering why no one has picked this up and fixed this broken toy.

Their ships used to be really OP, now they are only arguably OP (still 2 more guns than is normal for their class and most popular shipdesigned, stolen and renamed from the Firebase ship pack). So the gear itself wouldnt really be the problem anymore (infact the phantoms rather flew Osiris and Tizi-sabres or what ever best gear their was available instead).

The lore is kinda stupid and doesnt really fit in Freelancer, but that wasnt and isnt the problem with the phantoms either.

The problem with them (on discoveryGC) was that they were a player-gang of people (mainly admins, official faction leaders, and their friends) who could do anything and have anything they wanted, and abused it to the fullest (as anyone who can do and have anything they want will always do).

Per ID rules they could attack any ship they wanted, per tech permission they used everything they wanted, and per "RP-diplomacy" skype-deals they could dock anywhere they wanted. So even within official rules they were pretty much above the rules that apply for others and extremely privileged.

But even that wasn't enough for them. On top of that they shot players and docked on bases affiliated with the players they shot (of course always making sure they didn't anger anyone "important", but still showing the second-class players where they stood), engaged without any RP at all (of course again only against the second class players, or always under they pretext that somewhere someone was already shooting one of them, so anyone was a bistander to an ongoing battle and thus fari game to them, or under the pretext that although they didnt say anything, the player who got shot did, and thus enough RP had taken place for the phantoms to shoot the player who had said something).

When pretty much everyone was riled up against the phantoms and was sick and tired of all the grief they caused, they disolved. But of course the phantom players just entered another group (Reavers) and the same thing happened again.

Now they are still faction leaders (or de-facto factio leaders who arent playing anymore but are just substituted by their friends), or some left when their privileges were taken away and felt they just couldnt play without being privileged anymore. Some pop back in occasionally and rant about how leveling the playing field ruined discovery, and how bad the people who took away their privileges are and call them dog-****ers and stuff.

I know this may seem weird and hard to believe but yep, thats exactly how it is/was. You may wonder how people can be so full of poop, and I have often asked myself the same question. It seems that the ability to gain influence and pixel-power over other people in this micro-cosm of online role playing games really gets to some people's brains. Oh well.

There is a great system and two bases out there that could be being used.

I played for many years on another server and wrote a complete lore rewrite for the Phantoms there, which the community voted in and is still to this day server lore on that server.

So I guess my question is "If someone came along and had a really good lore rewrite for the Phantoms to make them playable again, would it be considered?" I should point out that this is original lore, not ripped off any cheese-flavoured sci-fi gimmick stuff.

As I see it, people, me among them, don't really want the phantoms or what ever their RP is suposed to be. People want the ship models that they plagiarized form the firebase ship pack (Slipstream and Ravens Claw) and from Star Trek (The Huntress).

I'd be all for giving these ship to a newly created faction, something like Zoners who were stranded in space and isolated from civilization too long, and who fell back into an aggressive tribal way of life (a mixture of "Heart of Darkness", "Lord of the Flies", and what happened to the Hisapania). Based perfectly withing Freelancer lore, realistic, not OP, something that would give people to do their own thing in the "wild" corners of space far outside the houses.

I already though up a RP background for such a faction a few years ago and even started writing it, but then I realized that with the state that discoveryGC is still in, this will never happen because the discovery local-chiefs that established themselves in 4.85 will never tolerate anything new unless it comes from one of them.

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User was banned for: Karlotta
Time left: (Permanent)

[roadrunner]

In before the lock hammer. ( i am amased that it had not been locked yet)

No we dont need the phantoms back.

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I am not a native English Speaker, so i make grammar errors.
But it annoys me when people make silly comments about that... especially brits who for the most part can't speak their own language let alone anyone elses!

[Sugarplum]

But we coud use an open faction that can use the Slipstream and Raven's claw. Tribal Zoners. How does that sound to you?

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User was banned for: Karlotta
Time left: (Permanent)

[Lythrilux]

As someone who wasn't here when Phooms were around, I also want to say that they seem like the kind of guys we don't want back. I've read the lore many times and I just seem to cringe each time. It doesn't really fit in with what Disco has right now at all.
What emanates from the wiki page is 'Super-OP-Terrorists-With-Everything-From-Space'.

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[Sugarplum]

As someone who wasn't here when Phooms were around, I also want to say that they seem like the kind of guys we don't want back. I've read the lore many times and I just seem to cringe each time. It doesn't really fit in with what Disco has right now at all.
What emanates from the wiki page is 'Super-OP-Terrorists-With-Everything-From-Space'.

One of those "guys" is your [LN] faction leader (and his predecessor was one of them too).

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User was banned for: Karlotta
Time left: (Permanent)

[Sabru]

As someone who wasn't here when Phooms were around, I also want to say that they seem like the kind of guys we don't want back. I've read the lore many times and I just seem to cringe each time. It doesn't really fit in with what Disco has right now at all.
What emanates from the wiki page is 'Super-OP-Terrorists-With-Everything-From-Space'.

As someone else who wasnt here for the phooms, i agree with Lyth's post.

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[Izu Riekon]

To give a little more information I will post my lore and faction proposal here as it is written in Discovery Redemption Server. My forum name there is Infrared and this is my original work (I will prove this on request). As you will see it is quite different from the Phantoms some of you may remember.

//This is a concept of my own creation that I am putting forward to be considered as Official Phantom Lore for this server. Feel free to post any feedback or suggestions underneath in this thread. This is a work in progress.

The Phantoms

The beings that later came to be known as Phantoms by those few humans that had dealings with them were once known as a peace loving race that lived far across the stars until the events of the Nomad War. The following series of events outines the recent history of the remains of the Etherium Empire.

Outline - The Events of 801 AS

As most humans continued thier ordinary existence oblivious to the threat of the Nomad War, a small group of humans lead by the infamous Edison Trent thwarted the nomad invasion, prematurely activating the nomad hypergate that would allow the nomads to complete thier invasion of the populated human systems. Instead the majority of the Nomad fleet was sent at random far across the galaxy, with the few nomads that were left behind completely disoriented from the shock of losing the mindshare. Edison Trent had saved Sirius from the imminent nomad threat. No one really cared where the countless nomad fleets had gone, the important thing was that they were no longer here and were not likely to be a problem again.

This turned out to be a very selfish point of view. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, and the nomad fleet had to have a random exit point from Hyperspace. That exit point was at the centre of the Etherium Empire, far across the stars. The day Sirius was saved, the Empire of the Etherium was doomed.

The Etherium Empire had grown to be a utopian society for its inhabitants, thier culture was very advanced in technology and space travel, but the Etherium were a physically weak people, and had few warriors. They had found an equilibrium with thier enviroment long ago and lived in peace, considering violence to be primitive and uncultured. These beliefs are what contributed to the downfall of thier aeons-long Empire - a near complete lack of planetary defences. The Etherium had ships of war, but they were deployed near the outskirts of thier systems and they had not foreseen such an attack as was made during the Fall.

The Fall

The first signs of any disruption to the inhabitants of Etheria (The home system of the Etherium Empire) was the rapid change in the color of the sky. Etheria's sky is normally purple, due to the large nebulae that the Etherium call thier home. The Hypergate event horizon initialised very close to the planet, with the planet being stripped of its atmosphere, destroying all life on Etheria. Fragments of this shattered planet were sucked in with the backlash effect of the sudden jumphole event horizon. The debri of the planetoid, its satellites and a small orbital research station were sent on a random trajectory to be scattered across Sirius.

The Nomad Fleets began to arrive through the now established hypergate. The Nomads were disoriented by thier journey, and irritated at the results of the Nomad War and loss of thier power source. Unlike the nomads that were left behind confused and in shock from the loss of the Mindshare, they began systematicly gathering resources to build a new Dyson Sphere around the young star at the centre of the Etherium Empire. The Etherium had no way to defend against the countless ships of the Nomad Mindshare and were overwhelmed and defeated with very little resistance. The planets were scoured for resources, and one by one the stars of the Etherium fell to the unknown invaders. The Etheriums became extinct within thier previous borders in under 1 terran year.

The Last of the Etherium

All was not lost however. The event horizon backlash caused by the Hypergate initialisation had flung the remains of the Etherium homeworld through the gate on a reverse trajectory to be deposited at the very fringe of Sirius Sector. Mostly this was planetoid fragments, a large portion of the purple nebulae surrounding Etheria, and an Orbital Research station. The station, which later came to be known as the Temple of the Revenant, survived the journey intact, with its crew the only survivors of the nomad invasion. Other fragments of the planatoid may have survived but could be located anywhere in Sirius and if so no contact has been made with them.

Physiology

The Etherium are a silicon based asexual lifeform, a seemingly bipedal being. The body is in fact made up of several million translucent silicon strands woven together, each a synthesising organ absorbing precious Tridium from the atmosphere. The only known source of this precious element is in the nebulae of the Etherium Empire. The Etherium require this element to survive as any human needs water. Without it they grow week in a matter of hours and will invariably die a short time later. Fortunately for the Temple's survivors a portion of this nebulae was also sent across the galaxy with them. This synthesising process (similar to that of a plant) defeats the need for a digestive system, giving the Etherium a wispy, ghost like appearance. Etherium are very intellegent beings, and thier silicon composition makes for easy technology grafting. It is not unknown for an Etherium to have several implants. Thier ghostly appearance would later see them called "Phantoms" by the rare few that may encounter one in Sirius sector.

Reactions

During the first moments of the Nomads arrival the Etherium were confused and in disarray. They could not understand how or why this stellar event had occured, nor why anyone would want to send what was clearly an invasion fleet to them. The Etherium had no enemies, in fact they had existed in isolationism for centuries, thier worlds rich in resources, and this approach is what caused thier society to thrive. But from the Etherium's perspective the coincidences did not stack up. The attack had clearly been a calculated strike, and the sheer mass of the fleets sent showed that the beings responsible were far more advanced then them if they could send entire fleets across the galaxy with such precision. Before succumbing to the focused Nomad attacks, the Etherium managed to make contact with the research station on the edges of Sirius using thier advanced communications technology, requesting that if they had survived to find those responsible for this heinous act of war. As the last of the Etherium stars fell, they sent a final transmission to the people of the research station and an ultimatum - Find and destroy those responsible or die a forgotten people. They were all that remains of a three millenia old Empire. This saw them rename the station "The Temple of the Revenant" in honor of those billions lost during the Fall.

By 819 AS the Phantoms were the most isolated group in Sirius. The society itself was a mixture of the aliens that still remained on those Temples, and any humans crazy or curious enough to try and dock at these seemingly abandoned stations. Humans attempting to work with Etherium were met with a cold and sinister acceptance if they were compliant, or death if they were not. The Etherium despise humans yet had a need for them which would later see them equip them with thier own techonolgy and altered ships for human use. This did not make the Etherium hate humans as a whole any less, but if the result was meeting their goals they would use humans as weapons against themselves. These goals were usually attempts to gather resources or attack anything that might threaten the safety of these hidden bases. The name "Phantoms" originated from the term human Acolytes gave to them, and human operatives adopted the name as to scare and unnerve thier opponents.

Ranking Structure
Etherium Leader - The Etherium decide the goals and actions of the Phantoms, however most large decisions are voted on by the council first. At this time the Etherium deciding the actions of the Phantom Empire is known as Shard.

Etherium Council - This group of Etherium make up the voting members of the Phantoms. It is rare but possible for a human to rise to this rank and earn a vote.

Phantom Terrorists - Humans who have proven they can be trusted, or Etherium that have gone crazy from radiation sickness. These members are the main presense of the Phantom organisation. They are usually acting on specific orders and have a clear agenda, whether it be to gather resources via piracy or force, or make strategic attacks on anything that threatens the safety and concealment of the Temples.

Acolytes - A human who has yet to prove themselves as useful, or an Etherium who is yet to leave the station.

Designation/Indentification
Naming format - [?](callsign)
Allowed ID's - Phantom ID
Allowed IFF's - Phantom IFF
Home System - Omicron 82
Base of Operations - Temple of the Revenant, Omicron 82. Temple of the Eidolon, Omega 47.

Allowable ships -
Phantom ships and tech - Umbrage Cruiser, Shadow VHF, Penumbra HF.
All Civilian ships and tech, CODENAME weapons.

Tech Nerf Settings -
Full Nerf on all Non-Civilian, Non-Phantom Equipment and ships.


Repfix settings -
Everyone - Full hostility.

Diplomacy
Allied - None

Friendly - None

Neutral - None

Unfriendly - None

Hostile - Humans, Nomads, Wild

Zone of Influence
The Phantoms are a desperate group and that desperation can lead them to be found anywhere in Sirius. Bear in mind the limited amount of dockable bases makes some parts of Sirius very dangerous and limited ability to resupply will IMO compensate for the large ZOI.

Phantom ID

A Pilot carrying this ID is a Phantom Terrorist who:

- May not operate outside of the Taus, Omicrons and Omegas.
- May engage in piracy and smuggling.
- May not ally with anyone.
- May engage and destroy Humans, Nomads and Wild (within server rules).

Allowed Ships: Freighters, Transports, Fighters, Bombers, Gunboats, Cruisers.

There is more lore written for this in story form, anyone interested can PM me and get a link for the rest of it. Thanks for taking the time to read it. Constructive critisism is welcomed, flames will be doused.

Infrared/Izu

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