Weekly Update #6 news - INT

Hello! Hello! Hello! Welcome to this, the sixth Weekly Update for INT!

Starboard Games LLC’s ever-faithful PR Lead has returned from his leisurely trek across the nation, bringing with him a fresh menu of INT related treats to satisfy our followers’ voracious appetite for information. Before diving into the main courses of this week’s development cycle, however, please bear with us for a moment as we serve up a couple bite-sized appetizers to begin.

Last week we announced a new poll whose purpose was to figure out what kinds of free stuff our community might want to find waiting for them at Starboard Games LLC convention tables in the future. While responses have not been flooding in as of yet, there is currently a tie for first between the “In-Game Llama Pet (Non-Combat)” and the “Space Llama Plush” with two votes each. Second place is also a tie between “Convention Themed Attire for the Player Character” and “Downloadable Soundtrack” with one vote apiece. If you would like to get involved and let your voice be heard, make sure to follow this link and place your vote.

The INT media page has been launched on our website! You can now find all previously released screenshots, concept art, journals of war, videos, and podcast episodes in one easy-to-navigate space. Make sure to give it a look if any of that sounds interesting.

Now… Onto the main course!

In last week’s update, we went over those ten corporations whose great wealth and commercial power led to the creation of the United Colonies of Earth (UCE). In this week’s update, however, we are going to travel across the galaxy and look more deeply into those that the UCE’s troops are battling against in the Interstellar Civil War; the Atlas Confederacy of Planets (ACP).

In the decades following the First Colonial War in 2205, the UCE attempted to expand its reach across the stars at an exponential rate, bringing with them an ever-increasing number of colonists into the Middle Colonies. What had started as an attempt to rebuild this sector of space soon led to rising tensions once more, however, as colonists began to protest the loss of jobs, reduction in pay, and forced relocation by the UCE into company run towns within the economic development zones.

The protests within the Middle Colonies grew all the more heated when Darius Shann of the planet Atlas penned “The Ten Points,” his monograph decrying the rise of economic zones and the runaway cabal of corporate giants based around Jupiter. Cited as being the spark that fanned the flames of the Atlas Underground Movement into being, Darren Shann’s words were burned into the minds of Middle Colony youth who hungered for reform.

By 2232, however, Shann passed away and the movement his words had inspired was beginning to falter. Just when people began to believe that worker’s rights and reform would never come under the jurisdiction of the UCE, a new leader – the son of a wealthy mine owner from the Middle Colony world of Keline – rose up to take Shann’s place within the revolution. This leader was Nathan Daniels.

Clever, harsh, manipulative, and credited with reviving the revolution through “The Colonial Chronicles,” Daniels led the Atlas Underground Movement down a more violent path in an attempt to inspire lasting change. When the Atlas Confederacy of Planets was formed after tens of thousands of protesting workers were killed using UCE ordinance, Nathan Daniels was the obvious choice for leader and was quickly sworn in as president of the ACP.

While originally holding very little in the way of manufacturing capabilities, ordinance stockpiles, or naval vessels, the ACP were quick to seize control of all UCE assets within the middle colonies so as to form a makeshift fleet. Because of this, much of the ACP soldier’s outfit and arsenal is taken and constructed from the remains of what the UCE were forced to abandon.

The base grunts for the ACP are oftentimes dressed in patchwork armor that bears a striking resemblance to the miner’s gear of Fist Heavy Industries. Their helmets are the clearest indicator of the outfit’s lineage, but the jumpsuit, pouches, ragged cape/scarf, and heavy boots covered in external plating demonstrate the rough-and-tumble design of the armor. More experienced soldiers within the ACP are given a bit more protection to work with than the new recruits, with the plating of their fatigues covering vitals far more effectively due to its origins as UCE body armor.

As you already know from the past couple of weeks, the Starboard Games LLC team has been chugging along and gaining momentum rather quickly. Things are actually moving along so efficiently these days that it is becoming far more difficult to choose what to cover each and every week. What makes this all the more shocking is the chipper attitude that the team continues to maintain despite the increased workflow. There are still plenty of INT puns and llama jokes floating around within the chat in-between each new bit art, lore, dialogue, and/or code that is being posted internally.

If this sounds like a team that you might want to be a part of, there are still one or two opportunities available to those individuals interested in joining a devoted team of independent developers. These positions can, of course, be found on the INT Careers Page.

This week’s media comes to you from the journal of a middle colony farmer whose husband abandons her and her children so as to join up with the ACP. This one decision throws the now solitary farmer’s life into a daily struggle for survivor as she finds herself having to keep her family afloat while dealing with the inevitable fallout that comes with having a rebel husband in a galaxy controlled by the UCE.