Imperium 12: RefSteel's Improbable Oligarchy

[RefSteel]

Aw, c'mon! Where's the fun in building a bunch of bombers that are virtually obsolete? I want more spies and more research, and different research priorities! Kakata can handle our ships! I'd like to build some Scatter bases to handle the incoming fleet at Berel too, but I guess it does seem like a waste against that particular fleet. Okay, then! Everything's ready! This should be fun! Let's go!

2411: Ha! Tyr bombers leave a couple million bugs alive on the world, and our bombers at Whynil spot a big fleet advancing on them around the bases, and have to immediately retreat! The Admiral didn't know what he was doing quite as well as I thought! Just one more excuse for me to make my own calls! All right!

2412: Wheeeee! We get to fight at Incedius!



Its fighter force actually contributes to the battle for a while, so I have to kill a bunch of them before they give up and retreat. Then the Navy makes the bases go away, and that takes care of that! Also, Whynil doesn't have as many defenders anymore, so they all run away from my reinforced fleet of bombers.

Note that the bombers that retreated last turn did so without firing a shot (or even moving). I don't consider it exploitive to retreat and return while gathering your fleet, as long as you don't use it as a way to fire and reload expendable weapons like bombs or missiles turn after turn - but of course, others may differ with me.

Incedius is a very unusual planet: A jungle rainforest with such constant and perpetual cloud cover that it shines white from space! Whynil is a jungle too, but semi-normal looking. We both bomb of 'em, of course, plus Tyr.



That last is an Arid world that now looks like glass from space! Also, Admiral Refpect got one thing right: Our fighters wiped out all the transports that Ixi sent to Aurora. Good riddance.

Our spies and researchers are still sitting on their hands, so Kakata just builds a bunch of Neutrino fighters to send up to Berel. They're going to be brand-new, redesigned Neutrino 2As though, without any shields. They're cheaper this way, and it won't make much difference in a fight, and we didn't need the TacNuke design anyway. Oh, and there's an Alkari cruiser on its way to Zoctan, but I went ahead and put up that sign the Admiral was talking about: They can scout the place if they feel like it; I couldn't really care less at this point.

All right, hang on tight, everybody! We're about to meet the Psilons!

2413: Refrens comes in, beaming, to say that he's finished up plans for our new planetary shields. I ask him what I'm supposed to do with them now that the Klackon fleet is just a year away from tiny little Berel, and he sputters a little bit. Must be a malfunctioning hydraulic system. He should get that fixed. When he gets it under control, he suggests that we could start working on a repulsor beam or a ship shield as good as the new one for our planets, but it all looks like a lot of hard work to me, and I ask if we can't just go back and work on the Class IV Deflector Shields he was so quick to scoff at back in Turing's reign. His pleasure LEDs all sort of fade with disappointment, and he hangs his cybernetic head-analog a little, but he complies.

Tyr is ours, and Whynil is on its way down, and what did I tell you?



Looks like the Psilons have an Honorable Industrialist running the show. They've only got three planets, and even those are really spread out, so it looks like the galaxy is officially ours, in case it wasn't already. The Psilon emperor says nice things when we meet, so I tell him to get bent in a friendly tone of voice. When he burns all his spore fleets, together with all his death spore, terraforming, ecology restoration, and hostile-world colonization design specifications (oh yeah, and destroys any colonies he may have on hostile worlds already) I'll be happy to talk to him again!

This was another huge stroke of luck, though I didn't know it at the time. After Imperium 10 and most of the reports from Imperium 11, I was getting used to seeing Stunted Psilons. I'll bet that wasn't so common in this game though!

2414: The bugs try to go after Berel again. I'm not the best pilot in the universe, so I don't quite kill as many as I should: Fully a dozen of their fighters manage to retreat after I destroy all the others (55 Dagger fighters and 9 Ranger cruisers) at the expense of 60 Neutrinos.



After the bugs retreat in a couple other places - such as their homeworld - Refrens comes hurrying into my office with a sheaf of important-looking papers! His pleasure LEDs are all lit up again! And it turns out what he's got in his cyberclaws are working blueprints for a Warp Dissipator! Great! But it turns out there's even better news! After glossing over something about 9 parsec range, Refrens shows me the plans he's drawn up to start research on Impulse Drives! You can bet I take his suggestion! We shake cyberclaws and do a little bit of a dance which I'm glad wasn't caught on videotape, since it might have been slightly beneath the dignity of the acting head of the oligarchy, and he rushes off to start work on the things. We're friends again, obviously.

No sign of the Alkari at Zoctan, so I guess they ran out of fuel when they got there. They must have been counting on their one-time bug alliance, which is really pretty dumb when you consider which "ally" it was.

2415: Good news! Maretta is habitable! I can tell because it has 98 million Psilons on it! It also has a dozen missile bases, so my lonely little Scout retreats. Oh, and the Klackons run away from us at various once-Klackon worlds. I'm not going to bother reporting that kind of thing any more, because a) there's a lot of it, b) it's kind of boring, and c) that kind of thing's just going to be happening more and more! We also continue the slow bombardment of Kholdan ... and finished the quick bombardment of Whynil! There are some enemy transports on the way to the glass from Arietis, due to arrive in a few dozen years (well, five years anyway - long enough) but that won't stop us from colonizing the place.

Now! It looks like the Psilons have Sublight Drives (plus stabilizer and a whole bunch of stuff I don't care about much if at all) so I keep right on spying! Also, their bases are still packing nukes. Feel free to laugh at them if you want to. I know I did.

[RefSteel]

2416: Oh, boy! A battle at Tyr, and the enemy's sticking around for it! This should be fun! Just one problem: I don't have a scanner here, so I find out the hard way that the Klackon colony ships carry spores!!! Luckily, I manage to destroy the things before they actually kill anyone on the surface. (We'll probably have to fix the planet anyway though; they'll have cut down its maximum population).



Once all that's done, the few surviving aliens retreat - but I manage to kill almost all their fighters before they go!

There's a battle at Gion too, but it's pretty boring. Their misiles manage to kill just one of our Tourorists before...



...they arrive, and the base is gone.

Luckily, Refrens is not boring! At long, long last, we have a real battle computer! Flush with success, he goes right to work on his next project: Getting us another one: A Battle Computer Mark VI! Then we find out that Gion is really and truly Arid, not just pretending, which is another way of saying it'll someday be ours. Whynil, on the other hand, is ours right now! GNN also gives us a census report, and the order has changed around a little, but the main thing is, we're still on top. The Bulrathi have overtaken all the other aliens, but they had a little help from us - the Klackons are now in third place, but they've, um, been losing a little population for some reason in recent times.

We're all out of Mobile HQs, so I redesign them: The Circus 2 has nothing but a colony base and nuclear engines - no bombs; that's ridiculous - for setting up big top tents wherever and whenever they're wanted. That much is great, but with incoming bugs and Psilons both, it's getting altogether too exciting in the south; I may have to send the Navy down to restore order! Also, that's not a lot to do after so many crazy things happened, so I'm also going to go seriously overboard with spying this year, just for fun.

2417: The red star in the west is the Alkari colony of Herculis. It thinks it's barren, and might even be right. It also has three missile bases that look like they're firing nukes. All I can say is, aliens are dumb. The battle at Whynil goes pretty much as expected - we lose a Neutrino killing off all their Cutlasses - and then our hard work pays off with a spy hit on the brains!



Oops, no, it doesn't: We just get stupid Deuterium. I don't bother framing anybody. I do bother bombing Kholdan though - and especially Gion! And of course our fleet kills all the transports that thought they were going to Tyr, which brings us to the always-hilarious ranking of space fleet strengths. We come in dead last even though I'll bet we could take on any alien space fleet and win, almost without trying.

The Psilons apparently read that sign I put out, because they now have a Star Blade over Zoctan. Wish them luck on figuring out how to colonize it before we exterminate them.

By the way, I'm cutting spy funding way down again to punish my spies for being dumb. My computer tech lead on the Klackons is 21 to something like two, and we've had spies in their space for pretty much ever, and all we ever find are stupid planetology labs, which we obviously never bother entering. And no, they're not propulsion labs with fake signs on the doors. I asked specifically. Anyway, that reminds me, Kakata's going to get to work on universal ship parts again, but we'll put up a fake sign that says "Navy" yard. You don't think the quote marks will give it away, do you? Keep in mind, our enemies are even stupider than our spies. I mean, they're the ones who built planetology labs in the first place, and where's the fun in that?

2418: Here's a cause for nervousness: Do the Psilon Star Blades - the ones with maneuver class 4+ - carry spores? ... Um, yes. As one arrives at Whynil, we find out that the answer is yes. We have 71 Neutrinos (69 after they're fired upon) and they almost save the colony, but not quite. At least we blow up the stupid Star Blades. (The Colony Ships accompanying them manage to retreat). We have to take out our disappointment on Kholdan and Gion, and even then, we don't have enough bombers to really do it right. Luckily, Ixi calls us up, and gives us a good laugh. Peace? Peace with your looniness? After all your unprovoked attacks on Berel? (Well, and some pretty provoked ones too, I've gotta admit...) Just when we're right in the middle of tearing your whole empire to pieces? You want peace? Here, I'll tell you what: If you abdicate right now, I'll sign you right up to headline with the Tyr Colony Comedy Circuit! We'll still exterminate your people though. Sorry.



Oooooooooooooh! 275 billion credits! Money! Wow, you're offering almost as much (well, no, not even almost) as Kakata alone can throw into our reserve in a single year! Here, let me think abouNO!

Oh, and Ixi? Don't come back.

All right, our fleets get moving, and I find out that the Psilons now have Hyper-X rockets, and are no doubt working on better shields and controlled environment technologies, which should give you some idea of how urgent dealing with them would be even if we didn't want revenge for Tyr.

2419: This time it's our idiot spies in Psilon space who can't think of anything to steal except planetology. I tell them to go away and stop bothering me and to not bother taking anything.

Luckily, our spies are not in charge of our bombing expeditions.



Kholdan is dying, slowly but surely - and Gion dies right away! This makes me feel so much better, I'm giving our spies one last chance to actually do something for a change, really just because I'm a pushover. Hey, let them have some fun, right?

2420: The Klackons are getting boring. They always just run away. And how many times can you bomb Kholdan before it gets to become routine? Plus, our spies responded to my encouragement by all getting killed. Great job, guys! I'm actually kind of glad someone else gets to take over this year - kind of! Next time anyone wants me to have another go at being emperor though, just say so!

Oh, wait. Before I go, I've got an important heads-up for the next Acting Head of RBO-12: A whole bunch of Klackon transports just crash-landed on the spored-out remains of Whynil, so in addition to the death spore residue, you'll have to clean up bug splatter! Bring lots of electronic deodorizers! Okay, have fun!

Here's a map for the "succession game lurkers" - e.g. anyone actually reading this report! I've added a couple extra map symbols - green dots adjoining stars that are known for one reason or another to be Alkari colonies, and alien leaders' portraits (including the Guardian's) to the right of their homeworlds when known with complete certainty. All Meklar transports are bound for our Tyr colony (the Arid world south of Kholdan) while the Klackon transports are moving to the glass world of Gion (another arid, even further south).

[RefSteel]

Death spores! They actually used death spores on us! This only makes it more clear than ever that all the filthy, planetology-researching, hostile-world-dwelling alien races must be purged from the face of the galaxy! They are the pathogens and electronics glitches of the universe's body! Lucky thing for the universe, it's got Meklon's Surgeon-Repairman General himself to look after it now!

The first thing I do is send the Navy up to Kholdan. The second thing I do is notice a pretty big bug fleet due to arrive at Whynil around the same time we'd get there with our ... uh ... Circus? Circus? Our colony ships are called Circuses?! Something, somewhere, has gone terribly wrong with this plan of succession. Oh, well. At least we've made a good start toward conquering the galaxy. This leads me to cancel that first thing for now. This is the basic problem with our "one ship Navy" - it's only one ship! That makes it difficult for it to be in two places at once. The third thing I do is to decide once and for all: Are we waiting for our reportedly incompetent spies before we build new fleets, or not? No! Enough! We have too few bombers, they have no computers because they were built decades ago and needed room for fuel tanks, and their name is a travesty! Tourorists?! What were we thinking?! Still, even they have a purpose - for the moment. The Scouts ... I'm sorry, but we're at war right now, and are likely to remain so into the indefinite future. We don't need someone sitting over Imra confirming there are still no aliens nearby. When we reach that fabled year when one of our "just about to be scrappable" ship classes actually gets scrapped, maybe we can design something to fulfill this all-important task, but in the meantime, the Scouts are history. In their place, we'll build ships to take over the roles of all our outdated fighters: Surgeon 2.0s, with our most advanced computers, for surgical strikes!

2421: The Rangers at Gion attack, failing to realize that the Neutrino Bs there, though outdated by our standards, are way better than them. The Rangers kill five of our fighters before we purge them from the galaxy.

Our new-built fleets depart, mostly for Kholdan, and I decide to put off bomber building after all, since our current fleet should actually be enough to deal with the bugs, and I'd really like some higher-tech models before we take on the brains. I also look in on Refcon's spies, but they're just picking their olfactory sensors, so I reduce their funding, hoping to teach them a lesson.

2422: Whoa ... I wasn't expecting that to work! I'll have to keep that strategy in mind for the future! (I'm kidding, spies. Don't go on strike or anything.) They grab an inertial stabilizer, which isn't great, but isn't bad, and we celebrate by bombing Kholdan!


Surgeon-Repairman General's Warning: Getting hammered from orbit by hundreds of nuclear warheads may be hazardous to your health.

Ooooooops! Looks like our celebrations got a little out of hand! Sorry about glassing your homeworld, Ixitixl! We promise to rebuild it even better than new though: As a Meklar colony!

All right, and GNN comes on; should be some interesting news this year. Could even be an event I have to deal with, using my impressive knowledge of medicine and machinery repair! Let's see.



... wha ... buh? So now Paranar's fertile? ... I'm a little speechless. Okay, yeah, like Minister Refried, I was pretty quiet when everybody else was running the show, so I guess you could say I have Good Karma™, but ... things going right for the Meklar? Isn't that kind of a coals-to-Newcastle kind of deal? Now that I think about it, that newsdroid looks an aaawwwful lot like a cyborg. Maybe there's a conspiracy! Well, I'm not going to complain! Paranar goes right to work building factory-hospitals and other infrastructure for its new people-to-be.

So did the game not get the memo that I'm well on my way to taking over the galaxy? Seriously, two good events, both hitting my core worlds, as the first two events of the game (and the only ones through 2422)? This one won't make nearly as much difference - it's further from the front, less of a benefit, and later in the game - but still! All right, I'll tell you what: My machines are now Even More Overconfident. My Overconfident variant rules are now permanent, regardless of future events luck, plus: I've neglected missile bases a bit so far - in fact the only five I ever built were destroyed - so there are no bases or planetary shields anywhere in my empire. Well, it's going to stay that way. We don't need planetary defenses! Our fleet can take care of that sort of thing! No defense spending allowed for the rest of the game.

2423: Uh-oh. Refiraxis miscalculated when he got the new fighters ready to help defend Kholdan, and I missed it in my review! They haven't arrived yet, and here's the enemy fleet! It gets pretty ugly - my attempts at using decoys don't fool anybody, and I lose over a hundred fighters - but they're sustainable losses with our reinforcements coming, and I wipe out their entire fleet! More importantly:



Kholdan and Gion are now Meklar colonies! And someone else must have gotten a couple more colonies someplace in the last few years, because all our new planets used to belong to the bugs at some point, and the galactic high council is meeting! For the very first time! In 2423! Honestly, I wasn't sure it would ever happen, so I guess the joke's on me. I'm up against Krungo of the Bulrathi, and everyone votes for him except the birds, who seem to like me. Six votes of my own make it eight of 16 for RBO-12! Maybe I'll pretend to care someday. Oh, and the Psilons come calling, with nothing interesting to say. (Not that anything they say could be interesting!)



We also meet the Alkari, and find out they have a xenophobic expansionist in charge of things, and also are running a three planet empire, at Altair, Kailis, and Herculis, the very three planets we knew they owned already! Just like the Psilons and ... ooooops. The Klackons have left the Three Planet Club! They're down to Incedius and Arietis, and those are getting polluted down to nothing while they desperately try to maintain their fleet! These "ecological" aliens are really sickening. First death spores, then dead-insect-transport splatter, now pollution ... clearly, the only race in this galaxy that bothers to care for the environment is the one wise enough to ignore planetology!



You can see my cursor pointing to the blue star south of Herculis, the only world other than alien colonies (which are sure to have bases up) brought into scouting range by Kholdan. I'm sending a single Tourorist down there to snap some pictures (and not blow anything up for a change). With reinforcements on the way, the rest of the ships that survived the battle of Kholdan head up to Incedius. There's a fleet about to get there that they can't handle on their own, but I'll want them there in case that fleet immediately leaves. Spying begins on the birdies, who are already feeling peaceful toward me, thanks to their long-standing war with the Klackons (and everyone else in the galaxy) and the bombing I've been doing lately. I could sign them up for an alliance and all sorts of trade, exchange technology ... lots of things! But who needs 'em? They probably use death spores or some other disgusting planetology thing anyway!

2424: My Surgeons get ready to defend Kholdan from the next incoming bugs. We take out the largest fleet of enemy fighters with reactive fire, then burn the Rangers. The Klackons manage to scratch the armor of my lead ship, and their last little squadron of five fighters escapes with its lives. I suppose they'll claim that as a victory. Our Navy encounters a much bigger fleet, but doesn't manage to kill any of it since all the bugs immediately retreat. This allows us to make Whynil our newest colony! It also frees up the Navy to head up toward Arietis. When it gets there, I'll decide whether to send it on to Incedius ... or to Maretta! And our last Circus proceeds to Incedius, just in case a miracle occurs.

2425: Good news and bad news. First, the bad news: That big Klackon fleet at Incedius is heading for one of our worlds, and we might have to kill it. Now the good news: That big Klackon fleet at Incedius ... isn't at Incedius anymore!



The Klackons also reach Kholdan with another fleet, this one with a lot more fighters. Using a combination of reactive fire and superior piloting skills, we kill everything but their largest fleet of fighters before the latter can close with us. Then it's 124 Sabres against 89 Surgeons, straight up.


Surgeon-Repairman General's Warning: Studies have shown that attacking Meklar war fleets reduces life expectancy by 100%.

Mine are better. My spies also hit the bugs, but don't actually steal anything since planetology is their only option. My researchers, on the other hand, hit the jackpot, increasing our factory-hospital construction efficiency by 25%, a huge boon to our new worlds! Refrens eBook points out that we could improve this still more, but I direct him instead to proceed with Reduced Industrial Waste 40%! He seems to be snickering as he leaves the room, so I suspect he thinks he used "reversed psychology" on me. He can believe it if he wants, but the choice was obvious no matter what he said. Oh, and want to hear some more good news?



Remember when I sent the Circus to Incedius in case a miracle occured? This was the miracle. Thanks, Klackons! Awfully nice of you to send your fleet away! Also to send all those transports we're busy destroying right now; it sure makes our glassing runs go faster on the colonies they leave! Also notice that my election opponent is a monkey named Lasitus this time around. He gets the bugs' last vote, his own three, and three from the bears. The Psilons abstain from the voting, the birds vote for me, and I vote for myself, of course. This gives me a plurality, which pleases me slightly, but has no real effect on anything.

Notice that the border of the screen is the one from a recent combat instead of the usual silvery frame. This is a curious glitch that happens on the scouting/colonizing/bombing screen (but not the command screen, which comes up for e.g. the "transports destroyed" messages) whenever I have the option to steal a tech but hit "Esc" instead. It lasts for the whole interturn when I do so, then goes back to normal.

My entire Incedius fleet heads for Arietis except for a single little Neutrino. Nearly all the Surgeons do the same. There are Klackon fleets coming to Tyr and Kholdan (including the big one that just left Incedius) but fighting them in our skies would be unsanitary, so I'm going to ignore them completely.

[RefSteel]

2426: The Bulrathi try to scout Stalaz with a destroyer-class Hunter. They apparently misread the sign: Scouting Permitted for Cruisers Only. The Hunter is armed with NPGs, just like our Surgeons, but unfortunately for the bears, it does not have a Class 5 computer or Maneuver Class 2, and it fails to damage our fighters before we remove it from the universe. Then the Psilons arrive at Gion. The three Dark Stars have nothing but Death Spores, and the colony ship might have some too, so our Neutrino Bs need to work fast - in fact, they need to work faster than they actually can! Oh, they kill the spore ships all right, but not before it's too late. That's the second brand-new colony the Psilons have spored to death, and they will pay! Luckily, we have some much better news coming: We colonize Incedius!



Note the impenetrable layer of clouds above this vast rainforest world. This is the reason it always shines white from outer space. After Ixitixl begs for peace one last time (I don't think I need to tell you how we respond) we find that our new cloud-jungle has put us in touch with Krungo and his Bulrathi empire. He says we'll do fine as long as we acknowledge his superiority, so I acknowledge that he might well be superior to all the other races we're going to exterminate before or while we get around to purging his people from the galaxy. After all, he's got more than three planets!



In fact, if he'd only manage to colonize that red planet north of his homeworld (Ursa is exactly where we inferred it would be) it would look a little like the brightest part of a famous constellation! Which one, though? Let me think. Something Major. Oopsa Major? Nurse-ah Major? Urs... ... Naw, couldn't be.

2427: For reasons best known to Ixitixl's various personalities, the bugs sent off what little Arietis fleet they had on some never-to-be-completed mission. The place is defended by one base, and features 17 million bugs, not nearly enough for its 81 factories. I get lazy and lose an entire bomber (one of 220) before blowing the base away. No point in even taking a picture. Just as we supposed, it is a barren world.


Surgeon-Repairman General's Warning: Erratic war declarations have been shown to correlate closely with birth defects, ugliness, stupidity, and getting totally genocided out of existence.

Oops, no, no, my mistake: It is a glass world. Since it was also the bugs' last colony, this should serve to explain why I wasn't worried about the remaining Klackon fleets.

They say that as one door closes, another one opens, and it's certainly true in this case. The Psilons take the bugs' utter destruction as their cue to declare war on us. This is disastrous for all my plans to spend time peacefully consolidating my gains before going back on the offensive, but luckily ... I had no such plans! Virtually the entire fleet at Arietis is dispatched to Maretta. A Circus is coming as well, though it'll be three years behind. The Neutrino Bs have reached the end of their effective life, and are scrapped for yet another stopgap-until-we-have-real-engines design, the Surgeon 2.1 - just like its predecessor, but with an Inertial Stabilizer to help it close with its enemies. Kakata and Aurora start building them immediately.

2428: The Bulrathi decide to join their allies' war on me.



I haven't yet found out whether they have enough range to reach any of my colonies, and I don't especially care right now. There's a Psilon spore fleet due at Incedius in four years anyway, which will certainly break contact with them. (I'll do what I can to get enough Surgeons there in time, but it's hopeless, frankly; I'm just trying to slowly clean up some of the Klackons' waste there, so I'll have a little less to clean up when the colony is rebuilt ... and works on getting rid of the spore-residue-to-be.)

2429: The battle of Maretta reveals that the Psilon colony ships are armed with twin ... lasers.



We do lose a bunch of slow Tourorists in the course of destroying its bases and discovering that Maretta holds a beautiful terran world which now shines like the glass it is. We also find out about radiated Firma and a fleet of gatling-laser/spore ships heading for Tyr at warp 3. They could really make a mess there ... but luckily, not during my reign!

2430: Oops. The Psilons had more Star Blades coming to Maretta than I thought! What little of my fleet stayed behind there has to retreat. Meanwhile, Gion is mine again, and this time it should stay that way. This leads to another report from the GNN newsdroid:



The question is, can we avoid dropping back below twelve worlds? Things are looking pretty disorderly as I hand off the reins of power, and I'm tempted to ask for just a couple more years, but they're likely to stay disordered for some time to come, and I don't want to mess with my karma. So, to my successor: Good luck, and be careful! Those high-speed spore ships are a serious threat!

[RefSteel]

So I finally get to take over and get ready for some real diplomacy, and what do I find? We're at war with two of the alien leaders we've met, neither of whom will even talk to us, and we've actually exterminated a third. Of the remaining two, one is a restless xenophobe, and the other is so far away, we'll probably have to settle Mentar or something before we can meet him. Sounds like the perfect time for a diplomat to take over! Well, I can think of one thing to do: Espionage funding ceases. I might let our spies do something again later on, but after the decades of frustration I've watched, it is my conclusion that they're just not worth what they cost. The savings are used to boost our own research, which is far more important and worthwhile. If we hadn't spent so much energy trying to acquire sublight engines from the Psilons, we'd probably have Impulse Drives by now. As for everything else ... well, I'm a diplomat, driven to my last resort. I'm sure you all know what that means.

One question for the Surgeon-Repairman General: Why is anyone building Surgeon 2.0s at this point? The 2.1s are far, far superior, and not much more expensive. I wouldn't go so far as to say that everything else looks fine - Incedius is clearly toast - but there's not much else I can do this year that'll help things. All right, then: Here goes!

2431: We let the Human Dreadnought scout Stalaz. And we face the battle for Tyr, with little hope of preventing sporing, though we should be able to save the world.



They kill a million people. Just a few more 2.1s or some better luck for our gunners, and we would have killed them before they could even begin to spore us! Meanwhile, the Psilon fleet at Maretta seems to have taken off for Mentar, so I establish a colony there. Wouldn't want to lose diplomatic contact with the Psilons when Incedius disappears, after all! And hey, great news! This puts us in touch with Lasitus, the honorable, industrious monkey! All right! That's everyone who's still alive (at least while Incedius stands)! Sol isn't where we thought it was; the Humans, Alkari, and Psilons somehow developed practically on top of each other! So, let's see what the simian's empire looks like!

...

...

What the...?



He's got ten worlds! No wonder the other aliens were stunted! Lassie's been running the table on 'em all! Either that, or this entire galaxy's as hostile as our neighborhood, and he was just the first to Controlled Tundra or Dead or whatever it was. Our relations are also discordant on first contact, thanks to our extermination of the bugs. Thanks, Refairs; thanks a lot.

Now, Refcon has kindly provided some power graphs, which now include every living race in the galaxy for the first time in history:



Notice who's winning - for now at least! There are still those fast spore ships to deal with, and they're incoming immediately!

2432: A Tourorist snaps a picture of Sol, from which Refcon infers that the humans have Terraforming +10, but no advanced factory controls. 19 bases are present, so our bomber retreats. Then comes the real battle of the year, at the cloud jungle of Incedius! Our Surgeons give me a pleasant surprise as the 2.1s take out the Star Blade in one volley, and the 2.0s take out the slower Dark Star in two! The colony is saved! (For now!) After that, it's no surprise that the Psilons' colony ship retreats from 22 of my Surgeons at Maretta. Our fighters seem to know what they're doing!

2433: Did I mention that we're attacking Mentar? I think it was my predecessor who arranged this. I mention this only because we sent nothing but Tourorists and the Navy - not nearly enough to deal with the Psilons' fleet in orbit and Hyper-X bases. Oh, we take out a couple bases and more than half of the fleet - we also get our first look at the Star Blades' specs, though we already had a good general idea just from fighting with them - but our obsolete bombers all perish, and even the Navy is forced to retreat. Luckily, our 13 little Surgeons kill off the Psilon colony ship at Arietis, and when I say those Tourorists are obsolete....

]

I mean they're obsolete! Anti-Matter Bombs are ready for installation on our fleet! Refrens is singing the praises of Anti-Matter Torpedoes and giggling about the purposelessness of Fusion Rifles, so I pretend to know what he's talking about and agree. I'm just a diplomat really, and making these kinds of research decisions is not the first, last, or any other resort of diplomacy.

The Navy heads for Altair just to see what's going on there, and because it's nice and close. The Circus at Incedius heads over as well, in case there's something for it to do there. I don't expect there will be, but it'll get the poor, slow-moving thing into the right part of space at least. Meanwile, most of my fighters are gathering at Maretta.

2435: Altair's defenses are hopeless, so the Navy attacks. When I say hopeless: Their small fleet of Pelican popguns retreats immediately, and their nuclear missile bases can't get through the Navy's autorepair even while all 19 are standing. Since their class 2 shields can't stop my NPGs, the outcome is inevitable. The bombing that follows leads Lasitus to call and say some nice but self-contradictory things about me. The Alkari are slightly less happy about it, naturally.



Of course, they did have that fleet coming after Maretta already, so it's not as though their war declaration really changes anything. Also, the Psilons and Bears are merely wary of us now. I could probably achieve peace with them! Yeah, not happening. Sorry.

[RefSteel]

2436: We meet the Alkari fleet at Maretta, in a battle that will be especially exciting since the commander of the Surgeon 2.1s accidentally hits the "D" button on his control panel as soon as the battle starts, and spends some time struggling to get his fleet controls out of Diagnostic lock-up. Fortunately, for as-yet-unexplained reasons, the Alkari seem to like firing on my obsolete Neutrinos instead of the more dangerous Surgeons. The enemy ships were all armed with lasers, by the way - heavies on the Sky Masters, gats on the colonies. Note the past tense. We did lose a number of fighters, but the number is small in the case of the Surgeons, and anyway, it doesn't matter anymore.



Like I said. Impulse Drives mean no longer having to envy the Psilons' strategic speed. They also mean we're about to conquer the galaxy. Refrens has nothing to offer but fuel cells as our next never-to-be-finished research project, so I go with Trilithium Crystals as the shiniest and latest technology.

The Navy bombs Altair some more, and Lasitus calls again, I suppose to compliment me again in cryptic language ... but no: He declares war instead (first offering sincere apologies). This is helpful, as it determines who my next target will be.

2437: Sometimes, when it rains, it pours. Refrens enters my office to report the development of Class IV Deflector Shields, and I ask him to start work on a Repulsor Beam. In the south, we find that the Psilon colony of Guradas ... has no missile bases? Decent-looking Arid world, too. Must have been some heavy war going on down there.

With a Psilon fleet - including a newly-designed Coraona - incoming to Incedius, it's time to start work on our next-generation fighter. Lacking a stabilizer, the Consul 5.0 (which I meant to name the Envoy, but it'll do) is barely more maneuverable than our superb Surgeon 2.1s, but it has two and a half times their strategic speed! We're going to have a lot of them in a minute.

2438: More of the same. A really big Psilon fleet (including 10 Star Blade gatling/spore ships!) is now on its way to Incedius, but it's moving so slowly, we can handle it anyway.

2439: At Incedius, the (first, smaller wave of) Psilon ships think they're going to attack. The Consuls carefully explain that, on the contrary, they are going to die.

2440: Wow - the Humans have a huge Warship at their homeworld! Sadly, its designers seem to have put it together from plastic cups and used napkins instead of actual weapons and armor and shields. My Circus retreats, being unarmed, but the Navy takes care of everything without trouble. The aliens retaliate - one of them manages to sabotage some easy-to-rebuild factories on Kakata - so we retaliate [/b]back[/b]!



I like our method better. Sol's going to have a lot more trouble putting itself back together even if my successor leaves it alone for a while (please don't) ... and of course there's nothing with which to put Altair back together at all except glass. So...... That's all for my reign! You can see for yourself the results of my brilliant diplomacy:



Among the races at war with us (i.e. all the races we haven't yet exterminated) every single one is merely wary! Not bad, eh? Oh, also notice our spying budget: I have some token funds going to our bear spy network since (believe it or not) we haven't even bothered to find out what they've got yet. We should probably do this for each race now and then, just out of curiosity. If we steal something, that's a bonus, but ... yeah, our spies are stupid, and our pilots are smart. Let's hear it for the last resort of diplomacy!

[RefSteel]

YESSSSSSSSS! I solved the puzzle! I am the Sudoku Master!!! All I needed was a little hint from Refiraxis, and I suddenly realized there was already a 7 in the top row!!! Ha! And it only took me a century and a fifth! Someone challenge me to a puzzle contest! Just try it! I dare you! No takers? I thought not! Ha! Now, what's been going on in the empire? We'd better have Zhardan by now, that's all I can say!



What the ... NO ZHARDAN!?!? I had a Lander already in the queue for it all the way back in ... wait a minute ... oops, there it is; I just had to scroll up past the top of the screen. And Meklon and Paranar seem to be doing great ... gosh that seems like a lot of factories; Refrofit must have kind of gone overboard, and ... um ... what are these other ten worlds doing here? And I don't remember Kakata being rich in neutronium; I'd have prioritized getting it a lot more than I did. And ... wait, Paranar is fertile?! ... uh ... I'm pretty sure I would have noticed something like that; it was our second world. Hang on, guys; I need to spend a little while getting up to date. I'm sure the empire can carry on in the meantime without me.

2441: Okay! All set! I think! We're the biggest empire in the universe, and we're at war with everybody! Makes perfect sense to me! So, the thing to do is to stand up our new colonies while we defend them with fleets, then absorb the Alkari since they seem to be really weak for some reason - I wonder what happened to their homeworld; I didn't have time for all the reports, and I had to kind of skim - and ... (Red alert sirens sound throughout the Capital Building) Aaaaaaaaeeiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeee!!! What? WHAT?! ... You know, they sound these things all over the capital, and it's never anything important. Who's in charge of the sound system here, anyway? I think they only turn them on because it annoys me.

Okay, so some kind of Alkari fleet retreated from our Navy - we have a ship called the Navy? - at ... Altair? What are we doing at Altair? Also ... uh ... there were a lot of big ships in that fleet. I wonder why they retreated. Does this mean we're winning? (Red alert sirens sound once more) WHA... No! No way! You can't scare me! It'll just be more retreating birds. Now TURN OFF THOSE SIRENS!!!

(Quiet, peaceful bell chimes)

Better. Now, what boring fleet is going to retreat from us this time? Humph. Just as I suspected: More Pelican fighters are at Herculis, and we outnumber them more than seven to one. Those Consuls had better not be unarmed diplomatic ships, but as long as ... wait, why is the planet firing on them? Herculis is an Alkari world? What are we doing at an Alkari world?



Oh, I see. We're blowing up all its ships and bases, is what we're doing. Still, someone might have told me. And we lost three whole fighters! Okay, so now we ... what? Do I want to do what, now?



Yeah, okay, I guess as long as we're there, we can colonize Altair - I mean, the birds obviously aren't using it anymore - and sure, we'll bomb those two worlds ... wait, did that say Sol? No, way; I must have been seeing things. And Herculis is one of those disgusting barren worlds; why did we bother going there? I guess it doesn't matter though, since we just wiped out its colony. I do notice there were some Human transports about to arrive though. Too bad for them they don't have anyplace to land anymore. Okay, so now ... now ... now ..... we ........

Um, Refpect ForceTran? Could you move our fleets around and stuff? I think I might be a little out of my depth here. Thanks! Wait, you're sending ships to Sol? Are you sure that's wise? I mean, that's the Human home star, and all these alien ships are coming to Incedius, and ... er ... well ... okay, I guess if you're sure....

I hope he did that right. As for me, I'll work on standing up our immature colonies!

2442: Hmmm. One of our immature colonies is Kholdan. Why does that name sound so familiar?

(Respectful chime sounds.)

Eh? What is it this time? Oh, we're retreating from the Humans at Laan. Something weird about that planet th... (Chime) Now what? Uh ... the Psilons are attacking our cloud jungle again. With ... three colony ships? Isn't that a lot? They're armed, and they're big! All we have is about 17 little Consuls and Surgeons and things! This is crazy! Except, I seem to recall those Consuls did okay at Herculis, and ... uh ... we lose one fighter and kill them all. Is this normal? I mean, it's almost as if someone planned it this way! Couldn't have been Refpect though; he just sent our Navy and most of our Consuls to Sol, and what use could that possibly be?



... Oh. Bye-bye, Sol. Um, those Consuls are pretty good, huh? I get the sneaking suspicion that we are winning.

Okay, I think I see what happens next. The Navy goes to Altair again, almost all the Consuls go to Incedius, and I don't care what anyone says, I'm building more of them at Kakata and having them sent down there; those Consuls are pretty neat! And a little overkill never hurt anybody.

2443: (A couple of Chimes later) Uh-oh. Maybe I should have kept more Consuls back at Sol. Now there's a Psilon colony ship. This calls for some fancy flying! Good thing we have fancy pilots! We fly circles around the enemy, and destroy it with no losses! How do you like that? I love my Consuls! What great ships! They even ... (Chime) ... (Chime) ... (Chime) ... Uh-huh. Are you chiming noises all done now? You'd better be. None of those battles look very exciting, and Refrens and one of Refspand's top advisors (Our colonial minister himself is still in the hosipital, I'm afraid) each have some great news for me!



All right! We've got a new battle computer and a new colony! Wait, Mark Six?! Isn't that kind of advanced? Uh ... I'd better have a look at those spy reports Refcon keeps trying to give me. It's possible we might not need to spend so much time consolidating our gains right now. I tell Refrens to start work on a Battle Computer Mark III so we have more options for ship designs later on. The new ECM he proposed just didn't sound very exciting. Oh, yeah, and the new colony happens to be at the third planet in the Sol system. The Humans called it Dirt or Ground or something, but we're just calling the whole system Sol and leaving it at that.

Okay, we need more defenses in the east, so it's a good thing I built those extra Consuls. I rearrange the ones we have, and build some more, to make sure we can take care of all the enemy fleets. Also, I want you to see something really great while it's still around to see. I mean, it'll still be true, but it won't be quite as perfect after today.



There's our fleet as it stands right now! Talk about cooperation! You can see Refcreational's Tourorists, Refpect's Navy, the Refiraxis Circus design, two fleets of Surgeons that Refairs put together, and Refriendto's lovely Consuls all coexisting at the same time! I have to show you now though because we've got new engines, and we're all out of Circuses, and practically all out of the Tourorists, so I'm building some new designs: The Lander 5.0 will be our new colony ship, but right now, Kakata and Aurora are ready to start building bombers! I can't figure out a good way to fit an Anti-Matter Bomb on anything, but luckily our enemies are all incredibly dumb, and don't have any shielding to speak of, so I'm just making a new nuclear bomber until we can improve our construction techniques. The bombers are called Nukem 5.0s because of the new slogan Refriendto came up with for our foreign policy: "When all else fails, just nuke 'em!"

2444: All right, what's going on this year? I feel like there was something important. (Chime) You know, the chime is starting to get annoying too. Somebody fix that. Now, what's going on? Aha! Humans at Stalaz! They've got a Dreadnought and a Colony Ship, and they kill our Surgeon and one of our Counsels! Luckily, we have 49 more and blow both enemy ships to pieces. (Sleigh bells jingle throughout the capital building) Ummmm ... no. No sleigh bells. Try again. Also, a huge Human Dreadnought retreating from our Navy isn't that exciting. Everything retreats from our Navy. (Great tolling bells of apocalyptic doom resound through all the corridors of the capital) Grrrr! That is not what I had in mind! (The tolling continues) By Neuromancer! Someone do something about those stupid bells! What are they even tolling about anyway?



Oh, wow! For once, I'm glad I was informed! That's a pretty big death spore fleet the Psilons sent down! Of course, we do have a lot of Consuls there ... and we are destroying the enemy with virtually no losses on our side ... and they're not getting anywhere near the planet! I love my Consuls. So ... will someone please stop those stupid bells!?

Thank you. Now. Lander production begins at Kakata, and I get to start moving our ships!

2445: Whoa! Cool! My Consuls even look good! You should've seen 'em fanning out to the west at warp 5! (Trombone solo jazzes up the corridors of...) STOP IT, STOP IT, STOP IT!!! Refiraxis, can you do something with this? Please? Thanks. Okay, looks like our Consuls are going to be tested. A dozen doesn't seem like enough to kill a colony ship and a Sky Master. This is a colony interdicter mission, so we're going after the colship first.



Got it! We lost almost our whole little fleet, but we killed the colony ship! Mission accomplished, and the survivors retreat! Also, you know, there's something kind of sad about transports getting wrecked (at Sol now and at Altair a couple years back) on the way back to their own homeworld, but it's not as sad as an entire species using planetology junk like bioweapons. Besides, those are our worlds now! You know what I think, though? We're being really mean to these aliens, and they don't hate us enough anymore. We're taking over the whole galaxy, and we're killing them as they return to what they thought were their own homeworlds, and they're still just uneasy and wary and stuff like that. Let's see if I can do anything to fix that in the next few years.

[RefSteel]

2446: (Millions of holographic clowns dance through the capital, honking loudly on their noses and driving around in tiny cars) ARRRGH! Enough! Refiraxis, I had to scrap the Circus; it was moving at warp 2! That is it! No more notifications of ship combat, ever! The end! I can watch the screen without the advance warning that that's what I'm supposed to do! What do you have to say to that, fellow members of the oligarchy?

...

What do you mean that's what all you guys have been doing since the beginning?

All right, well, it's a good thing I caught on, because there's a lot going on this year, and mostly it's not worth making noise about: Just our Consul scouts retreating from alien worlds, a Psilon colony ship retreating from Arietis, and our Consuls bombing Esper into the ground. Usual run of the mill. I redistribute our forces, decide we can risk attacking Kailis with just the fleet we've got already, get some transport moving off to Sol, and that's it!

2447: Guess what! I was right about Kailis!



It's still firing nuclear missiles ... and Nukems and Consuls fly circles around nuclear missiles! We take the planet's orbit and don't lose anything! Then some Alkari Pelicans decide to attack my Consuls at Sol! Aren't aliens cute when they think they can win? They do blow up two of my Consuls. I kill all 49 Pelicans. We also bomb Kailis, but it's slow going, so we cut it out and send just about everything to Mentar instead.

2448: Okay! Here goes the battle of Mentar! And ... apparently I didn't send as many Nukems as I thought. This fleet of ours is lovely, but there's no way it's enough. It's going to have to retreat before the battle even starts. What's going on?

Ah. Apparently, what I did was to send my other bombers to Kailis. Um ... oops? Well, in that case, I ... (Doorbell Chime) AIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!! WHAT DID I TELL YOU!? DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE, D... Oh. It's not a combat warning; it's the holophone. Yes? Who's there? Oh, hi, Lasitus.



What? Strain on both our peoples? No, no ... I haven't noticed any special strain. Think it's just you? You know, you look tired. Are you getting enough rest? Try getting more sleep, okay? Byyyyyye!

Okay, so I ... (Doorbell Chime) Grrrr. How do you change the ring tone to "Permanent Silence"? Well? What is it, Psilon Emperor Whose Name I Don't Even Know Since We've Never Talked In Any Meaningful Fashion? You like dead Alkari, like the ones my bombers are making at Kailis? Yeah, I'll bet. Especially since they were supposed to be dead Psilons and I gave the orders wrong! Now, go away.

All right, this time, I rearrange the fleet correctly. This year, however, for any number of reasons, correctly just means [/b]everyone[/b] goes to Kailis! One of those reasons is that I have a spy in Psilon territory, and they now have Merculite missiles. I'm still going to take Mentar, but I'm going to want a death fleet to do it.

2449: We make another Psilon fleet run away from Incedius, and... (Someone dances into the imperial command room, singing, lights flashing brightly) .... WHAT NOW?!?! Oh, it's you, Refrens. Hi. Why all the singing and dancing and carrying on?



Hey, you've figured out how to cut our factory waste by a third? Say, that is pretty cool! Why don't you go ahead and work on Improved Industrial Tech 4 to help our new colonies-to-be stand up? Okay? Great! Not that there were any other new options. Now, where was I? Oh, right. Stopping the stupid aliens from calling me on the holophone with congratulations and peace offers all the time.



There we go; that ought to do it for a little while - permanently in the case of the Alkari, of course, but even the surviving races don't seem to like it when we commit genocide. Anyway, now our forces converge on Mentar.

2450: First things first: Mentar still hasn't rebuilt its lost bases, and inexplicably fires on our Surgeons first, so....



No losses. Mentar's orbit is ours. We also kill a Psilon fleet at Sol, at the cost of an old Surgeon or two, and after seeing to it that Kailis doesn't go to waste...



...we ensure that the Psilons won't be bugging us again ... at least until we build colonies closer to their three remaining worlds! Oh, yeah, and there's an election. Everyone but me votes for Lasitus, but I control half the votes myself. Naturally, I vote for our Ruling Bionic Oligarchy of 12, and I'm sure any of you would do the same. You know what, though? These elections are starting to get annoying too. Let's not have any more, okay?

[RefSteel]

Oh, stop marveling at my miraculous recovery. There was nothing to it. Someone asked if I felt ready to take my turn as acting head of the oligarchy, and all my symptoms vanished. If only you'd have done it sooner! And no cracks about psychosomatic illnesses! Or psycho-anything cracks for that matter! Or about malingering! Confound it, we have an empire to expand!

The first thing I notice is that we don't have enough colony ships. This is already on the way to being rectified, but only as of this year, so it was probably only done as a courtesy to save me the trouble of giving the order myself. On the plus side, we have several immature colonies for me to grow! All right! And one of them is the beautiful cloud jungle of Incedius, one of the rarest planet types known to astronomy! This is a great start! It's still just a start though: A quick review of our records shows that we had just half the votes in this year's council election! We need to expand more rapidly! And of course, at the moment, there's just one way to do that: Right through our remaining enemies!

2451: Our main attack fleet reaches Draconis. This is severe overkill, but it was right on the way to our next target. We take orbit and glass it with no losses.



2452: I seem to have accidentally sent some ships to Denubius, so I bomb it. I also sent a fleet to Obaca on purpose, so I bomb it. I also realize our Mentar Lander must have been sent elswhere accidentally, so I send a new one to take its place.

2453: Hum-de-dum, killing and chasing fleets, blowing up bases, all in a pleasant year's work. Oh - hi, Refrens! What's up? Battle Computer 3? Don't we already have something way better? Yeah, okay, I can see how that might be useful. In fact, why don't we get to work on Battle Computer Mark II, just in case? Thanks, Dr. eBook! Now, let's see; where was I? Oh, yes. (singing) Whistle while you work ... whistle while you work...



...Mentar's mine, Obaca's gone, and more apes bombed: I smirk! (/singing)

2454: Up at Draconis, another Human huge ship responds to our Navy in the usual way, with its tail between its legs. Then, with the foundation of Obaca, I get a very gratifying message from the GNN newsdroid:



Our expansion has hit eighteen systems, and it won't be long before we control the entire galaxy! Oh, he says it'll happen if we're not contained, but take my word for this one: There's no one and nothing out there that's going to contain our expansion! Not on my watch, at least!

2455: Hum - dee - doo ... chasing humans, finding ... whoa! An artifacts world in the west! How cool! That'd be a great colony - let's make it happen! Oh, and also:



We do a little bombing. Only Argus, Denubius, and Rigel are glassed though. Lasitus responds by begging for peace. I'm busy getting ready to make new colonies where his used to be, so I pretend not to hear him. And my favorite part: Kholdan is now a mature colony!

[RefSteel]

2456: A fleet of Consuls with nothing better to do checks out the Bulrathi world of Laan. Since there are almost a hundred in the fleet, they do check it out in detail though, in spite of what it thought were its defenses. About three hundred of our fighters also deal with a Bulrathi huge at Kailis, losing nothing important. Oh, and we burn some more alien worlds to the ground, but what really matters is:



Two new colonies! Not only that, but colonies that'll extend my reach so I'll be able to (destroy and re-) build still more new colonies!

2457: Ooooh, pretty! I love watching my fleets fly all over the galaxy while everyone else's crawls around like slugs on sleeping medication. It makes expansion so much simpler and more efficient! My Navy continues to make enemy ships run away while my attack fleets pretty much do the same thing, but over alien colonies. And Refrens comes in with plans for Anti-Matter Torpedoes, which is just hilarious. We spend some time giggling together, and with Auto Blaster and Tachyon Beam as the other new possibilities, I let our scientists pretend to work on a Phasor design. I make Refcon happy by scouting the last unscouted Psilon colonies, and make everyone else happy by some glass-making work. I stop bomber production and scrap our old Surgeon 2.0s in favor of a new NPG fighter with our best computers and combat speed, superior even to the Consul, and capable of killing enemy ships before they can retreat: The Defender 5, for the protection of our lovely new colonies! And perhaps, just maybe, some slightly more aggressive assignments as well (heeheehee). I'm having way too much fun with our colonies to ever hand power off to my successor, but I'll deal with that when the time comes, and enjoy this while it lasts!

2458: Hey, Cygni has 10 bases! Exciting! It also has a cruiser in orbit, but that retreats in terror, and of our 201 Consuls, we end up losing only one for each base we destroy. We chase some Bulrathi away, kill some Psilons, and then we do the really important things:



That's Laan and Artifacts Uxmai that are now flying the Meklar flag. Hurray! You can tell you're a pretty good minister of colonial development when you get two GNN expansion reports in the course of the same reign. Oh, and we do some bombing. Nothing important, really.

The phone rings, and it's Lasitus, begging for a peace treaty. It rings again, and it's the Psilon emperor, who finally gets introduced by name - sadly, we never discovered the Alkari emperor's identiy before he was killed along with all the rest of his people - and Zygot begs for peace. Krungo is either too dumb to realize he's about to be dead, or too smart to believe we'll make peace with him. Is this what the droid calls "preparing to merge" with me? Because they can prepare all they want, but I'm not going to merge with anyone who works with (yiiiiiiiech) planetology! Or for that matter, anyone who's in the way of my new colonies!

2459: Tum-diddlety-tum. Kill some bases. Make some ships run away. Actually get a spy hit, now that I no longer care even slightly...



...especially not about Gatling Laser from the Bulrathi. Refrens proudly presents level 2 battle computers at the same time. Yipee. I finally let him work on ECM Jammer Mark VI, which will never be finished or needed. Oh, and we bomb things all over the place, but to our immense disappointment, we don't quite glass anything - I was sure I had enough to get rid of Cygni, but I missed the mark by just one million bears, and now I won't be able to colonize that world during my reign! Well, I'll send two more Landers into the sky this year to make up for it. That's all I can do, after all.

2460: Wow! The Bulrathi actually have a fleet at their homeworld! Well ... such as it is. Their 17 bases look impressive until you realize they're are all shield 2, titanium-armored, nuclear-missile-launching jokes, and as for that fleet that so impressed me ... well....



Believe it or not, that's my least lopsided victory of the year in space combat. Bulrathi luck again saves one of their colonies for a year - Vox is now down to its last million Bears - but can't save Cygni anymore. And of course the Humans' luck - at Imra and elsewhere - has just run out. But wait! I forgot to move some defenders to one of our worlds, and the Bulrathi retaliate for my attacks!



They will pay dearly for bombing that factory at Laan! Oh, how dearly they will pay!



Told you so.

Oh, and the Psilons get some attention too. In fact...



You'd think glassing someone's homeworld and exterminating two other races in the same year would make them slightly unhappy, but the Bulrathi are merely troubled. There is something deeply wrong with these planetology users. I wonder how much of their "planetology" research has gone into the development of hardy, pungent, new weeds....

All right, everything's ready for the end of this war and the completion of our expansion! I can take care of it right here! Just let me run things for two more years....

Pleeeeeeease? I set everything up so perfectly! Just two ... more.....

(Admiral Refpect drags Refspand bodily away from the control chamber)

Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease?