Diplomat

Review 23 Diplomat

I’m back with more reviews! This time it’s Diplomat. I never really liked Sci-Fi and often avoided reading them on the site, so this might be a bit biased.


General impressions:
Phew, it’s been a while since I read something this long. Overall, great story, very pleasant read and the narrative does suck you in haha. The story’s biggest strength is definitely the amount of interconnectedness of the routes and clever reusing of texts (the encounter with the Beathri was the big highlight). The cultures between the alien nations is diverse enough that I remember each of them very clearly. I think the one thing that would make the story even better is to flesh out the support crew a bit more. Victor was a delight to read and very memorable, but Constanza who is supposed to be his foil and the other voice isn’t really featured that much and didn’t get much stand out moments to make me remember her. Not placing much focus on Franklin and Rodriguez is fine by me haha, though I did have trouble remembering what they are supposed to do.

Although there is quite a bit of diversity and memorableness in the planets and characters, I find most of the characterization a bit surface level with not that much depth. We know tidbits of their technology and the state of their home planet with some alien nations, but overall it feels a bit One note. Like planet of the hats, planet of fire, planet of ice. I’m surprised that within the alien nations that there aren’t different factions or biomes in one planet. Even with earth, there is no single monolith culture haha; you even featured that aspect when people started to protest about the hive mind preaching on earth. So it’s a bit sad that we don’t see this diversity within the alien populations of certain alien countries. (TBH the human characters are also a bit one note. The diplomat is pretty mild as well in character, but I think it makes him bounce well with the more colorful characters like the Kaagan.)

And thank you for putting not too much techno mumbo jumbo in your work. It makes me like the story way more despite it being a science fiction space travel story. Plus it is a neat concept to write a story about war but in the viewpoint of a diplomat. Cool work Gryphon!

Notes
I like that you mention language barriers; cool worldbuilding. It adds a bit extra depth. There’s also lots of care to portray the Selei’s culture like how to bow and when to sit.

We’re on the first page and it’s littered with mind games. The Diplomat has little experience dealing with the aliens and apparently has only received a crash course alien customs. The way he panics and thinks about each little gesture and word adds tension to the scene, but also a bit of humor in it too.

The alien insulting him implicitly reminds me so much of things I had to deal with during work haha.

Victor is a champ haha, just raging after the Selan people called off their trade agreement.

Whether the choices end up in failure or success is pretty logical, it almost does play like a game at times when you choose what to say. For example, if you paid attention and remembered that the Selan look down on humans, the obvious choice is to use this information as a good bargaining chip when arguing when they need to send aid to earth. I like this clever writing.

I also like the scene where there is a bit of cultural misunderstanding about what a ‘gift’ for a meeting entails, resulting in quite a comedic moment. Again, it gives a good glimpse into the differences between human and alien culture.

There’s also another detail I noticed when reading and it is the incorporation of environmental characterization. I’m very glad that you didn’t get into the most boring part about scifi; the technology and focused much more on the more cultural exchange aspect of space travel. One of which is describing the interior of each of the alien ships. For the uppity Selan people it was all very clean and tidy, whereas for the Breathi you get as what the diplomat describes; an absolute clusterfuck. They are much simpler folk with less rules to follow and you can even see that in their living space. Kinda cool.

The hive mind reminds me so much of those weird new age religion cults. Their presence back on earth and them proselytizing to everyone to the chagrin of the population is a nice logical consequence of the diplomatic agreement.

I got Ending 5 Unlikely allies! The little talk with Stranger is a nice way to serve as an ending; saying that although he can act ‘human’, there are many cultural differences that aren’t able to be bridged. Still, this alliance proves in the epilogue to be a vital one for Earth. It’s a nice message at the end.

The Algorithm gives me lots of AM vibes, that thing is creepy. The thing using the Diplomat’s own voice is a nice touch too! None of its ideas and words are original, it steals them from other cultures.

The way the storylines are branched and how they are resolved is also very cool! Back in ending 5 the choice to not ally with the Braethi is mostly based on the diplomat’s own gut feeling. Here they are using the advice of the Algorithm.

I reached ending 4: Egg. Surprisingly, the Algorithm didn’t turn evil like AM. I’m starting to think that this story is in a style of older SciFi work who were much more positive about the nature of humanity and the future. I can perhaps be wrong, but in general more recent works tend to be a bit more cynical. In general, I think I vibe with the positive tone.

The Kaagan are such a funny folk. They remind me of a more good natured version of orcs in Warhammer. Shathtar is an icon haha. “But you’re pretty confident he’s grown beyond pulling a knife as his primary first contact strategy”. They are all just genius muscleheads haha.

Oof, this story does get more fun when you reread it. In my previous playthorugh, the diplomat has been weirded out by the hive mind, but also surprised that other alien planets outright want to lynch them. With Shathar next to us, we finally get an explanation why they are so hated lolol. They believe that they don’t have souls.

Ending 3 Warriot Nation: I think this is the most campiest and lighthearted one so far despite the many war crimes and annexing other nations. Shathar’s reactions are always fun to read about haha.

The Javiah are back again! The interconnectedness is pretty cool. I remember the hivemind also contacting the diplomat about them and asking for aid.

Ending 1: Federation. Yeah, this feels like the most diplomat-esque ending out there haha. I wonder whether this one was the first one to be written since almost every nation is featured in this route including the Dek which I have not seen in other routes before. I think this one has the coolest ending with it being bookended by a very tense negotiation between the Selan. At first the diplomat tries to conform to the strict rules of the Selan, appealing to their efficiency with resources. Then in their last convo after everything, the diplomat finally (in the good ending) gets rid of the decorum and tells the truth without mind games or euphemisms and it works. It’s very satisfying to read.

Ending 2: empire. I think this ending and route is the weakest since it veers off too much from the overall tone of the other endings too much. Plus lots of it feels a bit like a rehash of ending 1. There’s still an alliance between the four nations, but they go about it a bit more violently. Although ending 3 ends up way more violent, it kept the lighthearted tone, while in ending 2 it feels like more of a What-if or a possible bad ending that is supposed to contrast ending 1.

Diplomat is a pretty interesting game with lots of replayability. At first, you might think that you’re just entering into a series of unrelated negotiations to secure as many alliances as possible. However, not all alliances are compatible with one another, and some alliances are even harmful to Earth in the long run. The coalitions you forge largely determine which branch you land on and shape how you respond to the overarching plot. Although there are several scenes that appear in multiple branches, they’re each customized with the appropriate flavor, giving good replay value.

The only element common to all branches that I would consider a weakness are the epilogues. While they do generally wrap up loose ends, the cursory bullet-point style in which they cover tens or even hundreds of years doesn’t give the sense of satisfaction and accomplishment that one would expect from a work of this scale.

Anyways, here is my review for each branch in order of when I found them (spoilers ahead):

Federation Ending:
This is in many ways the true ending. You build a large coalition to fight against the story’s antagonist. I don’t have much to say about it other than it’s fun figuring out how to convince each faction to join your alliance.

Empire Ending:
This is an offshoot of the Federation ending where the alliance uses Braethi technology to fight against the Braethians but gradually become corrupted by its influence. It does a good job of portraying the protagonist’s helplessness in trying to fight the technology once it is introduced. One thing that is left unclear is why the supposed Braethi deserters brought the technology to the Alliance. If they were truly anti-war fugitives, how did they escape the technology’s influence and become against the war? If they were secretly Braethi agents, then why did they provide the technology that would be their own undoing?

Warrior Nation Ending:
This branch is quite similar to the Federation ending but with only the Kaagans as allies. There are a couple of confusing plot elements on this branch. First, why would executing Braethi POWs have an effect on them given their militant attitude from brainwashing? Previously, their description had made it seem like they would attack at all costs with little sense of self-preservation. Moreover, even if it did work, why wasn’t this an option in the other paths? Also, since this is the only mention of Braethi POWs, I would have liked a description of their behavior given their brainwashing. Secondly, we’re introduced to the hivemind alliance in this branch, but they don’t appear ever again after the initial meeting, even in the epilogue. I get that they play a more prominent role in the Unlikely Allies path, but if this is the first or only branch you play through, it’s confusing why we would be introduced to them if they don’t play any role in the story thereafter.

Egg Ending:
This ending definitely feels like it’s the least deserving to have a proper epilogue. It takes humans 180 years to return to space, which may well be longer than it takes them to leave Selei dependence. The Selei dependence path also goes into how the protagonist is relegated to managing trade relation with the Selei and loses his political influence. Well, in this case, he should lose he job altogether since there’s no one to conduct diplomacy with now that Earth has gone full isolationist. It’s also unrealistic that humans would lose interest in space travel if they become self-sufficient as in the branch path just before this epilogue. We’re self-sufficient right now, yet we’re still interested in space travel. Moreover, it requires a great suspension of disbelief to accept that the huge endeavor to bring every human back to Earth wouldn’t attract any Braethi attention and cause them to follow one of the ships back to Earth or, even if we succeeded, that they wouldn’t detect any of the plentiful signals we send into space on a daily basis. Even if the signals are encrypted with Selei technology, that just means they wouldn’t be able to read the signals, not that they wouldn’t be able to detect where the signals are coming from.

Unlikely Allies Ending:
To be honest, I really didn’t expect rejecting Selei demands right off the bat to be a good idea and for there to be an entire path branching off from it. The same is true for the Empire ending, and I was pleasantly surprised both times. As a general aside about the Selei, I feel that the author used just the right amount of subtlety to hint at how to negotiate with them such that the correct choices to ally with them make sense at least in hindsight. Unlikely Allies is perhaps the most unique path, exploring the idea of an alliance with the hivemind. The hivemind of course demands concessions for helping humanity in its war against the Braethi, in particular the ability to recruit humans to join their hivemind. This in turn leads to all kinds of social conflict, especially when they also ask Earth to help them in a war against the Javiah. Unfortunately, the epilogue doesn’t give proper closure to the cultural tensions between humanity and the hivemind, especially how the issues surrounding recruitment were addressed after the war. In addition, the epilogue says that Earth and hivemind scientists were able to work together to develop new technology, but this suggests that Earth scientists are on par with those of the hivemind. Everything up to this point had suggested that the hivemind afforded their units far greater intellectual capacity than ordinary humans. Also, I personally would have liked an option to opportunistically betray the alliance and attack them when they were attacked by the Javiah to permanently purge their influence and thereby solve the social conflict on Earth.

Overall, Diplomat is a fun little sci-fi game and is definitely worth playing.

5/8

I’m very surprised that this storygame hasn’t received more comments and feedback. I’ll begin by saying that I think Diplomat is a very worthy contest winner and well-deserving of its spot in the featured stories list.

It definitely has one of the better first pages I’ve seen, a simple yet effective hook to get readers invested in the storyline. We’re given a unique introduction to the world through the meeting and negotiations, and I appreciated all the minor bits of cultural knowledge provided about the Selei right off the bat. The details are small, but interesting and don’t feel redundant. I’m not a particularly big fan of interactions with aliens in stories, because it can get pretty predictable. Often it’s the same holier-than-thou attitude, and while the Selei certainly have that, it’s written in a way that captures intrigue and feels fresh while also showing off some of the protagonist’s professionalism and experience, ultimately an enjoyable opening scene. That being said, I was more entertained by the Kaagan.

Spelling and grammatical issues are minimal. I don’t think you’ll be finding any unless you actively look for them, and even then it might be a challenge. It seems like a good amount of polish went into this one, so it’s a very smooth read through and through.

It’s pretty fun to take note of how many unique customs the different species have, apply it in negotiations, and watch how the dialogue affects the world over time. The choices are even complete with the oh-so-classic and very amusing ‘fight and immediately die’ option at one point, too. Overall, it’s a quality storygame that stands out and I encourage people to seek out the multiple endings. Playing as a character who primarily operates on speech-based choices is a fun way to mix things up. Hope this one garners more attention in the future.

So this game did, in some ways, give me Mass Effect vibes.

The protagonist did come across as a bit egotistical in the beginning, and there were a few minor typos throughout the story (lowercases where there should have been a capital, ect.) but overall this was excellently well written.

The lack of character development was overshadowed by the incredible world building and diversity of the alien species that your character is required to treatise with. Several issues, such as the Algorithm and the war with the Braethi forced me to make decisions where there really wasn't an easy answer. A lot of times, gut instinct is what you're gonna have to rely on in this game.

I eventually got the ending where Earth isolated itself, before reemerging in the galaxy as a superpower.

fun

it's a lot of reading! And I never wanted to be a diplomat anyway! But for this type of story, it's a well-put-together creation.
One idea would be to vary the storyline- rather than just endless conferences every few months, how about a side-trip to an alien planet, getting shot down, a survival situation, and a diplomatic stand-off on a smaller scale?

Good

I really loved it! lots of different decisions you could make that had relevent outcomes and the outcomes of decisions seemed to make a lot of sense. The stories themselves are all great and full of character.

The single issue I have is that the endings feel premature. It may be that I just love the story so much that I don't like it ending, but I also think that (even if it would probably take more than twice as long as it took to write this) adding another 4-6 or so pages before each ending would make "Diplomat" truly top tier.

Really good, my favourite ending is the Empire >:)

Emperor CLiF