Talk:Redline (1999 video game)

TCK?

Anyone else reading this that played on MPlayer? Terminator, Hillfiggy? XP? Mathiastck 17:42, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

You might not know me, but I played back on MPlayer too. I'm suprised people are still alive after this. I still run a fan site, but it's been outdated for ages. Xanarki 01:24, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

What's the link to fan site! Mathiastck 06:42, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Anybody knows where I can find the game story that was in the booklet??189.142.23.172 06:37, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it's currently in the article verbatim but likely to be cleaned up soon. Pasting here for reference:

In the 1950s, a person named Reich discovered a source of energy he termed "orgone" and built boxes called orgone accumulators. People who bought them said they cured diseases and made them think more clearly, but most people thought it was a hoax. Scientists wouldn't look at it because Reich was a psychologist, but he sold plans for the boxes to lots of people. At the time no one really understood what happened, but all of a sudden Reich was put in prison and public burnings of his books were held in cities all over the country. Around the turn of the century, people figured out why.

The boxes worked. Anybody could build an orgone accumulator, and soon engines began to appear that were driven by them, although the source of orgone energy was still a mystery. People built generators, cars, heating and cooling systems fuelled by this free source of energy. Then the major world governments and the fossil fuel consortiums that controlled them realized the seriousness of the situation. Most of them didn't even resist handing over the reins of power, and outside of a few skirmishes in the Middle East and the Houston Riots, a bloodless revolution took place. People learned that orgone and other alternative fuels had been deliberately suppressed for years, and that the "Insider"s, as the corporations and their puppet governments came to be called, had also retarded the development of environmental engineering technology that could dramatically reduce humanity's pressure on Earth's ravaged biosphere. The rhetoric of emerging world leaders capitalized on people's outrage, and hastened worldwide environmental repair. Some of their plans were a little strange, but they were so optimistic that they were leading mankind back to Eden, that no one questioned them.

The revolution started by Reich's accumulators and the realization that many such advancements could have been squelched by the Insiders sent people scurrying to their history books to exhume the theories of every eccentric and discredited scientist of the past century. Most of what they found was harmless delusion, but a few discoveries of valuable suppressed technology were made. The theories of the nineteenth century inventor Nikola Tesla gained tremendous notoriety, and physicists tripped over themselves in their rush to reexamine his work. Tesla believed that he had discovered a way to transmit electrical power through the air as easily as radio waves, and envisioned a worldwide system of power stations transmitting free energy. He was proven correct, but the universal availability of orgone accumulators eliminated the need for his invention. Scientists turned to Tesla's more theoretical work.

What people didn't realize was that the Insiders had for the most part escaped the revolution unscathed; people were understandably more concerned with building utopias than with hunting down broken tyrants. The Insiders were never destroyed, they merely sank beneath the surface like Leviathan and waited for their chance to rise again. Furiously researching the technology they had restrained, they found in Tesla's theories an opportunity to resume their thrones.

Tesla was aware that every object has a resonant frequency; a breaking point where an object vibrates in phase with waves that is striking it. This is why a glass will shatter when the correct note is struck nearby on a tuning fork. The glass resonates with the tuning fork, its structure vibrating faster and faster until it shakes itself apart. This was thoroughly understood in Tesla's day, but he took the idea a step further. He reasoned that the Earth itself must have a resonant frequency, and he set out to calculate it. The Insiders were delighted to discover that while he was a little off in figuring Earth's frequency, he had hit the moon's right on the money.

The leaders of the world's emerging new nations, meanwhile, met at the first United World conference in Singapore to discuss solutions to the planet's remaining environmental dilemmas. It was decided that nuclear, chemical and biological weapon disposal was a priority, as was permanent relocation of the toxic wastes and heavy metals generated by hundreds of years or rapacious industry. As orgone-powered spacecraft were now under construction, it seemed feasible to easily and economically store these wastes on the moon, which was not considered desirable for colonization anyway. A corporation called Renewal, Inc. presented this plan, and indicated they were ready to implement it immediately. It's amazing to us now that no one questioned where Renewal, Inc. had come from, or why they were already so ideally equipped for an industry that had yet to be created. Contracts were signed, and Renewal, Inc. was given access to the most devastating weapons a self-destructive species had been able to devise. To universal cheers, they began hauling it all to the moon.

On April 1, 2012, the Insiders began a series of timed nuclear detonations on the poles of the moon. It took several hours before the moon began to resonate and shake apart, and at that point the explosions were stopped. Plenty of damage had been done already, however, and the Insiders now had all of the aces back in their sleeves. The orbit of the moon was disrupted just enough to wreak havoc on Earth; tidal waves destroyed many coastal cities, weather patterns became chaotic, and clouds of fallout and debris from the lunar explosions circled the globe. Within a year, over two thirds of Earth's population was gone. Those who died quickly in storms or were claimed by the sea were lucky.

Most of the survivors developed some degree of the deteriorating skin condition dubbed "Red-6," a legacy of the fallout and the poisonous air. Wealthy Insiders came out of hiding with treatments for Red-6 that only they could afford. When the search for clean water became the focus of most of humanity, the Insiders immediately unveiled a technique mating salt water purification and deep sea drilling to offer life's most crucial need at a "reasonable" price. Competing techniques for the extraction or purification of water spawned an enormous industry overnight, with the Insiders once more at the helm. They constructed domed cities for the wealthy, where corporations such as O2 sold pure metered air at whatever price the market could sustain. "Designer air," a mildly hallucinogenic but very addictive and expensive luxury, caught on among the wealthy as the Insiders in their greed began to prey even upon their own.

Life outside these cities was barely possible. Tremendous storms raged across what little arable land was left, and toxic debris still engulfed the planet like a diseased blanket. By 2060, the weather was somewhat stabilized, but few Outsiders could expect to live longer than thirty years. Most lived near the domed cities of the Insiders, where they could occasionally breathe clean air or drink clean water in exchange for menial labor or participation in grisly entertainments. You see, we don't much look like the Insiders anymore, and we don't think like they do at all. They have come to see us as a separate, inferior species, and most of the gangs on the Outside would probably agree with the "separate" part. The Insiders started BattleWheels gaming about ten years ago, and it is by far the most popular of their diversions. A lot of the Outsider gangs hate each other anyway, and maybe the Insiders think that if we can be encouraged to fight amongst ourselves we won't make trouble. I'm not sure we could make much trouble against their weapons, but maybe that's what they think.

So I guess most gangs are into the games because they know they won't live long anyway, and there's always a chance that someday you might blow away one of the thrill-seeking Insiders who occasionally join the games. Or maybe it's because there are some Outsiders who have become legends in the BattleWheels arenas, and live on the Inside now. Some gangs just like to watch things die. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 14.141.52.34 (talk) 14:33, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

FFG

Removed reference to Fantasy Flights role playing game of the same name. There isn't any verifiable evidence given that the rpg has any connection to the computer game and they only resemble each other on a superficial level. See WP:V. MrDenton (talk) 16:50, 7 January 2008 (UTC)