The Nexus Telegraph: Examining the Chua of WildStar

Last week I proposed a theory about two of the game's races, one of them being the Mordesh. That theory, in case you didn't catch it (and it wasn't stated outright anyway) proposed that WildStar's dirty little secret races are that way in part because they say something about their home fashion. The Mordesh serve as a reminder that the Exiles are not, in fact, purely heroic figures struggling against insurmountable oppression. They're just as culpable as the Dominion in places, and they do not like thinking about that.

So what about the Chua? What do they remind the Dominion of, aside from the ironclad law that every single MMO has to have one token short race? The Chua hit that button pretty hard. Just like Gnomes or Asura or Lalafells or countless other races that fall into the same role, they're a short and smart race known to be full of energy with an affection for technology, magic, and the usual assortment of things smart people like. The biggest difference is that WildStar's short race is both furry and insane.

All right, the insanity part is under debate. The Chua are clearly sane enough to devise ever more elaborate technologies for the Dominion, and they've been good at it for the past thousand years. The Mechari gave them the gift of technology in the first place, and the race responded by pranking the ambassador and then setting to work on building better tools until their planet literally could not support them any longer.

That's the Chua in a nutshell, really. Come up with new and exciting ways to build some sort of death machine, then make a better one. Leave one alone with a pile of rocks and you'll come back to find a bomb, probably one aimed at your face because it's funny.

That's something that has to be understood about the race right off. They are a species of pranksters and practical jokers, the sort of people who think that a joke isn't really funny until someone's being wheeled off to the hospital. This makes you wonder why the Dominion keeps them around until you remember that their zealous progress is also what allows the Dominion to stay technologically ahead of everyone else.

And the Chua have no real interest in taking over from within or anything like that. They just want to invent, create new ways to cause mayhem, or build something spectacular. Their usual research is in weaponry because they love seeing what weapons can do. And if a few Dominion citizens get blown up in the process of perfecting all of this new weaponry... well, that's the price of progress.

Not that the Dominion exactly advertises this fact. Why would it? This is the part of the Dominion that none of its members wants to face.

Speculation once ran that the last race in the Dominion would be friendly and gregarious, but the fact is that the Dominion is friendly. Formal, definitely. Stiff, more often than not. But the Dominion doesn't enter a building guns blazing. We know that the Dominion made first contact with the Granoks by offering membership in exchange for service without threats. The Mordesh were to be welcomed. The Draken were engaged in battle only because it was the way to avoid a long, costly, and destructive war against their people.

It's only when death becomes necessary that it becomes a part of the Dominion's arsenal. To the citizens of the Dominion, military might is a distasteful element. The empire certainly doesn't glorify violence, storming in and taking the worlds that would provide something of use!

Except that it totally does. It revels in its might. The Dominion doesn't like thinking of itself as the biggest group on the block because that means acknowledging that every military action it takes is essentially an act of bullying. No one can stand up against the collective military might of the Dominion, and every time they lay that down on the table, the conversation is over because there's no way to defeat that threat.

But the Chua aren't violent in service of a cause or an ideal or a hunt. They're violent because they like being violent.

Would you like being reminded of that? Of course not. And so the Chua get sort of shunned from the yearbook photos even as the Dominion gleefully accepts the weapons they need. The Chua, for their part, don't care one way or the other. They get to see their carefully designed bombs rain destruction either way. Sure, they don't get the respect they deserve... but a few bombs left in the local Cassian lord's locker tend to serve as a succinct reminder.

In a very real sense, the Chua are the Dominion in micro. They advance rapidly, consume resources at an alarming rate, and move on only when they've drained something completely dry. Now they're being unleashed upon Nexus, a treasure of technology, new ideas, new concepts, things that the Chua can turn to their own purposes until the Dominion is awash in weapons the galaxy has never even conceived of before.

And then will come the stripping. The digestion. The part in the tale when the Chua aren't satisfied with just breaking down Eldan technology and making new versions. Then come the improvements, then the bigger improvements, slowly stripping the planet of everything that can be used for these weapons. Wildlife is killed off, seas turn black, the sky is choked with ash, and no thought is given to what is destroyed in the process.

To the Dominion, Nexus is a holy place, but to the Chua it's a resource. And the Dominion doesn't want to think of it that way... even as it launches a campaign to take it. But the Chua know what they are.

Feedback is welcome down below or via mail to eliot@massively.com. Next week I have something planned that I cannot talk about at this point, and the week after that it's time to take a look at the Aurin.

Here's how it is: The world of Nexus can be a dangerous place for a tourist or a resident. If you're going to venture into WildStar, you want to be prepared. That's why Eliot Lefebvre brings you a shiny new installment of The Nexus Telegraph every week, giving you a good idea of what to expect from both the people and the environment. Keep your eyes peeled, and we'll get you where you need to go.