This is a /v/ related article, which we tolerate because it's relevant and/or popular on /tg/... or we just can't be bothered to delete it.
Centauri α is the brightest star in the constellation of Centaurus. It is a binary star system, the third brightest star in the night sky, and the extrasolar star closest to our own besides Proxima Centauri (which may or may not be gravitationally bound to Alpha Centauri). In 2012 an Earth sized planet was discovered in the system, making it the closest known exoplanet.
It's a popular destination in near-future space RPGs.
But you're here because of the vidya gaem "Sid Maier's Alpha Centauri" (SMAC), which is not only a strategy game accepted and welcome on /tg/, but the faction leaders in the game are also a meme used in mild role-playing.
It's the spiritual successor to Civilization 2, and direct predecessor to Civilization 3 since it shares much of of the same dev team. One of the possible ending conditions of the Civilization games is to launch the first colony ship into space -- destination Alpha Centauri. Once they find a habitable planet, the team leaders suffer a political breakdown, culminating in the assassination of the colony ship's captain. Each team leader takes a part of the colony ship and some of the colonists in hibernation, and make planetfall. The game starts with your faction arriving, reviving the colonists for labour, and exploring the new world.
There will never be a sequel to Alpha Centauri because the intellectual property rights are a clusterfuck. But if you really want a spacey 4x game, there's still Galactic Civilizations 2, although unlike SMAC, GC2 is way, way, way the hell soft scifi and doesn't take itself seriously even for a moment. On this subject, SMAC is noted for adhering to science, or at least throwing around sciencey sounding terms quite well. Everything in the setting is just fudging with (then) current understanding of physics to do nifty things. Yes, even the psychic death worms who lay eggs in your brain.
The Roleplaying Game
Steve Jackson Games made a GURPS sourcebook for Sid Maier's Alpha Centauri. The cover has a white border, which is unusual for GURPS splatbooks. You can usually find a scan of this book in 4chan's rapidshares catalog.
The Factions
The elegan/tg/entlefolk, fa/tg/uys and ca/tg/irls will sometimes post to a thread with one of the faction leader portraits and respond in-character for that faction leader. This should help you understand what the fuck they're on about.
Gaia's Stepdaughters
Leader: Lady Dierdre Skye (Scottish)
Pacifist, Explorers, Green agenda, hates Free Market
Hippy-dippy freak. Wants to integrate with the existing biology, including the mind-raping local fauna. Still hot.
Human Hive
Leader: Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang (Chinese)
Aggressive, Conquerers/Builders, Police State agenda, hates Democracy
Socialist TO THE EXXXTREME, all about everyone being equal and subservient to the whole, even if it requires brain stapling for the greater good. Everyone lives underground. He's an annoying communist fuckwad.
Supposed to be pretty nice, except for the fact that in reality she's a psycho bitch who spams demands every turn then declares war the moment you decline. Everything you hate about christfags rolled into one, may she be messily devoured by worms.
Morgan is all about having huge wealth, and making sure his citizens live in luxury. If that means the environment gets fucked up beyond recognition, or other factions have to live in poverty, so be it. He's actually a pretty cool guy as long as you're not communist, then your ass is grass.
Peacekeeping Forces
Leader: Commissioner Pravin Lal (India)
Erratic, no specialists, Democracy agenda, hates Police State
Wuss; usually the first to get wiped out in a game. When role-playing in a thread, Pravin will usually say something about "why don't we come to some sort of agreement" and everyone else agrees that Pravin should shut the fuck up. He's a limp-dick peacenik, but he's tied with Deidere in being the overall fairest to his people.
Spartan Federation
Leader: Colonel Corazón Santiago (Puerto Rico)
Erratic, Discoverers/Conquerers, Power agenda, hates Wealth
Will kick your ass. Has plus-four strength. All about military power and how soldiers are superior to soft lazy civvies like you. Most often accused of assassinating the colony ship's captain, despite a complete lack of proof. She's a psychopathic douchenozzle and often gets herself killed when she picks a fight with too many people at once.
Techno-fetish nerd, with all the toys (all of them), thus beloved of the denizens of /tg/ and /v/. He and Miriam fight like cats and dogs -- if only they'd finally get a room and fuck, but she's an ugly bitch and he's a unwashed dweeb. Prone to ranting about misconceptions of SCIENCE!
The expansion pack Alien Crossfire upped the ante by adding new factions so criminally unbalanced they made the others obsolete.
Nautilus Pirates
Leader: Ulrik Svensgaard (USA)
Agressive, Explorers, Power agenda
Piratical raiders who start in the ocean unchallenged. If played by the AI they will reach epidemic levels of city expansion before you can field a navy, making conquering their strung out train wreck of an empire almost as bad as ignoring it. Hope you brought planet busters. He's an annoying anarchist douche.
Cult of Planet
Leader: Cha Dawn (Unknown)
Erratic, Discoverers/Conquerers, Green agenda, hates Wealth
Super hippies led by a child of the corn who makes Diedre look like Morgan. Takes over for Lal as the first person to get rolled in the expansion unless he finds some mind worms double quick. If foolishly allowed to live unmolested they will turn the game into a tentacle rape simulator for any player foolish enough to have an economy. Of course mind worms become easy peasy late game, so laugh as he funnels free experience points into your troops.
Data Angels
Leader: Datajack Sinder Roze (Trinidad)
Erratic, Democracy agenda, hates Power
Basically 4chan in charge of a civilization. Make good allies if you can put up with their practical jokes (read: "anything the probe team can get away with"). Otherwise not all that annoying and they're easily ground into the dirt by a half competent military.
Cyborgs that will be teching towards victory while you're still trying to bang rocks together. Will cheerfully befriend you until you turn down the perfectly reasonable late game option of subsuming your entire civilization into a cybernetic collective. Tends to skimp on her military, deal with her by drowning her in corpses, the manly way.
Free Drones
Leader: Foreman Domai
Erratic, Builder, Eudaimonic agenda
A less crazy, more bullshit overpowered version of the Hive. Can shit out an entire continent's worth of infrastructure before you build your third city. Oh, and after you meet him you start getting communist revolutions instead of drone riots. Fun. He'll probably still be swinging around lasers while you're blasting things with cosmic strings though. Assuming he doesn't have the time to build enough Labs to make that penalty meaningless. He and Aki Zeta-5 hate each other almost as much as they want to bone each other, and from their murderous hatefuck of an alliance you will know pain. Domai has numbers, and that covers for her weakness, and Aki will funnel him tech to cover his. If they manage to get along, be afraid.
Planet's absentee landlords, who have come back after a teensy weensy problem with the other manifold reaching sentience and killing everything within three systems. Ridiculously overpowered in most regards, they are balanced by the fact that they are automatically hostile to the Manifold Usurpers. Oh whats that? That never made it into the game due to a bug? Thanks Firaxis.
The second alien race and resident that guy. Wants to hijack planet's evolution and use it to turn themselves into a physical god. Plays as more of a rip and tear type to H'minee's turtling builder. Once he allies with Domai and starts feeding him tech its fucking over. Enjoy your web mouthed alien overlords.
Gallery
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