Star Shift is a series of RPG Maker games developed by Psychronic Game Studios.
In the future, Earth colonized many planets and became the imperialistic Earth Systems Alliance, which oppressed the colonies under their control. This led to various factions from the colonies, such as Novus Federation and the Outer Rim Coalition, to form and oppose the ESA. Worse yet, it turns out the ESA's leader, Director Kern, rose to power in the first place by abusing time travel technology, giving him a massive advantage over every other faction. The protagonists of each game will have to use their own time travel technology to stand a chance against the ESA, but the very use of time technology threatens to destroy time and space themselves in a cataclysmic event known as the Purge.
Completed games in this series include:
This series contains examples of:
- Alphabet News Network: In all the games, the story will occasionally cut to a news network pumping out news pieces in favor of their own side.
- In Origins, Carol Everson and Magnus Archer can enter the Novus Broadcasting Network building (NBN), which does their best to make Novus Federation sound like the heroes fighting the evil ESA. There's also an opportunity to slightly increase Novus reputation by watching and complimenting a documentary one of the employees made. Unfortunately, Novus Federation is secretly run by ESA spies and is effectively controlled opposition.
- In Rebellion, the ORC will watch the Interstellar News Network (INN), which is pro-Earth Systems Alliance and paints any oppostion as terrorism.
- The Canite Broadcasting Network (CBN) is comparatively more neutral compared to the NBN and INN, though they do mainly repeat statements made by other major powers and whoever is currently in charge of Canis Prime. The main anchor, Skip Cooper, is implied to be skeptical of Canites' Alpha, Commodus, since he repeats Commodus's claims with quotation marks in his dialogue text.
- Once the Outer Rim Coalition drive the ESA out of Infernis Prime, their own broadcasting network, Outer Rim Broadcasting (ORB), starts televising their victory. Unlike most examples, the anchor, Sisko Hyperion is not only a soldier, he also operates with a fake name and from an undisclosed location to avoid getting targeted by the ESA.
- Bad Future:
- In the original timeline, the Dauntless traveled to a future where Earth was destroyed by the Calterans. The Dauntless traveled back with this information and the Terran Republic sent the Raven back in time to attack the Calterans first. This caused the timeline to shift to one where the Terran Republic became the imperialistic Earth Systems Alliance.
- Keldar went to the future and found an even worse outcome where people abused time and space manipulation so much that the universe collapsed, an event he calls the Purge. On the bright side, he and his allies built Time's Eclipse, a space station that as a base of operations for those who made it to the post-Purge era in the hopes of either rebuilding civilization there or using time travel to prevent the Purge in the first place.
- Big Bad: Kern was once a Terran Republic scientist, but in the alternate timeline that he created, he became the dictator of the Earth Systems Alliance, the main antagonistic faction. His goal is to defeat not only the opposing factions and nations, but to monopolize any time-related technology, even if he has to enact the genocide of entire species to do so.
- Brainwashing for the Greater Good: Not only do Earth Systems Alliance citizens have implants that make them more compliant, the government brainwashes any criminals they don't execute to become law-abiding citizens. This is less out of altruism and more to save on prison costs.
- The Empire: The Earth Systems Alliance is described as an imperialistic faction that oppresses other planets. ESA citizens are expected to receive brain implants that make them more compliant to the state.
- The End of the World as We Know It: The Purge is an event where the misuse of time travel causes time and space to collapse, causing a massive explosion that destroys most planets in the universe.
- Evil All Along: In Rebellion, one of the Outer Rim Coalition members claims that the Novus Federation is actually controlled opposition for the Earth Systems Alliance. Considering that Novus pinned the blame for the Raxion II gassing on Carol Everson and that they somehow allowed the Dauntless to fall into the ESA's hands during the timeskip in Origins, it's clear that Novus's leadership cannot be trusted.
- False Flag Operation: The Earth Systems Alliance is fond of framing their enemies for their own atrocities in order to maintain public support. In Origins, they framed Novus Federation for releasing deadly gas on Raxion II, who then framed it on Captain Carol Everson. In Rebellion, they intend to hold a conference among several galactic leaders so they can stage attacks on the attending nations and frame the Outer Rim Coalition, leading to the attending representatives handing over their command codes.
- Healing Hands: Almost all skill trees include a section for healing skills, though the healing skills themselves are split between organic and synthetic healing. In Origins, Medic class characters can learn skills that work regardless of how organic the target is, but since there's no one with that class in Rebellion, everyone's skill tree is extended to include universal healing.
- Knight Templar: The ESA leaders know about the Purge, a name for the collapse of time due to abuse of time manipulation. They insist that they will be the ones to prevent the Purge and that the ORC and other enemy factions will unwittingly cause it to happen. However, their method for preventing the Purge is to brainwash their citizens with implants and even wipe their memories. They also ignore that these enemy factions are cropping up in the first place because of the harm caused by their imperialism, and that they have abused time-travel technology just as much, if not more so, than their enemies.
- Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: Colonel Thraxton tries to claim that the new timeline is just and that the Earth Systems Alliance will bring order to chaos, but the ESA is oppressing their colonies and using brain implants to brainwash people into compliancy, making it clear that his so-called order will only benefit a select few. In Rebellion, they claim that suppressing rebel groups is necessary to prevent a war that will cause the Purge, an event that will cause the collapse of time and space. However, they conveniently ignore that the rebel groups only rose up because of the ESA oppresses the people of the Outer Rim, meaning they are the real source of conflict. Finally, all the planets under their administration suffer from pollution due to excessive industrialization, making it questionable how sustainable their peace really is. Even in the event that they do win, the Purge happens anyways due to their own abuse of time-space manipulation, which implies that they care more about monopolizing such technology and controlling the universe than actually saving it.
- Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The Order of Restoration is made up of various survivors of the Purge, as well as people who time-traveled to the post-Purge era or people who ended up in that era due to a black hole's time dilation. Their shared goal is to prevent the Purge by traveling back to the past to prevent the causes of the event.
- Red and Black and Evil All Over: The Earth Systems Alliance, the main antagonistic faction that seeks to conquer other planets and monopolize time technology, has a flag that consists of a red earth on a black background.
- Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: The time and space crystal on the Dauntless allows the crew to remember the previous timeline despite the shift and allows the entire state of the ship to remain unchanged. The Order of Restoration's base, Time's Eclipse, also has technology that allows them to recognize changes in the past.
- Set Right What Once Went Wrong: Deconstructed. The Terran Republic discovered crystals that can control time and space, but they accidentally shifted to a timeline where the republic became the tyrannical Earth Systems Alliance. While shifting back to previous timeline would get rid of the ESA, the factions that split off from the ESA would disappear as well. The TRS Dauntless crew wants to return to the original timeline, but Novus Federation is against this and tries to force the former to give up on that goal. In contrast, the Outer Rim Coalition's Scrap Springs Division is willing to work with the Dauntless crew despite the possibility of their pasts being irrevocably changed.
- Silicon-Based Life: The Geodonians are a sapient mineral-like species that grow from crystal lattice and are carved out by their family when they grow old enough. Although they are more durable than most species, they will explode when exposed to certain frequencies, as shown when the ESA scientists experiment on Krax's family.
- Villainous Legacy: The Calterans are a mysterious civilization that destroyed Earth in a Bad Future, leading to the Terran Republic going further back in time to attack the Calterans first. This led to the Terran Republic becoming the Earth Systems Alliance, which is even worse than the Calterans.
- Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters: The ESA-controlled Interstellar News Network labels anyone who opposes the Earth Systems Alliance as terrorists, all while ignoring the ESA's atrocities causing rebellion in the first place.
