Story so far

[Phinixa]

Sooo now with the release being literally 8 weeks away I began to think about the story and lore again.
There's no real wiki where I could refresh my mind and/or find interesting information.
I never finished XR and to be honest I don't really have the time right now.

So does anybody have some links or blog posts about the story from X Rebirth and onwards?
For example what about the other races? What about the Khaak, are they really gone for good or was there an easter egg/secret in Rebirth and its DLC?

[Tenlar Scarflame]

Well, at minimum,

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The Khaak are definitely NOT gone, there are pockets of them to be found out in the clouds in Toride (in the Home of Light DLC.) ^^

If you're looking for any pre-Rebirth lore, the X Encyclopedia is a good starting point. For Rebirth itself, uh... actually not sure. Any suggestions?

[Phinixa]

Whoohow that sounds awesome! Yeah I sucked every bit of information out of the encyclopedia but thats it :/

[Nulric]

I had the exact same thought on the matter of lore as well. It wasn't as easy as I had hoped to get some good, succinct summaries that run the breadth of X: Beyond the Frontier, through X Rebirth.

I've played them all, but it's been nearly 20 years of gaming, so my memory of the story-lines is fuzzy. Additionally, X Rebirth never really took for me, so I'd love to see story and lore summations for it as well.

If anyone goes to the trouble, or can point us in the right direction, I for one would be quite grateful.

[sd_jasper]

Well, I think it was stated that the events in Rebirth will not directly effect anything in X4...

That said, the basic events (that are known) that happened between X3:AP and X4 are that the gates stopped working. Several decades passed (40 years IIRC), with all the systems cut off, then the gates started to reactivate, but no longer connected to the same systems.

What isn't known is that how the various regions, cut off from one another dealt with that. New governments may have formed, civil wars may have been fought, etc. And after the gates opened again, factions may have found that they no longer are "allies" with on both sides of the gates. Others might form new bonds...

So, pretty much any thing goes.

[Phinixa]

Yeah according to the FAQ

How does the Story of X4 connect to X Rebirth or X3?
In X4 you play a new story, which is not directly connected to XR or X3. Lore-wise, however, it plays in the same universe. And time-wise after the events in X Rebirth.

That only means we won't see Yisha or Ren or any other characters from XR. But the events from XR have happened in the X4 timeline and X4 will build(maybe) on top of that. But the whole Plutarch/HoA war won't play any role in X4.



So well... What happened to the Xenon? What about Earth? Any intel on those two?

[jocan2003]

Warning fuzzy memory, xenon did spread everywhere but was pushed back to some corners here and there so they will never be totally gone. Same for Kha'ak, but Kha'ak hates us because we started touching nividium.

Something along those line. I would love a recap of all the game stories tho.

[Tenlar Scarflame]

Yeah according to the FAQ

How does the Story of X4 connect to X Rebirth or X3?
In X4 you play a new story, which is not directly connected to XR or X3. Lore-wise, however, it plays in the same universe. And time-wise after the events in X Rebirth.

That only means we won't see Yisha or Ren or any other characters from XR. But the events from XR have happened in the X4 timeline and X4 will build(maybe) on top of that. But the whole Plutarch/HoA war won't play any role in X4.



So well... What happened to the Xenon? What about Earth? Any intel on those two?

No clue on the topic of Earth - though if I were to hazard a guess, I'd say

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The Ancients enacted the Firebreak (the gate shutdown) as a way to try to curb the spread of the Xenon, who they identify as the number one threat to their goals in this part of the universe.

The Terrans were the ones who were originally responsible for creating the Xenon so many centuries ago, and the Gates found in the Solar System were all built by Terrans... I wouldn't be surprised if the Ancients plan on leaving Earth isolated (like, sit-in-time-out-and-think-about-what-you've-done-for-a-few-thousand-years)

The Encyclopedia mentions that the Firebreak didn't just shut the gates off - it also prevented all gates and Jumpdrives in the Commonwealth province from being able to target destinations outside of their own star's sphere of influence. Even if Earth's gates aren't "broken", the Ancients seem to still be able to confine them to Sol.

TLDR, I'd bet five buckzoids that we won't see Sol itself again for quite a long time unless they figure out a way to beat the Ancients' firebreak. But we could see some Terrans from an Earth colony elsewhere in the gate network, like DeVries was.

Re: the Xenon,

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They're supposed to have mostly gone quiet after the CPU ships #efaa and #deff departed the Commonwealth... part of their deal with the rest of everybody was that they'd be allowed to leave in peace, and in exchange the Xenon would leave the Commonwealth alone.

Obviously that ended up being not entirely the case, because the Branch 9 Xenon we see in Rebirth are super inhospitable. Since that appears to contradict what #efaa and #deff had promised, I could easily see the Xenon splitting into conflicting factions this time around...

Obviously I'm wildly guessing here, so. Grain of salt. ^^

[Zloth2]

Well, let's see...

The Split (or at least Family Ryak) are in a pretty bad way. They only had one old capital ship in Rebirth but they had found a very interesting space station. If they work out just how that thing works, we could see some very different Split ships in the future. Or maybe the Xenon will just eat them - that station is not in a safe location at all.

The Teladi were a bit better off but not a lot. They have a huge Overwatch station but the ships trying to trade there are under almost constant attack from other Teladi cartels. I'm really not sure why the Teladi would even try to trade there with so many ships getting destroyed in the process. (I suspect they are all insured by some company that got cut off when the gates closed. They're all running up huge claims and will collect on them just as soon as the right gate opens up again.)

On the human side, Plutarch pretty much is the government in Albion space - though they got in trouble for their actions in Rebirth so they may well have been taken down several pegs by the time X4 starts. I think the Yaki pirates may have gone legit and formed the Beryll corp. Well... sorta legit. Well... mostly they started wearing nicer clothing and doing more white collar style crimes. The Republic of Cantera was formed from a bunch of Terran miners that got stranded when the gates shut down and own what's left of the DeVries region. The Argon Federation rules the Omicron Lyrae region.

The Kha'ak are much rarer so far. Given that you could use the unfocused jump drive to find them out in intergalactic space in X3, though, I expect we'll eventually get our ships surrounded by dozens of little pyramids, all shooting little lasers at our ships.

[DaMuncha]

Long time ago Earth pushed the terraformers back to the gate and then disabled the gate them selves so that the terraformers couldnt come back and let the Terraformers loose on the galaxy, making the rest of the galaxy hate Terrans. What what I got from the TC story was that Terrans only created the terraformers. And the Xenon were created by other races, which is why AI was banned accross the galaxy. In the AI story of X3TC you aided in fixing the terraformers, but not the Xenon.

[XinCasa]

Hey guys, guess what! It appears that the replies & comments of this thread reconstitute the Lore beginning with X, X3 Terran Conflict, and continuing with X3 Albion Prelude and X Rebirth. Perhaps Egosoft will take a look at this thread to organize and collate Terran lore to the 4th degree by hiring a writer or two. Lore takes the bore out of the chore. Ya feel me.

[Phinixa]

Thank you guys for all the awesome posts

Judging from that, it appears that everything is a bit messy when it comes to Rebirth xD.

So to group everything:

Khaak: Alive, hidden in Toride. Presence minimal. Most of them wiped out during Operation Final Fury in X3: TC
Xenon: Alive and active. Presence minimal(?) after the last known CPU ships departed from Aldrin in peace. It appears that at least one of them has broken the peace-agreement and started attacking the commonwealth again.
Argon Federation: Alive and active in Omicron Lyrae. Capital System status unknown, no contact to Argon Prime(?)
Paranids: Alive and active in (?). Capital System status unknown, no contact to Paranid Prime(I remember there being something about a message-drone in the encyclopedia though)
Teladi: Alive and active in (?). Capital System status unknown.
Split: Alive, barely active in (?). Capital System status unknown.
Terran: Alive, active in DeVries. Captial System status unknown.

[DaMuncha]

Argon Prime is listed as one of their saved games, so id say its in.

Unending Profit
Priors Void
Tharkas Fall
Second Contact
Event Horizon
True Sight
Argon Prime
Sacred Relic
The Void