Lore wise - who's funding this shit?

[srifenbyxp]

I know nanotransen and the syndicate has been waving dicks at each other for lore knows how long. But judging from "shifts", station time and all that jazz while assuming time has past. How the fuck does anyone have enough spess money to fund anything? Stations being bombed, massive revolts, and god knows what; where does the United Earth Government or anyone in general get all of this dosh to fund this shit? Is it insurance fraud? Or maybe something else?

Also assuming the year is 2555

[Ricotez]

There are no more nations in the classical sense in the time of SS13. Megacorporations rule space.

Nanotrasen was almost bankrupt before they found Centration, but after their plasma technology hit the market it only took them a few years to become the most powerful megacorporation in known space. They probably have more than enough money to keep building stations and send personnel to them. On the flipside of the coin, the Syndicate factions each have their specialties too. The Gorlex Marauders are well-known mercenaries and get hired for jobs all the time, S.E.L.F. liberates AI systems and has amassed quite an army of them, and Cybersun Industries are experts at computer technology and human augmentations, to give just a few examples.

[bandit]

The mining of plasma, obviously.

[Not-Dorsidarf]

Gorlex also makes a load of guns

[Ricotez]

Centration is the name of the super giant star at the center of the solar system where SS13 is located. That's why that other game was named Centration, it was a reference.

All the stuff about how you can only find plasma in systems without stars was a joke by Errorage when he removed sun simulation from the code.

Also Donk corp and Waffle corp still exist, and they're in the Syndicate. I just gave a few examples of Syndicate organizations from the wiki. It's not set in stone, you can come up with any old organization you want and claim it's in the Syndicate, that's the point of a loose backstory. The Syndicate is just an overarching organization of megacorporations who would backstab each other the moment they're done with Nanotrasen.

[Steelpoint]

Plasma is all that's keeping NT afloat, at least that's what is implied by the lore. Since lore wise NT was about to crash until they found the plasma in orbit around Centration.

The United Earth Government was some shifty thing I added, that people all voted to add in, as the main reason why NT could not allow Lizardmen into command roles, as the UEG threatened to cut NT off from Centration if they did not due to spess racism.

At the end of the day the playerbase gives not even one crap about the lore, its all in your head really, the lore on the wiki is very minimal on details for the present era.

[Cheimon]

Plasma is outrageously valuable: great fuel, astonishing catalyst, new medicines, new slime developments, new engines, all that good stuff. The entire station is literally just set up to experiment with different ways of using that resource, and that includes engineering and medical. Before that, I would assume Nanotrasen made their money with silicons. Cyborgs and AIs seem like a pretty unique and marketable technology, and so do mechs. Cloning/genetics might be, but it's very hard to know if that's widespread or not. Certainly if it was widespread it would help explain why NT is okay with losing so many staff (they only lose the hardware, not software).

The syndicate all have their own businesses, though our server's lore on them isn't very detailed. Basically just "hot pocket company", "waffle company", "space PETA", "space mercs", "space rogue AIs", and some other things. Presumably the technologies traitors get are very marketable, too. Syndie smokes that are good for you? Chameleon devices that allow you to hide your valuables? All the guns being manufactured and bought? Targeted silicon hacking? Presumably all this stuff is worth something to other people too.

Generally speaking more lore heavy stations tend to invent their own new lore, based on what can and can't be made on nanotrasen stations. I remember Bay has a bunch of companies that make things like PDAs and whatever. We seem to just assume the existence of a huge private market, presumably the sort of people the United Earth Government rule, that purchases all kinds of shit. In that way, Nanotrasen's access to that market is necessary enough that the UEG has them by the balls.

[Steelpoint]

From the in game manuals (literal in game books) cloning tech is not even something Nanotrasen even invented. It was made by a third party and is a very new form of technology, with SS13 being among the first (if only) stations to be equipped with a cloning station. Not even central command has them.

[Jazaen]

It depends which way of explaining repeating names onboard you believe. You can either go "Groundhogs day loop", "This is just the first day onboard for everyone, nothing has happend before" or "Yeah, I got cloned. NT keeps rebuilding the station".

[kazeespada]

Actually Centcom is the leading producers of Cryogenics and Genetics research. As seen on the research station away mission.

[Steelpoint]

The original lore text goes waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyy back before that away mission was made.

As I said, there's no real lore on /tg/ outside of what you make for yourself. The little lore we have is more of a foundation than anything.

[Super Aggro Crag]

the vampire shadow government funds nanotrasen to use as footsoldiers against the reptoid world order back on Draconis 7.

[PKPenguin321]

it's also safe to assume (depending on your headcanon) that there is only 1 SS13, and each round is like a groundhog day repeat of the same station, and 1 station wouldn't be that expensive

[Jazaen]

Or this is all just a (or the) Matrix NT set up to test loyalty/robustness of their subjects. They even sometimes run you as a syndicate spy/wizard/etc, to test how quickly you adapt to new skills/goals and so that you know how they think and how to beat them.