Even though I've never played starcon 2, I'm enjoying reading about the different aliens! But can we hear more about admiral ZEX? If he's an exception to his species I really want to know why!
There were some more but you get the idea, haha. STRAP IN, SUCKERS, YOU ASKED FOR THIS, IT’S GONNA BE LONG
So, in general the people you encounter in Star Control 2 (play it for free right here!) tend to be representatives of their race rather than individuals. You might get a name drop from a captain in dialogue like Pwappy or Reeunk or whatever, but on the whole, you deal with A Pkunk, A Thraddash, A Zoq-Fot-Pik, etc. The list of individuals you get to know in the game is extremely short. In fact, here they all are.
Hayes the Earthling
Talana the Syreen
Fwiffo the Spathi
Tanaka the Shofixti (and his brother, Katana, if you kill Tanaka)
Admiral ZEX the VUX
That’s it. There’s Trademaster Greenish the Melnorme, but he’s the only Melnorme you ever talk to, so I don’t think he counts. And Hayes has his own history and opinions and such, but he’s also the only human you talk to too, so it’s a bit of a fuzzy area. And not only is this list very short, but everyone on this list generally adheres to their species’ beliefs and ethos. Fwiffo is in many ways a typical Spathi, you just get to know him and befriend him on a personal level.
Admiral ZEX is the only exception.
Now before we go in, I gotta preface this by saying that I love ZEX dearly, and I have since I first played this game as a kid, and I probably always will. So I’m going to try not to be biased here but it’s hard, haha. The other thing I want you to keep in mind is that Star Control 2 came out in 1992. Not as an excuse or anything, but just sort of to give all this a bit more context. I could very easily copy-paste all of ZEX’s dialogue here, but I’m going to try to restrain myself. If you want to see all of it though, I recorded a bunch of videos of him back in the day that you can watch instead.
Let’s start with the war between the Alliance of Free Stars and the Hierarchy of Battle Thralls, some twenty or so years before StarCon2 takes place. The VUX had been enslaved by the Ur-Quan and forced to fight on their behalf, and by most accounts, they might not have survived the war… if not for ZEX. ZEX was the leader of the VUX fleet and an absolutely brilliant military tactitian, possibly the greatest that lived in the galactic sector at that period. Even the Yehat, who were the VUX’s enemies during the war and have incredibly high standards for battle prowess and honor, will tell you that ZEX is an unparalleled genius. He could always turn his weaknesses into an advantage, they say.
Once the war was won, however, the VUX High Council had a problem. ZEX might have been an unbelievable genius, but he was also… different. They could ignore it during the war because they needed him, but once it was over, they had to do something.
The VUX are known for being xenophobic bigots, with a particular hatred for humanoid aliens. Admiral ZEX, instead, is a xenophile. And the other VUX could not handle it. So what they did was send ZEX into “luxurious retirement”… basically, they gave ZEX a whole planet on the edges of VUX space and exiled him there. Where he wouldn’t, in ZEX’s words, “poison” the minds of the youth with his “bizarre” ideas and “perverted” lifestyle.(An interesting detail is that supposedly the Ur-Quan Primat was also involved in ZEX’s “retirement”, and given that the Ur-Quan generally only intercede in their slaves’ affairs when there’s some kind of conflict or civil war brewing, it makes you wonder exactly how that decision to exile him went down)
So, ZEX decided to pour all his focus and energy into collecting alien life from across the galaxy for a huge menagerie. He’s incredibly proud of it and happily talks about the beasts he’s collected in glowing… perhaps suspicious… terms. There is, however, one beast he’s looking for that he hasn’t found. And that’s where you come in.
Admiral ZEX is polite, friendly, intelligent, and well-spoken. He’s happy to answer your questions and talk with you, and if you threaten him, he makes it clear that he doesn’t want to fight you, and he’ll very reasonably try to talk you out of it. If you keep attacking him, he’ll implore you to stop wasting innocent lives fighting him. He does have the typical VUX vanity, but surprisingly, it’s not about his military genius. He actually often downplays his role during the war. What he prides himself in instead is his open-mindedness and maturity. He talks about his exile and how poorly his people have treated him with obvious bitterness and resentment. Even so, he’s unapologetic about who he is and what he wants. He knows he’s not normal, and he doesn’t care.
ZEX is also the thirstiest alien in the entire galaxy, and he really, really wants to bang you in particular. He loves all kinds of hideous creatures, but he has a special love for humans. So ZEX will openly flirt with you at times.
Captain! You are back so soon!We had better be discreet (hee! hee!), or my countrymen will begin whispering about us.
Human… we should be friends, not enemies!The scope of our relationship can grow as close as you wish.
As just two examples. There are many more! Now, when I say “you” I’m referring to the character the player controls, the human Captain. You can determine the Captain’s personality to an extent through your dialogue choices, but there are certain things about the Captain that you can’t change - namely, that he’s a white man with brown hair in his early 20s at the latest.
When it comes to his interests, ZEX’s intentions are pretty clear… he describes human anatomy in the kind of loving detail where you can tell he totally gets off on how weird it is. Some of his compliments aren’t subtle at all. “Luscious, robust human” comes to mind. He can often get caught up in his fantasies about aliens and tip over into tmi territory. ZEX talks about how he wants peace between VUX and humanity, but his fetish for humans no doubt plays no small part in that (though, it’s nice to think that he actually does want peace legitimately somewhere). ZEX alternates between describing the things he loves as beautiful, and then also luxuriating in their ugliness… sometimes it seems like they’re the same thing to him.
What brings you to see ZEX in the first place? Well, as mentioned, ZEX collects creatures, and it just so happens that one of the things he found was a small group of Shofixti females, frozen in cryogenic suspension. They are the only Shofixti females left, and if you want to revive the Shofixti race, you need to reunite them with the last remaining male of their species (this subquest, incidentally, is optional - you don’t have to revive the Shofixti to finish the game). ZEX doesn’t want to just give the maidens to you though… he wants something in exchange - a hideous beast he hasn’t been able to track down. ZEX, as mentioned, is an unmatched military genius, and he also has infinite ships at his world, so you can’t fight him for the maidens. You have to bring him what he wants… appease him, as the Melnorme put it.
ZEX’s Beauty is this crazy looking medusa-like thing that will absolutely tear your landers to pieces if you’re not careful. It’s incredibly, incredibly dangerous, and if you take it to Hayes to get it analyzed, he’ll tell you much the same and urge you to get rid of it before it breaks loose and kills everyone. You probably already know where this is going, huh?
When you bring ZEX the beast, he gets super excited and wants you to transfer it to him immediately. You can do so, or you can mess with ZEX and refuse to give it to him without getting the maidens first, at which point he’ll get a bit melodramatic about how his feelings are hurt that you don’t trust him, haha. He also says he could sway VUX public opinion to view humans more favorably but that’s almost certainly a lie to get you to give him what he wants, I think.
(One of the most intriguing things ZEX says is that most of his countrymen hate humans, but not all of them. But more on that near the bottom of this post, if you can make it there, haha)
Unsurprisingly, once ZEX has the beast on his ship, he reveals that there’s been a change of plans… he thought the beast could satisfy him, but in truth, the only one who can satisfy him is you, the human Captain! :O You, his beautiful luscious human (he literally says “my human love”), are the most vile and fierce and wretched, haha. He must have you! His collection can’t be complete without you! But he knows you won’t come willingly, so he prepares to attack you… but then the beast breaks free, rampaging through his ship and eventually killing him. Once he’s dead, you can land on his planet and find his menagerie in disarray, and take the Shofixti maidens. And so his role in the sub-quest ends.
Now I love ZEX. I really do. And I love Starcon2, it’s such an important game to me. But you can probably already see how aspects of ZEX are problematic, as they say nowadays. I don’t think it was intentional… again, it came out in 1992. I mean, I’d like to hope it’s not intentional, haha. But…
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