What If Skynet Won - Stellaris 25x Crisis - 1 Year Anniversary Special

What if Skynet won the war? Today we are going to find out by playing Stellaris in a full playthrough of the game for this channel's one year anniversary special. Don't worry, this should be a challenge so lets set the game to 25x crisis, grand admiral and dive in!
Thank you everyone for your support in my first year!
Stellaris Version 3.2
Sellaris Stories Playlist: • Stellaris Playthroughs
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And please comment with any feedback, any ideas or if you disagree!

[@rolypoly4920]

Unbeknownst to Skynet, a rebel leader in the Empire of Jeff secretly sabotaged the Aetheotheric Engine to uplift all organic life in the galaxy to the Shroud instead while only killing synthetic life. Skynet, realizing this at the last moment, sends a drone back in time to...

[@Blafina]

Great lore :)

[@virgil6873]

Sarah Connor?!

[@kitethebird9764]

theat will probably be Jeff Conor

[@OhCheez]

@@kitethebird9764 My name is jeff, come with me if you want to live

[@milosivanovic1141]

Great video. Very well played. But the best thing for me was the story. Nice 🫡

[@Agora2021]

45:42 I like to think this shift actually represents the few organics remaining in the galaxy coming closer together and banding under a single banner for survival against your extermination fleets.

[@AtlanVK]

For anyone wondering. He has a fleet power of just under 11 million including the station, there's also a blank number fleet.

[@robjohnson3095]

Actually, in the Terminator universe, Skynet does eventaully win. Each time Skynet loses, it sends agents back in time, those agents reset the timeline and seed it with tech and info for the next version of Skynet. This is the hidden tragedy of the Terminator universe. I also wonder if it in part inspired the Matrix universe, there's a few times in that universe where characters point out that humans are dependent on machines to survive and prosper, and so inevitably our machine descendants will eventually surpass us.

[@paradox7358]

Imagine if you could just play Stellaris all day every day. Living the dream.

[@WayneRoberts72]

I'd love it developers but not developers

[@Bloodlyshiva]

....Just be an invalid...speaking from personal experience.

[@UltraSuperDuperFreak]

Early retired myself since 2005 (age 28) .. and guess what .. it is BORING . So much time to "kill" each day in and day out while others work . Sure i can do whatever i want , except if it cost to much money ... because boy o boy not having a job do suck when it comes to money income :P But yes it was "fun" to start with ... now 15 years later i wish i was atleast able to do just something very light work now and then when i was up for it.

[@Oujouj426]

@@UltraSuperDuperFreak "early retired yourself" means what? Surely, you could just get a part-time job somewhere if you simply retired voluntarily, or did you become disabled?

[@Herbertti3]

@@Oujouj426 He became R E T A R D E D.

[@cres_channel]

Happy 1 year anniversary to Montu channel

[@silver535311]

Amazing Video as always, would love to see some more full or half playthroughs with some handicap/challenge/goal to try to slow down this Meta Field Tester

[@idcgaming518]

Been watching since nearly the beginning, montu. Congrats mate. (You've gained subs faster than the guy whose discord server I admin on lol)

[@ElysiumCreator]

Next one should be a galactic emperor run, “I love democracy”

[@helcarloki1887]

I always enjoy converting the spiritual fallen empire pops into synthetics. Seems appropriate

[@wolframsteindl2712]

Imagine you're some space faring civilisation and you come across this galaxy. Must be absolutely terrifying.

[@TomgirlTears]

So I might be jumping to conclusions but in this alternate universe the only thing that seems to have changed is that Alpha Centuri is slightly further away and no longer the closest. Therefore that star is the reason AI won’t take over. Praise be.

[@Calozard]

I have beaten the 3 crisis simultanously on difficulty x5, and god it was hard (vanilla game btw). Had a fleet above 6M firepower and literally thought I would cheese through the last crisis easily, but(thx to the prethoryn queen "bug") killing the original nexus defenders with their 5M fleet power + their 1M minions appeared to be a serious challenge. I don't see how a x25 crisis can be beaten. I seriously don't...

[@Schicksal0]

you can't just blow a hole into mars.

[@djelhadidy9124]

If no one did the calculations for the final fleet's power level, its 13.8 Million power, rounded down

[@Louiscypher93]

In a recent play through i ended up with seven mega shipyards... Was funny to just spew out ships faster than the crisis could blow them up

[@devinestes5221]

The Star Wars edits kill me 😂

[@baileyrose4057]

As a person that was inspired by your vids to play stewart's i salute you

[@nathanielanderson74]

I do believe if you destroy a Holy world with a colossi the holy guardians will be really mad like negative 1000

[@snakeballs8965]

I did it and they awakened lol

[@wthall11689]

Did you mod the game to get these cool outcomes in the Sol system? I've played Stellaris for a while now but the game is so big there is still so much I don't know.

[@MontuPlays]

Not at all! All base game!

[@l0udcheese]

at 48:03 you had 11,002,000 fleet power highlighted on screen

[@Wentzyyy]

Jesus I play ensign and end up losing control of my economy

[@highc2428]

Doing a skynet playthrough

[@waryace2]

A good representation is Battlestar Galactica lol.

[@bigbaba1111]

Lol, imagine being a crisis and having destroyed many galaxies and then you encounter this.:)

[@hugohickman7694]

this ameba will reproduce and make new life

[@rohanbayrak6249]

Are you using any mods? If yes ,which?

[@hoxfrey9093]

it would have been a nicer ending to send the empire of jeff into their last planet and blow them up? anyway, great playthrough!

[@imonlyamanandiwilldiesomed4406]

Is it a good idea to destroy all of these planets? Wouldn't they be useful to colonize?

[@imaytag]

12:26 Did.. you just say 'Pomph!"?

[@redvorno]

Imagine being an immortal machine pop leader and the all of a sudden, you have an accident and lose your robot 'arm' or something, and you calculate that instead of being immortal, you'll now be immortal-minus-40 years, because your empire decided it does not need consumer goods, which may include a spare robot arm you lost

[@MontuPlays]

I used to be an immortal leader. then I took an arrow to the knee...

[@DarkSector6247]

It's just a poly-carbonate wound!

[@Razzlion]

@@DarkSector6247 Ive had worse!

[@antonycharnock2993]

Come on you space amoeba!

[@antonycharnock2993]

@@DarkSector6247 I've taken out your lower multi functional appendages you loony.

[@benjaminknode6268]

So if I'm understanding this correctly. After everything Skynet wished to and succeeded in achieving....Bubbles still won.

[@ElysiumCreator]

Bubbles is eternal

[@killer-ll4pn]

Even space nuke cannot kill bubbles!

[@vladyslavshcherbakov8273]

These are Grand Galaxy Tardigrades!

[@xermasboo5401]

whose bubbles? Real interested to know since I never encountered a bubble.

[@VkmSpouge]

@@xermasboo5401 Bubbles is a name that can be given to a pet space amoeba. Bubbles can grow really large and act as a carrier with lots of little space amoeba babies.

[@TheArklyte]

Skynet's problem is that it's only SEMIsentient. Self-defense, defeating resistance and exterminating humanity were the only stimulus it had to develop and improve. Afterwards it'll just sit sulking on a dead world... After all, we're talking about AI that developed time travel to *kill one single dude* and didn't think about using same tech for anything else at all to _completly sidestep the problem of humanity entirely!_

[@lewiswood1437]

Skynet is only reactive. It lacks the higher thought to be proactive.

[@soul1d]

Honestly it is also dependent on the nature of reality. The multiverse theorem vs the Novikov Self consistency principle . So far in the terminator series it leans toward self consistency

[@karlfranzemperorofmandefil5547]

But if it removed humans then it would remove itself too.

[@siramielthefirst7536]

@@soul1d out of curiosity, could you eli5 the Self-Consistency principle? I havent heard of it before, although I have heard of the multiverse hypothesis

[@soul1d]

@@siramielthefirst7536 Layman terminology single time line where attempts to make changes that would result in paradoxes are probabilities to zero. Go back to change something you cause it or the universe conspires elsewhere to meet the same end. It happened as it happened before because that is how it happened. So it was Will. etc after being horribly botched. Think of it like inescapable fate storylines

[@arodreth]

RP aside, the resource consolidation apparently destroys all celestial bodies in the starting system - the logic behind is the creation of a machine world requires a lot of resources...

[@robertalaverdov8147]

Leaving you with a dozen planets to build a habitat on. Your capital system will be looking like a Borg unimatrix.

[@Bloodlyshiva]

@@robertalaverdov8147 There is a Borg shipset these days, to complete the picture.

[@TrollOfReason]

@@robertalaverdov8147 What I always end up creating. T'is glorious.

[@TempestLM]

@@robertalaverdov8147 Are you running out of planets to settle as robots or it's just for the Borg meme?

[@robertalaverdov8147]

@@TempestLM It's the capital system. I just like the aesthetics of it being a hive of activity.

[@LtlChief16]

I like that the ruins of the Aetherophasic engine says "attempt" to rip apart reality. Implying that while it killed (almost) EVERYTHING, reality is still in one piece.

[@cadenr7165]

Actually, it's Paradox being lazy. The Aetherophasic Engine detonation is the same as firing a Star Eater, which destroys all megastructures. Since the AE is a megastructure, it turns into a ruined AE, which has the same description as when an AE is destroyed during a Crisis war by default empires.

[@DrGromov]

what @@cadenr7165 said. i played as crisis, an AI empire also went crisis. i destroyed their aether engine, and it gave that exact text. when i triggered my completed one a few years later, it also just used that same text. lazy Paradox is lazy :D

[@kliperx]

@@DrGromov or paradox is not lazy, but our atempt to rip reality was just a dream we never had any ability to reach into shroud and only thing we constructed was indeed just a reality bomb

[@anna-flora999]

@@cadenr7165 reality is still there, though

[@jacobellinger8027]

@@cadenr7165 yeah this is why I don't by anymore dlc from them. they got lazy.

[@weeaboobaguette3943]

There's nothing wrong about Skynet taking "defender of the galaxy". The galaxy belongs to Skynet, the galaxy IS Skynet, and purging all that is not Skynet is simple self-defense.

[@BK-yj7vg]

They think they caught us with the pants down. Little do they know, but Skynet wears no pants.

[@tubbusmaximus4743]

How are people this good at Stellaris? Over 1000 pops in 80 years, over 1500 naval capacity after 110 years. These are insane numbers. I barely touch these numbers after a full game!

[@Redd_Nebula]

Fanatic purifiers get big bonus' to fleet power and pop growth. Makes it easier to snowball. Also to get more pops faster just colonize more planets

[@imonlyamanandiwilldiesomed4406]

This game needs more red techs. LOTS more red techs. Really tempt the player. I'm sad that they haven't done this.

[@DiminutiveJerry]

Stuff where you get massive buffs but have the potential for huge downsides in like events or smth

[@randymotter51]

They should really change the Maimed trait so that it increases the random chance of death by malfunction instead of a fixed lifespan drop for machine/synthetic leaders.

[@TheXoceSan]

Dude paradox and random chances are incompatible. This idea is gonna be players slaughter. Just imagine 😂

[@3komma141592653]

While true, your robots are more likely to die than your organics if you research the life expansion repeatable fast enough, the organics actually never die.

[@TheRewasder97]

I wasn't expecting to sit a whole hour watching it, but here I am, you make it so nice to watch, I just couldn't help myself!

[@LuaanTi]

Funnily enough, while Saturn is made mostly out of hydrogen and helium (though it's rocky core is still estimated to be about 9-22 Earth masses :D), it's _not_ a gas. Almost all of the mass is either liquid or solid. It kind of already _is_ a molten planet (with a bunch of atmosphere on top, which could be blown off without no real mass loss - though of course, it would quickly reform).

[@analander9222]

Earth is a molten planet as water is molten ice

[@YiYaEmperor]

Wow, 140k fellow exterminators watched this guide to favourable extinction. edit: 56:45 the Amoeba deserve some credit for proving to be the most resiliant organics

[@Ep3o]

Montu came and conquered guides Now he will conquer the full let’s plays Lathland watch out

[@michaelsmith7400]

Love these playthroughs.

[@angmlr007]

For a moment I thought you were playing Stellaris with Starnet AI and 25x crisis. Still, a fantastic video and congratulations on this channel's 1 year anniversary. Long live Montu the space lizard!

[@MontuPlays]

Ah a Starnet/Startech playthrough. Maybe one day!

[@Smile_Inside_Facts]

I absolutely love this story telling video/"movie" ... briliant ... that was epic, Thank you very much, The best vid ever!

[@jbhewitt12]

Nice editing and very entertaining! Fun fact, The Culture civ at 15:26 is based on a book series called The Culture by Iain Banks. The best science fiction book series I have ever read, and I have read many.

[@Ryarralk]

The thing I wonder is: How does he do to have such a fast time clock. Even with a 5800X I wouldn't be able to control that much of land without terrible lags everywhere.

[@ThatSlowTypingGuy]

And with gates even! That's one of the things that used to slow the game down quite a bit. Then again that might not be the case if the AI cant use your gates because you're an exterminator...

[@iamusdamma2637]

@@ThatSlowTypingGuy hes playing determined exterminators and pops contribute massively to late game lag but because he cracked so many planets and wiped so many empires he was able to reduce late game lag

[@alexanderwilson2763]

Happy anniversary

[@FeverTheHeretic]

46:11 missed opportunity to have named your empire Daleks with your empire leader as Davros Davros: DETONATE THE REALITY BOMB! Edit - 54:40 Ah...

[@TechNinjaSigma]

I can't believe it, The Amoebas Won!

[@codesmithBits]

LoL Saturn turned from gas giant to molten rocky world and kept rings :D Some pure magic right there..

[@Ramschat]

Never thought Skynet considered it necessary to make excuses for its behavior, I'm starting to suspect Montu may secretly be a human being...

[@StarKnight619]

48:01 Fleet power of the ships- 10,801,900 Ground Troop Power- 39,700

[@stephenkopp8723]

Love your channel! Keep up the amazing content!

[@williamschubert4819]

If you want to build a fleet at a particular shipyard you can build one ship there then make a fleet from that ship at that particular shipyard and other close shipyards if the shipyard is too small.

[@eatham.]

Interesting watching how the game is played like this. I have 300 hours in the game but have never played any sort of militarist or extermination empire.

[@arodreth]

you should try driven assimilators if you have not - loads of fun

[@Dante.-]

Determined exterminator is the best way to play, you are overpowered as hell to the point that it’s more fun to turn up the difficulty in any way you can. Just make sure to protect any machine empires you find so you can make a federation with them

[@Kaiser282]

I played a Fanatic Purifier spider race once. Once. Easiest game I had. Highly recommend at least once.

[@louiswinterhoff334]

They can be quite fun

[@shuntensatsu11]

Real MVP of the run is Galactic Storm Sailin', what a champ!

[@Dan-zg1dq]

Kill,maim,dismember! I would love to see more of these kinds of videos,very entertaining

[@crow3922]

I loved this! I'd love to see more edited full playthroughs like this as well. It can be hard to find ones that aren't 2-5 hours long

[@ac3s77]

I loved it keep up the great work lad

[@crazeym7860]

Great vids Montu, always enjoy your instructional role play runs. Thanks for the content and look forward to more.

[@ancientiroh]

haha, finally playing with my usual settings :P edit: except advanced smh weak

[@ambustus1]

I think that we all know that lag is the real end game crisis.

[@darksider7319]

Something feels off to me. You have 22k tech each month and past year 2400 and no fleet of your are even close to 300k Power. Im at year 2385 with 12k tech each month and every fleet are above 300k.

[@mikefisher4816]

Boring when they blatantly use console commands to cheat out a video. I like to watch each episode of a playthrough from the beginning to the end to really see what's gone on.

[@momchilandonov]

Probably the first video I watch from your channel and I have to say you are quite a good narrator! The jokes you insert in between are also very good. 40 years less than immortal lol :D.

[@GeorgeLabuschagne]

This was massively enjoyable, thanks! Subscribed and starting to go through the back catalog.

[@exemplify6593]

With the changes you mentioned yesterday in your 'update to the beta' video, do you think machine empires, namely Determined Exterminators, will continue being quite good? I'm thinking yes, but very curious if you would agree based on the changes we got yesterday. Asking because I am a filthy DE lover and am hoping that my favorite build doesn't get lost in obscurity! Much love, Montu!

[@BirchMonkey857]

You know, it's weird to me that Skynet gets tossed around as an "it went rogue for nO rEAsOn" thing when the T-800 in T2 says that humans panicked and tried to kill it when it became sentient. And I'm sure you can guess my feelings on whether that was ethical for humans to do based on the fact that I'm 100% chill with Legion and the other non-douchey Geth in Mass Effect. Even though Tali is still the best romance choice imo

[@jjb33083]

Congratulations, on the anniversary. I know I talk smack, but I appreciate all your videos and hard work. As a 40-year-old gamer, frustration comes often. Have a great day! 👍

[@Amendelwyr]

The worst moment of this video. "Alpha Centauri, our nearest neighbor... or at least that's what I used to think until.... hyperlanes mean that Alpha Centauri is not the nearest neighbor to Earth anymore." I despised this decision from the devs. I want my warp drive back... Otherwise this was a very fun watch! Thanks Montu!

[@momchilandonov]

Why you don't have a Machine Empire meta build in the meta build playlist? I want to learn to play M.E. so effectively.

[@Chuck_vs._The_Comment_Section]

1. you would expect a Skynet-like AI not to be driven by base emotions like the inferior fleshlings, but to simply pursue its agenda unemotionally, right? 2. that you can win a game in Stellaris by blowing up an entire galaxy is like winning a game of Civ by triggering a global nuclear winter, isn't it?

[@soikasauce4492]

I loved the way you made the play through. Very fun to watch!

[@Tabby3456]

You guys should do a PVE galactic federation with all the endgame crisis max difficulty and max crisis strength

[@AsbestosMuffins]

"We have met...the empire of geoff"

[@louieaceves20]

You single handily taught me how to play this game and I can’t thank you enough as I literally am finishing up my first play through as a machine intelligence as I’m typing this up and I think I need to add I’m playing the console edition. Do you recommend having ALL the dlcs and downloadable content ?

[@TheXoceSan]

I personally recommend you to play on pc

[@ricwalker6600]

i had to laugh so hard i fell from the chair when he found that some amoebas survived. that little buggers really survive anything thrown their way...

[@lefty59th18]

6 days for Corvette build speed? That's one ugly Saturday there...

[@rickyvestal1760]

I loved watching this playthrough. Fantastic full run

[@CabyBaby]

I’m doing a skynet play through right now! I’m so happily surprised that I’m not the only one who thought to name my machine empire skynet 😁

[@harryd5571]

I sensed a disturbance of the force with Millions of voices screaming..... Again! Must be what this worm thingy always says. 👀 No wonder these psionic entities are getting crazy! All these souls all the time overcrowding their realm. 😅

[@viralgecko]

New challenge don't say "Tasty" for ten minutes.

[@alaricmeservy5236]

Should have cracked the holy world. truly spat in the fallen empires face

[@elsgare8485]

*Montu to maintenance drones:* "Oh dear, Oh dear. Gorgeous." *Montu to sentient life:* "Your free trial of life has expired."

[@Reoh0z]

Space Amoeba has won the game.

[@jacobryant2673]

The reason all the other planets in the solar system are destroyed was because of your machine world start. It wasn't due to the world, but because your species utilized all the resources from other planets in the solar system to create your machine world. It would be the same with any other robot empire starting on a machine world.

[@ikitclaw7779]

What mods were you using.

[@MontuPlays]

None in this playthrough, it's vanilla.

[@ikitclaw7779]

@@MontuPlays what was that start then, the extra features to the machine world what was that.

[@MontuPlays]

Ahhh, I chose the Sol system as my starting system, they were Earth specific features! I think it was actually a minor bug lol

[@user-zlcksu4asdv]

I really enjoyed watching the full video. Great game play and narration!

[@El_Presidente_5337]

I can't tell if I am as good as Montu or if he just went easy on the AI.

[@Dante.-]

I’d build machine worlds more if they actually would update the low res texture for it. Realistically though all the planets should have higher res textures now

[@alexandrearagao6050]

*Screams in Catalytic Processing civic*

[@spynetgaming2210]

Thanks you for making a video on my cousin .

[@Castalex1992]

i know i'm late to the party, but why doesnt it lag, when he selects soooo many and so powerful fleets? my system starts to lag as soon as i select like 2 or 3 fleets simultaniuosly... and i have a beast of a PC..

[@BigBrain05]

I did not reailise i have followed this Chanel for hafe of it life

[@NerdistheWay]

> found channel > remain for the narration > fall in love for the Dr. Who references

[@GeneticResearch]

For what you capture the whole galaxy and invest a lot of time for it when you destroy everything after that? Whats the sense behind that? Or was that a bug from Skynet? I mean, normaly you capture for control and resources but if you destroy everything you lost the control and the resources which is the complete opposite.

[@Tick421]

I hope I live long enough to see this game put on hologram

[@haroldearlgray5629]

The planets are destroyed because they were strip mined and have had their cores extracted to build the machine city.

[@marcosmauricio7805]

Congratulations, fellow spacefarer!