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Completed Let's Play Alien Legacy.
- Thread starter Cool name
- Start date
With the whole planet against you, what can you do.
Even if it failed as a defense, it probably enhanced the durability of the associated colony.
It's a mystery.
Some more music.
The captain consults the spirits for advice and guidance.
More civilian attacks, a local militia is being rallied to defend defend against the rampaging biota.
Erstwhile Romanov's ship was launched and deeper analysis of the asteroid continues...
Even if it failed as a defense, it probably enhanced the durability of the associated colony.
It's a mystery.
Some more music.
The captain consults the spirits for advice and guidance.
More civilian attacks, a local militia is being rallied to defend defend against the rampaging biota.
Erstwhile Romanov's ship was launched and deeper analysis of the asteroid continues...
Fascinating developments all around, I must say. The path of noble inquiry before irrevocable action might require an unfortunate sacrifice of colonist lives to the thirsting gods, but abandoning it is not an option a true void-blooded spaceman would consider. Proceed. 
lightbane
Arcane
- Joined
- Dec 27, 2008
- Messages
- 10,205
LARPING Aside, MOAR
Cool name
Arcane
- Joined
- Oct 14, 2012
- Messages
- 2,147
@ CapenVarra: You are right. Other than ramming it into the sun I do not know what can we done to destroy it.
@ Whisper: They did protect our colonies. But it seems they got overwhelmed. There were too many monsters attacking at the same time. The power outages I do mention during the post were coming every few seconds. I did not manage to get a good screenshot around Hyomin before launching the counter-attack but there were ten or so groups around it alone, and more coming from the south along those coming from the north seen in the screenshot.
@ Lightbane: We did lose many colonists and two starships. We did obtain great insight on our enemies motives and many new technologies. I do believe it was a good trade off. And now Inquisitor Lightbane is going to have his fun.
@ Hirato: The music you did post was beautiful. I did love it. And I am glad you did enjoy both Capt'n Teddie and the image. I did upload the original here in case you do want to try and make a better edit.
@ Crooked Bee: This does not entirely fit into my new persona but I will count you as an exception to the rules.
Huggies!
@ Whisper: They did protect our colonies. But it seems they got overwhelmed. There were too many monsters attacking at the same time. The power outages I do mention during the post were coming every few seconds. I did not manage to get a good screenshot around Hyomin before launching the counter-attack but there were ten or so groups around it alone, and more coming from the south along those coming from the north seen in the screenshot.
@ Lightbane: We did lose many colonists and two starships. We did obtain great insight on our enemies motives and many new technologies. I do believe it was a good trade off. And now Inquisitor Lightbane is going to have his fun.
@ Hirato: The music you did post was beautiful. I did love it. And I am glad you did enjoy both Capt'n Teddie and the image. I did upload the original here in case you do want to try and make a better edit.
@ Crooked Bee: This does not entirely fit into my new persona but I will count you as an exception to the rules.
Huggies!XI. Revelations.
Many anomalies receive Romanov as he descend on the sporeship's surface. Their pattern reinforces what we already know. We begin our search on F3. Then we visit G2, E2, and G0.
Our officers' reactions indicate this may be an important find.
The fine crystals we gathered at Gamma1 show us how to improve the crystals we use in our lasers. We think we can restructure the Bi-Focaline Crystal to make it denser and thus a better medium for projecting laser beams.
Our scientists think we can come up with a way to stabilize anti-matter so that it will not interact with positive matter in mutual annihilation. Captain, I believe we will shortly be able to construct a weapon of unfathomable power!
Although morally opposed to the consequences of such a device, it is vital to our security to proceed immediately!
Please forgive my straightforwardness but she does seem terribly exited for someone morally opposed to the consequences of such a device. In any case we have obtained two new research projects with which to proceed at our discretion. We keep moving.
With the discovery of another Pylon does the first expedition end. The ship lands on Dongwan to unload its cargo and refuel. I decide to check on the new proposals before continuing.
I greenlight the former one. The later one is far away from us at the moment. I return to Hyomin to send resources to Jiyeon. From Raina I send resources to Nana. Then I reconfigure the local laboratories to try and satisfy the project's needs. I check Gaea's Mercator to find a scary sight.
Then I go back to Gamma 1 and proceed with the second expedition. We descend on F0.
This might be one of the weapons the Tantalus' fleet was sacrificed to destroy. We keep going. On A0 we find another pylon. On A2 we make another significative discovery.
The small box aboard the alien spacecraft has pointed us towards a new way of visualizing sub-atomic physics. The box was an intake valve for scooping microscopic quantities of quarks from the interstellar medium. We think the process may improve our engines.
With our empire growing to acquire greater autonomy for our ships is paramount.
We come across a pylon on C2 and a disencouraging find on D4.
It seems missiles may as well be useless against the sporeship. This pretty much takes our battle plan back to square one.
As I am leaving the sector Patel comes to me with an announcement to make.
Captain, our scientists have come up with a biological weapon we could use to attack the alien biota. They have informed me that this weapon is especially dangerous. This new biological weapon will actively seek out and destroy the biotas' immune systems thereby stifling antigen production. The technical specs are in the Technology Manager. We should make it and start the ball rolling.
Are you insane? Would the game allow me to do so I would have her shot right were she stands. We proceed to F4 and find another pylon. Then we advance to G4. What we find here might be the most important discovery of the journey.
We've received a report of a significant discovery on Gamma 1. The following video documents the retrieval of a memory storage device which contains some kind of message.
The contents of the memory device are currently being examined by my staff. I'll report back as soon as we learn anything!
Sir, our recent activity at that alien spaceship seems to have triggered a radio transponder somewhere on Ares! The signal is very weak. We must get a ship down to meridian J, along parallels 20 thru 23. The signal bears the encoded signature of a U.N.S. distress call, sir.
We will check this once the expedition is over. We advance to G6.
The pictures we took of the dark room on the H'riak ship show what appears to be a tiny furnace of some kind. We speculate it required a small but powerful source of energy. Continued analysis of the photos may give us more clues.
The current visit finish on G7. Another pylon.
Exploring the sporeship is pushing SCIENCE! ahead at an incredible rate. We will need of a very long time to proceed with all the research proposals we are obtaining. The ship returns to Dongwan. I move to JR and turn one of the robot factories offline as the level one habitats are not enough to support the facilities as they are now. I then send the local ship to check the signal. Upon finding the sector we are received by a quite pretty view. After admiring it for a little while we proceed with the mission.
That done I send the ship in Dongwan back to the surface.
It took me a while to react and understand what did happen. I did forgot to select Romanov as the pilot. The game seems to always default to robots. It does also take the chance to act like if I were an imbecile. I do deserve it.
Captain, we've lost contact with another vehicle near the Beta asteroid belt! I can't seem to determine why some vehicles would simply disappear from our radar screens! That signal is really creating havoc with our robotic pilots! Perhaps it would be better to try a human pilot instead.
I send Vehicle 1 from So Yul to Dongwan. I do remember to give it a human pilot for this flight. Then I move to Ellin. I have been pondering on the reasons why only some colonies can build upgraded habitats and I believe I did get it. Patel comes to interrupt my research.
Dr. McGuffey has some ideas about what he calls the 'absolute number theory.' It may give us a new way to conceptualize the structure of the universe and, indeed, could very well revolutionize our understanding of mathematical theory.
I decide to take the opportunity to review those proposals I did ignore earlier.
I start the research projects on the H'riak box and the new mathematical hypothesis. As I do so Antonelli comes to speak with me.
We've been able to extract a video sequence from the memory device we found on the unusual Beta Asteroid! I've downloaded the clip into your PDA library. It is quite fascinating! I believe we have an unprecedented discovery about mankind's origin!
I fail to see the unprecedented discovery about mankind's origin. Human genetics are dissimilar to both the Beta Caelians and the Centaurians. If we take into consideration both the Beta Caelians and the Centaurians were created based on H'riak genetics it means humans are not a H'riak creation. How much do we know about mankind's origins did remain constant.
This however gives us a clue to a much more immediate problem. The H'riak are taking us for enemies and attacking us even when we did not take any kind of hostile action against them. We did not even launch a counter-attack after they did begin to attack us. They did not try to contact us at all. They did act just like the Centaurians did.
Is this because the H'riak take us as inherently hostile? Based on all the clues we did found so far the H'riak are long gone from Beta Caeli. They are maybe gone for good. From everywhere. Are the automated systems the H'riak left behind detecting us as hostile based on their programing alone? If so this would mean the systems are either programed to consider all targets not descended from the H'riak as hostiles or that humans are being detected as hostiles because humans descend from the Empiant.
This comes to explain why the Centaurians did wage a genocide war against humanity without provocation and without even trying to establish contact first. They were either being controlled by the H'riak as the Beta Caelians are or they were programed to do so on a genetic level.
All this leads us to a single conclussion. The H'riak sporeship is programed to destroy us. The descendants from the H'riak may be programed to destroy us. Diplomacy is not going to help us with this. We will have to decide whether we want to abandon the terrestrial planets to the H'riak lifeforms or to wage a war against them. Even if we leave we have to deal with a fourteen kilometers long starship that wants to destroy us. We have enough evidence to conclude the only reason it has yet to attack us is because the Tantalus' fleet did destroy its weapons. I have no idea about how we are going to destroy that thing.
But even if we leave the terrestrial planets we will only delay the inevitable. I doubt the H'riak did create the Beta Caelians to be nothing more than huge animals. With the Centaurians as a precedent it is at least possible they will become sentient in the future. The idea of a horde of giant rampaging monsters with battleships and advanced weapons is not one I do find agreeable. The logical thing to do is to neutralize them now.
This should be our priority from now on. First we will try to cut the signal from the sporeship. If they become docile again it does means than to kill us is not a genetical imperative and we can leave them be. If they do not we have to kill them all.
But then there is another problem to ponder. We are sitting in the middle of a very ancient intergalactic war between two humongous empires. We did previously found clues about a second alien ship being present in the system. Its modus operandi did seem different to the H'riak sporeship. It did remain in the outer system, it did not engage the humans in battle, and its presence did seem to cause strange psychological effects on people. Given most of the outer planets are gas giants they could well be the Empiant. The Empiant come from a gas giant and from the description they may possess psychic abilities. We should remind this is we are to engage them in battle. We should use robotic pilots instead of human ones against them.
We do know they are sentient. They might be open to dialogue. We did not found any evidence of hostile behaviour on their part. They might be humanity's creators. If so we are fine. I hope. But according to the H'riak they are crystalline being. That does not sound like Humans. If they are not humanity's creators it means the H'riak are a race of sociopathic paranoid assholes who consider hostile anything not created by them. The Empiant may also be a race of sociopathic paranoid assholes. We do not know. A three way war is more than we can chew. We do not even know what to do with a two way one.
There is also the point that both the H'riak and the Empiant are humongous empires. The sporeship was launched almost two billions years ago. For all we know both empires may be in ruins. Or we could be getting a fully functional and much more advanced sporeship arriving at any time. Or worse.
To top it all off we still have the Centaurians to worry about. The latest revelations turn my previously stated hope that they might have forgotten about us into wishful thinking. They are the rampaging biota with warships and advanced weapons we do not want the Beta Caelians to become in the future. We could have an entire fleet of them tailing us.
Beta Caeli is probably going to turn into a bloodbath before the end.
But for now it is time to go back to tending my colonies. I move to JR and notice we can now upgrade the local habitats to level two. I do start upgrading one of them. I am informed a research project is ready and awaiting review. Two, in fact.
Nice.
Not nice.
The habitat upgrades becoming available on JR finally makes me understand the system. Those become available when the population reaches a certain milestone. I jump from a colony to the next checking the numbers. All the colonies able to upgrade their habitats to level two have over two hundred inhabitants. The Calypso is able to upgrade them to level three and has over four hundred inhabitants. Colonies ten inhabitants short from having two hundred are unable to upgrade. I have my Eureka! moment. Habitat upgrades become available when the colony reaches a milestone of two hundred inhabitants!
Then I do notice Hyomin and Eunjung do not fit this pattern. How can it be? They are slightly short from the two hundred inhabitants milestone. Why? Was I wrong? I am pondering this on Hyomin when all of a sudden all facilities turn red. The power on the entire colony went out in an instant. All of a sudden it comes back. After a few instants it does go out again. I do not understand.
Then I do notice there is no ship on Hyomin. This is absurd! All of my colonies have at least one ship for its own exclusive use!
Then it hits me. I run to my PDA. Two hundred and fifty five colonists dead. This is without reason. Why should we have casualties? We have not been attacked. We have not lost any ship with a human pilot. Four ships lost. One ship was destroyed when approaching Beta 3 because the sporeship's signals dud interfere with the robotic pilot. A second ship was destroyed in the same way when taking off from Dongwan. The other two must have been colonial ships. More than three thousand biota have been killed by our defenses. Three thousand!
I panic. I go to the Mercator. A sea of green receives me. The rampaging Biotas are everywhere. They are launching themselves at our shields by the dozens. Maybe the creatures are overpowering the shields. Maybe the shield only alleviates the damage instead of absorving it all. I have seen the power outages that follow each attack with my own eyes. Maybe the shields can only protect from a single attack at a time and with the creatures being so many it is inevitable several groups will occasionally launch their assaults at the same time. I do not know the reason but we are losing colonists and landed spacecraft.
There are no more ships in Hyomin. Eunjung has one. I hope it will be enough.
Please save them, Commander Zod. You are their only hope.
Worry not ma'am. I got this covered. Saddle up girls!
Damn you're ugly!
There's a new sheriff in town, you filthy xeno scum!
You feeling lucky punk?
He goes in a bloody rampage. He only stops to refuel the spaceship. Along the way he collects any resources he does find in the battlefield and does some field research. Before long the area around Eunjung is cleansed. He moves to Hyomin.
Damn! I'm outta bubblegum!
*whistles the cavalry charge call*
With Hyomin free from immediate danger he flies back to Eunjung to remove the stragglers.
Then he returns to Hyomin and finishes the job..
Soon no enemy contacts are left in the map. The Gaean colonists are safe for the time being. I land the ship on Hyomin and move to Rhea. The attacks there have yet to reach the magnitude of those on Gaea. Only three groups of rampaging biota are to be seen in the Mercator map. I dispatch a couple of ships to clean up. By the end of the day the kill count has gone to over five thousand xenos.
Suckers should have asked space daddy for a bunch of AA guns, I reckon.
I move to Hyomin. The attacks have left the colony underpopulated. I have to deactivate several facilities to keep things running smoothly. I send one of the two ships on Geum Mi to Eunjung. Then I send resources to Nana and Jiyeon from their respective planets.
I move to JR. I deactivate the anti meteor gun to start upgrading a second habitat. I go to Dongwan. Vehicle 1 has already arrived. I send Romanov to the surface. Only a few anomalies remain. On C5 we come across another pylon. On B7 we find a curious excavation marker. On A7 we come across the last pylon.
And with Romanov returning to Dongwan this chapter comes to a close.
No one will be able to say The Captain did not try everything in her power to initiate contact with the H'riak. She did instruct the colonies under attack to do nothing but defend themselves. She did sacrifice two hundred and fifty colonists and two starships in doing so. She did not attack the planetary pylons. She did not attack the sporeship's pylons. Romanov did visit every site on the sporeship with a proverbial white flag. Nothing did work. They may be dead. They may not care.
We did not cause the war by invading Beta Caeli. We are fighting the same war that did destroy Earth. The Centaurians did nothing but to act as the H'riak did control or engineer them to do. Centaurians and Beta Caelians are nothing but pawns to the H'riak. They did destroy Earth. Whether Humans are descendants of the Empiant or the H'riat are a species of sociopathic paranoid assholes while descendants of the H'riak remain Humanity will never be safe. The Lord only knows how many sporeships are out there. And how many of their descendants have already developed space travel.
The Captain's conscience is at peace. To risk more would be to ignore noblesse obligue. That would be unladylike.
I need the antimatter warhead. It may be enough to destroy the sporeship. It may be not. Once I have it I will send Romanov to destroy the pylons on the sporeship. If this does not stop the rampaging biota I will have to use the plague.
Or should I do it the other way around? Genocide does not feel right. Yet our enemies did try that one on us already. We would be but playing by their rules. It is amusing not long ago I did want Patel shot for suggesting genocide. And we can start research on the plague without further delay.
The last thing I want is to raise the stakes. A direct attack on the sporeship may do so. Genociding its protegees may do so as well. This is what it means to be between the devil and the deep blue sea. When did this story became so grimdark?
God I love this game.
Our officers' reactions indicate this may be an important find.
Although morally opposed to the consequences of such a device, it is vital to our security to proceed immediately!
Please forgive my straightforwardness but she does seem terribly exited for someone morally opposed to the consequences of such a device. In any case we have obtained two new research projects with which to proceed at our discretion. We keep moving.
With the discovery of another Pylon does the first expedition end. The ship lands on Dongwan to unload its cargo and refuel. I decide to check on the new proposals before continuing.
I greenlight the former one. The later one is far away from us at the moment. I return to Hyomin to send resources to Jiyeon. From Raina I send resources to Nana. Then I reconfigure the local laboratories to try and satisfy the project's needs. I check Gaea's Mercator to find a scary sight.
Then I go back to Gamma 1 and proceed with the second expedition. We descend on F0.
This might be one of the weapons the Tantalus' fleet was sacrificed to destroy. We keep going. On A0 we find another pylon. On A2 we make another significative discovery.
With our empire growing to acquire greater autonomy for our ships is paramount.
We come across a pylon on C2 and a disencouraging find on D4.
It seems missiles may as well be useless against the sporeship. This pretty much takes our battle plan back to square one.
As I am leaving the sector Patel comes to me with an announcement to make.
Are you insane? Would the game allow me to do so I would have her shot right were she stands. We proceed to F4 and find another pylon. Then we advance to G4. What we find here might be the most important discovery of the journey.
We will check this once the expedition is over. We advance to G6.
The current visit finish on G7. Another pylon.
Exploring the sporeship is pushing SCIENCE! ahead at an incredible rate. We will need of a very long time to proceed with all the research proposals we are obtaining. The ship returns to Dongwan. I move to JR and turn one of the robot factories offline as the level one habitats are not enough to support the facilities as they are now. I then send the local ship to check the signal. Upon finding the sector we are received by a quite pretty view. After admiring it for a little while we proceed with the mission.
That done I send the ship in Dongwan back to the surface.
It took me a while to react and understand what did happen. I did forgot to select Romanov as the pilot. The game seems to always default to robots. It does also take the chance to act like if I were an imbecile. I do deserve it.
I send Vehicle 1 from So Yul to Dongwan. I do remember to give it a human pilot for this flight. Then I move to Ellin. I have been pondering on the reasons why only some colonies can build upgraded habitats and I believe I did get it. Patel comes to interrupt my research.
I decide to take the opportunity to review those proposals I did ignore earlier.
I start the research projects on the H'riak box and the new mathematical hypothesis. As I do so Antonelli comes to speak with me.
I fail to see the unprecedented discovery about mankind's origin. Human genetics are dissimilar to both the Beta Caelians and the Centaurians. If we take into consideration both the Beta Caelians and the Centaurians were created based on H'riak genetics it means humans are not a H'riak creation. How much do we know about mankind's origins did remain constant.
This however gives us a clue to a much more immediate problem. The H'riak are taking us for enemies and attacking us even when we did not take any kind of hostile action against them. We did not even launch a counter-attack after they did begin to attack us. They did not try to contact us at all. They did act just like the Centaurians did.
Is this because the H'riak take us as inherently hostile? Based on all the clues we did found so far the H'riak are long gone from Beta Caeli. They are maybe gone for good. From everywhere. Are the automated systems the H'riak left behind detecting us as hostile based on their programing alone? If so this would mean the systems are either programed to consider all targets not descended from the H'riak as hostiles or that humans are being detected as hostiles because humans descend from the Empiant.
This comes to explain why the Centaurians did wage a genocide war against humanity without provocation and without even trying to establish contact first. They were either being controlled by the H'riak as the Beta Caelians are or they were programed to do so on a genetic level.
All this leads us to a single conclussion. The H'riak sporeship is programed to destroy us. The descendants from the H'riak may be programed to destroy us. Diplomacy is not going to help us with this. We will have to decide whether we want to abandon the terrestrial planets to the H'riak lifeforms or to wage a war against them. Even if we leave we have to deal with a fourteen kilometers long starship that wants to destroy us. We have enough evidence to conclude the only reason it has yet to attack us is because the Tantalus' fleet did destroy its weapons. I have no idea about how we are going to destroy that thing.
But even if we leave the terrestrial planets we will only delay the inevitable. I doubt the H'riak did create the Beta Caelians to be nothing more than huge animals. With the Centaurians as a precedent it is at least possible they will become sentient in the future. The idea of a horde of giant rampaging monsters with battleships and advanced weapons is not one I do find agreeable. The logical thing to do is to neutralize them now.
This should be our priority from now on. First we will try to cut the signal from the sporeship. If they become docile again it does means than to kill us is not a genetical imperative and we can leave them be. If they do not we have to kill them all.
But then there is another problem to ponder. We are sitting in the middle of a very ancient intergalactic war between two humongous empires. We did previously found clues about a second alien ship being present in the system. Its modus operandi did seem different to the H'riak sporeship. It did remain in the outer system, it did not engage the humans in battle, and its presence did seem to cause strange psychological effects on people. Given most of the outer planets are gas giants they could well be the Empiant. The Empiant come from a gas giant and from the description they may possess psychic abilities. We should remind this is we are to engage them in battle. We should use robotic pilots instead of human ones against them.
We do know they are sentient. They might be open to dialogue. We did not found any evidence of hostile behaviour on their part. They might be humanity's creators. If so we are fine. I hope. But according to the H'riak they are crystalline being. That does not sound like Humans. If they are not humanity's creators it means the H'riak are a race of sociopathic paranoid assholes who consider hostile anything not created by them. The Empiant may also be a race of sociopathic paranoid assholes. We do not know. A three way war is more than we can chew. We do not even know what to do with a two way one.
There is also the point that both the H'riak and the Empiant are humongous empires. The sporeship was launched almost two billions years ago. For all we know both empires may be in ruins. Or we could be getting a fully functional and much more advanced sporeship arriving at any time. Or worse.
To top it all off we still have the Centaurians to worry about. The latest revelations turn my previously stated hope that they might have forgotten about us into wishful thinking. They are the rampaging biota with warships and advanced weapons we do not want the Beta Caelians to become in the future. We could have an entire fleet of them tailing us.
Beta Caeli is probably going to turn into a bloodbath before the end.
But for now it is time to go back to tending my colonies. I move to JR and notice we can now upgrade the local habitats to level two. I do start upgrading one of them. I am informed a research project is ready and awaiting review. Two, in fact.
Nice.
Not nice.
The habitat upgrades becoming available on JR finally makes me understand the system. Those become available when the population reaches a certain milestone. I jump from a colony to the next checking the numbers. All the colonies able to upgrade their habitats to level two have over two hundred inhabitants. The Calypso is able to upgrade them to level three and has over four hundred inhabitants. Colonies ten inhabitants short from having two hundred are unable to upgrade. I have my Eureka! moment. Habitat upgrades become available when the colony reaches a milestone of two hundred inhabitants!
Then I do notice Hyomin and Eunjung do not fit this pattern. How can it be? They are slightly short from the two hundred inhabitants milestone. Why? Was I wrong? I am pondering this on Hyomin when all of a sudden all facilities turn red. The power on the entire colony went out in an instant. All of a sudden it comes back. After a few instants it does go out again. I do not understand.
Then I do notice there is no ship on Hyomin. This is absurd! All of my colonies have at least one ship for its own exclusive use!
Then it hits me. I run to my PDA. Two hundred and fifty five colonists dead. This is without reason. Why should we have casualties? We have not been attacked. We have not lost any ship with a human pilot. Four ships lost. One ship was destroyed when approaching Beta 3 because the sporeship's signals dud interfere with the robotic pilot. A second ship was destroyed in the same way when taking off from Dongwan. The other two must have been colonial ships. More than three thousand biota have been killed by our defenses. Three thousand!
I panic. I go to the Mercator. A sea of green receives me. The rampaging Biotas are everywhere. They are launching themselves at our shields by the dozens. Maybe the creatures are overpowering the shields. Maybe the shield only alleviates the damage instead of absorving it all. I have seen the power outages that follow each attack with my own eyes. Maybe the shields can only protect from a single attack at a time and with the creatures being so many it is inevitable several groups will occasionally launch their assaults at the same time. I do not know the reason but we are losing colonists and landed spacecraft.
There are no more ships in Hyomin. Eunjung has one. I hope it will be enough.
He goes in a bloody rampage. He only stops to refuel the spaceship. Along the way he collects any resources he does find in the battlefield and does some field research. Before long the area around Eunjung is cleansed. He moves to Hyomin.
With Hyomin free from immediate danger he flies back to Eunjung to remove the stragglers.
Then he returns to Hyomin and finishes the job..
Soon no enemy contacts are left in the map. The Gaean colonists are safe for the time being. I land the ship on Hyomin and move to Rhea. The attacks there have yet to reach the magnitude of those on Gaea. Only three groups of rampaging biota are to be seen in the Mercator map. I dispatch a couple of ships to clean up. By the end of the day the kill count has gone to over five thousand xenos.
I move to Hyomin. The attacks have left the colony underpopulated. I have to deactivate several facilities to keep things running smoothly. I send one of the two ships on Geum Mi to Eunjung. Then I send resources to Nana and Jiyeon from their respective planets.
I move to JR. I deactivate the anti meteor gun to start upgrading a second habitat. I go to Dongwan. Vehicle 1 has already arrived. I send Romanov to the surface. Only a few anomalies remain. On C5 we come across another pylon. On B7 we find a curious excavation marker. On A7 we come across the last pylon.
And with Romanov returning to Dongwan this chapter comes to a close.
No one will be able to say The Captain did not try everything in her power to initiate contact with the H'riak. She did instruct the colonies under attack to do nothing but defend themselves. She did sacrifice two hundred and fifty colonists and two starships in doing so. She did not attack the planetary pylons. She did not attack the sporeship's pylons. Romanov did visit every site on the sporeship with a proverbial white flag. Nothing did work. They may be dead. They may not care.
We did not cause the war by invading Beta Caeli. We are fighting the same war that did destroy Earth. The Centaurians did nothing but to act as the H'riak did control or engineer them to do. Centaurians and Beta Caelians are nothing but pawns to the H'riak. They did destroy Earth. Whether Humans are descendants of the Empiant or the H'riat are a species of sociopathic paranoid assholes while descendants of the H'riak remain Humanity will never be safe. The Lord only knows how many sporeships are out there. And how many of their descendants have already developed space travel.
The Captain's conscience is at peace. To risk more would be to ignore noblesse obligue. That would be unladylike.
I need the antimatter warhead. It may be enough to destroy the sporeship. It may be not. Once I have it I will send Romanov to destroy the pylons on the sporeship. If this does not stop the rampaging biota I will have to use the plague.
Or should I do it the other way around? Genocide does not feel right. Yet our enemies did try that one on us already. We would be but playing by their rules. It is amusing not long ago I did want Patel shot for suggesting genocide. And we can start research on the plague without further delay.
The last thing I want is to raise the stakes. A direct attack on the sporeship may do so. Genociding its protegees may do so as well. This is what it means to be between the devil and the deep blue sea. When did this story became so grimdark?
God I love this game.
eh... this font is mesmerizing... so crisp... that faintly reddish green... the glyphs, they call out to me...
SO MANY CHOICES
I'd still say destroy all the damn pylons first. But who knows what it may lead to? It's a mystery, yay!
I'd still say destroy all the damn pylons first. But who knows what it may lead to? It's a mystery, yay!
Well, yes, destroying the signal source seems like the most direct choice - there are many more receivers (both pylons and biota) than the emitters... However, previous records do indicate that such attacks could come with a high cost, both in unknown built-in defenses and increased biota aggression... Still, that seems the most prudent choice, if possible. Blowing the whole iron asteroid up might become necessary (if it's even possible), but much better to cripple its capability to ruin our impeccably placed and aesthetically superb colonies and mine its vaults of ancient tech indistinguishable from magic... Which would serve us well in our future encounters with those unwashed Centaurians et al
It is as I said. Only the strong can be merciful and you are not strong enough. Prepare and strike.
I am not sure about the plague though, it does say the scientists arent sure if it can affect humans or mutate to affect humans. Cant you use classic means like plasma/lasers/missiles/anti matter to deal with the problem? No reason to go biological right away. We breath the same air after all.
BTW can non Terran colonies be self sufficient? Do they produce all required resources? If yes I dont see reasons why not move all population there.
I am not sure about the plague though, it does say the scientists arent sure if it can affect humans or mutate to affect humans. Cant you use classic means like plasma/lasers/missiles/anti matter to deal with the problem? No reason to go biological right away. We breath the same air after all.
BTW can non Terran colonies be self sufficient? Do they produce all required resources? If yes I dont see reasons why not move all population there.
lightbane
Arcane
- Joined
- Dec 27, 2008
- Messages
- 10,205
Dammit, I wish I knew how I could extract this awesome green font...
The Hriaks seem to be good at genetical engineering, I'd say using plague against them can be suicidal. And killing biota the usual way seems to work for now. I think the priority for now is to disable the signal source.
Also - we know the second ship will probably arrive, it's probably enemy of Hriaks, and we know Hriaks are dead, and so far we are able to deal with Hriaks. Maybe we should wait for the enemies of Hriak to arrive - better if they will deal with each other before we face the survivor.
Also - we know the second ship will probably arrive, it's probably enemy of Hriaks, and we know Hriaks are dead, and so far we are able to deal with Hriaks. Maybe we should wait for the enemies of Hriak to arrive - better if they will deal with each other before we face the survivor.
Bloodshifter
Educated
Aye the spore ship is the director here in this play I am sorry at your lost but if we can stop the signal or better yet alter it then we could in theory stop the attacks.
Use the plague as a last resort we know the sporeship can somehow rebuild the Pylons on the surface so destroying those won't help.
Cut the signal from the ship if you feel the need to start nuking things.
For god sakes leave the planetside Pylons alone they may be the only way to tame the wee beasties!
I am surprised that your Military hasn't stepped up on those 'mechanical' defences yet.
Use the plague as a last resort we know the sporeship can somehow rebuild the Pylons on the surface so destroying those won't help.
Cut the signal from the ship if you feel the need to start nuking things.
For god sakes leave the planetside Pylons alone they may be the only way to tame the wee beasties!
I am surprised that your Military hasn't stepped up on those 'mechanical' defences yet.
Cool name
Arcane
- Joined
- Oct 14, 2012
- Messages
- 2,147
For those who are currently playing the game themselves it seems I did track down the cause for both the power outages and the casualties.
Thus the shields are useful but less than ideal. Sending a starship to hunt down the rampaging biota is far more useful. It is also terribly boring.
The shields do not nullify the damage. They only reduce it. Every time a group of rampaging biota assaults a colony it will lose some resources at random in the battle. It can lose ore, energy, life support, robots, colonists, or spaceships. If many attacks come at the same time you can find that a colony that had just a few of a given resource while still producing just enough to keep the installations running, usually life support on my colonies, will have too little in reserve to keep the facilities running. Some facilities will shut down by lack of the resource until the corresponding installations will produce more. The shield itself may be shut down in this way.
Thus the shields are useful but less than ideal. Sending a starship to hunt down the rampaging biota is far more useful. It is also terribly boring.
Bloodshifter
Educated
Oh my and here I was hoping that the shields are fricking bullet proof those shields are next to useless then sigh btw any chance with your men actually studying the Pylons?
Cool name
Arcane
- Joined
- Oct 14, 2012
- Messages
- 2,147
@ Jasede:
I am truly honored. Your own warhammer Let's Play I consider some of the best content the playground did generate.
The question's answer would be both yes and no. For the most part she was just an extremely over the top and obnoxious character I did play for my own enrichment and reasons. But I do not longer need her nor find amusement in playing her. It is my hope for her just to sleep in a deep recess of my mind for the time being.
@ Bloodshifter:
They do not seem to be very interested in doing so. It is my hope we will be able to discover more about the sporeship, the H'riak, and the pylons once the signal is taken care of. As I write this I am hopefully a mere 30 turns away from this.
@ Malakal:
In theory the colonies should be able to be self sufficient. There is however the matter with what we were told at the beginning of the game about how we should keep active two habitats on Gaea at all times for some reason or another. That aside we do not have the infrastructure to move all the resources and colonists from the terrestrial colonies in a reasonable amount of time, not to mention all of our labs are on Gaea and Rhea. Sad as it is we will have to either pacify the creatures or kill them.
I am truly honored. Your own warhammer Let's Play I consider some of the best content the playground did generate.
The question's answer would be both yes and no. For the most part she was just an extremely over the top and obnoxious character I did play for my own enrichment and reasons. But I do not longer need her nor find amusement in playing her. It is my hope for her just to sleep in a deep recess of my mind for the time being.
@ Bloodshifter:
They do not seem to be very interested in doing so. It is my hope we will be able to discover more about the sporeship, the H'riak, and the pylons once the signal is taken care of. As I write this I am hopefully a mere 30 turns away from this.
@ Malakal:
In theory the colonies should be able to be self sufficient. There is however the matter with what we were told at the beginning of the game about how we should keep active two habitats on Gaea at all times for some reason or another. That aside we do not have the infrastructure to move all the resources and colonists from the terrestrial colonies in a reasonable amount of time, not to mention all of our labs are on Gaea and Rhea. Sad as it is we will have to either pacify the creatures or kill them.
Cool name
Arcane
- Joined
- Oct 14, 2012
- Messages
- 2,147
XII. The signal stops.
As the present episode does begin I spend some time in administrative tasks across all of our colonies. My focus is on upgrading the installations. During this time two research projects did conclude.
Our previous victory over the local lifeforms is a short lived one. Before long they did began massing again. A new series of attacks against us were soon carried out.
I do carefully consider my options. The plague is tempting in how easy it is to start research on it but it does feel terribly wrong and inhumane. To strike the sporeship's pylons would probably stop the signal but we do know little of its capabilities and I am doubtful we would be able to stop it were it to go berserk. After a bit of consideration I decide to look for a third option. We did previously find some notes about how a plaque found in the asteroid may be the key to stop the signal. We did also find an excavation marker leading us to a still unexplored location on Gaea's surface. Could this be were the plaque was taken for study? I decide to check it out.
The new ship I sent to Eunjung has arrived. I send it out. For the time being I ignore the biota massing around the colony and fly to K34. These are the coordinates we did find about on the excavation market. We find the item in question as well as what did survive of the research on it.
We are studying the alien plaque we found. So far we cannot puzzle out their language. Perhaps a mathematical analysis of the script will help us translate it.
The ship is sent to attack the enemy groups closer to the colony and then returns. I visit the technology interface to find a new project to study the alien language.
I do greenlight it along the project to duplicate the H'riak's furnace. In Rhea I send Raina's ship to attack the nearby biota. The same I do on Lizzy afterwards. They just keep coming.
I pay attention to the colonies on Ares and Hermes. The balancing act on these two colonies is getting quite involved. In Ellin I find the first level three factory done.
I decide to check on my advisors.
I'm certain we will learn many new things from studying the alien disks. We should send more exploration teams back to the ship, sir.
Alien computer systems from which to extrapolate, sir! Many advantage to be gained from continued examination of the alien vessel, sir.
We did loot everything we did found so far.
We've been lucky so far, sir. I still recommend blowing the alien ship into dust.
To at least have the means to do so would make me a happier Captain.
The surface of the alien ship looks like it has suffered massive damage quite recently, sir. It is possible that the TANTALUS colonists tried to destroy it.
They did try. They did only manage to destroy its weapons. This may be the reason we are able to explore its surface so freely.
I can't detect anything that resembles weapons on that alien vessel, sir. But just because I can't detect them doesn't mean they're not there.
Not to mention to be rammed by it would be no laughing matter.
Something must be controlling the movements of the attacking creatures, sir. Their attacks are too well coordinated to be random.
The stress might have caused a short term memory loss on her.
Even though the transfer would be difficult, we should think about moving all of our colonies to the non-terrestrial worlds. Our habitats are self-sufficient and can raise the crops we need to feed our people.
Difficult does not begin to describe the situation.
We should blast the hostile creatures out of existence whenever they mass to attack, sir. We must maintain our spacecraft fleet at full capacity.
If we had more manpower, we could attack the creatures on the ground as well as bombing them.
We can continue bombing the hostile life forms with our ships, sir, but I don't think we can ever succeed in destroying them all by brute force. There must be something else we can do to stop the attacks.
If there is one the plaque the Tantalus' colonists did find in the asteroid is the key.
The destruction the creatures are causing is considerable. All those resources wasted!
We have to destroy the terrestrial life forms before they kill us. Hit them with everything we have, Captain!
Quite the bloodthirsty little egghead you did turn out to be.
Saving our colonists is our first priority, Captain.
I move to Raina. After deciding to upgrade a local power station I send the ship out. The locals are trying my patience.
After another one sided battle I check the damage report on my PDA. According to this we have lost 325 colonists, 9 robots, and 5 ships. The numbers have gone up since the previous chapter. I decide to check where did the attack took place. Eunjung is once again without a starship. I send a new ship from Zeus.
To lose a starship does put me in a bad mood. I send all the ships on Gaea and Rhea out. The mission is to exterminate anything that looks like a group of rampaging biota. I want the surface clean. I am fed up with having to check the surface every five minutes just to check where is an attack about to happen so that I can preemptively strike there. As expected it is a massacre.
I move to JR and order a new habitat to be upgraded to level two. From Ellin I send a ship there to take 20 robots. Then I go back to hunting stragglers and survivors on Gaea and Rhea. Soon afterward I move to Geum Mi and upgrade both a power plant and a factory.
On Lizzy I do the same with a single factory. I send the ship on JR to get 20 robots from JR. The ship on Lizzy goes out to hunt more of the rampaging Biota. There are few contacts left in the surface of Rhea. A short while later one of the research projects does finish.
This will be useful if we do find live aliens during our adventures.
We are trying to translate the alien messages we discovered on the spacecraft. The Translation Constant provides us with a solid methodology for discovering the internal logic of the alien language.
A new proposal did become available.
As I did suspect the plaque was the key to finding a way to solve the crisis that did require neither genocide nor an attack on the sporeship. I order the project started without further delay. Now I only need to keep Rhea and Gaea safe until it is done.
I send the ship on Hyomin to get 20 robots from JongMin. I go from colony to colony to check the situation, balance the consumption, and upgrade facilities there where I can. Williams comes to me with a report.
Captain, our scientists are interested in investigating how the physical properties of quarks can be altered by overcoming the strong and weak nuclear forces that bond them. A proposal related to this theory is listed in the Tech Manager.
I check the proposal.
While I am checking the report Wu comes to me.
Captain, we will be accruing data on Cronus for a short time after which, a full report will be presented to you.
I wonder why this sudden interest on Cronus. I fear plot progression is nearing a new milestone. Cronus is a gas giant. The solution of the terrestrial worlds' crisis is at hand. All this put together probably means the Empiant are about to make an entrance.
Almost immediately the Calypso did reach Zeus.
My plan for Zeus is to establish the siphoning station we were asked to build so long ago. Seum Mi and Ellin will provide resources for the siphoning station and the Calypso's own factories. The mothership's industrial capabilities will be expanded for as long as the local colonies will be able to satisfy them. I want the Calypso to be building its own missiles, robots, and ships.
It is my belief that as long as their engines are not far better than our own anyone trying to reach the inner planets from the outer worlds will have to pass by Zeus. This does make to have our mothership and flaship there be either very stupid and very smart. Time will decide which one it is.
Geum Mi sends 150 ore to the mothership and starts construction of a fourth level two habitat. On Rhea I begin to upgrade another of Lizzy's power plants to level three. Ellin sends its ship to get 150 colonists from the Calypso. Once the resources from Geum Mi are on the mothership I am finally able to restart all the facilities there.
Patel comes to give me a new report.
Captain, Doctor McAulay, our xenobiologist, was able to extract a verbal segment from that memory device we located on Gamma 1. The segment clearly describes the aliens we're encountering from Cronus!
Why am I never informed of anything? This is a great game but it is really in need of better feedback.
According to the 'tape,' and Doctor McAulay agrees, these creatures are the Empiants - nemesis to the creators of Gamma 1!
Could it be our space station on Cronus did catch the signal of a starship moving nearby? Yet there is no such thing on the map right now.
Back on the Calypso I begin to upgrade one of the remaining level two power plants. I send one of the ships on the mothership to get 150 ore from Geum Mi. I send another to So Yul with 10 ore, 10 energy, 10 life support, and 10 robots so that I can build the habitat of what will soon become our siphoning station. Then I move to Hyomin and upgrade one of the laboratories to level two. With the surface free of hostile contacts I send the ship on Eunjung to get 150 colonists from the Calypso.
Soon afterwards Patel comes to see me again.
Dr.Miguel banos believes he can create a high-temperature superconductor. Our successes in previous endeavors have pointed him to new methodologies.
I will check the proposal. She has more to say.
Captain, our research teams are requesting authorization to upgrade the current Research Labs they are using. The new equipment and larger area would aid in their efforts to focus or top people on new innovations.
It may be we did reach a new research milestone and are now able to upgrade our laboratories up to level four. We are still in the process of upgrade our old laboratories to level two. I sincerely hope they are not without impatience.
I go check the new proposal.
While I am in the the black hole furnace project is completed.
Every bonus our production receives is a reason for celebration. I am about to go check on my colonies and starships when I receive a phone call.
From the Empiants.
This is a complex situation. I do not know whether I should be making a joke along the lines of "Get our diplomats in schoolgirl regalia ASAP." or one along the lines of "It's Blasto! Everyone run for their lives!" In any case this is a good time to update my status. How does "Sitting right in the middle of a billions of years old intergalactic war" sound?
Did you receive that message from the Emptians, Captain? Remarkable! Obviously they have broken our vidphone channels, although their form of communication is so foreign that I cannot begin to translate it, as the unreadable text in the vidphone demonstrates.
It am affraid to have our communication channels be hacked by an alien race we know next to nothing about has less to do with remarkable and more to do with being more or less doomed to painful extinction.
Captain, these Emptians seem to be an intelligent and advanced race. It's conceivable that they too may be here as pioneers colonizing a new system. That may mean they send probes and scouting missions to planets as we do. Who knows? Perhaps we may yet stumble upon an Empiant colony out here.
That they did send us a message might mean they are peaceful and willing to open dialogue with us. Yet as long as we neither know the contents of the message nor are able to communicate with them we should be extremely careful and try not to do anything that could be misinterpreted. We are not trying to save the flora and fauna from the terrestrial planets from anihilation just to wage a war against a sentient species over a misunderstanding.
I decide to check on my advisors. I do not understand what they are saying.
The riddle of the TANTALUS is solved. Captain Johannson's decision to dismantle the TANTALUS and take its engine to Gaea was quite inventive, if not overly dangerous. I suggest we do not take any such action. I will miss being in your service, sir.
Please allow me to ask. Did I miss something important?
Sir, our best ships can criss-cross this system in no time flat. We should begin exploring all of the planets as thoroughly as possible. I'm quite anxious to find any bits and pieces of the TANTALUS legacy that's lingering behind.
I am affraid to say I do not understand what are you trying to say. Our current starships do have a very small autonomy compared to the space they have to cover.
A job well done, sir. We can put up more colonies at our discretion, but for us, well, our mission is accomplished; with flying colors I might add!
Why is everyone acting as if we had just won the game?
Hmph! To be left behind after all this! Well, I guess it's only fair. I mean our lives were doomed to end here anyway thanks to the cryogenic process we've been using.
I do not think I am following you.
Well sir, we have an entire system at our disposal. We might as well begin filling the various planets with our colonies. There are, undoubtedly, many things waiting for us out here.
Have I gone insane? Have they? Am I all of a sudden the only one who remembers the rampaging biota, the almost two billion years old spaceship who wants us dead, and the Empiants making an appearance all of five minutes ago? Why is everyone babbling nonsense that does sound as if we were about to embark in free play mode? Did I manage to break the game?
Start making sense! That's a direct order!
They do start making sense once we do ask them for advice. Whatever did just happen only affects their comments on our current situation and not the advice they give.
I am picking unusual readings near the gas giants, sir. We should send a probe out to Cronus to check out the situation.
The readings seem to include signatures from spacecraft engines, sir. However, the exhaust products are not the same as ours.
Strange energy signatures; pulsating waves similar to human alpha and theta brain waves. We must probe Cronus immediately and conduct a full sensor sweep.
We should send more spacecraft to the gas giants to protect the outer worlds. If there are aliens present, we should try to communicate peacefully with them.
I don't think any of our senior officers should leave the ship until we have more information about the gas giant disturbance.
It is clear they all want me to send a starship to Cronus as soon as possible. Yet the distance between Zeus and Cronus is presently beyond what our ships are able to cover. I move to Raina and decide to upgrade one of their habitats to level two. The ship I had sent to So Yul has already arrived. I order a habitat built there. On Hyomin I decide to dismantle a power plant to try and build a new habitat. Then I decide it might be a better idea to later bring more colonists from the Calypso so that the colony unlocks the next level of habitats. The dismantling of the power plant can't be cancelled. I decide to upgrade a different power plant to balance for the loss.
On the Calypso I start to upgrade a habitat to level four and the last level two power plant to level three. From Ellin 150 ore are sent to the mothership. Geum Mi upgrades the remaining level two factory to level three. I send 50 colonists from the Calypso to Ellin and begin to upgrade to level three one of the mothership's factories.
In JongMin I begin to upgrade to level two one of the habitats. I made a mistake previously when I did send too many ships to take robots from JongMin's stockpile. Many of those had been built in their factories precisely for this very purpose but others were the ones left without a job when I was forced to shut down many of JongMin facilities after I did switch the factories from robots to missiles did change the colony's consumption of resources. Now I am unable to turn back on the installations as few robots are left. I send 20 from the Calypso.
A few moments later Wu comes to report the project to stop the signal is complete.
Sir, we should get the Transponder Muffler out to Gamma 1 as quickly as we can! When you're ready, sir, you may launch one of our vessels from the CALYPSO on the TRANS MUFFLER mission. Once the ship reaches GAMMA 1, and with a little luck, we will be able to squelch the destructive signals emanating from the asteroid.
Good. I order Romanov to return to the Calypso carrying all resources, colonists, and robots left on Dongwan. Then I send a ship with a human pilot to Gamma 1 on the Trans Muffler mission. We are almost done with the signal.
I send Hyomin's ship to get 150 colonists from the mothership. No new groups of rampaging biota have appeared on Gaea since the last massacre. A few ones have appeared on Rhea. I send Raina's ship to deal with them. Once the "battle" is over I send the ship to get 150 colonists from the Calypso.
On JR I start to upgrade both a factory and a power plant to level three. I did save scientific resources for a while and am now able to greenlight the anti-matter related proposal. It takes almost all I had. I move to the terrestrial worlds' colonies to reconfigure the laboratories. As we lack resources on every discipline I set one of them to each discipline each and the three that remain to those disciplines of which we require a greater amount to initiate the project to upgrade our spacecrafts' armor. I start to upgrade a laboratory on Eunjung to level two. I also begin to upgrade another of the Calypso's factories to level three and a level three habitat to level four.
On Ellin I upgrade the remaining factory to level three and a habitat to level two as the colonists the colony did receive did serve to unlock the second level. I send Eunjung's ship to get 20 robots from JR. More enemy contacts do appear on Rhea's surface. Lizzy's ship is sent to deal with them. Hyomin upgrades its second laboratory to level two. Raina does the same.
I receive a call.
Captain, the biota crisis appears to be over. All attacks that were massing near our colonies have completely disbanded. The biota are no longer a threat.
As I hang up Romanov, recently returned from Dongwan, reports to me.
Captain, we have set up the Transponder Muffler at Gamma 1. It appears to be working sir, the signals from the asteroid are growing much weaker. It should be safe to send vehicles with robotic pilots and crew members to the asteroid at this time.
At last. He has another report to give.
Captain, our sensors have detected a massive flux of power in the Beta Asteroids, as if a spacecraft had just become active. We will let you know if we discover anything further.
Please do.
The Captain is finally able to smile and relax. She did manage to avert the crisis on the terrestrial worlds while staying in the moral high ground. The colonies are currently being developed at a good rate. Missiles are being stockpiled. The siphoning station on zeus is being built. Our science teams did finish researching most of the currently available proposals. We still have to deal with the Empiants and discover the nature of the power flux but the situation does not look bad right now.
I do check the damage report.
It could have been worse.
Our previous victory over the local lifeforms is a short lived one. Before long they did began massing again. A new series of attacks against us were soon carried out.
I do carefully consider my options. The plague is tempting in how easy it is to start research on it but it does feel terribly wrong and inhumane. To strike the sporeship's pylons would probably stop the signal but we do know little of its capabilities and I am doubtful we would be able to stop it were it to go berserk. After a bit of consideration I decide to look for a third option. We did previously find some notes about how a plaque found in the asteroid may be the key to stop the signal. We did also find an excavation marker leading us to a still unexplored location on Gaea's surface. Could this be were the plaque was taken for study? I decide to check it out.
The new ship I sent to Eunjung has arrived. I send it out. For the time being I ignore the biota massing around the colony and fly to K34. These are the coordinates we did find about on the excavation market. We find the item in question as well as what did survive of the research on it.
The ship is sent to attack the enemy groups closer to the colony and then returns. I visit the technology interface to find a new project to study the alien language.
I do greenlight it along the project to duplicate the H'riak's furnace. In Rhea I send Raina's ship to attack the nearby biota. The same I do on Lizzy afterwards. They just keep coming.
I pay attention to the colonies on Ares and Hermes. The balancing act on these two colonies is getting quite involved. In Ellin I find the first level three factory done.
I decide to check on my advisors.
We did loot everything we did found so far.
To at least have the means to do so would make me a happier Captain.
They did try. They did only manage to destroy its weapons. This may be the reason we are able to explore its surface so freely.
Not to mention to be rammed by it would be no laughing matter.
The stress might have caused a short term memory loss on her.
Difficult does not begin to describe the situation.
If there is one the plaque the Tantalus' colonists did find in the asteroid is the key.
Quite the bloodthirsty little egghead you did turn out to be.
I move to Raina. After deciding to upgrade a local power station I send the ship out. The locals are trying my patience.
After another one sided battle I check the damage report on my PDA. According to this we have lost 325 colonists, 9 robots, and 5 ships. The numbers have gone up since the previous chapter. I decide to check where did the attack took place. Eunjung is once again without a starship. I send a new ship from Zeus.
To lose a starship does put me in a bad mood. I send all the ships on Gaea and Rhea out. The mission is to exterminate anything that looks like a group of rampaging biota. I want the surface clean. I am fed up with having to check the surface every five minutes just to check where is an attack about to happen so that I can preemptively strike there. As expected it is a massacre.
I move to JR and order a new habitat to be upgraded to level two. From Ellin I send a ship there to take 20 robots. Then I go back to hunting stragglers and survivors on Gaea and Rhea. Soon afterward I move to Geum Mi and upgrade both a power plant and a factory.
On Lizzy I do the same with a single factory. I send the ship on JR to get 20 robots from JR. The ship on Lizzy goes out to hunt more of the rampaging Biota. There are few contacts left in the surface of Rhea. A short while later one of the research projects does finish.
This will be useful if we do find live aliens during our adventures.
A new proposal did become available.
As I did suspect the plaque was the key to finding a way to solve the crisis that did require neither genocide nor an attack on the sporeship. I order the project started without further delay. Now I only need to keep Rhea and Gaea safe until it is done.
I send the ship on Hyomin to get 20 robots from JongMin. I go from colony to colony to check the situation, balance the consumption, and upgrade facilities there where I can. Williams comes to me with a report.
I check the proposal.
While I am checking the report Wu comes to me.
I wonder why this sudden interest on Cronus. I fear plot progression is nearing a new milestone. Cronus is a gas giant. The solution of the terrestrial worlds' crisis is at hand. All this put together probably means the Empiant are about to make an entrance.
Almost immediately the Calypso did reach Zeus.
My plan for Zeus is to establish the siphoning station we were asked to build so long ago. Seum Mi and Ellin will provide resources for the siphoning station and the Calypso's own factories. The mothership's industrial capabilities will be expanded for as long as the local colonies will be able to satisfy them. I want the Calypso to be building its own missiles, robots, and ships.
It is my belief that as long as their engines are not far better than our own anyone trying to reach the inner planets from the outer worlds will have to pass by Zeus. This does make to have our mothership and flaship there be either very stupid and very smart. Time will decide which one it is.
Geum Mi sends 150 ore to the mothership and starts construction of a fourth level two habitat. On Rhea I begin to upgrade another of Lizzy's power plants to level three. Ellin sends its ship to get 150 colonists from the Calypso. Once the resources from Geum Mi are on the mothership I am finally able to restart all the facilities there.
Patel comes to give me a new report.
Why am I never informed of anything? This is a great game but it is really in need of better feedback.
Could it be our space station on Cronus did catch the signal of a starship moving nearby? Yet there is no such thing on the map right now.
Back on the Calypso I begin to upgrade one of the remaining level two power plants. I send one of the ships on the mothership to get 150 ore from Geum Mi. I send another to So Yul with 10 ore, 10 energy, 10 life support, and 10 robots so that I can build the habitat of what will soon become our siphoning station. Then I move to Hyomin and upgrade one of the laboratories to level two. With the surface free of hostile contacts I send the ship on Eunjung to get 150 colonists from the Calypso.
Soon afterwards Patel comes to see me again.
I will check the proposal. She has more to say.
It may be we did reach a new research milestone and are now able to upgrade our laboratories up to level four. We are still in the process of upgrade our old laboratories to level two. I sincerely hope they are not without impatience.
I go check the new proposal.
While I am in the the black hole furnace project is completed.
Every bonus our production receives is a reason for celebration. I am about to go check on my colonies and starships when I receive a phone call.
From the Empiants.
It am affraid to have our communication channels be hacked by an alien race we know next to nothing about has less to do with remarkable and more to do with being more or less doomed to painful extinction.
That they did send us a message might mean they are peaceful and willing to open dialogue with us. Yet as long as we neither know the contents of the message nor are able to communicate with them we should be extremely careful and try not to do anything that could be misinterpreted. We are not trying to save the flora and fauna from the terrestrial planets from anihilation just to wage a war against a sentient species over a misunderstanding.
I decide to check on my advisors. I do not understand what they are saying.
Please allow me to ask. Did I miss something important?
I am affraid to say I do not understand what are you trying to say. Our current starships do have a very small autonomy compared to the space they have to cover.
Why is everyone acting as if we had just won the game?
I do not think I am following you.
Have I gone insane? Have they? Am I all of a sudden the only one who remembers the rampaging biota, the almost two billion years old spaceship who wants us dead, and the Empiants making an appearance all of five minutes ago? Why is everyone babbling nonsense that does sound as if we were about to embark in free play mode? Did I manage to break the game?
They do start making sense once we do ask them for advice. Whatever did just happen only affects their comments on our current situation and not the advice they give.
It is clear they all want me to send a starship to Cronus as soon as possible. Yet the distance between Zeus and Cronus is presently beyond what our ships are able to cover. I move to Raina and decide to upgrade one of their habitats to level two. The ship I had sent to So Yul has already arrived. I order a habitat built there. On Hyomin I decide to dismantle a power plant to try and build a new habitat. Then I decide it might be a better idea to later bring more colonists from the Calypso so that the colony unlocks the next level of habitats. The dismantling of the power plant can't be cancelled. I decide to upgrade a different power plant to balance for the loss.
On the Calypso I start to upgrade a habitat to level four and the last level two power plant to level three. From Ellin 150 ore are sent to the mothership. Geum Mi upgrades the remaining level two factory to level three. I send 50 colonists from the Calypso to Ellin and begin to upgrade to level three one of the mothership's factories.
In JongMin I begin to upgrade to level two one of the habitats. I made a mistake previously when I did send too many ships to take robots from JongMin's stockpile. Many of those had been built in their factories precisely for this very purpose but others were the ones left without a job when I was forced to shut down many of JongMin facilities after I did switch the factories from robots to missiles did change the colony's consumption of resources. Now I am unable to turn back on the installations as few robots are left. I send 20 from the Calypso.
A few moments later Wu comes to report the project to stop the signal is complete.
Good. I order Romanov to return to the Calypso carrying all resources, colonists, and robots left on Dongwan. Then I send a ship with a human pilot to Gamma 1 on the Trans Muffler mission. We are almost done with the signal.
I send Hyomin's ship to get 150 colonists from the mothership. No new groups of rampaging biota have appeared on Gaea since the last massacre. A few ones have appeared on Rhea. I send Raina's ship to deal with them. Once the "battle" is over I send the ship to get 150 colonists from the Calypso.
On JR I start to upgrade both a factory and a power plant to level three. I did save scientific resources for a while and am now able to greenlight the anti-matter related proposal. It takes almost all I had. I move to the terrestrial worlds' colonies to reconfigure the laboratories. As we lack resources on every discipline I set one of them to each discipline each and the three that remain to those disciplines of which we require a greater amount to initiate the project to upgrade our spacecrafts' armor. I start to upgrade a laboratory on Eunjung to level two. I also begin to upgrade another of the Calypso's factories to level three and a level three habitat to level four.
On Ellin I upgrade the remaining factory to level three and a habitat to level two as the colonists the colony did receive did serve to unlock the second level. I send Eunjung's ship to get 20 robots from JR. More enemy contacts do appear on Rhea's surface. Lizzy's ship is sent to deal with them. Hyomin upgrades its second laboratory to level two. Raina does the same.
I receive a call.
As I hang up Romanov, recently returned from Dongwan, reports to me.
At last. He has another report to give.
Please do.
The Captain is finally able to smile and relax. She did manage to avert the crisis on the terrestrial worlds while staying in the moral high ground. The colonies are currently being developed at a good rate. Missiles are being stockpiled. The siphoning station on zeus is being built. Our science teams did finish researching most of the currently available proposals. We still have to deal with the Empiants and discover the nature of the power flux but the situation does not look bad right now.
I do check the damage report.
It could have been worse.
Mrowak
Arcane
- Joined
- Sep 26, 2008
- Messages
- 3,947
The crisis averted 
Now there is the issue of Emptians. Clearly nothing can go wrong on that front, right?
Oh...
I like the way the story unfolds and the challenges it creates. I also appreciate that it does nice job at foreshadowing. When I played games such as Endless Space this was exactly what it lacked - things happening.
A question: is there any alternate way of solving the biota problem? You were obviously unwilling to attack the biota from the outset, but was it only because this is the narrative you wanted to tell us, or there actually are some larger gameplay cosequences of attacking too early? Also, would the plague solve the issue, make things just a bit easier for you or give some extra C&C?
The game does not appear to know what "handlholding" means. Me like.
Now there is the issue of Emptians. Clearly nothing can go wrong on that front, right?
Oh...
I like the way the story unfolds and the challenges it creates. I also appreciate that it does nice job at foreshadowing. When I played games such as Endless Space this was exactly what it lacked - things happening.
A question: is there any alternate way of solving the biota problem? You were obviously unwilling to attack the biota from the outset, but was it only because this is the narrative you wanted to tell us, or there actually are some larger gameplay cosequences of attacking too early? Also, would the plague solve the issue, make things just a bit easier for you or give some extra C&C?
The game does not appear to know what "handlholding" means. Me like.
I see that our friendly Empiants appear on the casualty statistics, this does not bode well.
How is the population growth? It has been what, 74 years already? If humanity is to survive and thrive it has to grow from those 2k on Calypso.
Worrying news about the new ship in beta asteroids since it is possible it has operational weapons. And you are reaching new territories, Tantalus was defeated by biota so no tips from now on.
How is the population growth? It has been what, 74 years already? If humanity is to survive and thrive it has to grow from those 2k on Calypso.
Worrying news about the new ship in beta asteroids since it is possible it has operational weapons. And you are reaching new territories, Tantalus was defeated by biota so no tips from now on.
Cute!
deploy schoolgirl uniforms immediately 
Bloodshifter
Educated
Lol message reads all your young nubile sailor suited females belong to us
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