Frey

I guess the change would be that instead of rebels manifesting as units to be fought by your army, they are instead internal dissidents that negatively influence your cities. You can use a military unit to "expend" a worker and immediately cease the Rebellion's negative effects. This is an expedient option for dealing with the problem, but relations with other civs will be soured as a result. It's a bit like Nerve Stapling your bases' rioting Drones in Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri.

I've been engrossed in the complete edition of Civilization 5 lately. Thank you, Steam sales!

Having beaten a game and started many others, I have digested the changes made to the series in this newest installment. I agree with most of the changes made, but somehow the whole thing feels too clean. I can recall some mechanics in Alpha Centauri that would have greatly benefited Civ 5, but now it seems like they have run their course with DLC (the fan mods are great though).

What sorts of changes/additions would you like to see in Civ 6? Below are some of my suggestions.

1) More random events: Perhaps my only serious complaint about Civ 5 is that your civilization's progress is too steady. I think there would be a great increase in replayability with the institution of random events. Not too many of them, or the game would cease to be about player skill and instead center around luck.

Marshes and jungles in your territory carry a certain probability of initiating a Plague in one of your cities. Plagues hamper population growth and put a certain number of workers out of commission for several turns. They have a chance to spread through trade routes that link to other cities. In the late game, when your civilization gains access to modern medical techniques, the effects of Plagues can be reduced by constructing certain buildings and/or enacting certain UN resolutions...or even eliminated if you construct a certain Wonder.

A special kind of Mountain tile can be introduced: the Volcano. Volcanoes erupt once every several centuries or millennia. When this occurs, adjacent tiles cannot be worked by citizens and units ending their turn on these tiles incur a significant amount of damage. With the discovery of a certain technology, you can order a Worker unit to construct a survey site near the volcano, which provides the player with a little box that indicates the number of turns until the next eruption.

Tropical storms affect a number of coastal tiles and their adjacent land and ocean tiles. They decrease Production output, increase Food output, and create their own Zone of Control that does not allow land units to pass and constricts the movement of naval units. Air units have a certain chance of crashing if their flight path takes them through a tropical storm.

2) Rebellions are the polar opposite of the Golden Age. In Civ 5, as long as you have more than zero Happiness, you are on your way to a Golden Age. Civ 6 should have another counter running alongside the Golden Age counter, known as the Rebellion counter. Negative amounts of Happiness contribute to the Rebellion similarly to how positive amounts of Happiness contribute to the Golden Age counter. If your Happiness stays in the red and reaches a certain threshold on the Rebellion counter, then your civilization will enter a Rebellion phase lasting a number of turns. No Wonders may be constructed during a Rebellion and your civilization's Culture output is decreased. Other civs will have a easier time conducting espionage operations in your cities during a period of Rebellion. Stationed military units may be used to put down dissenters, but this comes at the cost of reducing the city's population.

3) Modified unit stacking: I like that Firaxis eliminated the "stacks of doom", but I think some stacking is a good thing in these games. The way I propose doing that is through the use of Great Generals and Admirals. In all hexes adjacent to a Great General, you may have two military land units stacked in one tile. Same goes for Great Admirals, but with naval units instead. I think this is a good compromise between the Civ 5 system and the prior Civ system of stacks of doom. You can do stacking but you still have to spread out your army and think tactically about unit placement.

4) Corporations: Though I have not played Civ 4, I have heard some good things about its implementation of private corporations. The way I see them working in Civ 6 is in some respects similar to how the Religions work. If one of your cities has access to, for instance, three units of Cattle, then that city can construct the Corporate HQ of "MooCow Industries", a beef and dairy agribusiness. Only one Corporate HQ of each company can be constructed in the whole world. From your Corporate HQ may purchase (not build) an Executive, a civilian unit that travels to another city that is harvesting the appropriate resource(s) and establishes a Corporate Office there; this provides your empire with another stream of Gold income.

Perhaps Owen never told Luke that he (Owen) had a brother named Grant. Luke grew up thinking his father, Anakin Skywalker, was a navigator on a spice freighter. I'm kind of grasping at straws here but maybe Owen told Luke that his brother "Anakin Lars" changed his name to Skywalker after he left Tattooine because he wanted to put the life of a moisture farmer behind him.

In my head canon it goes like this: Anakin was born with no last name, on the spice mining world of Kessel. He fled an abusive father to make a living in the underground racing circuits of various Outer Rim worlds. On several different occasions, Anakin would land on a world, adopt a racing name appended to his first name ("Anakin Sunrider", "Anakin Starkiller", "Anakin Farlander", etc.), blast the local competition out of the water, and then the local crime lord would try to pay Anakin to throw a match, but Anakin's honor got in the way of that so he would win the match anyway...this would cause the crime lord to send assassins after Anakin, who would hop another freighter, go to another Outer Rim planet, and repeat the whole thing all over again with a different racing name. One of Anakin's many racing names was "Skywalker", and it is of course the one that gets passed down to Luke.

 I've been brainstorming an outline for a sequel to Godzilla 2014. It's a very quick and dirty treatment. The human elements are purposefully left vague because they can easily be worked out in later drafts; for now I just wanted to get down some sequence of events linking the various kaiju encounters throughout the film. Would this be a worthy sequel?

The movie begins a few months after the Battle of San Francisco. The US Navy sends a submarine to bury Godzilla inside his natural habitat deep in the confines of the Tonga Trench (by detonating high-explosive charges at the cave entrance). A scientist who published a discredited paper about tunnels linking ocean trenches gets involved in the search to find out where Godzilla will resurface. Publicly the military is skeptical of the scientist's prediction, but in secret he is brought into the fold of the military-academic project known as MONARCH.

Digging his way north, Godzilla unleashes Anguirus from a volcano in Papua New Guinea. Anguirus’ rampage around the tropical island prompts the unveiling of a private military corporation’s secret project: the Mechanized Godzilla Counter-Measure, or Mecha-Godzilla. The mechanical monster is a construct built on the bones of the elder Godzilla in the MUTO burrow found by Graham and Serizawa in the previous film. Mecha-Godzilla is deployed and successfully kills Anguirus with the use of his shoulder-mounted railgun.

Some plot developments occur which reveal that the PMC has access to the MONARCH data files detailing the locations of all kaiju across the Earth, and that Mecha-Godzilla is their way of making gobs of money off of that, effectively holding the entire world hostage. Serizawa and Graham, the two ex-MONARCH scientists, try to expose the plans of the CEO of the PMC in his headquarters in Tokyo, but his security forces track them down and imprison them in his corporate HQ. It is revealed that Mecha-Godzilla is remotely operated via a control room in the heart of the complex.

Arising from the Kuril Trench, Godzilla surfaces off the coast of Japan and makes his way to Tokyo to take revenge on the species that thought they could control him. Along the way to Tokyo, Godzilla encounters Mecha-Godzilla and the two engage in mortal combat. A pagoda gets demolished amidst the melee. Godzilla swipes his tail at Mecha-Godzilla and delivers a shock that cracks open the mechanical monster’s chest-mounted nuclear reactor. Then Godzilla lumbers forth towards Tokyo. Mecha-Godzilla activates its auxiliary power source and gets back up again just after the big lizard has departed.

Godzilla arrives in Tokyo and shrugs off a last-ditch attempt by the JSDF to stop his wrath. He ploughs through the city.

Before Godzilla reaches the PMC bunker complex deep in the heart of metropolitan Tokyo, Mecha-Godzilla arrives. While gloating over the arrival of his finest creation, the CEO perishes in a gas line explosion (Godzilla’s rampage ruptured a gas line).

Godzilla ceases his rampage to confront the robot. The reptile lets loose a torrent of atomic breath while Mecha-Godzilla counters with a railgun round through Godzilla’s chest.

Godzilla staggers and collapses on top of the control center, utterly disabling Mecha-Godzilla.

The locations of all the other kaiju are publicly released by the dissident geologist who assisted in the submarine mission.

Residual radiation from Mecha-Godzilla's exposed nuclear reactor leaks out. The comatose Godzilla reawakens. This time no-one knows where he will go next, as kaiju all around the world begin to resurface.

Here's an idea I had to reconcile Owen and Beru's statements about Luke's father with Kenobi's statements about Luke's father. What if Owen and Beru were referring to someone whom they thought was Luke's father but actually wasn't? My idea is that Owen had a brother, let's call him Grant Lars, who had starry-eyed idealism in stark contrast with his more down-to-earth brother. Grant was the one who served as a navigator on a spice freighter, the person Luke as referring to when he said so in response to Kenobi's talk about the Clone Wars.

So Grant was piloting a spice freighter when his ship was called into service as part of an auxiliary arm of the Republic Navy, similar to how the US Navy assigned merchant marine ships to serve as materiel and troop transports in World War Two. It is this incident that prompted Owen to say to Grant that he should have "stayed here and not gotten involved."

In keeping with my other recent thread "Anakin the Nameless", perhaps on one these cargo runs the young Force-sensitive sneaks on-board to evade Hutt cartel assassins. And then it is through Grant that Anakin meets up with Kenobi and a diplomat from the Organa family who will eventually be his wife. This also seems like a good opportunity to set up a love triangle between Anakin, Ms. Organa, and Grant Lars.

Just some wild speculation on my part, let me know what you all think!

Note: I just now realized after posting this that Grant Lars has the same initials as everybody's favorite ruiner of the Original Trilogy. Make of that what you will.

I've been thinking about the roots of the bad writing in the Lucas prequels; I've concluded that one prime suspect of this is the fact that Anakin was raised by a single mother in an environment that we are told is harsh and deadly, but really isn't.

My idea of Anakin's upbringing in an alternate prequel setting begins with the death of his mother in childbirth. The spice mining world of Kessel does not have the kind of medical tech available to residents of the Core Worlds. Anakin's mother was a musical entertainer in one of Kessel's spaceport cantinas. Anakin's father was a spice mine laborer named Fenrir, no last name. As a result Anakin did not have a last name either. Conditions in the spice mines are brutal to the point of complete dehumanization. After a long day in the mines, Fenrir would come home and take out his violent impulses on his son.

Anakin wanted desperately to escape his homeworld of Kessel. He watched with fascination as spice freighters docked and undocked from the spaceport, dealing in thousands of tons of precious cargo. At some point in his late teen years, Anakin decided to sneak on-board one of these freighters in order escape his abusive father forever. He always wanted to be a star pilot, if only to escape from this miserable rock.

As for the name "Skywalker", well that has to do with what Anakin does after his escape from Kessel. He would routinely land on an Outer Rim world and compete in the local swoop bike races with the aid of his Force sensitivity. Anakin adopted a variety of stage names in this process such as Anakin Sunrider, Anakin Farlander, and Anakin Starkiller. Then when he became too successful in his endeavors and refused to throw a match for back-room profit (his victory streak was more important to him than money), the local crime lord would send assassins after Anakin. Then Anakin would hop a freighter, land on another racing world, adopt a new name, and get right back into it.

All of this changes when he meets a Jedi Knight and is subsequently wrapped up in the Clone Wars.

I might even go so far as to say that Templar Jinn is the real Big Bad here, as his actions damn the galaxy to an extent rivaling the deeds of Palpatine. He's a bit like Hugh Darrow from Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

He is a character who addresses one of my main critiques with the Lucas PT, that each Jedi did not feel like a unique character. In the OT, Kenobi and Yoda are both wise Jedi but they also both feel like they are their own person. I'm thinking of trimming down the number of Jedi in existence from thousands to less than two dozen. That still leaves a few relatively anonymous Jedi, but it makes the loss of each one at the hands of Anakin feel like a much bigger loss. I have some ideas for other Jedi, like the ones who fought Templar Jinn during his escape from the Temple. If I can get around to that prequel trilogy I'm always trying to start writing, they will show up too.

I have an idea for an original character in an alternate prequel trilogy, inspired by aspects of Qui-Gon Jinn and Count Dooku.

The idea is that the Jedi Knights have settled into the role of being the Republic's mystical police force, concerned with mortal threats and generally not focusing on the fight against the Dark Side; but there is one Jedi (whom I have chosen to name Templar Jinn) who has peered into the contents of an ancient Holocron detailing the Force Wars of old. Templar Jinn grows wary of this threat, knowing that it will only be a matter of time before the rise of a new dark order. He strikes out from the mainstream of the Jedi Order, declaring that their complacency has made them traitors of the Light, even going so far as to personally denounce Obi-Wan Kenobi. In an incredible display of Force strength, Jinn overpowers several Jedi and escapes from the Temple. He then embarks for the farthest reaches of the Outer Rim, determined to eliminate the Dark Side before it can rise again.

He is a Light Side fundamentalist, essentially.

My thought is that Anakin's turn to the Dark Side is motivated in part by his observation of the Jedi fighting with themselves. Perhaps he is part of the mission to locate and capture/disable/kill Templar Jinn, whose actions are turning the public against the Jedi. As for what Jinn is actually doing out there, my idea is that he has set up a state with himself as the autocratic leader and policies which ensure that Force-sensitives are kept imprisoned under heavy guard and deprived of the training necessary for them to fully realize their abilities. In Jinn's warped mind that is the only way to avoid repeating the savagery of the Force Wars. Maybe there's a secret police force of clone warriors loyal only to Jinn himself.

I find it really interesting to think of how this intersects with the Clone Wars and the transformation of the Republic into the Empire. It also makes the Dark Side more interesting because it feels like something new happening rather than the Lucas PT's treatment of "There were a bunch of other evil dudes with red lightsabers and 'Darth' in their name running around before the rise of the Empire."

In your conception of a midichlorian-free prequel universe, is it possible for a person to be born not a Force-sensitive and then somehow obtain it? How is it done, learning arcane lore? Touching a Holocron? Mutation at puberty? I know the Force works in mysterious ways, but I've always been fascinated by other OT fans' conception of who gets Force sensitivity.

On the bridge of the Molten Queen, Ambassador Marya Organa suddenly enters. She queries Captain Baatu Fey on how long it will take the ship to reach Kuat Drive Yards. Fey replies that it will take too long given the fact that Clones have landed a boarding party in the ship's cargo bay. General Obi-Wan Kenobi, who has been closely monitoring the situation next to Fey, insists that he must assist in the effort to repel the boarding party. Marya offers her help in fighting the Clones, but Obi-Wan replies that she must live to present Alderaan's case to the Republic. She is the only one who can ensure her planet's liberation from the Clones. If he does not return in time for the jump to hyperspace, Obi-Wan says, Baatu Fey must vent the atmosphere of the aft section of the Queen into the vacuum.

An Action VI-class bulk freighter named Molten Queen carries refugees fleeing the violent suppression campaign on Clone-occupied Alderaan. Among these are the political dissidents General Obi-Wan Kenobi and Ambassador Marya Organa, sister of King Bail Organa, on the Queen's bridge with Bothan merchant pilot Baatu Fey.

A Clone strikecraft maneuvers towards the freighter and attaches itself to the ship's aft cargo bay.

Wend-Haral, a lowly Yarkora member of Fey's crew, stumbles upon a boarding party of Clones while conducting regular freighter oversight duties with his trusty droid companion L5.

L5 is blasted to bits. Wend-Haral barely weaves through a torrent of high-energy bolts emitted by the enemy swarm. Bounding past open blast doors, he reaches a group of merchant guardsmen mobilized to meet the threat, but they are quickly overwhelmed by the Clones. Wend-Haral scurries through access tunnels towards the Queen's bridge, expecting to meet captain Fey.

I conceive the Galactic Republic as having an all-encompassing degree of influence in the most of the Core Worlds by the time Episode I: A True Knight takes place...except for Alderaan. Amongst the Core planets, Alderaan is the last holdout of an earlier age, when each world was governed by its own indigenous rulers. It's like the relationship between France and Monaco, with France being the Galactic Republic and Monaco being the Kingdom of Alderaan.

The Mid Rim also contains many Republic-controlled worlds, though some independent pockets persist. The Outer Rim is more or less beyond the reach of the Republic...except for those rare instances when the Core Worlds are rallied into some sort of concentrated military excursion to the galactic frontier. As a result, all sorts of unsavory elements dominate the Outer Rim, from the Hutt Cartel to the dreaded Clones.

I too was unsure about using the term Legate in the opening crawl. It's an unfamiliar (but real) word to most viewers, maybe Ambassador might be a better choice? The idea is that Marya is the sister of King Bail Organa, the ruling monarch of Alderaan. She is not in line for the throne, but she does serve in the capacity of a liaison with the Galactic Republic. I very specifically did not want her to be a Republic Senator in this verse because...well, does the United Kingdom have a Senator in the United States Senate?

No, of course not. Nor does the US have a Lord in the UK's House of Lords.

As for the dissident thing, I'll try to brush up the opening crawl to make it more clear the Obi-Wan and Marya are among the dissidents which escaped the planet.

Regarding the poetry parallels, I actually looked up the opening crawl from ANH (I must admit, I do not know it from memory!) and changed the clauses to fit my vision of a Clone invasion of the Core Worlds. Luke's presence was not indicated from the start of the film, and likewise neither will Anakin's. I'm intending for Anakin to appear on-screen at roughly the same minute mark as Luke did, but in the seedy world-city of Nar Shaddaa instead of the warm Lars homestead.

Also, I read of the three-planet pattern in the OT and how that got jumbled up in Episodes II and III of the Lucas prequels, so I'm going to try my absolute BEST to keep the number of worlds visited in each of my prequels to exactly three. In this film I'm intending for the three worlds to be Kuat, then Nar Shaddaa, and finally a return to Clone-occupied Alderaan for the film's climax.

I'm working on a PT rewrite to replace the Lucas prequels. I tried my best to focus on pre-1999 source material, but there is a character called Lord Maul, so I wasn't able to stick to that 100%. Below is the opening crawl and I should be able to crank out a summary of the first few scenes soon. Let me know how it sounds.

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...

STAR WARS EPISODE I: A TRUE KNIGHT

It is a period of total war.

Vengeful Clones, eliminating all opposition, have occupied the peaceful Kingdom of Alderaan, an esteemed ally of the Galactic Republic.

In the ensuing purge, dissident agents managed to escape the planet, intent on rallying the Republic Navy in support of their cause.

With the Clones poised to strike at heart of the Republic, Ambassador Marya Organa and General Obi-Wan Kenobi race to a nearby shipyard, determined to warn their superiors of the horde that threatens galactic peace...

EDIT: Changed "Legate" to "Ambassador".

What if, as the PT fades into the OT, the audience does NOT suspect that Vader might think of killing Palpatine. That would make the series feel much more whole, and provide a surprising yet impactful sense of closure.

This would almost certainly involve excising the Rule of Two from the canon.

Hello, OTF! I love the OT, generally dislike the PT, and am eagerly awaiting the arrival of the sequels.

With introductions out of the way, here is my question: Did the OT ever really nail down *when* the Empire began (disregarding the prequels entirely)? Some things about the timeline of the PT don't really match up with what we saw and heard in the OT which is why I choose to discard them.

One in particular was Luke's comment in ESB about how Dagobah "felt familiar". Personally I interpret this to mean that through some combination of circumstances, Luke spent a short amount of time on Dagobah at three or four years of age, right around the time the brain starts forming coherent memories.

Secondly, we were never actually told the ages of Obi-Wan and Anakin. For all we know the old man could be a hundred years old by ANH, his systems kept functioning by the power of the Force. 

Finally Grand Moff Tarkin's past always intrigued me. If the Empire hasn't been around for that long, then was he once an officer loyal to the Old Republic? If so, was he always the hard-driving, militaristic, fear-will-keep-the-local-systems-in-line type of dude, or was he once a more humane man who got hardened and battered by the strife of the Clone Wars?

I ask these questions because I'm working on a prequel rewrite where some common assumptions about the timeline get challenged, but I'm trying to make them plausible given the depiction of the OT.