Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri Secret Project: The Cloning Vats

[KingCrimson250]

Is it just me, or is the visual for this taken from the movie Koyaanisqatsi?

That takes the haunting effect and kicks it up to a whole new level.

[RojOdio]

@KingCrimson250 I believe it's from a movie called Baraka.If you look up the video "Life of chickens and people" it's the final scene from that movie.

[PrincessPengy]

Damn. There went my daily happy. Damn you, TV Tropes, and your Schmuck Bait links...

[roronoapedro]

Why the fuck are these videos so fucked up.

[TectonInd]

MY MIND IS FULL OF FUCK

[eng3d]

KFC's Secret Project

[ComradePotato]

Anyone know where to get a Mac copy of this?

[tauwilltriumph]

@ComradePotato It's up on ThePirateBay (torrent ID: 5170723), read through the comments for tricks to get it working. It's supposedly broken since Snow Leopard though, so it may be wiser to just install Windows on BootCamp and game from there.

[MogManDog]

Multiplayer are sepertated in 2 parts.

The first part is a race of who get the Cloning Vats first.

After that, they focus on the endgame.

The huge impacts it gives on the social engineering screen can't be ignored. BTW, de facto it also removes the negative impact on Green Economics and growth-weakened factions.

[CaptainPengu]

:D weee little chickies

then you realize the dissonance between the video content and Santiago's narration ;___;

[92451721921892113]

o brave new world!

[Silentchap]

What will happen when we reduce the human race to something like this, to a factory where those in power simply create what they need and discard the unfit, the unnecessary? Variation will be taken into account and we will have just the right mix of everything and everyone. There will be no real waste, no conflicts, and no undesireable confusion about anyone's place or purpose.

Creepy? Yes, but oh so very efficient.

[yannschmidt055]

Actually, as long as you' could clone safely, and not have to worry about genetic diversity, cloning geniuses could be a major boon to scientific research. Unless it'd turn out their abilites are a result of tricky prenatal processes, not just the right geneset..

[WillP999]

Those poor chicks. :(

[Bobaklives]

The term for what's going on in this video is "chick sexing", Wikipedia's got a decent article on it.

[behnamasid]

3 clones dislike this video.

[FalconsOfTheStars]

This vid still creeps me out. Comparing soldiers to chickens in a meat factory demonstrates the value of human life as nothing more but raw resources. That factory is a "chicken plant" as shown in the movie Baraka (1992). the two chutes are where they separate males and females. the male chute leads directly to a grinding machine to kill the males all alive cause they dont grow as fast and are a waste of resources.

[ChromeBallz]

@FalconsOfTheStars I think that's the entire point, portraying soldiers as expendable resources. Good tip on finding the source! Didn't see it in the manual or credits.

[hagamablabla]

I feels sorry for da chickens.

[insideous57]

Fear Santiago and her +1 morale army of baby chickens.

[pericles20]

In PvP matches, whoever built this first usually got attacked by almost everyone. Any decent-sized faction who managed to build this and keep it had a huge advantage. You could build your bases to max size and keep it there, even while cranking out military units.

[mlarosa25]

@pericles20 and rightfully so, im sure you know what typically happens if the other factions cant take out the faction that built it, its anever ending stream of infantry and colony bases, though in a few games i had this and the space elevator, upgrade all infantry units to have orbital drop pods, keep in mind you need to the clean reactor, not neccessarily the best armor you have nor the best weapon you have, something cheap enough to be mass produced like 1 per turn

[mlarosa25]

what really matters: cloning vats removed all negative effects of power and thought control social engineering choices removed, all bases in a state of population boom. also everytime i was the first faciton to build this, i was human hive :P

[mlarosa25]

i think in alpha centauri the closest thing to peta, was the step daughters of gaia, you know, the first people non gaia players usually squashed early on

[stonem001]

whoa meat is murder

[moksheebs]

lol that's how kfc will make its chickens in the future...

[EarthTremor]

@moksheebs in the future? That's how they breed them now.

[moksheebs]

@EarthTremor i dunno if peta got anything to say then...

[Eagle0600]

@moksheebs: If PETA had anything to say about things we wouldn't even be allowed pets. All domesticated animals would be gassed. The way we treat animals in general could do with a lot of improving, but PETA is no option.

[moksheebs]

@Eagle0600 those guys... the only thing they know is strip naked and pose pornographically, pretending they are protecting animals.

[rbellev]

throwing around baby chicks = war, and serious buisness...

[92451721921892113]

EAT ALL THE ANIMALS TO GAIN THEIR POWERS!

[itsmeJTke]

@92451721921892113 indeed, ethics sux. everyone kill each other. woop de doo da.

[kaiserwilhelm]

Damn, I didn't think that santiago would be the one. I thought it would be the chinese dude.

[Gruegirl]

@kaiserwilhelm

It's not nessicarily the one who says the quotes who actually built the thing. Consider the Bulk Matter Transmitter, I garuntee you that Miriam wouldn't touch that thing with a 20 ft pole.

The GURPS Alpha Centauri book explains it best. It's up to you who built what.

[Solenor92]

This video makes me feel bad for the chicks. T_T Did the game ever include a "no animals were harmed during the making of this video game tag"?

[GenericOverusedName]

It probably used stock footage from a chick sexing operation. The chicks aren't harmed during the process. The workers check their gender, then place them into appropriate ramps so you don't have roosters-to-be with the hens-to-be.

[MasterAsra]

@GenericOverusedName Though to be fair, in a lot of the factories the male chicks are tossed onto a ramp which has them ground up into feathers since most of them don't really serve a purpose financially.

[Eedwart2007]

okey, these videos are too creepy.

[Valkyriefury]

That's why the game is so damn great.

[Selinja]

@Eedwart2007

Creepy? They are the worst nightmare fuel inattentive parents can unleash on their innocent children. The Dream Twister *still* scares me shitless. The game is way too good at creating immersion, even eleven years after it has been published.

[thetyler101]

@Eedwart2007 Hell, have you seen the Dream Twister? That video is the reason I never build it.

[omfg4000]

@Eedwart2007 They echo our future. :) Our future is quite creepy

[RedFoxLord]

@Eedwart2007

the game was made in 1999 and it was low badget

i love the game and these videos

[dragonkingofthestars]

@Eedwart2007 you think its creepy now? i was playing this game when i was eight!

[shootanputan]

This scene is from the movie Baraka. Also the dream twister sceene  is from Baraka.

[VideogameMaster713]

What do they do with the chicks?

[GmodPlusWoW]

So this wonder breeds millions of deadly chickens to fight the enemy? I'll buy 8 of these machines!

[shootanputan]

Not just chickens but deadly ninja chickens!

[GmodPlusWoW]

Going a bit off-topic here, have you imagined about the way chickens are selectively bred for egg production? They select only the females, and thus most of the males are killed.

Now imagine the prospect that every living creature has a soul. Imagine the quantity of male baby chicks wandering the planet, forever lost, eternally searching for their mothers long after their sisters have birthed their own children. Billions of lost tiny souls, wandering the ether, swarming around your feet...

[shootanputan]

I guess you are right about about that, I but I was only joking about the ninja chickens.

[kristicuk]

@GmodPlusWoW I'm still laughing at your comment :D

[Uberskull]

@GmodPlusWoW At last you are becoming a crafty consumer!

[digi201]

...Can I "borrow" one of the cloning pads?

[jamesgravil]

... such as evolutionary theory, but I haven't seen that demonstrated in the game. Once or twice I've seen them build the Human Genome Project, and God save me (and everyone else) if they get their hands on The Cloning Vats...

Rather than simply reducing the rate at which the Believers accumulate research points, wouldn't it have made more sense to make certain technologies unavailable to them, specifically ones that wouldn't fit in with their strong religious ethic?

[jamesgravil]

Sounds unlikely now, I doubt we'll be seeing 'The Clone Wars' anytime soon, but it could be a reality in 50 years or so, maybe even sooner. DNA was only discovered 50/60 years ago, and when scientists first began mapping the Human Genome they thought it would take centuries - but genetic science and its technological application has surpassed all expectations. 50 years ago we wouldn't have Dolly the Sheep, GM crops, what have you; who can imagine what things will look like in another 50 years?

[SpudsBM]

even if we could advance our tecchnology that far we would met resistance from religious groups and from most civilians like with galileo and it would take much longer

[jamesgravil]

"The righteous need not cower beneath the drumbeat of human progress."

That's the thing I don't understand about the Believers, they have a really low Science rating but they have no problem stealing other peoples' techs and then using them. You'd think they'd be reluctant to take up any kind of subversive science - cloning almost certainly is as big an abomination as abortion - but they aren't. And also, whatever happened to "Thou shalt not steal." Some hypocrites they are.

[RaynorX]

Sister Miriam is just crazy, I almost always end up in a war with her at some point because I wouldn't "give" her some of my technology.

[jamesgravil]

lol, in one game (Transcend difficulty) Miriam got completely out of hand. She'd dominated about half the globe and her power bar was WAY off the scale, having pillaged and plundered everyone else. She always pisses EVERYBODY off, somehow. Well, then I (the Gaians), the University, the Spartans and the Morganites (Peacekeepers bit it early on) hit her with about a billion Planet Busters, completely destroyed her empire in less than 10 turns. Then things started getting a little warm and wet...

[knifeofspaghetti]

Also, she criticizes the Bulk Matter Transmitter, but when you build the quantum gate, she says, "Go through, my children! The time of miracles is upon us. Let us cast off sin and walk together to the Garden of the Lord. With God's mercy we shall meet again on the other side."

Her research doesn't suffer because she fears technology. It's because the only kind of society that she can build is the kind that makes people too stupid to research effectively.

[jamesgravil]

Yes, but some of Miriam's speeches DO imply a hatred of, or at least a reluctance towards, secular technology: "The righteous need not cower beneath the drumbeat of human progress." "Beware ye who seek first and final principles... For you trample the universe of an angry God, and He awaits you just beyond the last theorem." The Believers are the epitome of a fundamentalist society, and one would think at least that they would be opposed to at least certain technologies...

[paratrooper508]

remember that the Believers in this game represent an amalgam of every strange religious view in the world. the truth is that Miriam's faction wouldn't last very long due to it preaching hypocritical doctrines and inability to effectively govern (this happens in real life too, remember what happened to the Catholic Church in the 1520's. If a religious organization is too far out of whack with its own teachings it stumbles)

[jamesgravil]

I think Sid Meier should really have introduced some negative side effects to this Project. Like extra drones, perhaps, or a negative Planet rating, or making other factions (those that don't have the Cloning Vats) more hostile towards you. How can filling the world with clones seriously be a good thing?

[zan1500]

you forgot to mention seperation or evolution such as if a defective person or a spy were to sign up and clone they could seperate AND if AlOt of the same person where cloned they could develop a desease and die quite quickly. also, it should only be temporary since if you clone too much it could begin to deplete the human genome

[eslington]

In practice, I tend to find once I have the cloining vats all the new population brings out a lot of new drones. (You get one drone for every six population, I think.) This works as social upheaval I guess.

As to the negative effects of a civilisation of clones, I guess either they aren't just full-blown clones (IE: Imitate zygote based breeding with two parents) or the benefit of having a million Einsteins balances out the negative effects.

[jamesgravil]

A million Einsteins? Can you imagine what that would entail? It only took ONE Einstein to formulate the theory of Relativity that (later) made possible the atomic bomb; if you had a hundred or a thousand or a million of them, it'd be a pretty dangerous world! Imagine just a couple of disgruntled Einsteins, working in secret to bring down society. We have terrorists today, most of them thankfully aren't terribly brilliant; if they ALL had the genius of Einstein, we'd be in serious trouble.

[eslington]

One Einstein, plus several other brilliant researchers, plus billions of dollars of government funding, plus a situation which encouraged the development of such a weapon.

It's not as if Albert could have done it in his garage.

And along with this population of geniuses, presumably you're also cloning thousands of great enforcers, great philosophers and great entertainers.

If Einstein-675 goes nuts and tries to blow up the ocean, Judge Fargo-489 will beat him down.

Or something like that.

[jamesgravil]

I'm just concerned about the ethical implications of creating a 'power elite' of clones, since the clones would almost certainly be superior individuals and NOT ordinary people. In other words, we'd end up creating a highly stratified society in which only the cleverest, the most able and loyal have power, and their cloned 'offspring' - a kind of genetic oligarchy, if you like, as far from democracy as you can imagine. I can actually see this happening in my lifetime, that's why I'm concerned.

[eslington]

If cloning could be performed as in SMAC I would be concerned as well. While the huge advantages and huge concerns are quite clear, it would take a much better philospher than I to untangle them.

(A penalty for using the cloning tanks would have been appropriate, I agree, but I'd imagine the designers wanted to keep the game simple by not adding negative effects to projects. In addition to science beyond our understanding, we're probably dealing with social attitudes beyond our prediction.)

[knifeofspaghetti]

It's like the opposite of idiocracy. As long as the meritocracy stayed meritocratic, I'm fine.

[meversbergii]

Not too big a deal; if we underlings simply don't reproduce, and leave the planet to the genetic superiors, think of the progress for our species!

Probably best we don't waste resources more than we already do; they're of better breeding. It's natural selection sped up rather fast.

[spectre111]

@meversbergii

The problem with that is how does one determine who is superior and inferior? History is full of examples of the meek defeating the strong, the great falling to the humble.

Persia and Greece, the American colonies and Great Britain.

Hitler once said the United States are the weakest of all for they are impure, therefore weak, democratic and therefore spineless. Germany is strong because it is pure and it was a dictator ship.

Was he right?

[meversbergii]

Godwin'd already?

[gyrobotZ]

Had some invasions went off as planned, he would have been right. Spain remained in the power of oligarchs until Franco's death. Cuba, the same. Still under an autocratic rule. He did not foresaw Japan's pride and forced US' hand

[Kizor]

Just to check, are you aware of the concept of hybrid vigour and the tendencies of highly diverse populations to produce the fittest individuals?

[meversbergii]

Slowly.

[jamesgravil]

Hmm, if this game had come out after 2002 they probably woulda used some of the footage from Attack of the Clones; that scene where the alien shows Obi-Wan Kenobi the army of stormtroopers assembling was quite freaky. This is by far the most overpowered Project in the game. Effectively, if you get it, and a whole bunch of Hydroponic Pods, you've already won. For every base, that's +1 population per turn. Got 20 bases? In 10 turns, that's +200 population. Heck of a jump on the power scale.

[BoredDG]

Chicken Clone Army! :D

[civver3]

This video, even though it has no explicitly scary content, chilled me to the bone when I first saw it and thought about is implications.

[RealParadoxBlues]

This, Dream Twister and Self-Aware Colony are probably the most disturbing.

I'm surprised the quote wasn't from Yang.

[Gruegirl]

Why? you don't think santiago can be just as scary?

[Zardozthedestroyer]

I think pretty much everyone in the game can be scary. Yang is a Big Brother-wannabe, Santiago a jingoist nutcase, Deidre an eco-nut who doesnt hesitate at releasing mind worms at people, while Morgan openly wants to become "Emperor of Centauri". By just the quotes, possibly only Zakh and Lal are the ones without too much of a tarnish, but Zakh is doubtful about this, and lal openly wants to clone himself a lookalike of his wife

[Gruegirl]

There's Domai in Alien Crossfire, he's just your average commie.

[Zardozthedestroyer]

Yeah. I am sort of curious as to why can't he use Green but CAN use Free market, though.

Frankly, I am not too fond of the "new" factions because they lack the flavor of the old ones, and you have to replace the old with the new to play them.

In fact, I think that (with the possible exception of the hive which is openly a psycho dictatorship) the old factions' charm is that they are not black or white, but rather shades of grey. And that makes them more lifelike.

[gyrobotZ]

It is part of the blue-sky research that he opposes, why should one invest in needless enviromentally friendly economy which will hamper growth of the society. A Free Market allows Domai's talents to pursue wealth as one of the many forms of happiness since affluence builds potential for happiness.

[Zardozthedestroyer]

Alas, the problem is that while the "Wealth" social goal choice does make sense, the Free market drone-spawning one does not, in his context.

To me, it seems that it is an example of gameplay and story segregation. It WOULD make more sense to have him be unable to choose free market, but since each faction hsa a specific phobia, and that one was already picked, he had to go for green-phobia

[gyrobotZ]

A unfortunate side effect of an unregulated market. They do not see any financial value in Green Economics and thus prefer a planned economy to allow a proper distribution of resources or a Free Market to trade with people.

[colonist067]

This always makes me laugh XD

[Joymani]

Haah!

[edstar83]

they treat those chicks like shit down a toilet. sad... :(

[Umprella]

I was laughing the whole time because I thought those were hamsters.

[Veredei]

One of greatest quotes ever, I only hope that George Bush doesn't resort to it one day *wink* :D

[kingsman565]

"One of greatest quotes ever, I only hope that George Bush doesn't resort to it one day *wink* :D"

Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice, ummm, fool me you can't get fooled again. :D

[zan1500]

wtf hes not prez silly!

[matsku84]

He was a year ago when the original comment was made, silly!

[TheNessus]

My god

these chickens are like... humans in the Matrix.

it's sick... I'm already avoiding chicken meat.

beef is next.

I love this game :) it's so... vast in every aspect.

[earlfocht]

I'm 99% certain that this scene was taken from an obscure art film in 1993 called Mancala or something like that. I distinctly remember seeing this in theaters.

[mtext]

The movie was Baraka. You can find nearly the full scene in the Related Videos window, as the "Baraka Chicken / Human Scene". It was without doubt one of the movie's most powerful sequences.

[Naxwell]

Mancala was a dumb game, but it was easy. Thats why we always played it in school. Good God it was mind numbing though. If only we had stratego or something.

[williamkh]

This is just the beginning of their miserable 6 month stint in hell.

Chicken are the most diseased meat to eat because of their living conditions! They are pumped with antibiotics for a reason

[truthspeaker2000]

In future we will be the chicks

...

[williamkh]

we already are.... that is why all those people die in africa and india every day...

[aeonbrit]

people die in india because they won't use any form of birth control or population control so they have a huge population and limited room, food, Sanitation so they can't support such growth=OWN FAULT

[Naxwell]

Umm, last time I checked, we don't eat Indian people for dinner. And if we did they wouldn't be starving or dieased thats for sure. So they really arent anything like those chicks.

[evilblades]

but,,,soilent green is people!!!

sorry, couldnt resist :P

[Alignn]

@Naxwell

So if we ate Indian people they'd be clean & well fed?

[Gruegirl]

In Soviet Chicken, Food sorts YOU!

[Crimmond]

It's a chicken breeder farm's processing center. They're sorting them by sex for poultry farms, egg farms and the like.

[IronmanSeventeen]

Lol. Poor chicks.

[rookandpawn]

they are so cute

[ronan32]

i see no gameplay videos.

[matsku84]

I haven't got a program capable of recording Alpha Centauri. Maybe you know one? So far I've tried Fraps and Windows Media Encoder...

[JamieDurant]

What the fuck are they doing with those chicks?

[matsku84]

Probably as the narrative suggests: Selecting the finest specimens for cloning.

[whatewer23]

@matsku84 And then... THE ARMY OF CHICKENS SHALL RISE!

[92451721921892113]

@JamieDurant in reality they are throwing out the males and keeping the females to lay eggs and create more chicks joys of factory farming

[itsmeJTke]

@92451721921892113 yup, that's why eating eggs is unethical.

[92451721921892113]

@itsmeJTke i dont buy factory farmed eggs i buy free ranged

eggs own

eating animals own

ill eat all the vegetarians

gimmie all the meat!

[rast29]

@JamieDurant it's called chicken sexing, they sort them male and female. an interesting side note is that the sexers are never wrong, but it's an entirely intuitive posses; science has no explanation on how they know at that age.