Corvus Belli Drops a Bombshell!

Corvus Belli has licensed a professional animated series for Infinity…and the trailer has me on the edge of my seat with anticipation! If you haven’t seen it already, you can watch it below before continuing.

Background

For anyone unfamiliar with the IP, Infinity is a near-ish future sci-fi universe with a strong cyberpunk theme and manga aesthetics. Think Ghost in the Shell, but in space. Primarily realized through the tabletop wargame, aptly named Infinity, the IP also includes multiple board games, a tabletop RPG, and manga.

Corvus Belli’s tabletop offerings. The RPG is produced by Modiphius under license

Humanity has colonized the stars (the area being collectively known as the Human Sphere) and the nations of Earth have joined together to create a handful of competing superpowers. Humans live in harmony with a benevolent AI (Aleph) to keep everything running smoothly…or at least, that is what the powers that be will tell you constantly.

In truth, each of the power players are constantly fighting shadow wars for control of crucial resources, running espionage ops, and assassinating enemy power players.

In general though, life is pretty good for most common people in the Human Sphere. There is an abundance of work to sustain a quality life in most nations, and limitless entertainment options to keep the masses amused in their ample down time.

…Until the Fire Nation (Combined Army) attacked.

The Combined Army is a conglomeration of alien races led by a not so nice AI called the Evolved Intelligence (commonly denoted EI). Created by an ancient species, the EI was tasked with helping them achieve something akin to the Buddhist concept of Enlightenment…to transcend the mortal plane and become something greater. They succeeded in this, but left the EI behind without the complete solution. And so it continues it’s work by subjugating every species it encounters for slave labor in this pursuit.

Humanity made first contact with the Combined Army’s vanguard forces, the Onyx Contact Force (OCF) and Shasvastii Expeditionary Force (SEF). While the OCF would call themselves a diplomatic corps, they really only offer new species two options. Submit, or perish. Under the illusion that these small contingents were the extent of the alien invasion force, O-12 (the Human Sphere’s pseudo UN run by Aleph) determined that if all of the superpowers lent their special forces operatives to the fight, humanity could ward off the invasion by fighting in the shadows in order to maintain peace and order.

While having mixed success with this plan, both sides of the war would be funneled to a remote planet called Paradiso for the first large scale engagement of the war…and spoiler alert, it doesn’t go well for Team Humanity.

My Predictions for the Show (Tin Foil Hat Time)

Alright, so with all of that background out of the way, it is time for me to spoil the show months before we even know a launch date. How can I do this? Mostly because there was an old campaign book for Infinity called Campaign Paradiso (which is awesome btw), Paradiso was a paradise, and Humanity lost it…ergo Infinity: Paradise Lost. It’s also covered in the RPG books as well. All of which are awesome reads if you are remotely interested at this point, and I highly recommend them.

So my big prediction…the show is going to cover the first Paradiso campaign, lots of characters are going to die, humanity is going to ultimately lose, and if they get multiple seasons they will be able to catch up to the current lore timeline where the real full invasion is about to take place. There is a lot of really cool story telling they can do in between the first Paradiso Campaign and now though, so we could easily be looking at 4, 5, 6 seasons of content. And if one season doesn’t focus on the story of the Infinity: Defiance board game, I am going to be so disappointed.

Infinity: Defiance, even when you win, you lose

The main characters are from the Human nation of Haqqislam…I didn’t tell you guys about them, so more backstory…

A nice leisurely patrol on the most important planet of the Human Sphere

So way back on Earth before space colonization, the societies in the Middle East were destabilizing very quickly. A new offshoot of Islam started to form called Haqqislam, which could be described as humanist and scholarly. This appealed to numerous doctors and scientists in the region who pooled their knowledge and resources together.

Through their combined efforts, they made significant advancements in biomedical science and terraforming, so they yeeted themselves into space to found their own colony (Bourak) in isolation. And while that isolation was short, without the constant threat of being killed they managed to create the biomedical process to transplant a human consciousness into a cybernetic device (called a cube). This process requires a drug named Silk, which only Haqqislam knows how to make. Once they were rediscovered by the rest of humanity, having a monopoly on functional immortality made them very rich and put a giant target on their backs.

Map of Bourak, the seat of Haqqislam’s government

While scholarly, the Haqqislam are not naive, and so they also developed their military capabilities. While most other cultures focused purely on cybernetic enhancements for soldiers, Haqqislam pioneered bio-engineered super soldiers as well. The ace up their sleeve however is the Hassassin Bahram.

This sect of religious warriors actually predate the Haqqislam nation, and although they are funded by the government on Bourak and act as its intelligence agency, they are an independent organization dedicated to the preservation of Haqqislam…at any cost. So that recruiter dude at the beginning? He is part of the Bahram. How can I tell? We have models of all of them!

The vague way he tries to recruit the female protagonist (a silk thief, probably also a smuggler) also lends credence to this taking place before the Combined Army’s presence in the Human Sphere is common knowledge.

The nicest military recruiter in human history

So, she joins the team which seems to cause some internal conflict. Holy warriors might be a little resentful of immoral people who get to skip all of the hellish training required to get the honor to go into the field. Great opportunity for some character development!

Then we are off to assassinating Nomads. I didn’t tell you who they are, so I will just give you a one liner. The Nomads are a nation that doesn’t trust AI, and lives off the grid on three giant ships. Cyberpunk to the extreme, anything goes for the Nomads if you can pay the right price. Okay, that was two sentences, sue me.

Nomads thinking they have control of the situation

Seemingly mid-confrontation with the Nomads, the OCF shows up! I play these guys in the wargame, so I was stoked to see the Umbra!

And…once an Umbra hits the field, you lose. So there is the plot of the show.

Final Thoughts

Okay, so I am trying to contain my inner fanboy.

If I am right about the plot, then the story will be engaging and fun to watch. A little drama, a lot of violence, and no cookie cutter “the good guys always win” tropes. Think Empire Strikes Back, but its the whole universe. Return of the Jedi ain’t coming up next.

While I have some critiques, the 3D animation is fairly good. We also don’t have a timeline on when this is going to release, so I am willing to reserve judgement on the little nitpicky things as some refinements will probably happen along the way. The series is also in the capable hands of Jay Oliva, who was responsible for the animations in Batman: The Dark Knight Returns and is an actual fan of the games.

I will say, the trailer SCREAMS “Infinity”. The mood, the art style, the backgrounds are all impeccable. I have watched this trailer over a dozen times and I want more.

Any long time fans of the franchise should be happy if the final product lives up to this trailer. I expect more info to drop next week at GenCon, so keep your eyes peeled!