Debate it: The Taiidan were the original canonical race

Homeworld Remastered Collection Remastered Discussion
#41

A very, very few lines where Kushan was replaced with Taidan. That’s not exactly a huge cost now is it?

Regardless, the people who wrote the canon say it’s the Kushan, the developers who originally developed the game say it’s the Kushan, the company currently holding the IP say it’s the Kushan.

I stand by my assertion that originally neither were designated as the exiles, only when it became important in the expansion and sequel was the call made to make the Kushan the Exiles. Regardless of who made that call, the Kushan are the exiles.

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#42

As mentioned in this thread, a possible explanation is because Cataclysm broke ambiguity and established the Kushan as the exiles (note that the writers who worked on HW also worked on Cata) - picking a race was necessary to advance the plot and background information of Cataclysm and it would’ve been unnecessary extra effort to keep up the ambiguity for two races whose ships you weren’t even going to play as in Cata.

To be fair, our developments in spacecraft never adapted aerodynamic designs from planes since we knew that lift and drag were irrelevant in space.

It makes more sense that an empire encompassing many worlds would have strikecraft capable of both space and atmospheric interdiction. Kushan’s lack of aerodynamic shapes reflect a design emphasis on space flight given the whole purpose of the expedition was the long journey to Hiigara.

But like you said, pointing to the asthetics of ships to support either argument is not conclusive enough.

#43

I think the reason why we can’t play as Taidan (or at least hope) is simply time constraints and that we will eventually see them in the single player.

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#44

Doesn’t mean I have to agree with them. Making the Kushan the canonical exiles was a dumb decision, and one of many in the creation of HW2.

#45

Of course not, but that isn’t the point of this thread.

How so?

#46

I think if the Taiidan were really considered the exiles, it was probably duing the pre-production phase before they set about creating the assets of R1 and R2. I have heard somehwere that Relic originally considered the Taiidan to be the exiles.

Something to think about here: If you take Cataclysm out of the equation the only thing defining the Hiigarans as Kushan is the shape of the mothership. I’d like to believe HW2’s relic was open to the possibility of still allowing players to believe in Taiidan Exiles, because the ship designs could go either way.

However it is worth noting that the Hiigarans have a defense field frigate, which is a technology only used by the Taiidan in the first game. There is a notable absence of Drone or cloaking technologies from the Kushan empire. The only line about the Taiidani, as I recall, is in the intro movie when they mentioned re-rallying under Makaan.

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#47

Also consider that the Higarans would have been using industrial infrastructure from the empire they just conquered.

#48

The discussion to make then canonical the exiles was made for Cataclysm first not HW2, and the same lore writer wote cataclysm lore as HW1 lore.

Unfounded hate is unfounded.

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#49

You mean the guy who wrote the Cataclysm story? He actually came in late during HW1 development, the game was mostly finished and he wasn’t able to make any large changes. So, whoever came up with the idea to make both sides the exiles, it probably wasn’t him.

The story he did for Cataclysm had a condition. He wasn’t allowed to use any lore (names) from HW1. So, that’s most likely the reason he decided to expand the lore in Cataclysm, to get a new story going (in my opinion he did way better than the writers for HW1 and 2 did).

#50

There’s a couple things you’re mistaken about. Arinn Dembo did some of the lore for HW1 and Cataclysm and is a she. Martin Cirulis was there for script and campaign design as a writer I believe and yes, did get in late on the project.

Interestingly both he and Arinn Dembo are listed as having worked on HW1 and HWC as “Marcus Skyler”.

Even then the call to make the Kushan the exiles was most likely something that they were told by Sierra or Relic from what I can gather here according to what she did on the projects: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arinn_Dembo#Video_games so yea I’m not sure they had anything to do with the Kushan being made the exiles.

Remember the expansion (cataclysm) was outsourced to barking dog, they did not own the Homeworld IP so they would not have made the call to make the Kushan the exiles either.

Someone had to have made the call and my bet now is probably on someone at Relic, the then owners of the HW IP. That’s as close to the word of god as you can get :stuck_out_tongue:

#51

The wiki page you list says that in Cataclysm she only wrote the background stories for some of the factions and did some voice acting. This mean, that other guy was in charge of the story stuff.

Maybe I’m misremember it, but I believe he said here that they mostly were on their own (no input from Relic) and had the freedom to do whatever they wanted, they just couldn’t use certain names that would link to Homeworld 1 lore, and Sierra made it very clear that Cataclysm would not be a sequel to Homeworld 1 (it’s a long video but contains very interesting information about Cataclysm):

#52

I have found new definitive proof!

In the final cutscene of HW1, Karan is shown visiting Hiigara, about to step off of a ship with a trapezoidal opening (highlighted in red for those with selective eyesight):

The only ship in the game with a similar opening is this one:

Guess what ship this is?

Yup you guessed it, it is a Taiidan carrier.

Pack your bags folks, the Taiidan are the true exiles but we can thank B̶a̶r̶k̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶d̶o̶g̶ Sierra for screwing with canon.

#53

Actually, you can thank Sierra for that. Barking Dog and the writers were mostly just following orders from Sierra.

#54

Hehe that makes me think of these:
http://s3-ec.buzzfed.com/static/2014-04/enhanced/webdr06/22/10/enhanced-buzz-26781-1398177437-5.jpg

(Not sure if you were serious or not but I found it pretty funny regardles :smile: )

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#55

The Kushan are named after the Kushan empire.

The Taiidan are not named after anything as far as I know.

#56

My post was made tongue-in-cheek mostly to show how a lot of the “evidence” presented is nothing but conjecture or drawing parallels and recognising vague patterns where no such connection exists or seems to have even been intended on the devs’ part.

A lot of sharpshooter fallacies and leading the evidence.

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#57

Pg. 6 - Kushan Mothership
Pg. 13 - Taidan Scout
Pg. 15 - Kushan Frigate

2 against 1, Kushan wins.

Also as far as I can tell all of the images in the Game Controls section of the manual are of the Kushan.

#58

Actually that may be evidence against the Taiidan.
Due to the size of the transport, It would have to be either a fighter or corvette, and it was already shown that the Heavy Corvette also doubled as non-combat thanks to the Ambassador.

The problem is that this is a long and wide cargo area while if you look at the door for a Taiidan Corvette chassis, it is a thin hatch that leads down a set of stairs on the landing leg, far too small to be the door in the image.

This leads me to believe that is a exit ramp for a Kushan ship who use wider designs.

#59

Yep that transport is clearly taiidan.

#60

And theres a bunch of Kushan fighters behind it.