Oh! Oh! Could you talk about the Melnorme and the Druuge? I like merchant races and I feel like not a lot of people would think to ask about them and neither is as indepth as most of the other races so it could be a twofor. And I'd like to hear your thoughts about them.
Sure, why not! (As a reminder, you guys can play Star Control 2 for free right now!)
Anyway, the Druuge and the Melnorme are both sort of two sides of the same coin, in that they’re both trading races that hinge their society on the exchange of things for other things. How they go about that is preeeetty different though.
The Melnorme are a bit of a mysterious race, since they refuse to tell you anything for free, and the price of information about themselves is extremely high (impossible to get in the game, actually). They don’t have a sphere of influence like other races, you never run into them in Hyperspace, and you really only talk to one of them. Their secrecy may come from a traumatic background - one of the races in the doomed Sentient Milieu tens of thousands of years ago was called the Mael-num, and were described as having one eye. The Mael-num disappeared, and it’s still unclear if the Mael-num and the Melnorme are one and the same… but if so, it’d explain why they don’t seem to have a home and are so cagey about their own history.
The Melnorme LOVE getting into other people’s business though, and they’re one of the most thorough and useful sources of information in the game. They have informants everywhere and they’ll often give you key information or hints if you’re lost along with tons of background lore, and they also sell some extremely useful upgrades for your flagship and landers, which come in VERY handy. Of course, they won’t give any of this to you for free - giving away things is actually considered vulgar and offensive to them. They claim to have advanced beyond currency, and instead deal in things that have “intrinsic value”, which for them are a few key items, bio information, or the location of Rainbow Worlds. There are only ten Rainbow Worlds in the galaxy, and the Melnorme are super interested in where they are. Their big ol eye makes them very sensitive to colors (all their names revolve around colors, like Trademaster Greenish, and their talk screen will change colors depending on their mood) so I like picturing Melnorme orbiting a Rainbow World staring at it all OD at it for hours, haha.
While a lot of people might think of the Melnorme as just info dumpers, I actually think they have a very dry, subtle sense of humor that I really love. If you run out of fuel in Hyperspace, there’s a chance a Melnorme ship may come across you and offer to help you, if you pay. They’ll tease you about getting more fuel tanks if it keeps happening, haha.
I LOVE the Melnorme theme music, it’s cheery and has a fun beat and a great melody. Their ship in combat is a bit big and slow, and it has a chargable main shot and an interesting special shot that’ll confuse your opponent if it hits them, making them spin around. They’re fairly solid ships but you can only really use them in SuperMelee with friends, you can’t buy them in game.
Now, the Melnorme and the Druuge actually do know each other… actually, here’s the quote from the Melnorme about them.
I must warn you about some very bad people.`Is this worth so many credits?’ you ask yourself.I assure you, it is!The creatures are called the `Druuge’ and they are a callous and evil race.They care for nothing but profit and personal gain through unfair mercantile exchanges..why are you looking at me like that, Captain? It is not appropriate.As I was saying, these wicked creatures will try to sell you commodities at unreasonably low prices.Hoy! – they almost give away fuel!Do not fall for their tricks! There are hidden costs – secret tariffs!So that you may avoid them, I will tell you that their main trade world is Zeta Persei I.Why are you smiling, Captain?
As you can guess, the Druuge and the Melnorme HATE each other, and they complain about the other muscling in on their territory. Which seems like a good way to transition to…
The Druuge are a humanoid race that share a similiar history as ours up to a point, except that the Druuge never gathered into tribes like humans did in the hunter-gatherer stage, thus making them a lot more independent and self-sufficient, a bit like the Ur-Quan. They only really help people as long as it’ll help themselves, and they don’t really have things like honor or charity. They did eventually create a functioning society, but at one point they removed protections against monopolies, and gradually the Crimson Corporation rose up and became the only Druuge business. Every Druuge is considered an employee of the Crimson Corporation, from birth to death. When the Corporation does well, things are good. If the Corporation is doing badly,, layoffs may be unavoidable… and the thing is, since all the land and air on all Druuge planets belongs to the Crimson Corporation, if you’re fired, then you’re now considered to be trespassing. At which point you get thrown into the furnace (more on furnaces in a second). If you retire, you can still breathe the air, though at reduced rates.
The Druuge are greedy, terrible people and also liars but I actually think that’s what makes them so hilarious. Everything about them is very corporate, from reproduction to their religion. Druuge parents for example meet, draw up contracts and agreements for the future child, fill out the forms, are assured 12-18% royalties on the offsprings’ income, which motivates them to invest in their kid’s education so they can get a better return… things like that. I think their contract with their god is one of the funnier bits, even if it’s a bit long, haha.
You may be surprised to learn that we are deeply spiritual beings, Captain.We worship our god with great enthusiasm.You want details? Why certainly.We Druuge are especially fortunate souls.Most aliens we have encountered have, at best, a tenuous relationship with their godsbut we Druuge have an iron-clad contract!Our document reads as follows:Whereas the Druuge (hereinafter known as `the Worshipers’)wish to establish a long-term relationship with an omnipotent and all-knowing deific entity(hereinafter known as `God’ or `god’)which shall mutually benefit both parties, the parties agree to abide by the following terms and commitmentsfor the rest of eternity.The Worshipers hereby promise to perform faithfully and to the best of their abilitythe following1. Worshipers shall make regular and sincere obeisance to God, including but not limited toprayer, sacrifice, and the building of large structures.2. Worshipers shall make every attempt to convert non-believers (hereinafter known as `Them’)making sure to obtain signed documents from same attesting to said conversion.3. Worshipers shall not enter into an agreement with another deity, without written permission from God.In consideration of the above correctly performed obeisance, God shall provide:1. Continued existance with little or no modification to the perceived reality of the Worshipers.2. No fewer than 3 miracles (Force Majeure), whose exact nature and timingshall be left to God’s sole discretion.3. Worshipers shall enjoy some form of life after deathwhich shall remain a complete and total mystery to the Worshipers until such time as they die.We, the undersigned, hereby swear to fulfill our obligations as defined above.Signed, The Druuge.(God, being omni-present and all-knowing is considered to have signed this document, by default.)
The Druuge will also try to sell you all kinds of junk and their sales pitches are hilarious. Their reactions to you buying things from them are also pretty great - they’re delighted if they sell you fuel at a profit, and horrified if you end up filling up whole fuel tanks on them and costing them money. One of the things they sell you, the Rosy Sphere, is what Gaster is selling to the Temmies, haha. One pitch goes…
The Trident of Wimbli! Not just one, but fully THREE mystic prongs give this artifactits awesome capabilities. Are you strong enough to master its power? Or will it master you?Cost? 100 crew.
And for one of the things you buy…
So fortunate for you! So sad for me. I fear this relic of the glorious pastwas all that kept me from ending my life to leave this vale of tears.Now what shall I do?
Of course, if you take the junk back to Starbase, Hayes will basically call you an idiot for falling for their pitches. Although you may have noticed that the cost of the items was listed in crew.
The Druuge are slave traders, so you can actually sell your crew to them in exchange for fuel, their Mauler starships, or their random junky trinkets (one of which you actually do need). There are a few other things they will take in exchange instead, so thankfully you don’t have to sell your crew into slavery to beat the game. You can though, with interesting consequences. If you keep selling crew to the Druuge, eventually people back home at Starbase will find out, and the price of crew will skyrocket, and Hayes will get extremely upset with you. There’s a limited amount of crew at Starbase too, so if you run through them all, you’re out of luck.
The Druuge will try to cajole you into selling them your crew, saying that all the crew on your ship signed a form allowing you to make transactions like that on their part (probably a lie), and that if you sell your crew to them, they’ll serve along Druuge pilots on their starships. This is almost certainly a lie. Now, Druuge ships are pretty much gigantic sniper rifles. They fire extremely powerful single shots that can do a lot of damage if they connect. The problem is that their batteries replenish extremely slowly. Their secondary ability involves throwing a crew member into a furnace (complete with a scream) to refill their battery instantly. One can assume a lot of Druuge society functions on people getting thrown into a furnace when required. If you sell your crew to them, they’ll definitely get roasted. You can also sell them the Shofixti females, should you find them, and that’s actually even worse ethically, since the Druuge say they want to artificially inseminate them to create a hybrid race of furnace slaves to burn, so not only is that awful on a personal level for those females, it also completely dooms the Shofixti race in general. You CAN do it though.
The Druuge also have a troubled history with other races in their sector. They have a particular grudge against the Utwig, since they feel like the Utwig cheated them out of fair payment for one of their scam deals (that whole thing backfired on them hilariously, actually). One of the more heinous things they did was that, the Druuge were warned by a race called the Burvixese that the Ur-Quan Kohr-Ah were coming, and that they’d been drawn by all the flashy HyperWave advertising all over the Druuge Homeworld. Immediately the Druuge shut down all their advertising, snuck over to Burvixese space, and set up a giant HyperWave Caster pointed at the Kohr-Ah fleet, hoping to redirect them to a different target. It worked, and the Kohr-Ah went and annihilated the Burvixese, before finding their Kzer-Za cousins in the sector and resuming their doctrinal conflict with them, sparing the Druuge. They don’t particularly feel bad about doing this either, but they do want their ‘Caster back, if you should find it.
As for the Melnorme…
You know, Captain, we have heard that there is a race called the Melnormewhich has recently entered this part of the galaxy.We understand that they sell fuel for gross profitcharge fees for common knowledgeand provide a `rescue service’ which amounts to little more than piracy.How criminal.Just an aside, Captain. We thought you might like to knowthat the resources which can be salvaged from a Melnorme wreck are phenomenal.
While the Melnorme will sell you fuel if you run out, the Druuge have a statute that makes them see any helpless starship like that as derelict and thus salvagable, so they’ll attack you if you run out of fuel in their sphere of influence. Fighting them can be a huge pain, especially against the AI since it usually has super good aim.
The Druuge’s theme is also super cool I think, it has this great super intense guitar, this real ominous heavy sound to it with cool energy… it really suits them! I always wondered how they get around their ships though since they’re always hanging in chains… maybe they have some kind of pulley system or something…
I actually did a shot of a Druuge a long time ago, haha.