First Law: Override - A Lore Recap

Greetings friends!

So with First Law: Override being restarted and rebooted I should probably go over the lore of the game and what (if any) changes there are.

Races
First up are the races present in game.

Human
As I am sure you already know the game's primary focus is on Humanity and how it interacts with it's new home of Honos; along with any and all baggage that they bring with them.

It was Humans who created the AI (looking for a new name, I've never been happy with INI and now seems as good an opportunity as any to rebrand it) and after loosing control of said AI fled to the stars to find a new home onboard massive Arc ships.

Humans have been living on Honos for going on 25 years now following a brief initial terraformation of ~5 years on the planet, most of those 5 years were spent on board their Arc ships where little to no interaction was made with the indigenous races of the Outer Fringe.

Humans exist as a 3 caste race. The wealthy few live in towering spires of glass and flawless metal while the majority of others live just above the poverty line in constructed tower structures such as the infamous Block of the Western Badlands.

A third caste of outlaws exist. They are a law unto themselves creating their own settlements across the Badlands and Midland regions. Most Outlaws do not live beyond middle age as their younger competition are quick to pick on any weakness either real or rumoured.

Humans are extremely resourceful however and excel at almost every profession available to Sponsored Agents. They also have ties to the Hydan after a good few years of coexistence on Earth prior to the AI war. They are also seen as good recruits for the Reborn however the Kratel do not trust Humans due to the existing ties they hold to the Hydan.

Hydan
A race of technologically advanced humanoid aliens who stand slightly taller than Humans completely hairless with bone covered scalps and a yellow-blue tint to their skins.

The Hydan home is located just outside the Outer Fringe in the form of a ginormous crystalline structure they call The Bastion.

Roughly three years before the AI war on Earth, a Hydan deep space research ship arrived within the Sol system searching for the origin of radio and magnetic waves they had intercepted. The Hydans ship's shock drive had failed taking them to the outer reaches of the Sol system leaving them all but stranded on Earth.

Always open to new experiences and research the Hydan quickly adapted to Human life and within a matter of years fully integrated themselves.

It was the Hydan working with the AI that allowed the Humans to create their own version of Shovk Drive technology, but it was sadly only a short time after that was completed that the AI turned on the Human-Hydan alliance starting the AI war which eventually resulted in both species fleeing on Arc ships searching for a new home in deep space.

Most Hydan who live on Honos are the same who travelled with the Humans from Earth preferring to uphold the friendships, business partnerships and in some cases; romantic relationships that had begun taking root in the Human Hydan alliance. Some are newly arrived Hydan sent from the Bastion to investigate Human society and what effects it has had on the Hydan who chose to integrate.

Within Hydan culture there are only two castes: The Faithful as they call themselves are the Hydan from the Bastion. They are grateful and forthcoming to Humans but see those who integrated with Hunan culture as traitors to their race. The second caste are those who integrated with Humans on Earth. These Hydan don't see themselves as any different from their Bastion brothers and sisters and try to rationalise any animosity whenever possible.

Kratel
A race of physically strong brutish humanoids. Unlike the Hydan their features do not directly resemble humans; their skin covered in a mottled thin shell which once a year moults. Their most obvious features however being claw like mandibles that cover their mouths which they use to communicate with click-like noises.

Unlike the other races of the Outer Fringe the Kratel are drastically different in appearance between genders. The males are much smaller than the females, averaging only about four feet tall with very little physical strength. The females; the dominant gender, are much bigger averaging six to seven feet tall.

The Kratel's home system neighbours the Honos system and for this reason they have taken a great interest in the Human's actions of settling on the previously barren and inhospitable world.

The Kratel's culture is brutish and imperial, based largely on might makes right but they are excellent smugglers and black market dealers due to their natural resistance to varied temperatures and toxic chemicals.

Their resilience in the face of adversity has given them the nick name among the Hydan as the cockroaches of the Galaxy and the Kratel are very quick to make use of this advantage whenever possible allowing for Kratel settlements to pop up almost overnight in regions that others would not settle.

The Hydan and the Kratel have a long standing feud. According to the Hydan both races once coexisted on a different homeworld when the Kratel's warlike nature brought the world quite literally to the point of destruction forcing both races to leave in search of new homes. The Hydan settled on the Bastion while the Kratel on their new homeworld. The Kratel deny this as Hydan propaganda created to relinquish their own guilt over their own destruction of their homeworld, and that to date the Kratel have only ever called one planet home.

What little is known of Kratel history shows that the current Empress took control of her people by uniting them and creating peace on a world being torn apart by tribal wars. Stories claim that the Empress was created herself as twelve clones so whenever she died a clone would awaken and carry on her work exactly where she left off. The Kratel say that there was supposed to be one more clone still in hibernation but many generations ago a Hydan assassin killed the last dormant clone while it slept leaving the last Empress as the last of her lineage. They fear for what will happen in years to come as the Empress reaches her advanced years and they harbour a bitter revenge against the Hydan for ending her reign prematurely.

Reborn
Unlike the other races of the Outer Fringe; the Reborn are not an actual genetic race per se.

The Hydan claim it originated from Kratel scientists who created an AI consciousness which became self aware and began forcing it's will on living beings to further it's reach. The Kratel say the same about Hydan scientists. Ultimately at some point no more than eighty years ago members of both Hydan and Kratel species began appearing on colony worlds as modified versions of their former selves.

Every member of the Reborn appears different depending on what their deficits and strengths were in previous lives. They exist as self aware cyborgs neither flesh nor machine but a unique combination of the two; their mechanical implants providing them with ways around weaknesses and further enhancing what skills and talents they retained.

There have been plenty of interviews with prominent members of the Reborn, and in virtually every interview the question of where they originated from and who their leader is always arises. It is in these interviews that two statements always arise:

The first is that the Reborn believe that they have always existed. That no one created them and that they did not originate from anywhere or anything. They just always were.

The second is that their leader is Mother. They are unable to elaborate beyond she was the first and any other references are seen by others as being of almost religious reverence.

The Reborn do not create new settlements themselves, instead preferring to move into existing ones and repurpose existing structures to be used to further their cause. Referring to their movement as The Order of Reformation they seek to spread propaganda and preach to the local settlers and inhabitants about the love of unity and understanding that Mother can bring into their lives.

When questioned the Reborn's official stance is that they never force anyone to join their order and will only take those who join willingly.

Not anyone can become a Reborn; no doctor or scientist has ever been able to establish what it is that makes the difference but the end result is always the same. Some survive the process while others do not.

Beyond this much about the Reborn is a mystery, however almost all the other races are wary of them with stories of those who arrive in the cover of darkness to steal loved ones away and turn into cybernetic horrors are rife, especially among the secluded settlements of the Badlands.

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And that's it for now!

Of course I have only covered playable races, I will at a later point cover non-playable races including the AI and the Pha'Nur.

Next up however should be the factions! So stay tuned!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley