Gaifen

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Gaifen are fictional stellar creatures in the massively multiplayer online game DarkSpace. Like moose, their singular and plural forms are the same: a single Gaifen is interesting, while many Gaifen are quite dangerous. Physically, they resemble gaint marine mollusks, having a main head and body which branches off into multiple tentacles. While scans of them have never revealed detailed information on their internal composition, they are supported with an exoskeleton which doubles as armor against attacks. Their size is quite large, dwarfing smaller ships in the game and rivaling even some of the larger vessels. (However, scale in DarkSpace is somewhat odd: space stations are able to spawn out of planets which are actually smaller than them, and many ships in the game are bigger than Luna.)

In terms of game fiction, Gaifen are said to have evolved from a common ancestor as one of the in-game factions, the K'Luth, who feature biological ships (as opposed to mechanical ships, as the two human factions possess). They are known to feed on hydrogen, sufficient quantities of which can often be found in or near nebulas. They possess a limited intelligence, but are not thought to have any sort of society or meaningful ability to communicate, and most scientists do not consider them sentient. They are, however, very territorial, usually attacking any space vessel which happens to wander nearby.

Gaifen play primarily a non-player character role, usually created automatically from set spawn points (though the points themselves are actually ranges, making them in effect spawn zones) embedded in the maps, plus it is possible to spawn them via live in-game scripts. They can also be spawned and piloted by game Administrators, though this is only done for special events. The maps are created by the Developers, and only they and Administrators are able to run the scripts necessary to spawn them, but they are often spawned en masse for in-game events, or simply to spice up the game at certain times. Usually these events are explained away via fictional news postings in a forum dedicated to updates of the internal world of DarkSpace, called "The Universe Today."

Given DarkSpace's rather small development team, Gaifen have historically been rather neglected; their artificial intelligence is not particularly advanced, and their weaponry is not always updated along with the player-controlled factions. Also, due to server issues, they were disabled for use in-game in late 2004, so they are not seen in official servers. Consequently, they are now known more as a myth than any current threat or interest: old players know them, but new players only see old pictures of them and wonder what they are.

However, one developer in particular has always had what could be termed a mild obsession with them. With his access to the scripting interface, Shigernafy - as the developer is known in-game - has already created more powerful types of Gaifen, and given them names. Since the automatic spawn points were removed, the only source of Gaifen now is via scripted spawnings, and when scripted, the name of the creature is able to be changed. Thus, any Gaifen seen in the last two years have been creatively named, such as "Herbert the sissy Gaifen" or "Frxdira the oddly-named Gaifen." There are also a number of Gaifen who are named after prominent members of the DarkSpace community. Shigernafy, with his development role and love of Gaifen, has mentioned plans to introduce multiple varieties of Gaifen; he has reported already configured an even larger variant than normal, which packs additional firepower and heavier armoring. It is unknown, though, when these varieties will be seen in the game.

[edit] External links

• DarkSpace main site