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[PS2 Stratics] A Brief Rundown: The Factions

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If you’re anything like me, then your enthusiasm for Planetside 2 might have skipped over the little details of “what’s going on in this game?”
In game terms, it’s easy enough; there’s three factions, fighting a territory control game on an 8km2 map.
Easy, but “because it’s cool” isn’t the actual reason this war’s going on, and “because of game balance” isn’t the reason the factions are different.
In this, and subsequent articles, I’m going to drastically simplify the (sometimes drastically unsimple) parts of the game that I just wished were explained to me when I started out.
Starting with the factions.
So, we start off in the future, by hundreds of years, in the midst of a world war. Everyone’s fighting, and no end’s in sight, until a wormhole opens up somewhere out around Pluto’s orbit. All the guys fighting get distracted, and send probes to investigate.
What they discover is that as well as receiving data from the probes they sent through, they’re also detecting scans being done through the wormhole, of Earth.
Then, the wormhole collapses, and Pluto gets destroyed (never catches a break, that poor planet).
As a result, all the nations on Earth decide that they should stop fighting, and unite under a single government, called the Terran Republic.
Loads of stuff happens. What with there being an abundance of peace, humankind make dramatic strides in science and technology.
Then the wormhole opens again, and closes without incident, making everyone all curious about space.
Also, explorers discover an alien artifact on the remains of Pluto, which gives a vision to one of the explorers, leaving him with a new perspective and the memory of a single word; Vanu.
Fast forward some more time. Various technology and industrial corporations group together to form the Business Forward (later, New Conglomerate), to help oppose the Terran Republic’s restrictions on the private sector.
An expedition is arranged, in anticipation of the wormhole’s opening, consisting of 128 ships, with 75,000 crew.
The wormhole opens, sucks through a little over half the expedition, then collapses, destroying the rest of the expedition.
This is where things start to get sticky.
There’s a great deal of unrest, on account of the dire situation they’re in. A small insurgency happens, which is dramatically unsuccessful, and results in the Terran Republic instituting marshal law (and other oppressive measures).
The fleet’s leadership and the insurgent leaders meet, and the ship they meet on is destroyed, resulting in the Terran Republic gaining control of the fleet.
After three years adrift, the fleet reaches Auraxis.
They terraform, and discover more alien artifacts. The explorer who was originally inlfuenced by the first alien artifact discovers, and is influenced by a second. The content of this vision is a mystery, but following the second vision the Vanu Sovereignty was formed, dedicated to the remnants of alien technology on the planet.
The New Conglomerate, distinctly unhappy with the Terran Republic’s oppression begin an open war, with the New Conglomerate’s goal being the destruction of the Terran Republic.
Stuck in the middle of the war, the Vanu Sovereignty split from the Terran Republic, and took up arms against them.
Then, as a result of their use of alien technology to modify their own bodies, the New Conglomerate declares war on them, considering them an affront to humankind’s natural progression.
So, at the end of the day, you have:
The Terran Republic, fighting to keep order, and crush the opposition to their leadership.
The New Conglomerate, fighting to destroy the oppressive Terran Republic to secure their freedom, and the Vanu Sovereignty because they think they’re icky.
The Vanu Sovereignty, who just hate the other two factions, and think they’re idiots (and are possibly under the control of the original alien inhabitants of Auraxis).

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