Infested Home?

[Cynical_Goblin]

Whenever I play Infested, even the derelicts, I can't help but notice that they do nothing except inhabit ships that were

 

either taken over by the Infested themselves, or abandoned. Since the Infested are inhabiting the universe on such a

 

large scale, why can't the Infested, as the Grineer, and Corpus do, have a tileset that it inhabits only? Imagine a

 

wasteland, where being in the open deals damage to you due to spores flying around, and seemingly harmless dead 

 

trees explode with gel that collects itself into a powerful enemy, only yielding to utter destruction. Imagine the birthplace of

 

the space-dwelling Infested (different from Dark Sector kind), where years of destroying the planet through slow

 

absorption caused the Infested to evolve past Infested Tenno see on a daily basis, past what a small group of Tenno

 

could destroy in short time. (There could have been a small human colony that was overrun by the plague near the beginning  

 

ofspace travel, but if this is implemented, i think that most players would agree that hinting at the ancient colony too much 

 

would ruin the idea.)

*NOTE* Most of my counter arguments are in the Reply section, so if you have any doubts, check there.

Edited December 31, 2013 by Cynical_Goblin

[N7Arthur]

Eris needs to be this.

[Stormandreas]

the infested have the derelicts. DONE.

The Infested INFEST ships, so they DON'T HAVE A HOMEPLANET

[Katakuna]

the infested have the derelicts. DONE.

The Infested INFEST ships, so they DON'T HAVE A HOMEPLANET

 

Don't.  They can Infest outposts just as well as ships.  There's no reason, lore or otherwise, that the Infested couldn't Infest an entire planet.

[Cynical_Goblin]

the infested have the derelicts. DONE.

The Infested INFEST ships, so they DON'T HAVE A HOMEPLANET

I changed it to acommodate your rage. If you hate something, or want to prove a point, use bold.

[ValhaHazred]

Don't.  They can Infest outposts just as well as ships.  There's no reason, lore or otherwise, that the Infested couldn't Infest an entire planet.

Aside from orbital bombardment you mean. The infested may have limited control over technology, but there is no indication they can defend themselves against coordinated mechanized assaults from the Grineer and Corpus.

They survive in the Derelicts because the other factions can't directly assault them there.

[MageMeat]

Aside from orbital bombardment you mean. The infested may have limited control over technology, but there is no indication they can defend themselves against coordinated mechanized assaults from the Grineer and Corpus.

They survive in the Derelicts because the other factions can't directly assault them there.

The fact that the Grineer and Corpus need our help to get rid of infestations says otherwise.

[ValhaHazred]

It's better to keep your stuff than blow it up after it's infested. Plus why not use the Tenno? It's win-win using your enemies against another.

Edited December 28, 2013 by ValhaHazred

[Katakuna]

Aside from orbital bombardment you mean. The infested may have limited control over technology, but there is no indication they can defend themselves against coordinated mechanized assaults from the Grineer and Corpus.

They survive in the Derelicts because the other factions can't directly assault them there.

 

Flying and space-worthy Infested could fix that, and add more variation with the Infested at the same time.

[Cobalt313]

Am I the only one that remembers Infested already have their own version of every tileset that includes the Technocyte swarms flying around and fleshy masses all over the walls and floors? Because that pretty much works well enough for me.

 

Other than that, I don't think the Infested need a dedicated tileset beyond the Derelicts, especially not in light of their new spread mechanics. They're a plague that comes and goes as new locations are infected and cleansed; it's probably unlikely they would be able to take and keep a hold over a single location for very long (aside from the Derelicts which nobody but the Tenno dare approach).

[Cynical_Goblin]

It's better to keep your stuff than blow it up after it's infested. Plus why not use the Tenno? It's win-win using your enemies against another.

Then why not rid the planet of the infested? It would give them more resources due to the process of refining infested as the minerals that the infested got from consuming their planet. But it's not that simple. Being a long evolved civilization, the grineer and corpus have all of this amazing technology that could kill infested with ease.

But it's not that simple.

Infested had been on the planet longer than grineer have existed, seeing as how the grineer were developed after humans got advanced tech for the exploration of space, and the planet had been discovered, and taken over, at the beginning of space exploration. This gave the Technocyte plague an extremely large time to gain an advantage, and prepare for any attacks that may occur on the Technocyte population, swarm, whatever you call it, and maybe even create some offensive infested, to repel attacks, as oppose to just blocking them.

[MageMeat]

Then why not rid the planet of the infested? It would give them more resources due to the process of refining infested as the minerals that the infested got from consuming their planet. But it's not that simple. Being a long evolved civilization, the grineer and corpus have all of this amazing technology that could kill infested with ease.

But it's not that simple.

Infested had been on the planet longer than grineer have existed, seeing as how the grineer were developed after humans got advanced tech for the exploration of space, and the planet had been discovered, and taken over, at the beginning of space exploration. This gave the Technocyte plague an extremely large time to gain an advantage, and prepare for any attacks that may occur on the Technocyte population, swarm, whatever you call it, and maybe even create some offensive infested, to repel attacks, as oppose to just blocking them.

They probably had offensive units among them in the beginning, as the Technocyte Plague was designed as a weapon.

[Cynical_Goblin]

Am I the only one that remembers Infested already have their own version of every tileset that includes the Technocyte swarms flying around and fleshy masses all over the walls and floors? Because that pretty much works well enough for me.

 

Other than that, I don't think the Infested need a dedicated tileset beyond the Derelicts, especially not in light of their new spread mechanics. They're a plague that comes and goes as new locations are infected and cleansed; it's probably unlikely they would be able to take and keep a hold over a single location for very long (aside from the Derelicts which nobody but the Tenno dare approach).

You aren't the only one who remembers that. But you aren't one of many people who might think that the current situation doesn't quite work well for them. But have you noticed that even when the infested have a little amount of time to develop, such as when they infest the ships you were talking about earlier, they become extremely powerful foes? Maybe those infested came from somewhere, scouting out the area for a larger scale invasion. As you may have noticed, the orokin derelicts are filled to the brim, but are often de-populized by things such as grineer invasions, as you may sometimes see when doing missions there. think of a place that wasn't stopped, and when people tried to stop it, it was too developed for them to stop. That is the sort of idea I'm throwing here.

[Cynical_Goblin]

They probably had offensive units among them in the beginning, as the Technocyte Plague was designed as a weapon.

Sorry, what? your statement doesn't really tell me much. If you mean that the early space explorers had weapons, consider that the infested must have been developed, considering how space travel is expensive, and hiring people just to clear an infestation on some planet is even more expensive, and dangerous, assuming they bring the plague back with them, to city capitals.

[ValhaHazred]

Sorry, what? your statement doesn't really tell me much. If you mean that the early space explorers had weapons, consider that the infested must have been developed, considering how space travel is expensive, and hiring people just to clear an infestation on some planet is even more expensive, and dangerous, assuming they bring the plague back with them, to city capitals.

Space travel doesn't seem that expensive in Warframe. The Grineer and Corpus lost hundreds of thousands of ships and considered it a tiny dent in their armies. The only losses the Grineer have cared about so far was losing a dozen Fomorians, which are almost the size of the Death Star.

[Cynical_Goblin]

Space travel doesn't seem that expensive in Warframe. The Grineer and Corpus lost hundreds of thousands of ships and considered it a tiny dent in their armies. The only losses the Grineer have cared about so far was losing a dozen Fomorians, which are almost the size of the Death Star.

At the beginning of space travel, it would be. Keep in mind that said infested planet was explored at the beginning of space travel, when it still removed a large percentage of the governments spending cash to even send something to the moon, nevermind something with a distance exponentially larger that from the earth to the moon. Grineer and Corpus appear to have developed much later than humans, when the technology of the age would have made our current tech look like toys.

[Cobalt313]

Even if the Infested from Warframe weren't developed in the past like DarkSector would imply, they were still developed as a weapon by the Orokin to use against the Sentients; they just weren't controllable and ultimately dropped in favor of the Tenno.

 

Depending on how long ago the Sentient wars ended, there might not have been enough time for the Infestation to develop into anything more than a semisentient ravenous plague.

[Cynical_Goblin]

Even if the Infested from Warframe weren't developed in the past like DarkSector would imply, they were still developed as a weapon by the Orokin to use against the Sentients; they just weren't controllable and ultimately dropped in favor of the Tenno.

 

Depending on how long ago the Sentient wars ended, there might not have been enough time for the Infestation to develop into anything more than a semisentient ravenous plague.

I did not say that the DarkSector Infested weren't developed, I said they were different. They were definitely developed, and certain kinds, like Nemesis were almost unstoppable. Given even a short time without being stopped by military means, the Nemesis would end up being more common, and the planet would have been taken over. Perhaps the Orokin had missed an area of the solar system, allowing the Infested on the planet to start their road to sentience, ruled by the original infested humans, who, at this point, have created entire armies of Nemesis (perhaps a stronger, more mobile enemy), and by the point of the warframe age, have started to seek out and unite Semi-sentient infested (such as J3-Golem, or Phorid) for their cause, and maybe boost the infested force with a few of their own.

[Cobalt313]

I did not say that the DarkSector Infested weren't developed, I said they were different. They were definitely developed, and certain kinds, like Nemesis were almost unstoppable. Given even a short time without being stopped by military means, the Nemesis would end up being more common, and the planet would have been taken over. Perhaps the Orokin had missed an area of the solar system, allowing the Infested on the planet to start their road to sentience, ruled by the original infested humans, who, at this point, have created entire armies of Nemesis (perhaps a stronger, more mobile enemy), and by the point of the warframe age, have started to seek out and unite Semi-sentient infested (such as J3-Golem, or Phorid) for their cause, and maybe boost the infested force with a few of their own.

There already is an army of Nemesis; they're called Tenno.

[Cynical_Goblin]

There already is an army of Nemesis; they're called Tenno.

Imagine a bunch of weaker stalkers. That's the idea.

[Cobalt313]

The Infestation still doesn't strike me as something that would settle down and develop like this. It spreads, it hungers, it corrupts, it consumes, but it doesn't think; not in the long-term like that. Whenever we see anything overcome by the Infestation, it's horribly twisted and malformed, there's no rhyme or reason to its changes- ok that's not entirely true, it will force the growth of new limbs to allow the host to function after old ones are lost to the initial transformation (notice that most Corpus-based Infestations have a hand clutching their face in pain fused in place while a smaller one grows from their shoulder)- but very little infections show increased efficiency post-infection.

 

Again going by DarkSector lore, technocyte infection seems to progress differently based on the host's mental state; those that aren't shielded from the pain of infestation go mad from it and the Technocytes twist and distort their bodies as a reflection of their minds, which eventually break and are bonded to the Infestation hive mind in a misguided attempt to save the host by freeing it from its suffering and letting it join others that share its pain. Those that can endure the infestation need no such treatment; the Technocytes bond to the host, improving it where they can, and leave the mind intact as it has shown no averse reaction to their presence and will be trusted to take care of them as it will take care of itself and they are part of it now.

 

On the other hand, though, DarkSector did introduce the concept of Technocytes being controllable by a higher intelligence, so there could be "advanced" Infestations, but not as a natural progression of the Infestation; someone or something has found a way to harness the Infestation for its own purposes, and is controlling and directing its behavior to optimize Infestations to suit its needs and purposes. Perhaps something like that Baphomet fellow proposed on this forum could be controlling the Technocytes to create his own private army of pseudo-Tenno and controlled Infestations with which to conquer the Sol system?

 

Also, as for exclusive tilesets I have another idea: rather than a full-fledged planet of Infested that would have been noticed and destroyed/attacked by others, how about something like Infested asteroid cluster bases? Nobody seems to care about the asteroid field, so if you want a place to stay hidden and develop your forces, why not take a few asteroid chunks, bind them together with Technocyte mass, and create your own mini-planetoid bases that you can hide amongst the other chunks of space crap nobody cares about? They could even double as siege weapons if you could find a way to launch them toward planetside or orbital bases within range!

[Cynical_Goblin]

The Infestation still doesn't strike me as something that would settle down and develop like this. It spreads, it hungers, it corrupts, it consumes, but it doesn't think; not in the long-term like that. Whenever we see anything overcome by the Infestation, it's horribly twisted and malformed, there's no rhyme or reason to its changes- ok that's not entirely true, it will force the growth of new limbs to allow the host to function after old ones are lost to the initial transformation (notice that most Corpus-based Infestations have a hand clutching their face in pain fused in place while a smaller one grows from their shoulder)- but very little infections show increased efficiency post-infection.

 

Again going by DarkSector lore, technocyte infection seems to progress differently based on the host's mental state; those that aren't shielded from the pain of infestation go mad from it and the Technocytes twist and distort their bodies as a reflection of their minds, which eventually break and are bonded to the Infestation hive mind in a misguided attempt to save the host by freeing it from its suffering and letting it join others that share its pain. Those that can endure the infestation need no such treatment; the Technocytes bond to the host, improving it where they can, and leave the mind intact as it has shown no averse reaction to their presence and will be trusted to take care of them as it will take care of itself and they are part of it now.

 

On the other hand, though, DarkSector did introduce the concept of Technocytes being controllable by a higher intelligence, so there could be "advanced" Infestations, but not as a natural progression of the Infestation; someone or something has found a way to harness the Infestation for its own purposes, and is controlling and directing its behavior to optimize Infestations to suit its needs and purposes. Perhaps something like that Baphomet fellow proposed on this forum could be controlling the Technocytes to create his own private army of pseudo-Tenno and controlled Infestations with which to conquer the Sol system?

 

Also, as for exclusive tilesets I have another idea: rather than a full-fledged planet of Infested that would have been noticed and destroyed/attacked by others, how about something like Infested asteroid cluster bases? Nobody seems to care about the asteroid field, so if you want a place to stay hidden and develop your forces, why not take a few asteroid chunks, bind them together with Technocyte mass, and create your own mini-planetoid bases that you can hide amongst the other chunks of space crap nobody cares about? They could even double as siege weapons if you could find a way to launch them toward planetside or orbital bases within range!

Though we may disagree about the methods, we agree that Infested need more love. If you look at DarkSector, several people whose mental states were calm during the transformation, ended up as psychopaths like Robert Mezner, who can control infested. as you may have noticed, infested tendto develop when not interrupted, such as lephantis, invalidating your point about staying in one place. maybe we could combine the ideas and make some of the infested from the planet infest nearby asteroids.

Edited December 29, 2013 by Cynical_Goblin

[Cobalt313]

Though we may disagree about the methods, we agree that Infested need more love. If you look at DarkSector, several people whose mental states were calm during the transformation, ended up as psychopaths like Robert Mezner, who can control infested. as you may have noticed, infested tendto develop when not interrupted, such as lephantis, invalidating your point about staying in one place. maybe we could combine the ideas and make some of the infested from the planet infest nearby asteroids.

Interesting point about Lephantis (and frankly the Ancients as well) but so far all we've seen of Infested development over time is just bigger and more grotesque forms, not necessarily more intelligent or efficient. There does seem to be a sort of "clustering instinct", so to speak, evident in both the trend of Infested forms becoming larger over time and the almost singleminded drive to assimilate evidenced by most lines of most speech-capable Infested. Infested do develop over time, but on their own they don't seem to shoot for much other than more mass and more Technocytes in a single location- hence my suggestion that more advanced/efficient forms would need outside influence. As for a planet, it would probably have to be something outside the Sol system, somewhere unknown where the Infestation could develop unmolested for the simple reason that the other factions don't know their location exists, let alone that they're on it, because so far the Infested Invasion campaigns have shown everyone is willing to drop everything and work together to stop the advance of Infestation if it rears its ugly head anywhere within the Sol system (that or my prior suggestion of the asteroid belt; if nobody's going to bother putting it on the map even then it's probably safe to assume nobody's watching it particularly carefully).

 

As for Mezner, I haven't played DarkSector myself, so I wouldn't know if the Technocytes drove him insane, if he was always insane, or if he was just having a serious power trip.

Edited December 29, 2013 by Cobalt313

[Cynical_Goblin]

Interesting point about Lephantis (and frankly the Ancients as well) but so far all we've seen of Infested development over time is just bigger and more grotesque forms, not necessarily more intelligent or efficient. There does seem to be a sort of "clustering instinct", so to speak, evident in both the trend of Infested forms becoming larger over time and the almost singleminded drive to assimilate evidenced by most lines of most speech-capable Infested. Infested do develop over time, but on their own they don't seem to shoot for much other than more mass and more Technocytes in a single location- hence my suggestion that more advanced/efficient forms would need outside influence. As for a planet, it would probably have to be something outside the Sol system, somewhere unknown where the Infestation could develop unmolested for the simple reason that the other factions don't know their location exists, let alone that they're on it, because so far the Infested Invasion campaigns have shown everyone is willing to drop everything and work together to stop the advance of Infestation if it rears its ugly head anywhere within the Sol system (that or my prior suggestion of the asteroid belt; if nobody's going to bother putting it on the map even then it's probably safe to assume nobody's watching it particularly carefully).

 

As for Mezner, I haven't played DarkSector myself, so I wouldn't know if the Technocytes drove him insane, if he was always insane, or if he was just having a serious power trip.

The outside influence would be humans like Robert Mezner who could easily command Infested, and influence Infested that weren't driven insane. Outside the Solar System would definitely be a good place for them to develop, assuming that the planet has plenty of geothermal energy to replace the sun. It could be an attempt to see if there were other solar systems to colonize, the original people who got infected there. I believe that the Technocytes drove Mezner insane.

*SPOILER ALERT*

Though he was sent to Lasria to experiment, and learn about the Technocytes by the U.S Government, he ended up as a target, hence Hayden Tenno being sent to kill him. I'm assuming this happened when he refused to stop after told to by the gov, due to slowly becoming evil from the Technocytes. This would suggest that other governments, such as the Lasrians, wanted revenge on the U.S, due to their unregulated research (which was perhaps a way to weaken an enemy force).

Edited December 29, 2013 by Cynical_Goblin

[N7Shepard]

I like the concept very much. One thing that must have been noted is Eris pre-invasion. The Infested, as far as we know, made their home Eris, where they were encountered at maximum strength. What we don't know about Eris however, is if the Infested had taken over invasion style before the first players, or if they took it as their home. What if before the Grineer and Corpus entered the "starchart," Eris was exactly as you describe, and the coming of the new factions made Eris deteriorate in a sense that it became just an Infested planet that they call home?

 

I think that you should expand on this more, give more detail and think more about the lore