OSG 26 - The Bearperor Returns

[Psillycyber]

Good points, Ref. The situation at Cryslon could get dicey...

Heh, it's funny how the mood shifts from talking like this game is in the wrap-up phase to realizing that things could get really desperate at the drop of a hat. I doubt the honorable Alkari would declare on us unprovoked, but those darned erratic Psilons could start a chain reaction.

What would be really unfortunate is if the Psilons send fast transports at Cryslon that get there before ours, and they end up taking the planet. And when we end up inadvertently taking the planet from them (because there is no way to stop the transports en route from Keeta now), thus getting into a war with them, and then dragging the Alkari in via their alliance. Boy, if that were to play out, I can say I sure did not see that coming when I signed the NAP with the Psilons and decided to try to take Cryslon from the Silis!

Sometimes this game can really throw you a curve ball, and sometimes the curve ball is not just something silly and random like the assassination event, but a chain reaction of events that could have been foreseeable in principle, and yet unthinkable in practice. Much like the start of WW1. Kudos to the original game designers.

[Psillycyber]

Hey, I just had a thought: maybe we can hope that the Silicoids gather a small fleet at Cryslon (they already have 2 large ships there...plus maybe that Whale-class vessel will come back) and rebuild some missile bases to drive off the Psilons, just in time for us to swoop in and finish off the Silicoid reinforcements in 6 turns. That would be ideal. In that case, though, we better have enough NPGs to drive off any remaining Silicoid fleet.

[Ianus]

I wouldn't count on the Silicoids driving off the Psilons with a couple of larges. Maybe with that Whale and some free Colships, but even lame Psilons like these should be a credible threat. I'd like to get another look at their tech, and the Sakkra and Alkari too come to think of it.

[RefSteel]

I wouldn't count on the Silicoids driving off the Psilons with a couple of larges. Maybe with that Whale and some free Colships, but even lame Psilons like these should be a credible threat. I'd like to get another look at their tech, and the Sakkra and Alkari too come to think of it.

Yeah - the whole reason we're able to pull off this crazy expedition to Cryslon is that the Silis are incredibly backward in basically every known form of technology. Maybe they'll soften the Psilon fleet up a bit before we take Cryslon and have to deal with it ourselves, but that's the most we can reasonably hope for, I think.

And don't worry, I also noticed our ... slightly out-of-date spy reports. A glance at the tech bar says these Psilons are not lagging the way the Silis are. Psilon transports shouldn't beat us to Cryslon unless they have Impulse engines or better though, and ... I mean, they are running a 2PE.

(Note: I've actually started playing my set but don't want to spoil anything. I'll hopefully be able to get a few more turns in tonight, but I don't expect to finish before tomorrow. Sorry about that; it's that kind of week.)

[RefSteel]

Erg - sorry; the last couple days got even more complex (mostly in good ways, fortunately, but that doesn't speed the game along) than when I posted here before. I've made time to play a few turns, but they're unusually complex and intense ones and haven't gone quickly. I'll try to finish tonight, but will definitely be late. If all else fails, I at least have the day off tomorrow!

(The turns would admittedly go [EDIT: a little] faster if I took fewer screenshots and kept less-thorough notes. The in-character reports actually don't slow things down, since I write them at times - like now - when I couldn't play anyway, but I take the turn-by-turn notes in real time and boil them down into something vaguely readable after the fact.)

Spoilers for examples of some of the in-game complexity so far:

Tachaon's been sending additional fleets to Cryslon every turn, and now the Sakkra have a fleet en route - and of course the Psilons have transports coming - as well. This might slow down after we take the world, but we'll still presumably have to dislodge any ships they have in orbit (or en route) already. Meanwhile, the Silicoid navy has responded to the three-way threat to its homeworld by ... setting out for Keeta! (Arguably our best colony for now...) Also, the Alkari have Controlled Toxic, the Sakkra (I think; I don't have the game or images in front of me, so it could be the Psilons ... or both...) have Controlled Dead, and we have several far-flung and important worlds to claim at the edges of our empire, with nothing but Nuclear Engines!

Also: The reason Psillycyber didn't see the Psilon fleet earlier is that it hadn't left yet the previous turn: They have Sublights, and the things are fitted on all their ships! The nebulae also make things interesting by generating uncertainty and false information on ETAs exactly where we want to know when everything will be arriving. And all that's without even mentioning the domestics, which have their own multiple layers of complexity!

[EDIT: Oh, and did I mention? We met the Meklar too....]

There's a huge amount to do in these turns, and it's lots of fun to figure it all out! ... But not speedy.

[Ianus]

Oh man am I excited! It sounds like things are really getting intense! Well there is no bearperor I'd rather have in charge right now! Work your magic Ref!

[Psillycyber]

Sounds great! I'm glad this particular game is continuing to be challenging and exciting. (It would be a let-down if it really were the wrap-up phase already). Can't wait to read your report!

[RefSteel]

Full in-character report, 2400 through 2403:

2400: The holographic starlight image glowed pale in the quiet darkness of the Bearperor-elect's palace nursery. "You see?" he asked his daughter as she gazed up, rapt, from her reinforced-duralloy crib, at the shimmering cloud of light that represented the galaxy. "This is the Pollus nebula, all purple and shiny, and these -" he indicated a holographic marker; in spite of their looming presence in person, on a map built to a galactic scale, they were impossible to see - "are our very own transports, hurrying down from Keeta to stop the mean old Silicoids from doing any more bad things ever to our Primodius colony."



"Ansports," agreed his daughter, happily.

"You can see their path going right through the near reaches of the Pollus nebula," the Bearperor told his little girl-cub indulgently. "And do you know when they will get to Cryslon?"

With a sigh, from the doorway behind him, his wife answered, "No, she doesn't." She waited for his eyes before she added, "Neither do you. Neither does anyone else in the galaxy."

The bearperor winked at his daughter. "That is true. Sometimes when people go through a purple shiny thing they have to stop and admire it because it is so pretty, and they do not get where they are going when they are supposed to."

"You've changed the Porridge transports' orders then?" His wife's voice suggested she doubted it.

"Of course," the bearperor answered. "I'm sending more of them! I don't care when those Keeta blimps get there, late or early to the party. I'd have launched from Primodius this year if I thought they'd do it on their own. We can't afford to wait around at Cryslon."

"Ode-ius," his daughter agreed.

"I'm sending the farm from the Wood while I'm at it," he told his wife coyly. "Plus a berserker squad out of Bruno in case they luck into something."

She blinked. "But that's half-way across the galaxy!"

The bearperor nodded sagely as his daughter seconded her mother's opinion: "Alaxy!"

"So's Vulcan though," the bearperor answered sanguinely. "The Silicoids' new terran colony. And with Bruno, it's just in range."



All across the galaxy, factory-builders, starship engineers, and terraforming experts were leaving off their regular duties to contribute their expertise or raw bear power to the construction - at long last - of serious Soil Enrichment Research and Development laboratories. The empire's other research projects weren't being neglected - with the lone near-exception of dotomite fuel cell development, which the Bulrathi hoped to reverse-engineer when they conquered Cryslon anyway - but none of the others received even a fifth of the funding poured into start-up costs for the new planetology push. The colonial defense minister was up in arms over the empire's failure to recruit more computer scientists, but the bearperor could only answer, "Now is not the time."

With yet more transports setting out to replace departing invaders on key worlds, with every ounce of the empire's strength bent on achieving its new mid-term goals - even the old Honeybee IIs were scrapped for parts, and for the savings on fuel and maintenance - perhaps the Bearperor even had a point.



Newly-appointed spymaster Stralian Drop sighed as he looked over his departmental reports. A single agent cowering in a service tunnel somewhere in Silicoid space kept sending top-secret reports about the rock-people's lack of progress that he could have just guessed for himself; another agent, masquerading as a private merchant taking advantage of the 45-billion-credit Alkari-Bulrathi trade agreement, was still trying to infiltrate Alkari society just to the extent of learning how far ahead of Bulrathi technology they had gotten recently. As for the Sakkra and Psilon empires, he had heard nothing from them in three decades and more. The Bearperor's first request of him had been for a dossier on potential load-outs for the Psilon fleet with which the Bulrathi neutron pellet fighters would have to contend at Cryslon, and it was quickly becoming obvious that the only thing the spymaster would be able to do in that respect was to invent new and interesting ways of repeating, "We haven't the faintest idea." His entire department, it appeared, with all its necessary infrastructure of listening devices, code breakers, electronic surveillance equipment, and counter-espionage informants - they had caught a Silicoid spy shortly before his appointment apparently - to say nothing of the agents themselves and the support teams and hacking equipment without which they couldn't function at all, had barely received a line item in the budget in the history of the empire, with less than fifteen billion galactic credits - less than one half of one percent of the imperial budget - devoted to the cause when he took over. His department's total funding, at its high watershed mark, covered less than the cost of a single bomber or modern fighter.

Nevertheless, he knew he was inheriting a department with real promise: The Silicoid spy had been found masquerading as a pile of rocks near an important Primoduis factory, and though it had died rather than revealing the secrets of its mission, it had almost certainly been plotting sabotage, and would have caused havoc in the colony had it succeeded. It might even have revealed more information had there been any operating budget for interrogation equipment ... but the spymaster knew better than to waste his limited funds on a project like that even if he or the emperor could have stomached it; active spies in alien space were more important by far, and he could more or less guess what the Silicoid spies would be attempting anyway. Looking over the limited reports he had, considering the advances the Silicoids had made, surpassing the Bulrathi in some important respect in every technological field but planetology - too wide a variety of technological advances for any invasion to capture and reverse-engineer at any single world - he made a reluctant decision that he felt had become necessary: If his department was ever to gain the visibility it needed to earn any meaningful funding, it was going to have to produce some result that all the Bulrathi people could see. So he sent an encrypted message deep into Silicoid space, to the hidden agent still cowering there: "Take the risk," said the message. "Hack their systems. Find their blueprints. Get me some kind of rock technology."

2401: Hirgrriir Vlan of the Cryslon Sector Fleet spat as he watched the nukers closing in. Like rank amateurs, the pilots were hugging the system's asteroid fields instead of maneuvering as he would have done to force the first cluster of rockets to fly straight through the field. Several Nuker pilots -- some small fraction of the 37 whose ships were destroyed -- paid the ultimate price for their mistake ... which hardly changed the fact that the sheer overkill of over 200 bombers easily cratered all of Phyco's space defenses. Even Hirgrriir's NPG fighters were able to contribute minimally, firing right though the planet's defenses to scratch the surface of their bases, un-fired-upon as those very concealed rocket tubes popped out from their hidden enclousres and spent their eneergies in fruitlessly trying to hold off the Bulrathi bombers. Hundreds of nuclear bombs hit Phyco, reducing its dozen missile bases to a pile of burning slag, before the battle fell silent and Hirgrriir gave the order to start mapping the surface from space.



None of the many transports being dispatched around the empire would depart for Phyco any time soon: The star's most nearly-habitable world was a sulfrous inferno.

As Psilon fleets continuously chased each other across space, bound for Cryslon at warp 3, as transports and reserves from the imperial treasury continued to flow out toward the periphery of Bulrathi space, as the empire's first warp-2 scanner ship was finally designed and constructed in Ursa's orbital shipyards, with orders already in place for its relocation to Porridge, the Bearperor took a break from his endless coordination meetings with the ministers of the interior and defense to speak with the other galactic emperors. Tachaon was cheerful as ever, noting the deep and spiritual beauty of the iiner souls of snails, but something about him worried the Bearperor: After offering a minor trade, he had found Tachaon no longer interested in learning about the technology needed to colonize geothermally dead worlds - much, in fact, like Redwing of the Alkari. It was difficult to draw any conclusion from facts like these except that both leaders held similar or better planetology technology already - which meant that many more worlds than previously thought were at risk. And the Silicoids, with whom the Bulrathi was already at war - as in fact they had been for decades - could of course already colonize any planet in the galaxy larger than a floating asteroid.

So the Bearperor sighed as he finallly caught up on his correspondence, bringing up an image of Tyranid, emperor of the Sakkra, on his holodisplay. About to propose another minor trade however, the Bearperor paused. The Sakkra people, it seemed, were willing if needed to teach his the secrets of their personal deflector shields - for a price, but they were willing - and when he asked what price it would be, he found their offer too tempting to resist.



Duralloy armor is of course incredibly useful, not only to early miiaturization and the all-important edge for ground combat troops, but for the protection of ships and their crews and of missile bases especially, to say nothing of useful consumer products like the First Bearcub's reinforced playpen and crib. Still, the bearperor felt it would be a small price to pay in exchange for ever-more overwhelming ground combat superiority. By the time the Bulrathi people were prepared to fight the Sakkra, there was every probability that they would have developed more potent armor still - and personal deflectors in any case carried twice the protective power of each layer of armored defense. Learning of the trade, the Bulrathi defense minister frowned and pointedly informed his commander-in-chief, "We could have gotten that anyway. We're planning to reverse-engineering everything we can from the factories down on Cryslon. I'm sure they have assembly plants for all the personal shields they wear, and once we get a bear in the building..."

"There's a lot that your reverse-engineering teams will want to decipher from the ruins," the Bearperor agreed. "I'd rather see your troops protected before they fight the biggest battle of our young millenium though - and we can't be sure of what we'll get from Cryslon anyway. The first Psilon attack fleet will be arriving there sometime next year, with another following in its wake already, and your transports from Porridge can't arrive before the year 2406. There's no telling what may happen to the Silicoids and their homeworld in the meantime; there's even a chance all those factory-cities won't be there!"

The defense minister scoffed, but he couldn't move his bearperor, and eventually accepted reality when he noticed that the Bearperor was ignoring him completely in order to tell a small private holodisplay, "Who's a good bearcub? Who's a pretty bearcub? Who's the bestest bearcub?" and cooing in a thoroughly unprofessional - to say nothing of unbearperorlike - manner. Wisely taking this opportunity to depart the Imperial presence, the defense minister was free to resume pacing and fretting over plans for meeting the Psilons in space and for identifying their weaknesses.

Three hours later, there was still just one item on the list of those he'd already identified: "At least they're not the Alkari."

2402: There is a legend among the Bulrathi people of two mighty hunters who dwelt in the frozen polar regions of Ursa, whose favorite prey was the elusive - and delicious - blueberry muffin. As they did not scruple to hunt muffins owned by somewhat less-mighty and exceptionally less-lazy bakers, they came to be known far and wide as Bad Bears. Nevertheless, certain elements of the Bulrathi people took pride in their story - first told, of course, by [EDIT: Daniel Pinkwater]. So when it came time to name the icy colony-to-be of Paladia 8, the bearperor very wisely chose the well-known name of one of the ice-dwelling bad bears themselves: The traditional name of Muktuk might be saved for a future colony, but ex-Paladia came to be known as...



...Irving.

With the advent of the Irving colony, the Bulrathi empire at last had crossed the stars to such an extent that CB-715, the aggressive leader of the Meklar technologista elite, at last deigned to send a holo-transmission with greetings for the Bearperor and his people. It didn't take long for the two leaders to form an understanding: With CB-715's demands for the exchange of various technologies inflated beyond all sense and reason, the Bearperor desired only three things from the machines: A small trade agreement, soon signed to the tune of 55 billion credits annually; a non-aggression pact to which the Meklar, isolated and distant among the three planets of their empire, were more than happy to agree; and an early opportunity of ending the holoconference and returning home to play peek-a-bear with his two-year-old daughter.



For its part, CB-715 desired only one thing: For the Bulrathi to continue beating the tar out of the rock people at the heart of the galaxy.

It wouldn't be easy to fulfill its wish - not at the rock homeworld of Cryslon, at least. In addition to yet another Psilon fleet en route, the Bearperor had noticed a Sakkra war fleet making its way past Phyco in Cryslon's general direction. It seemed that once the previous emperor had cleared the bases out of the way, everyone in the galaxy had decided they wanted a piece of the Silicoid homeworld. Knowing all too well that his people would have to face the enemy - all three enemies in the region, with the potential for yet more to come - in space, the Bearperor called upon the people of Tannenberg. They had been assembling starship parts for the whole of his administration, always with additional imperial reserves supplied to help out from off-world, and the time had come at last for their efforts to bear fruit in over 100 neutron pellet starfighters, with orders already built in for their immediate relocation to Porridge. The Bearperor knew all too well that, even in conjunction with the existing fleet, they might not be enough - but he had to try. Transports were already setting out from Primodius to Cryslon, carying 27 million Bulrathi - as many bears as could go aboard - to say nothing of those already en route through the deeps of space from Porridge and the reinforcements - sent far earlier, but so delayed by the nebula that they would not arrive in time for the battle - from Keeta, in the heart of Bulrathi space. The die was cast for Cryslon, and it was bound at last to fall to the Bulrathi; all the Bearperor could do was to try to hold it once it did.



Spymaster Stralian Drop morosely approached the office of the Bearperor again. What more could he say about what the Psilon fleet carried - or might carry? He didn't know; his department hadn't had the funding to put a spy in Psilon space for decades. The guesses he could hazard, he well knew, would necessarily be as wild as the wanderings of Tachaon's mind. He tried to come up with still more diplomatic language in which to say things he'd already been saying throughout the present administration, but dreaded in his heart that with his lone agent's continuing failure to discover any useful secrets out in Silicoid space, he had no success to point to, and might be forced to operate on an even-more slender shoestring.

Looking down, pale and wan, he failed to see the Bearperor making googly-eyed faces into the holotransmitter for his giggling two-year-old daughter, and naturally assumed that the giggling itself meant the Bearperor was watching recordings of some of Tachaon's more lucid ravings. Waving goodbye and ending the transmission, the Bearperor turned to his spymaster and said cheerfully, "Have a seat, Strale." With a wry grin at Drop's downcast face, he added, "You'll want to be out again in a minute, but just at first, I think you'd better take this sitting down."

The spymaster slumped into a seat, bracing for the worst, and the Bearperor went on conversationally, "I've been looking over your notes on the Meklar again. Happened to realize, even though we just met them, the uncertainty you listed at 100-plus years isn't that much more than what you estimate for our Psilon and Sakkra ... uh ... buddies. Maybe a factor of two or three."

Stralian nodded mutely, waiting for the skewering question - but the Bearperor wasn't in a questioning mood. "We need to do something about that - something immediate, I would say. Now, I know if you had any suggestions, you would tell me...." He shook his head as Spymaster Drop groaned inwardly. "But I think maybe you've been thinking too small," the Bearperor went on. "I want a preliminary proposal by the end of the week on how you plan to get results with the new budget I'm contemplating."

It took a moment for Stralian Drop to put together everything he'd just heard. His heart hammering with hope and with doubt, he asked, "You mean ... you're willing to increase our funding?"

"Only by a factor of ten," the Bearperor answered cheerfully. "Nothing too outrageous. Now, go and put together that proposal for me."



2403: The new Moonbase out of Fnarglo wouldn't reach its destination before the current Bearperor termed out, but he seemed unmoved by such considerations, sending it on down to the Rha system just the same, in the hope that it would arrive in time to colonize the dead, rich world there before some other empire got their hands, claws, talons, biomechanical servos, or rocky appendages on it. At least the fighter fleet with their Expotition scanner flagship would reach Cryslon in something like a timely fashion: Soon enough to meet any Silicoid fleet that might try to interdict the incoming transports. The Psilons and Sakkra who would be there to join the party would presumably be able to handle anything in that nature, but the Bearperor wished to leave nothing to chance - and knew in any case that those same Psilons and Sakkra fleets might well keep following their orders to attack Cryslon until they were destroyed or chased away, regardless of whether the inhabitants were their friends or enemies. Scanners on Primodius had picked up no less than 50 Psilon combat transports already en route to Cryslon at warp 2, and when they arrived, they certainly wouldn't do so peacefully.

The same might be said, with emphasis, for the Silicoid starfleet - a Mako cruiser and colony ship passing by or through the outer reaches of the Pollus Nebula - that could only be bound for Keeta itself, the Bulrathi people's first and perhaps still most-important extra-Ursestrial colony. A missile base was being assembled there in response, and for much the same reasons, funding for the Bulrathi force field and weapon research projects were not reduced as some observers had expected but increased, with the previous year's 5% chances of a force field breakthrough rising to 16 and the weapons engineers reporting a 10% chance of developing working scatter rockets within the year. The Bearperor said hopeful things about the future, but his spymaster - new funding and all - wasn't cheered by the news. "Oh, good," Stralian muttered to himself. "Then if they succeed, we'll be slightly fewer light-years behind the Alkari."



Quite apart from their overall technological advantage, Redwing's people had discovered ways of surviving on nearly any planet in the galaxy. They could well beat the new Moonbase to distant Rha, naturally, and no matter who did end up claiming it, if they ever took it into their birdbrains to go to war, no planet in the Bulrathi empire would be safe.

[EDIT: Part 2 of my report added below, and notes for the next emperor moved down there.]

The save is attached!

[Ianus]

Oooh sounds like I'm in for some surprises!!! I'll be back tonight to play unless Thrawn gets there first. I won't "got it" until then in case he wants to jump in.

[RefSteel]

Report Part 2: 2404-2407

2404: Stralian Drop mopped his brow with the back of one enormous paw, emerging from the Bearperor's office once again. After a lifetime's struggles through the administration of the Ursine Intelligence Agency, he still couldn't quite believe he was working for a boss who didn't automatically take out everything that went wrong on him. Over the course of the past year, all his agents outside Bulrathi space had been discovered and executed by the empires in which they were working, and yet the Bearperor only ever made sympathetic noises and looked over the reports Stralian had assembled from information they had managed to send before being caught. On two different occasions, the Bearperor had even complimented him on the reports - even though they were the ones that explicitly showed Bulrathi technological progress in the most unflattering light! He still had enough of a budget to keep planting new agents in every rival empire and the Bearperor's personal approval for the technological espionage he was advocating in Psilon and Silicoid space - even though there had been no positive results to date! The Bearperor had even shared the latest top-secret reports from his other main information-gathering sources - the Cubscout 2s still fanning out across the galaxy - just in case they might prove useful to his work.



Stralian was utterly mystified - not least by the "important appointment" to which the Bearperor had hurried off after the latest meeting, carrying what appeared to be a copy of "The Aypenstein Apes Go Camping," by Jan and Stan Aypenstein - one of those children's books set in a world where, preposterously, talking apes walked around on their hind feet and lived in a modern society like Bulrathi. Returning to his office, Stralian could only shake his head - and wonder if the scientists on the Force Fields and Weapons development teams were receiving similar treatment in spite of failing to produce results; they were reporting odds of 30 and 22% of breakthroughs in the upcoming year, but would either one actually succeed in time to help protect Keeta? He shook his head. "What a way to run a government," he sighed.


2405: Rrrisha Garr rushed across the Keeta starbase tarmac, ducking under the hulls of shuttles and fightercraft, her lab coat whipping behind her, carrying a shimmering sphere of energy in her arms. The first guard at the door to the starport shield generation facility tried to stop her, and she body-checked him aside in her exictement; the rest, recognizing her, just let her through. "We've got it!" she crowed, hurling the doors open as the main facility technicians hurried down to meet her. "I've got the prototype right here! Grrarrriri's sending you the specs right now, and we'll have your shields boosted and ready for that rock fleet ASAP!" A light seemed to glow behind her eyes as she added, "And someday, we're going to design one that can shield the entire world!"



Across the galaxy, Brughy Fregraar stared at his HUD in disbelief. "A Silicoid Whale?! They built a dreadnought?! How? Where?" He jammed his engines up to full power, cutting in his hyperspace tunnel generators for emergency return. "I'm out of here, guys," he called through his transmitter. "I don't have a chance against this thing!" The hyperspace tunnel opened, and he burst through, escaping with his life and his Cubscout 2, leaving the Silicoids complete control ... of the Cygni asteroid field.

Not far away though, another Cubscout, reaching a star that had been unclaimed when it left during Bearperor Psillycyber's administration, found a Sakkra colony guarded only by a fleet of the lizards' Hydra missile boats. Thanks to the known design flaws in the Hydra targeting systems, this Cubscout had no trouble evading their fire until they had to retreat and resupply.



Reports came in from Berel as well, its endlessly-flowing magma rich with neutronium, high-density energy crystals, and rare metal ores, but the reports the Bearperor really wanted wouldn't come in until the following year. The war with the Silicoids proceeded, and the Psilons spoke words of friendship, but the war was about to reach its height - and the Psilons to show their true colors.

2406: "Primodius Command, this is Flagship Expo. We've got eyes on the Silicoid defenses."



"They've rebuilt a base - I repeat, one missile base - and I'm transmitting specs on the Mako cruiser now."

Admiral Grrunf nodded, looking over the scanner results, and forwarded the data on to Keeta to help them plan their defense; another Mako was expected to arrive there within a year. "Those Psilons really did a number on that planet once we took out their bases," he growled. "That's a lot of factories down, to say nothing of the population." He shook his head but went on, "Okay, take out those defenses. We'll just have to hope our war allies don't burn the colony down."

The battle went flawlessly: Nukers swept in and bombed the base out of existence, dodging all the missiles launched at them en route, as the Mako fled through hyperspace from the cloud of Bulrathi fighters. Then as the fleet watched, pilots and command Admiral alike gritting their teeth, Psilon and Sakkra ships swept in to bombard the colony once again, just ahead of the transports from Primodius and Porridge - with the Keeta transports still a full year behind due to nebula interference.

The colony survived; though the population was hit hard, it didn't take as much damage as it must have in the past to have fallen so low. Perhaps the Psilons had held their fire after all, seeing the state of the defenses and knowing their own transports were en route - but perhaps they simply didn't have the firepower anymore: The Bulrathi would soon discover that their cruisers in the area had all been scrapped in one of Tachaon's fits of madness, leaving only their fighters and destroyers in Cryslons' orbit.

Whatever the reason, the colony stood, with at least a few factories still intact, as General Frregrar led the first wave of transports in. As they prepared for re-entry, the General got a priority call from the Bearperor himself, and frowning grimly, prepared for a crack about Durfus, he answered the call.

It was not what he expected. The hologram of a six-year-old cub looked up at him wide-eyed from the hologram Bearperor's knee. "Hi, General!" the little girl called, waving at him shyly.

"Make me proud," said the Bearperor, with a comeradely smile.

"Yes, sir," Frregrar answered, grinning. And he left the holochamber, strapping into a gravity couch. And he did.



Four Bulrathi batallions were lost of the seventy-eight that hit the ground. The casualties among the Silicoids were higher by a ratio of more than ten to one. High-mobility ursine troops flanked Silicoid positions as heavy forces cut through the enemy's entrenched defenses with laser assault weapons pinpoint-targeting vulnerable support points identified by combat engineers. Shock troopers in heavy duralloy armor lured out Silicoid sorties into the jaws of Frrengrar's traps. Snipers with long-range laser rifles picked off Silicoid commanders and caused panic in the ranks as military hackers disrupted enemy communications, delaying reinforcements until they would no longer be supporting entrenched allies but walking into the arms and killing zones of the Bulrathi. By the time the dust cleared, no Silicoids remained on the surface of Cryslon, while all 29 of the factories the Sakkra and Psilon bombardment had left intact remained, and in spite of the massive damage on the surface of the world, combat engineers were even able to recover intact construction plans from a starship factory.



Ion Cannons were not the most useful weapons in the galaxy, but they immediately became the Bulrathi state of the art, and the Bearperor hadn't been sure the troops would recover anything at all. Frrengrar received the empire's highest commendations ... and was advised to prepare the ground in case the 50 incoming Psilon assault transports came through. They were due - like the Silicoid assault fleet at Keeta - to arrive within a year.

The Keeta defense grid had the latest shield technology installed all over the colony, including the new-fashioned missile base and the construction sites for two more. Everyone on the planet not involved with assembling the bases or supporting the working population was hard at work in the starship factories, putting together a few new neutron pellet fighters. The rest of the empire was helping as well though, pouring resources into the development of construction and especially weapons technology, bringing the chance of a breakthrough on the former to 19% and the latter - meaning scatter-pack rockets for Keeta's bases - to 40.

The bombers at Cryslon, meanwhile, departed for Incedius to perform further acts of ... diplomacy.

2407: Neither the Psilons nor the Silicoids had departed. Neither Tachaon nor Tyranid had withdrawn their attack orders when control of Cryslon passed from the Silicoids to the Bulrathi.



The Sakkra Hydrae with their known targeting flaw were no threat on their own - but the colony ship carried death spores - five racks' worth - and had to be slagged. Seven of the pellet fighters were were lost, but the colony ship went down in flames long before it could reach the planet and the Hydrae were forced to retreat when their payload ran out.



Then the Psilons took their turn.



The Psilon ships were built with more advanced technology, but the Bulrathi had numbers, neutron pellet guns, and ex-Bearperor Ianus's far-superior starship design. Only 30 Bulrathi fighters went down as they burned the Psilon fleet.

Then, just before the Silicoids hit Keeta, there was a breakthrough in a Sanders high-tech lab!



The new waste reduction technology would provide a nice, small boost to the empire's economy, and state-of-the-art improvements to Bulrathi industrial technology would be a boon when they were developed later on - but Scatter Pack rockets still weren't ready, and Keeta would have to defend itself with basic missiles and a small fighter fleet.



It didn't matter. Thanks to three bases fully equipped with their new shields, the Silicoid Mako and Colony Ship couldn't even burn through the first one's armor before both went down in flames. Then the Psilon transports hit Cryslon, unprotected by their fleet, with 130 neutron pellet fighters flying interdiction missions.



Every incoming transport was destroyed without exception - and with that, the Bulrathi bombers made their grim diplomatic overtures to everyone who wasn't a rock ... and a single Bulrathi commando division arrived at the terran world of Vulcan.



It nearly took the world on its own. The fourth and last Silicoid battallion barely held the bears off after the first three were destroyed ... and millions more Bulrathi less than a year away. So as a Moonbase colony ship set out for Simius, as still more transports departed across the Bulrathi empire, as planetology and weapons engineers reported chances of breakthroughs of 1 and 42%, the Bearperor laughed ... at a schoolteacher's joke. He was visiting a second-grade class for his daughter's Bring Your Father to School Day.

Report Part 3: 2408-2410:

2408: The last of the Psilon fleets sent piecemeal to Cryslon before General Frregrar's conquest finally arrived. Naturally, they attacked, flagrantly ignoring their long-standing non-aggression pact, but the main fighter fleet was still in orbit in anticipation of just such an event.



Six more brave Bulrathi pilots died, but they took all 45 Comets with them, and the Psilon colony ships retreated, finally forced to admit defeat. Then, since the Bearperor refused to violate the pact that Tachaon seemed bent on ignoring, it was up to Stralian Drop to get some recompense for the losses his people had suffered.



His agents on Mentar staged a raid on an older military complex - one that hadn't yet been brought up to date with the Psilons' state-of-the-art security protocols - and after passing through triple layers of laser security webs, microvibration detectors, and Psilon sentries, they penetrated to their target: The command-and-control center that housed the base's main targeting computer arrays. While one agent stood watch, the team's computer expert carefully disassembled the targeting system, photographing each component in its housing as she went, pakced the critical and unfamiliar components into the adaptive foam of her pack, carefuly sabotaged what remained so it would melt down into an unrecognizable mess in what would appear to be an accident, and hissed, "Got 'em! Let's go!"

They nearly got out undetected.

Almost at the fence, staying low for concealment, avoiding the security webs again, they heard a cry from one of the guard towers, and then alarms were sounding everywhere, banks of floodlights flashing on, and the voice from the guard tower shouting, "Bulrathi! There are Bulrathi down there!"

Stralian's agents didn't wait around. They didn't try to climb the fence, and didn't worry about the gate; they just tore through the duralloy links as if through tissue paper mesh with the laser cutters built into their gloves, running hard for freedom. Staccato bursts from assault rifles rang through the night as pursuing Psilon patrols leapt at shadows or resorted to reconaissance by fire, and parts of the forest where the Bulrathi agents took cover were set alight by explosive rounds and mortar fire. The bearhunt lasted all night, into the morning, and beyond, but Stralian's agents were long gone by then, sending detailed specs for the battle computer they'd disassembled back to the Bearperor's spymaster.

Half excited, half terrified - he had no idea what it would mean diplomatically for his agents to be caught in the act - Stralian Drop sent the specs directly to the science teams, and was still agonizing over his report when another priority transmission came in. He did a double-take when he saw the planet of origin: What were his agents doing on Vulcan?

In fact there was only one, and he'd arrived just the previous year, embedded with the commando division that had nearly taken the planet. While the rest were doing battle, selling their lives dear, taking three Silicoids for every one of them who went down, Agent Hrraf had taken advantage of the confusion of battle to conceal himself near the planet's lone, tiny research lab. He learned that, in desperation, the Silicoids of Vulcan had been trying to develop a form of shoulder-mounted rocket powerful enough to shoot down fighters and transports in space, and though their project had met with no success and no inkling of a possibility, he had noticed that they were using real Silicoid weapons specs as a basis for their hopeless research. They fully intended to wipe the records before the transports arrived ... but Hrraf moved in before they had the chance.



As weapons, Hyper-V rockets had little to recommend them. Bulrathi weapons development teams were on the verge of designing MRV missiles that could split into five separate rockets, each far more compact but with identical yield to the Silicoid model. Still, the Silicoids had approached rocket design from an entirely different angle, and lessons learned from their mistakes would help with the miniaturization of other varieties of weapons even if there were no need for the rockets themselves before the MRVs were ready to hit the assembly line. Stralian commended Hrraf gravely, then warned him, "Keep your head down. There's going to be fighting in the streets there any minute!"

"Pfah," Hrraf answered eloquently. "If you can call it fighting."



When he saw the reports, Stralian couldn't call it anything of the kind. The Bulrathi had come in with ten times the Silicoids' number, and though the rocks, surrounded and outgunned by enormous, unstoppable ursines in superior armor, refused to yield, the Bulrathi forces had claimed the colony without the loss of a single life on their own side, swatting the Silicoid resistance aside with all the effort of a professional exterminator casually swatting a fly. He assembled his annual review for the Bearperor, careful not to lay any of the blame for his spies' discovery red-handed at Mentar on the heads of the spies themselves - the Bearperor's ways were rubbing off on him - and commending them instead on their swift action to claim the computer plans in the first place, and to escape with the plans, the critical components, and their lives.

When at last he entered the Bearperor's office however, Stralian froze. Up on the main holodisplay was a recording from Tachaon the Mad.



The timing, Stralian felt, could not have been worse - except that when the display froze, the sound of giggling he'd noticed went on. "I'll bet they're just bad at translating," a cheerful young girl-cub's voice declared, the edge of the giggles still in her voice.

Stralian blinked, and saw the Bearperor's daughter, still only eight years old, grinning at the frozen display as the Bearperor himself nodded his spymaster into the room and smiled at his daughter indulgently. "Okay," he allowed, "so you try. What do you think he means by 'Hinterland snort brushes twitch the fresco limpets'?"

Waving her arms about wildly, the little girl answered, "Holy gosh, they're spying! What do I do? What do I do? They got away with stuff and everything! I'd better send a stern message! Yes! That'll take care of everything!"

"Mmmmm," the Bearperor murmured, nodding sagely. "I think you're on to something there. What do you think, Stralian?"

Chuckling to himself, the spymaster had to agree; whatever else might be said about her, the girl knew how to read between the lines.

2409: With another Moonbase colony ship already dispatched for Ajax the previous year, as well as bombers launched to cut the supply lines of the Silicoid Whale observed en route to Nyarl, it was a nervous, helpless-feeling year for the admiral of the fleet. There would certainly be plenty for him to do ere long, but for the moment, he spent a lot of time pacing his office, hoping for some kind of helpful news. When the summons had come to the local research lab to review some supposedly-exciting new discovery, he had agreed in the vague hope that it would prove a useful distraction, but it wasn't really working. All the way to the lab, all he could think about was how the weapons on his fleet - all the weapons in the empire - were so hopelessly out of date that if not for the long-term potency of neutron pellet accelerators, he might almost have despaired. If only he could field real missiles, or real bombs on his combat fleets, he might ... but his thoughts were interrupted. He had arrived in the briefing room, and some scientist or other appeared to have something to say.



It wasn't just a question of having scatter pack rockets ready to install at the empire's three missile bases - those weren't exactly in his department anyway. It wasn't just the plan to develop fusion bombs to crack enemy bases in spite of advanced shield technology. There were fusion beams in his future - actual fusion beams - and there could be no greater joy for the admiral of the fleet.

Well, maybe one.



Bombing Silicoid worlds into the - ahem - stone age was cathartic to say the least. And better still, there was a possibility that broader, steadier action around the empire might be needed.



With Tyranid's implication - in breaking his non-aggression pact - that his need for new star systems meant a need to take them by force from the Bulrathi, there was certainly plenty for the admiral to think about. He knew his Bearperor would be termed out the following year, but at least if the next Bearperor brought in someone new to take his place, the Admiral could spend his final years of command in blissful contemplation of future defense fleets.

2410: Of course, the defense fleets in question weren't yet actually in place...



...least of all at distant toxic worlds which couldn't be claimed for decades, no matter how ultra-rich. The Silicoids would have a kind of foot-hold at Tyr, for as long as the Bulrathi and Alkari permitted it to last...



...a caveat of which Geode appeared to be well aware. The Bulrathi weren't yet ready to end the war, but the Silicoids had begun to see the writing on the wall.



So had several other races. Even the Alkari, long the clear galactic leaders in every possible category, had fallen behind in population and especially in planets, and their edge in every other category was eroding. They still were threatening, dangerous, and far, far ahead in technological development ... but the Alkari were losing ground. The galaxy was beginning to look ever more friendly to the Bulrathi.



It was a good place, one couldn't help thinking, for a father and mother bear to raise their ten-year-old girl.

Bear-bones notes: 2400-2410

(Moved down from a previous post)

- There are still some transports on the way: A tiny number of the Silis' will presumably splatter against Vulcan next turn; some 53 of the Sakkra's will reach Cryslon in about 3 turns; 20 of ours are about to reach (and ~fill) Primodius; 22 of ours are 2 turns out from Beedy; and 25 (split between two groups) will reach Irving in two turns. This might (barely) overfill Irving if you do nothing, so I suggest sending whatever few transports you can from there to Rha next turn, when our colship arrives there. Sending more transports the following turn(s) is also reccomended of course....

- There are three unclaimed worlds in range that we can colonize. All are of good to decent size, and two are rich (including the aforementioned Rha). There are Moonbase Dead Colships already enroute to all three. Unfortunately, there may be Alkari ships inbound to at least one of them as well....

- We got basically nothing from invading the Silicoids because the Psilons and Sakkra had wiped out 90% of their factories by the time our 'sports arrived.

- The Sakkra broke their NAP with us just last year; I don't see any incoming fleets yet, but their diplomat is still gone.

- Even though we now have Scatters, the Alkari can build spore ships (or perhaps even worse, Heavy Blast Cannon ships) that are completely immune to our bases and about as impressed by our NPGs as class 2 shields are by lasers. Hopefully they won't, and hopefully we won't have to fight them soon even if they do, but be aware that they are still extremely scary.

- The Psilon shielding is almost as strong, and we won't crack the bases of either one with nukes. Fortunately, we're now researching Fusion Bombs.

- Most of our bombers are heading for Nyarl and Rana. My plan there was to glass both planets, hopefully before the Silicoid Whale dreadnought reaches Narl (to which it appears to be headed) so that upon arrival, it will crash due to lack of fuel bases.

- We have spy reports on (and an active spy with) everybody. I've been actively using Espionage on the Psilons and Silis.

- I haven't spent any reserves this turn (though there might be a little overflow from overspending last turn at a few planets) - you have almost 800 to play with.

- The save is posted above, attached to part 1.

Roster:

Ianus - UP! (Unless Thrawn is back and posts a "Got It" first...)
PsillyCyber - On Deck unless we hear otherwise from Thrawn
RefSteel - Just played
Thrawn - When/if you're back, please let us know!