Star Trek: Armada III begins with the first stirrings of the Dominion War and allows players to take command of five unique factions, the United Federation of Planets, the Klingon Empire, the Romulan Star Empire, the Cardassian Union/Dominion Alliance, and the Borg Collective. Explore strange new worlds, seek out new life and new civilizations, and boldly go where no one has gone before.
A mysterious species known only by their Borg designation, very little is truly known about Species 8472 beyond the fact that they are unlike any other species ever encountered by Starfleet. Hailing from their realm of fluidic space, Species 8472 possesses the most complex genetic coding ever seen, a trait which they share with their organic vessels and the entirety of the realm from which they originate.
Species 8472 are the only species known to exist in fluidic space, where they lived alone until the Borg found a way to enter their realm in 2373. With their home contaminated by the Borg's presence the aliens responded with incredible force, driving the Borg from fluidic space with ease, and then launching an invasion of Borg territory. Unable to assimilate or adapt to the aliens' immensely powerful weaponry, the Borg for the first time faced a true threat to their existence. Vast numbers of Borg ships, stations and even planets were destroyed during Species 8472's onslaught before countermeasures were developed and the aliens abandoned their quest of destruction.
While little is known about this enigmatic species certain aspects of their behaviour have been observed. At first they can seem intensely xenophobic, but this is simply a ferocious protection of their realm and a desire to preserve its genetic purity - the very presence of material from our universe has a contaminating effect on the fluidic space in which they live. While dangerous, Species 8472 are also innately curious, preferring to study other races from the safety of controlled environments. They communicate primarily via telepathy, though they are capable of understanding verbal speech. Where it has been possible, communication with Species 8472 has revealed a keenly intelligent people of great emotional depth. However, they are not to be crossed. These aliens have little interest in interfering in the affairs of our universe, but will absolutely respond with vicious force when threatened.
Is this the new faction that we can play?
I luv the undine.
there won't be any new factions
Lies! the tribble empire is going to enslave us all!
Their empire will stretch across the galaxy like a big, fluffy, cuddly ball!
It begins...
I loved the Species 8472 faction in Star Trek Armada II they had unusual ships and stations, shame that it wasn't worthwhile bringing it to Armada III.
It wasn't POSSIBLE to bring it to Armada 3. That, plus the lack of a canonical justification for their presence sealed the deal.
I realize that the game was already at it's limits in terms of content, what I meant was it was not worthwhile to forgo adding one of the main factions just to have Species 8472 because 8472 did not feature nearly as heavily as any of the other factions so it would be unjustified.
Sure, but even if there was room for them we couldn't feature them the way they were featured in Armada 2.
I get that 8472 can't be a faction, I totally do. Armada 2 was fun, but it had exactly one ship to base a faction on, which is stretching. I'd love to see them, as my favourite faction, but it's clearly not possible as a full faction.
I do, however, think that a flavour event granting a fluidic space rift capable of spawning a couple of bio-ships as Borg-hunting ai allies or player-owned ships would be a great way for a player to counter Borg late-game, and allow us to potentially see a deadly species a bit more often.
Maybe make it a trade-off to development of Nano-probe torpedoes, so you really have to choose if 3 or so bioships is worth stunting your ability to fight any 8472 later if you have to.
The Cardassian Kulinor-class capital ship can temporarily summon a bioship to fight at its side.
Hello:
I am Chiletrek (I haven't made an account here yet), I noticed you are using my Species8472 Bioship. While I have no problems with you using my model, I always prefer if people would ask me first, specially now that I am revamping my Species8472 models, you can check it in my DeviantArt account with my same nickname.