Defiance

I agree with pretty much all of them and I have a few others. I assume the dog things were skitterlings from the game? And if so they are easy to kill but the CGI rendering of them was total shit. They should have been small, leathery, fast, jumpy like spider things that were mostly scavengers except in packs. Skin adapted in such a way as to burrow and travel through ground...

Most of the other CGI wasn't THAT bad but it certainly wasn't good either. Holy shit the volmags (sp?) were badly rendered.

My biggest complaint that I have yet to see the game or episode answer is WHY THE FUCK ARE SO MANY ALIENS HUMANOID!!?? I can totally buy the semi terraforming of the planet so they can survive on our food (oh and where was the alien food stuffs in the market?) but seriously they all had 2 arms, 2 legs, 5 - 6ft tall, human speech, hearing, eating and visual organs (at least visually identical) they all had joints in all the same places, etc. I could even buy a default 2 eye like devices near the brain organ, 2 low the the ground like appendages for walking, 2 upper body appendages and some kind of intake and outtake for food but even so there is a HELL of a lot you can do with that before you come up with "human".

At least throw me a shitty excuse that they were "accidently terraformed" away from their original shapes to fit the earth/alien/default human shape.

I also have issues with Pistols being so effective against a species bred for war but from playing the game I will assume this is because future tech weapons aren't firing anything remotely close to the ammunition we have today. They look like normal modern weapons but looks may be deceiving.

So here is an Defiance backstory I came up with that would explain why so many of the aliens are "humanoid" shaped. It's actually fairly simple. They aren't aliens. We are. That is to say we are part of "their" species and came to this planet early on.

My story is like this. Something went wrong in our "home galaxy" (home being where the the 7 species of Defiance are from) and they (we) setup the Ark ships to leave this(that) galaxy but the ships were super slow. They sent out scout Ark ships using experiemental warp like drives but none of them returned so they used the slow Ark ships to put everyone to stasis for hundreds of thousands of years (more?) while they traversed space to get to earth.

Well turns out one of these Ark scout ships did make it to earth but in such a bad state that it crashed (hey dinosaurs wiped out!) What remained of the ship created a long term terraformingsoemthingto adapt this planet to us with the last of its energy then woke up what people it could (hence why it looks like the dinosaurs were wiped out much longer then actual? This is really flimsy I know) We adapated, lived, procreated, devoled, evolved and came to be the humans we are today. To little was left of the orginal single scout ship to still be around now and the struggles from the initial colonys survival while the planet was being semi terraformed caused them to lose to much of their advancements to build upon.

Let's even go so far as to say the ark story from the bible (and other similar religious stories) is actually related to this some how (who doesn't like a relgious angle in their SCI FI? That's right fuck you BSG) except that it was 500,000 years not 5,000 (enough time for us to devolve from our ape like previous shapes to hairless caveman and evolve to our current human shapes?)

Fuck around with time figures, throw in some shit about long term exposure to radiation in vacum requiring everyone to be in stasis hence not awake and a little dose of bullshit suddenly has very tiny roots in scientifc reality.

In AT-43 [After Trauma: Year 43], humanity is at war with the technologically advanced Therians, a presumably robotic species bent on subjugating and transforming all planets for their ultimate purpose: the crafting of a "better", more organized universe under their rule, which they refer to as their "therian heaven". Humanity is seen by them as nothing more than pathetic, primitive animals. The center of mankind is the planet Ava, which came under attack by the Therians. The United Nations of Ava managed to push back the invaders, but bitter fighting left the planet in ruins. This pivotal event is referred to as the Trauma. 43 years later, the human forces launched a counterattack under the codename "Operation Damocles" on one of the Therian's factory Planets, the starting point for the AT-43 miniatures game.

Although the UNA and RedBlok will often be identified as the "human" race, this is not the truth. By reading the Therian back-story in their Armybook, you will find that it is actually the Therians who are the Human Race. The Therians hail from the Solar System SOL, which is located towards the tip of a spiral arm in the Milky Way Galaxy, and originate from the Third planet from the Sun. The Therians home planet was reconstructed by the Therians into a dyson sphere covering the sun long ago. Having become virtually immortal by re-engineering their own bodies, the Therians have been engineering the universe itself to prevent it from collapsing into a Big Crunch, a trillion years in the future, thereby insuring their eternal longevity. The Therians had predicted that without their intervention, the end of the Universe is inevitable, and that life will cease to exist in the future. Because of their all-encompassing view of existence, they see the only way to maintain existence is to destroy all known forms of planets and life and transform them into their type of travelling homeworld. To other races who do not share their same point of view, the Therians idea seems like the destruction of life itself, when ironically it is actually the permanent preservation of life. Most races will resist the Therians because they will fail to see their end-goal, and will put up resistance. Even though there are Races like the UNA who are powerful enough to temporarily disrupt the plans of the Therians, there are none who can hold them off for good. In the end, the Therians will either have their way or life will cease to exist when the Universe comes to an eventual halt.

Besides the external threat of the Therians, humanity is still fighting against each other: The Red Blok, a revolutionary faction with communist ideals, is at odds with the United Nations of Ava. The Red Blok started as an uprising on Ava's manufacturing planet Hades, and manifested itself into a political movement. At first the political opposition was crushed by the armed forces from Ava, but as the Avans started to think that the threat was subsided, the Red Blok managed to convince the planetary troops that their ideals were a better way of life. The Defense force later joined forces with the struggling workers that they were assigned to subdue, and after a violent rebellion they created their own formal government. After the formation of the Red Blok, Ava lost its main production facilities, and the political movement spread throughout the planets under Avan control. The Red Blok is now a major threat to the Avan ways of life. Even though the Red Blok and the U.N.A. are allied in their efforts against the Therian threat, they are by no means on friendly terms. The bitter taste left between the two sides has led to disastrous un-cooperation, and communication failures. There is still a deep underlying distrust between the two sides, and as time goes on these feelings only burn deeper and deeper.

An alien race with as yet unknown motives are the Karmans, highly evolved, sentient apes from the planet Karma. The Karmans originally allied with the Therians when they first attacked Ava. The Karmans, like most races in the galaxy, owe their technological achievements to the ancient knowledge passed down through Therian relics left behind on their planet. Now that they see the massing army of the Therians, and that no one can escape their threat, the Karmans return to Ava to fight with Humanity to take on the omnivorous threat of the Therians. The Karmans do not want the balance of the universe destroyed, and though they have no allegiance to the humans, they see it fit to keep them around for the benefit of the galaxy. Not much is known about them yet, but concept art and a preview miniature show that they are a highly evolved Ape-like species that uses their technology to amplify their strength.[1]After the release of the Official Rulebook more information has been provided regarding the Karman. We should see an official release in Q4 2007 with more information regarding the Karmans.

Patch 1.010 - Sharks in Winter Solstice - Final Patch Notes

GENERAL
? Improved server and client stability.
? Main missions are now replayable after completion of the last mission.
? Extraction timer upped from 30 to 90 seconds to allow more time for fellow players to revive you.
? Optimized objects throughout the world to minimize popping and improve overall performance.
? Area voice chat has been improved and is now on by default.
? Voice and text chat channels can now be muted independently.
? Text chat now displays for longer and no longer hides when sprinting or boosting.

MISSIONS
? General polish and bug fixes for all missions and side missions.
? Heart of Darkness: Completing this mission now unlocks new side missions.
? Removed timer delays between a few main missions.
? Updated several side missions to ensure that they would not be void of enemies.
? Bolinas Smeltery, North Point Mine, Alamo, Happy Pow Farms and Kinship Plaza now have increased rewards.
? Fixed some data recorder typos.
? Removed health bar from APS dropbox at the crash site.
? Kith and Kinship: Fixed flyout text for a dead soldier.
? Muir Processing: Fixed some inactive enemies.
? Sniper's Ridge: Added flyout text to interactable ammo caches.
? Sniper's Ridge: Fixed an issue where event would reset if you left the area during the boss stage.
? Sutro Tower: Added collision to the destroyed monolith.
? KTAM: Added some missing doors to the buildings that were disappearing if you returned after completing the mission.
? There Goes the Neighborhood: Removed some unnecessary EGO voice overs.
? Down at the Docks: Players now receive proper credit if they complete the mission outside the POI radius.
? Mine 98: Fixed a missing spawn door.
? Iron Demon Ranch: Players will no longer extract to a hostile environment.
? Good Ol' Smets now matches the cutscene in Ridgecrest.
? Radio Silence: Fixed comlink antenna animation.
? Pirate Radio: Fixed continuously respawning scrappers after completing the mission.
? We're on the Air: Cass should move up to fix the control panel sooner.
? Angel of Death: Fixed a bug in Part 1 that caused the mission to not complete properly.
? A Little Competition: Fixed an issue where you would be unable to obtain the mission until after you completed the event, if you had entered another player's phase before getting the mission.
? Added some missing scanning interactions to various mission objectives.
? Raid the Medicine Cabinet: Fixed an issue that stopped progression
? Seize the Day: Fixed a potential progression issue.
? Control the Future: Fixed a potential progression issue.
? Torc's Garage: Fixed an issue that caused Von Bach to float.
? San Quentin: Fixed some explosions that were not firing after the cutscene.
? Safe No More: Moved Smets to lean against the wall to match the cutscene.
? Murder in Madera: Fixed some raiders that were fighting each other on the docks.
? Enter the Law Keeper: Adjusted player position to match cutscene.
? Fixed the reactor in the tutorial being active before the player arrives.
? North Point Mine: Fixed an issue where the Foreman and Technician would stop patrolling to each of the objects they are interacting with.
? Fixed missing voice overs in a few missions.
? Miwok Ranch: Fixed an issue where the rancher during the Boss Stage would sometimes not move after reviving the first fallen rancher and would prevent you from completing the mission.

CHALLENGES AND RACES
? Hotshot: Dam Defense - Adjusted rocket launcher damage.
? Hotshot: Reservoir Chickens - Adjusted chicken re-spawn rates and made scoring points tweaks.
? Sharpshooting Savior and Hamburger Hill challenges have had their scoring tweaked.
? Rescored Rampage: Minigun Mayhem: Bronze: 20000, Silver: 40000, Gold: 60000
? Rankings should now be displaying on the end screen.
? Prevented an exploit in which players could get infinite ammo during a rampage.
? Players should no longer be able to enter a phase while in a race.

EMERGENCIES
? General polish for all emergencies.
? Added new emergency types throughout the bay area.
? Tuned emergency sockets in Marin.
? Road Minefield: Fixed an issue that caused delayed mine explosion.
? Fixed an issue that caused emergencies to not end properly.
? Gang War: Fixed a bug that caused enemies to ignore ATV collision.
? Fixed a problem where emergency vendors would show as interactive, but not actually be interactive.
? Fixed a "no string" text appearing upon completion of some emergencies.

ARKFALLS
? There's a Bioman Minigunner in the final wave of the Mutant Mayhem Arkfall - Only accessible on the "hard" wave!
? Updated wave progressions for the 99er minor destroy arkfall.
? Adjusted arkfall difficulty scaling.
? Minor arkfalls will now respawn after 30 minutes.
? Progenitor Armatures will now destroy vehicles.
? Evolved Hellion arkfall now gives credit towards the Ark Hunting as a Way of Life pursuit.
? Fixed incorrect key code rewards for arkfalls.
? Fixed a floating arkfall crystal.
? Results screen now appears if the player teleports to an arkfall.
? Emergencies within a major arkfall radius should now despawn.

PLAYER CHARACTER
? Fixed a bug that caused characters to dive-roll in place.
? Fixed a bug that caused characters to run in place.
? Fixed a bug that caused ladder animation to play while not on a ladder.

NPCS
? Updated Dark Matter enforcer's cloak spawn animation.
? Added mutants to Serenity Academy after Kith and Kinship has been completed.
? Hellbug skitterlings are now a little more aggressive and deal a little more damage.
? Alamo Park in San Fran has now been occupied by Dark Matter when player is not on the area specific mission.
? Downtown San Francisco enemies have been updated.
? Added disguised Dark Matter allies to Dark Matter base.
? Friendly scrappers now have blue lasers instead of red.
? Elite Mad Mattock shields have been lowered from 5400 to 4500.
? Lowered health on Dark Matter snipers.
? Tuned Piercer Boss in Liberate the Lost.
? Mutant grenadier in Into the Depths is now Elite.
? Crashing a vehicle into a monarch will cause the vehicle to blow up.
? Improved "bulldoze" attack for various NPCs.
? E Rep Camp: Fixed E Rep Technician animation.
? Sausalito: Fixed a Blitzer that was instantly respawning.
? Fixed some NPC helicopters that were flying through geometry.
? Nano affected raiders now use appropriate effects when taunting.
? North Point Mine: Fixed tanker boss pop-in.
? Happy Pow Farms: Fixed some disappearing hellbugs.
? Fixed a bug that caused some enemies to go invisible.
? Bernal Tower: Fixed some scrappers that would respawn after you completed the event.
? Fixed a bug that caused ally NPCs to retain their shader after being revived.
? Liberate the Lost: Fixed an issue that was causing the siphon monarch to not siphon correctly.
? Minimized the chance of blitzers firing out of the side of their guns while running.
? Mount Tam: Fixed various floating spawns and some collision issues.
? Fixed an exploit that caused mutant minigunners to have a hard time tracking players at close range.
? Fixed some 99ers that weren't flailing when being electrocuted.
? East Shore Docks: Fixed an issue in which two hostages freed from the main warehouse would path through the vendor truck.
? Tanker rockets should not agro cloaked players.
? Fixed a few spawners that were appearing incorrectly.
? Fixed siphon blast pods that weren't healing themselves with the syphon effect.
? Soleptor Excavations: Fixed a pathing issue with the Hulker Boss.
? Improved firing behavior for multiple enemy NPCs.
? Fixed multiple NPCs playing run animation while walking.
? Fixed multiple NPCs not playing animation when getting up after knockdown.
? Fix bug where NPCs were continually playing shooting animation even when they've run out of ammo.
? Fixed bug where NPC melee wasn't damaging fully cloaked players

COMPETITIVE MULTIPLAYER
? Observatory & Waterfront: Updated and moved a few ammo caches.
? All capture and hold matches in both shadow war and battlegrounds now last for 20 minutes instead of 15.
? Updated scoring for capture and hold matches.
? Improved matchmaking for multiplayer.
? Players are now not able to use inventory vehicles in shadow war or shadow war vehicles outside of shadow war.
? Changed kill notifications when killed by an NPC so that it doesn't look like a suicide.
? Kill notification now appears properly when killed by an nano weapon proc.

CO-OP AND SOLO MAPS
? General polish and bug fixes for all co-op and solo maps.
? Updated timing for several interactables.
? Updated fence collision in Scrapworks and Angel Island.
? Ammo caches found in boss rooms have updated visuals.
? Time goals for certain Co-op Map Pursuits have been updated.
? Scrapworks: Added Dark Matter force fields.
? Players can no longer use vehicles to combat the mini-boss in Explosions 101.
? Reorganized queue menu so that co-op maps are listed in the right order.
? Improved matchmaking for co-op maps.
? Players that enter a co-op map now get put where the leader is.
? Fixed quick match so players don't get put in matches they aren't eligible for.
? Co-op map prerequisites now appear in the queue menu.
? Players abandoning "Into the Depths" while in the Delta West area of Mount Tam will now be removed from the phase and sent to an extraction point.
? Fixed some pathing issues in the hulker fight in Soleptor Excavations.
? Something Wicked This Way Comes should no longer end prematurely if multiple players are doing the mission at the same time.
? Fixed an issue in Scrapworks Excavation that could cause the progenitor arm bottom heatsink to be obscured by its base.
? Fixed missing EGO voice overs during the Motherlode boss battle.
? Players who don't contribute in co-op maps now appear on the results screen.
? Fixed some issues with the mini map in Cronkhite Bunker.
? Fixed an issues that caused some notifications to appear twice.

WEAPONS
? Lowered damage output of sawed off shotguns.
? General tuning to improve LMGs.
? Rate of fire and mag size changes have been made to rocket launchers.
? Cluster launchers have had their damage lowered.
? Anti-vehicle launcher now does appropriate damage to humanoids and a bonus to damage vs vehicles.
? Updated bloom for VBI LMGs.
? Added cooldown to prevent nano effects from constantly applying to player.
? Tuned lock-on rocket launchers.
? FRC LMGs now have a lower rate of fire than other LMGs.
? Lowered the damage and crit Multiplier on the Northstar Flare Pistol.
? Infectors have had their homing range decreased.
? All Infectors now have the same reticle and will not change size when moving crouching or aiming.
? Infector bug speed has been slightly decreased.
? Infector bug damage has been decreased.
? Pistols have had their ammo pools increased in competitive multiplayer.
? Legendary detonators no longer have +6 mag rarity bonus.
? Reduced auto lobbers' rate of fire.
? Reduced damage for Crash Boomer, Rebounder Lobber and Auto Lobber.
? Fixed a bug that caused the swarm rocket launcher to deal too much damage.
? Super Rocket Pod from Echelon vendor should now correctly show its model.
? Fixed a weird xp bonus that was showing up on some weapons.
? VOT and VBI LMG animations now sync with the firing pattern.
? Fixed a potential crash caused by weapon holstering.
? Fixed the Bull Rush 45 causing an operated vehicle to explode when damaging players inside.

GRENADES
? Increased spread damage for incendiary grenades.
? Fixed an issue that caused damage from multiple grenades to stack incorrectly.

SHIELDS
? Fixed damage reducing effect while standing still on the VBI Sentinel.

LOOT AND AMMO
? Added and updated ammo caches throughout the world.
? Tuned amount of ammo that drops from NPCs.
? Increased chances of NPCs dropping a weapon.
? Ammo crates have been added near the vendors at Point Bonita, Bug N Chug and Coit Tower locations.
? Removed orange glow that sometimes appeared over loot weapons.

WEAPON MODS
? Removed magazine size mods for rocket launchers.

OUTFITS
? Fixed various issues with helmets and hats.

VEHICLES
? Shields for rollers have been reduced.
? Increasing vehicle skill now adds to EGO rating.
? Flyout will now specify when you enter a vehicle as a passenger.
? Fixed a bug that caused other players to appear to mount vehicles from the wrong side.
? Fixed a bug that caused placed Cerberuses to not have collision.

VENDORS
? Hidden vendors now appear as people instead of the vendor trucks.
? Titles are now available at faction vendors.
? Fixed any duplicate items that might appear in stores.

EGO ABILITIES AND PERKS
? Updated placement of a few perks on the EGO grid.
? Thick Skinned perk now has a 15 second cooldown.
? Fixed an issue that caused decoy projections to not have shields.
? Fixed an issue that caused decoy pursuits to update when enemies attacked another player's decoy.
? Fixed a bug that caused decoys to slide.
? Error audio will now play if you attempt to use an ability before its cooldown finishes.

PURSUITS AND CONTRACTS
? Updated the order in which pursuits are listed.
? Contracts now display the amount of time left until the contract expires, even after the contract has been completed.
? Updated outfit rewards for Living to Kill V and In the Inner Circle II pursuits.
? Fixed contract icons in notifications.
? Weekly contracts should now only be playable once per week.
? Mutants at the South Radio Tower now give credit towards the Atlas Attrition contract.

CINEMATICS
? General polish for all cinematics.
? Fixed a bug that caused incapacitation screen overlay to appear over cinematics.

AUDIO
? Updated music for co-op and solo maps.
? Updated combat music timing.
? Made some adjustments to when and how combat music comes in.
? Added spawn and despawn audio to Dark Matter drop ships.
? Added taunt audio to nano affected blitzers.

USER INTERFACE
? Added pop-up text after completing the last mission notifying that missions can be played again.
? Previewing head gear in the loadout menu will now zoom in on the character's head.
? You can create CS petitions in game now.
? Added Defiance Store option to quick menu.
? Hooked up new inventory items/new claim items indicator.
? Polished the character create screen.
? Added scrip deduction notification upon extraction.
? Added clan invite to the search list in the social menu.
? Added region and other location names to the map.
? Reconfigured player interaction picking to make interacting with objects easier in high population areas.
? Fixed a bug that caused arkfall and multiplayer end screens to appear on top of each other.
? Fixed an issue that caused audio to loop when picking up an item.
? Fixed an issue that caused controllers to loose functionality when a drop down was expanded.
? Fixed an issue that caused direction pads on controllers to stop working in the pursuits menu.
? Fixed task boxes so that they update without opening different pursuits.
? Pursuit rewards preview pane now displays both helmet and outfit rewards.
? Fixed results screens to show consistent data.
? Fixed full screen settings persisting after logout.
? Fixed tutorial arrows persisting after logging out during the tutorial.
? Fixed skill progress bars to update correctly.
? Fixed clanmate options appearing when the clan member is offline.
? Fixed some issues with group invites.
? Fixed a bug that caused UI interact audio to play twice for some buttons.
? Fixed some buttons that were not highlighting properly in the salvage matrix.
? Fixed a bug that caused quantity to appear as -1 in the Defiance store.
? Prevented mission complete and mission reward notifications from overlapping.
? Medals displayed on multiplayer end screens no longer blink.
? Fixed a bug with revive stat on the arkfall end screen.
? Fixed an issue that caused key remappings to not save after exiting the client.

PC
? Added option to turn off voice chat.
? Fixed not being able to select some options in character create with a controller.
? Fixed arkfall end screens only being scrollable with arrow keys.

XBOX 360
? Fixed various Kinect bugs.
? Fixed some voice chat issues.
? "Last online" for friends now appears correctly.
? Optimized audio.
? Fixed a bug that could causes players to fall through the world while on a vehicle.

PLAYSTATION 3
? Fixed a bug that caused friend invites to be delayed.
? Fixed a bug that caused friend logout notifications to be delayed.
? Fixed some voice chat issues.
? "Last online" for friends now appears correctly.
? Optimized audio.
? Fixed an issue that prevented some characters from being entered on the keypad.

and now I know that fucking gem was worth 3 million scrip, and all I got was a lousy assault rifle