SplinterFaction has had lore for a long time. What it has never had is a campaign to put it in. That's changing, so here is the story as it stands and what I plan to build on it.

Where the lore has been

The story has been through quite a few revisions. The latest one pared it down a lot, and it's better for it. I'll be honest about why it stayed thin for so long: I never thought I would be able to create a campaign, so I only put so much effort into the lore around the game. There was nowhere for it to go.

Nobody here is the good guy

Both factions are the same people. The Iammians split off from an overbearing homeworld, and when that homeworld suffered a cataclysm, they watched and did nothing.

These aren't good people. They aren't inherently bad either. They have done some pretty messed up things in their past — but so has every sentient species.

Nu Gua

The crux of the story is the discovery of the planet Nu Gua and the xenos who live there. First contact ends in the tragedy of the Celestial Maiden.

The xenos are clearly not the good guys either. They panicked and threw a nuke at an alien ship, out of pure fear of being attacked.

What matters is what the Iammians did with it:

• For some, the tragedy stoked the fear and hatred that are always so easy to reach for.
• For others, the tragedy hurt just as much, but they understood that it was better to push forward with peace and forgiveness. They went on to forge a solid friendship with the xenos.

The splintering

The two sides could not reconcile the tragedy. Each turned on the other, one for being too soft, the other for being too callous. The side that wanted vengeance became the Federation of Kala. The side that called for mercy for the Xenos became the Loz Alliance

A campaign

I plan to flesh the story out as much as I can. I am not a writer by any means, but I'm going to give it a go and try to make an engaging campaign out of it.

I know a lot of people prefer singleplayer RTS. I have gone to extraordinary lengths to remove the perceived barriers to playing online with others, but for plenty of players a campaign is simply the game they want, and they should have one.

I don't know yet whether it's possible for me to make the campaigns co-op. I will definitely try, because going through missions like these with your friends is such a fun experience.

What to expect

The campaigns won't be particularly long. I'd imagine 6 to 10 missions per faction. In style, the missions will probably be very close to the original Total Annihilation. So it likely won't be terribly flashy — but hopefully it will be fun.