OSG 29B - The Socially-Awkward Diplomats

[RefSteel]

Welcome aboard, TheArchduke!

[Edit: shallow_thought is taking the second round; after that, third will be up for grabs!]

Also, thanks for responding to shallow_thought's questions so comprehensively, Thrawn, including correcting and clarifying some of my mistakes and glosses. One correction though: To calculate the research bonus from the current spending (when it's just barely enough to light the diode) you divide your current spending by 7.5% (the maximum amount that gets the research investment bonus). Multiplying by three is an unnecessary extra step, and 15% is the amount of just your bonus research: Twice, not three times, the amount of spending that receives the bonus.

[shallow_thought]

Thanks to everyone for the answers to my questions. They would, of course, have been more useful if I hadn't left the game open "to a have a bit more of a look around" and surfaced a couple of hours later with the turnset played...

In particular, we'd have a few more factories and one fewer colships. It's not worth discussing - I just got stuck in an expansionary mindset part way through the turns. A little odd, as I normally max the homeworld first. I think I was just hypnotised by all the T100s out there. Definitely not a disaster, but annoying with hindsight. I should also probably have moved some colonists off Darrian back to Sol a few turns ago. Definitely sub-par micro, even by my standards.

A lot of this report was written before I had a chance to read the replies.

Short report:
- Got IER/ER3 and Range 5
- Colonised Paladia
- We have a _lot_ more colonising to do; there is a shiny new ship waiting to go (downside of this is that Sol still isn't maxed - see above)
- We're going to have fun keeping the rocks grubby hands off all _our_ Rich worlds
- No contacts yet, but We have a bear infestation somewhere to the north; it will also be fun keeping their paws off our T100 worlds
- Meklar hit six planets midway through the turnset.

With a brand new colony and a new colony ship there's a lot of decisions to make this turn. I've left them all to the next guy, because I'm nice like that , but I'll put some thoughts at the end of the full report.

T2320
-----

Lets make a plan:

- Tech: put one more turn of 50ish RP into tech, split 50/50 between planetology and propulsion to reduce rounding errors.That should leave IER/ER3 in low 20%s. The one change I do make is to pull some research from Darrian and move Sol more into factories. Next turn I'll reduce tech by moving Sol 100% to factories, trickle into planetology and push propulsion.
- Production: aim is get a Colship and Range 5 in 10t, and send it to Paladia. It's currently 8t for a Colship at Sol, so we have some time to build factories first.
- Ships: nothing much to do with scouts right now, but we'll have a lot of new targets once range 5 is in. One scout is needed in back lines to look at the purple star; on the front lines I have a nervous tendency to leave scouts over colonised worlds and targets but it's presumably more cost effective to try and push a shell outwards (I usually play on small maps which may bias me). Thrawn's deployments are predictably sensible, so I can leave them until R5.

T2321
-----
IER/ER3 comes straight in. SBTBLTG. Uninspiring choice at next tier - I go for Controlled Dead over Death Spores.



I switch tech to propulsion, leaving one tick in planetology. Reduce total tech by setting Sol to max factories. Colship is now only 6t from Sol, so we can afford to push factories. Darian does a mix of tech and factories.

Noob question: I have picked up the habit of leaving one tick in open fields from somewhere. Does this actually do anything if the tech has nothing already in it, or does this get rounded down to pointlessness? EDIT: judging from the eariler response, this was a small mistake. You need at least 1BC (after rounding) for it to have any effect.

T2322-3
-------
I keep about 30 RP going into propulsion, Sol keeps building factories.

T2324
-----
LED goes out on propulsion, so I up Darian's tech contribution until it's just lit. Sol can build a Colship in 4, but I put one more turn of solid factories in.

T2325
-----
R5 is in (low) %ages. Start colship - 4t, while still building some factories at Sol.

T2326-2328
----------.
R5 reaches 30%, 1t to colship

At this point I perhaps should have stopped the ship build and waited for the tech to come in. Instead I decide to build the ship, as that will save us a turn if tech does come in, and risk the maintenance losses.

T2329
-----
Colship relocates to Darrian and starts eating up maintenance. I dial tech right back, leaving R5 at 37% (I wouldn't normally let a tech get this high, but we really need this). Sol switches back to full-on factories.

T2330
-----
Meklar have six planets. That could be a lot of production down the line...



Still no Range tech (38%).

T2331
-----
We have Range 5! Nuclear engines are our only choice. I split our trickle of tech across Planetology, Propulsion, Force Fields and Construction, to open up two new fields.

Colship heads for Paladia. I start scouts heading for new stars in range. Including our backlines purpler there are five of them, so I leave one scout at Phantos (Arid to our NW).

T2332
-----
I start another Colship at Sol, timed to appear on the turn we colonise Paladia. We will then have at least two new possible worlds in range (ignoring our backlines).

In tech, I pick Fields II (duh) and RIW80% over II9. II9 is cheaper, but II8 may be available next tier. Comments welcome on this decision. Still basically trickling in tech 12RP split evenly, which could be wasting as much as 4RP a turn... I can't get any better micro sorted here until tech is back on properly.

T2333
-----

Scout finds another rich, hostile world (Toxic this time). Celtsi is at white star west of our empire.



T2334
-----
Scout finds another Terran 100 north of Paladia. So much for a less lush galaxy this time!



And the purple in our back lines is a Dead Ultra Rich, albeit only size 15 for now. Controlled Dead is worth something after all!



T2335
-----
Our last scout on the move for the moment runs into another ship. Bears. Anooying, but not rocks, runway Meklar or mad cats. Ho hum. The planet is a Minimal 30. I almost wish it had been hostile, to act as a bear repellant.





Colship arrives at Paladia and I found the colony.

New Colship completes and relocates to Darrian. I leave it and the scouts for the next player to decide about.

Thoughts for next player
------------------------
So, the TODO list:
- set scouts going - do we need more? (we're running colships anyway now, so maintenance of scouts is less relevant)
- pick a target for colship
- decide on Sol production
- think about sending pop to Paladia
- take a look at tech (basically "off" at the moment)
- worry about defenses?

Our "front lines" have four colonisable planets. Two T100s(!), an A60 and an M30 that the bears have already scouted. Our back lines have a (fertile) Steppe 55 which leads to another T100. We need so many Colships. I think that the big question will be how to stake a claim to the front lines, particularly against bears. We also have a Tundra and Dead Ultra-Rich to consider once we get Controlled Dead, and lots of Toxic and Radiated worlds to try to defend.

Here's a map showing what's available right now. The T100 north of Paladia would probably be my first colonisation target. I think that the T100 further east is safe for now. We also need to secure Phantos (A60) and perhaps the bear-scouted Simius (M30).

[RefSteel]

Great turns, shallow_thought! I think Thrawn covered everything in thorough depth, and I mostly agree with his points, so I'll just add some alternate perspectives and additional thoughts:

On the single click of spending in a field you don't plan to really open right away: I like to do this later in the game, when the 1 BC of rounding loss doesn't matter and I know a single click on the tech screen will represent at least a few RP indefinitely. The idea is to increase the total amount of bonus RP you get in each field over the long term by "pre-seeding" a tech for the (relatively distant) future. This is only worthwhile when there are clicks to spare of course; early on, when every BC counts (and in some other situations when you need to squeeze everything possible out of the empire) everything possible needs to be focused on the present plan.

Other tech stuff: I would emphasize Planetology more and sooner than Thrawn suggests, not just to open up our back-lines Ultra Rich, but for the population production bonus and to speed us toward the critical planetology techs (hopefully including Terra+30 and Controlled Radiated) that we're hoping to land going forward, especially since we're good at planetology tech as humans. I wouldn't make any serious investment in any tech field other than Plan and Prop yet, given our many other conflicting priorities. (I normally do max out my homeworld, partly for an option to build reserves in an emergency, but Thrawn's suggested approach is obviously a valid alternative to build the empire's strength as a whole.)

I won't have a playing window until late tonight at least, so if anyone wants to grab the save, feel free! If no one has done so by the time I can play, I'll see what I can do!

[RefSteel]

Okay, there's no way I should be playing this late at night, and I may not be able to finish until at least tomorrow, but as nobody else has claimed it and I'm going to be up stretching anyway.....

Got it!

I think my pre-flight plan is fairly well outlined above (in the walls of text thrawn and I have been exchanging) but if anyone has questions or alternate suggestions, please say so!

[TheArchduke]

Will do the next set, Ref. Planwise we seem to be set.

[RFS-81]

That settles the roster, then. Those reports and discussion were very interesting. Thrawn, you mentioned the probabilities of habitable planets for certain star colors. Do you have a more detailed breakdown on that?

[RefSteel]

Uhhhhhhhh ....
So......

I played the turns. I colonized lots of worlds. I did some teching. I ... met all but one of the races in the galaxy.

The Meklars are pretty clear runaways right now, and they're Erratic Expansionists. They have some fleets heading ... somewhere ... in our space. Some ... other stuff happened. I really, really should have gone with my instincts and maxed Sol early on.

- We're not at war with anybody! Technically! Everybody still loves us, in theory.

- I got to use some clever tactics that might save one of our worlds, or might have merely delayed the perhaps-inevitable. The world in question isn't that important, as worlds go, so....

- I should quit writing these teasers and finish the report, but I know I won't be done with it tonight. And the situation in the save is kind of a mess. Let me see if I can sort it out a little bit (in words; not playing past 2350) and post the save....

[RefSteel]

Okay, sitrep:

- We have Controlled Dead, a decent start on nuclear engines, and to a lesser extent class 2 shields (which are doing well anyway because we're Humans) and Reduced Waste 80. There are a few token beakers in our new Planetology tech: Terraforming +30 (note Toxic is also in our tree) but I haven't really invested in it because it just came in around the time that ... everything ... was happening.

- I colonized Tyr, Phantos, Colassa, and Endoria, and we have another colship en route to Uxmai (the Terran 100 in our back lines). I didn't colonize Simius because the Alkari beat us there.

- The runaway Meklar have at least Range 7. The Bears and Alkari have at least Range 6. The Cats have at least Range 5. That's all I know for sure about their tech.

- The cats and birds recently and separately sent large, heavily armed colonization fleets to Phantos. We had nothing that could stop these fleets, so I let them stop each other. We do have a small fleet of our own, which will get there next turn. Unfortunately, the cats got their first (by one turn) and then the Alkari won the battle last turn with a single colony ship surviving. This means there will be transports coming from both Mrrshan space (sincelast turn) and Alkari space (sincethis turn). I don't know how many transports, or where from, so I don't know if we can shoot them down and/or hold the planet. Currently the Alkari have a colship in orbit which will presumably flee from our incoming fleet (arriving next turn).

- The Meklar have a fleet near Tyr that our ships won't be able to stop unless their Tormenter mediums (31 in the fleet) are missile boats and we can outmaneuver them. I have no idea what they're actually carrying. I also can't tell if they're about to reach Tyr next turn or if they're going to fly right past it; if the latter, they'll continue on to (probably) Tundra Artemis, taking advantage of their alliance with the birds. They might lack the tech to colonize it, since I've found a couple of barren worlds near their space that haven't been colonized yet. Tyr is trying to build a missile base in case that helps and is needed (in spite of having almost no factories yet) but won't have it in time because we have no reserves and no way short of the counter-productive tax slider to create them.

- There's another Meklar fleet (one colship and 9 Tormenters) that just left Simius last turn and looks to me like it's heading for Cygni - the Minimal 65 at the red star beyond Collassa that we just discovered recently.

- I have no idea where the lone Meklar Intruder thinks it's going; it just showed up on scanners this turn. Could be Collassa, I guess, which would be problematic, but it could also be Artemis, Crypto, or just about anywhere else, including...

- The green star just rimward of Collassa was out of scout range until we colonized Collassa last turn. Then I forgot to send a Scout because I was busy trying to respond to the crises that had suddenly appeared without warning over the past three turns. For similar reasons, I neglected to send transports to Collassa. There are a few going to Endoria in our back lines already.

- I haven't dispatched any transports this turn; that's up to you.

- The colony ships in the queues at Sol and Darrian would certainly have things to do, but it might be better to convert the shipbuilding BCs into defensive ships instead. They were intended partly to colonize Exis (the Deadlander) and Cygni (the Safeplace) but partly instead as prebuilds in case defensive fleets were needed.

- We have a 100BC trade agreement with the bears because Grunk requested it about midway through the set. It's already starting to turn a small profit.

- I'm almost certainly forgetting something.

- Seriously, everything was quiet until three turns ago and then everything started happening at once! I'd prefer to turn the save over in a more settled state, but on the other hand ... where's the fun in that?

- As long as the Meks aren't coming for Tyr, we should actually be in a really strong position still. Even if we do lose Phantos, we should be able to evacuate most of the population if we see too many transports approaching to stop, and losing one smallish world isn't the end of the world given our expansion so far.

Proper report to follow, hopefully tomorrow. Save attached!

[RefSteel]

Very difficult situation. If the big fleet is headed for Tyr we may be able to save it but it will cost a lot.

Indeed. Depends on what the Meklar are mounting on those ships of course.

Phantos is most likely gone because it's closest to Ferias and Altair so we can expect two large transport batches and we can't bring reinforcements in time.

Also quite possible, although the AI doesn't always send from the closest planet or the largest. One nice thing is that this might start the not-quite-as-inevitable-as-you'd-otherwise-think cat-bird war.

We also can't prevent the Meklar from colonizing Cygni, and Collassa can easily be their next target.

Yup! I was worried until about three turns ago that the game might turn out too easy, so I'm glad we're getting some excitement here!

In any case getting Nuclear engines is critical, and if we are building missile bases they need DS2 to be any good.

Note the bulbs on each of these are more than half full.

[RefSteel]

From the Office of the President: The Secret Diary that He Somehow Didn't Realize Would Become a Matter of Public Record Like Everything Else Written by a Sitting President

First Term: 2335-2340

January 22nd, 2335

Thank goodness all the reporters finally went home for the day; crowds like that terrify me. There are still some secret service people scattered around, but at least they know how to be quiet and blend in. I hope I can get used to them; this job is nerve-wracking.

The public part, I mean. I love playing with the big map! It's kind of my favorite.



I'm pretty sure I'm going to send our colony ship up to Tyr, but we don't know very much about that part of space - we don't have a lot of scouts in position to take advantage of our new fuel base on Paladia - and it turns out there won't be any delay if the ship makes a stop at Paladia on the way, so I can defer the decision for a few years in case something happens out there to change my mind. I do need to get some more scouting done though. The ships in the best positions to expand our view of the galaxy are all guarding forward worlds, so it's tough to reassign them. There's one in a system that only has a little radiated husk of a planet though. It's in good position to move forward and I wouldn't cry too hard if I found sentient rocks or something living their in a few years, so I send it off to scout. Gonna get some more scouts built in the meantime though; we don't have nearly enough to watch the stars we've found and still see the rest of the galaxy.



There's another kind of exploration I'm hoping to get done here too: Exploration of the outer bounds of planetology science! More colony ships will be really important, and I'm kind of sad that I don't have a good way to add reserves to our treasury, but for this year, I want to put nearly all our focus on new habitation labs at Sol and Darrian. Planetology really is just that important to me.



I'm also giving the okay for mass migration to Paladia from Darrian here. We're going to approve 28 million of the applicants this year and even more going forward, plus 11 million from here at Sol who want to move forward to Darrian for a chance at next year's lottery. That seems like a lot of people - I'd probably feint if I had to give a speech to all of them in person - with Paladia's only habitable planet so small, but the key here is the same as with these new scouts were going to be building: A big part of making a good plan is anticipating where you're going to be in the future, and what new needs that's going to create. Paladia II may just be a little ball of sand, but the people we send up there will be able to terraform it pretty soon to make room for more people, and most importantly of all, we'll have a colony at Tyr just a few years after the new Paladia colonists arrive! Tyr IV is not a little world! It's practically a second Earth - and all the millions of transport applicants who are asking to go to Paladia know exactly what I'm talking about. It's not that they want to live on that desert: They want to be positioned to get up to Tyr, just as soon as they possibly can.

As for our tiny starfleet, the Paladia fuel base opened up a few new stars for us to scout, and when we build one at Tyr, it should pull even more stars into range. Rather than waiting until that happens, we're building some more scouts now, and sending them forward so they'll already be in position to fan out among the stars when the new fuel base is complete!



April 20th, 2336

Just got a nice letter from Marco Alemu of the Starship Engineering division. Apparently they all appreciate the new funding I approved for them. Now that we've gotten the groundwork done on planetology research, the Darrian colony can fund all our research for a while, and we can go back to pouring all our efforts into new colony ships here at Sol. Truth is though, I appreciate the engineers a lot too: Those two scouts they put together last year while we were all-out on research are already set to leave Darrian, which means they'll reach Collassa just as we're setting up our new Tyr colony. That should let them head out to a couple of stars the Tyr hyperwave relay will bring into range right away - and of course the other new scouts out of Darrian are traveling along with the colony ship, so we'll be able to redeploy them from Paladia when they get there. By the time the six million Darrianites get there - although I guess they're originally Terrans, since they all left here last year - the scouts will all be off and on their way.

Pretty nice to get correspondence anyway. Letters don't notice me blushing, so it doesn't turn into a vicious spiral or anything. Good thing I'm President of everybody! If we had to deal with one of these "other races" people keep talking about, I might have to actually talk to somebody!



January 3rd, 2338

Took me a moment to even realize what I was seeing, but then it all came together in a flash! Two Silicoid "Scouts" tried to attack our scout up at Quayal, I guess because they didn't want us seeing its Bulrathi colony! Our pilot wasn't exactly afraid, and just chased the Silicoids off, so we got to see what was going on below, and the dome looks brand-new! Planetary surveys say there are only two million Bulrathi living there so far, but there'll be a lot more soon: That planet could support fifty times that number in its fertile jungles. If it were closer by, I'll bet President Thrawn would suggest sending a bunch of fighters up to interdict their transports and take the world over for ourselves, but I'm not that kind of President, and besides, it's waaaaaay too far off for us to get anything up there in time. It'll be nice to have a scouting report of the place though!

Oh - speaking of which! I found out a few years ago about this bug in our mapping software, where - even though the planet's all surveyed, and that information sticks - the map software would forget about an alien colony there if it's out of our regular scanner range and the scout leaves right away. It's really weird! Anyway, it's not a big deal: I just have to shut down the software before I give the Scout its orders, then start it up again, and then the software won't lose the data. I guess it doesn't actually affect anything important to most people, but this way our maps make more sense, and that's important to me!



May 20th, 2339

Just taking another look at Quayal, where we met those Sili rock people for the first time. Well, met their scout ships when they tried to attack us, I mean. With the full-court press they've been pushing our way, I thought maybe it would tell me something. With the way their ships are retreating, I guess they must all come from one of those yellow stars out past Phantos, and I'm thinking it must be the one all by itself, beyond Celtsi, because the ship we chased off from Celtsi itself was carrying a colony base! The scout running off from Simius seems awfully far away for that, but it might be taking advantage of Bulrathi hyperwave relays, since they're obviously close by.

Anyway, that colony ship at Celtsi is big news, and means I need to change gears fast! I think I said a few years ago that I wouldn't mind sentient rocks living at Gienah, and Celtsi's only actual planet is even smaller than Gienah's - but there are two thing about Celtsi II that make it a whole different story: First of all, our scouts picked up high concentrations of Elyrium crystals there! It's no Selia, I get that, but it's about as rich in mineral resources as any planet short of a Selia could be. But that's the second thing two: If the Silicoids actually colonized Celtsi, there would suddenly be nothing between them and Selia itself, and Guradas after that, and suddenly old Sol would be on the front lines with a bunch of strangers that aren't even carbon-based lifeforms!

So looking at it this way, I guess I can't do anything about it if they get serious about sending a fleet, but I'm going to do what I can: The colony ship we just finished is heading straight to Phantos, and before we start on a new one, our starship factories here on Earth are going to turn out all the fighters they can!



Obviously the older colony ship's going to be setting off for Tyr by year's end, with a couple of scout escorts so they can explore the galaxy beyond once its hyperwave beacon's up; that wasn't going to change, and the nineteen million Darrianites we cleared to depart for Paladia will still be on their way soon, with seven million Terrans coming in behind them to fill some of the spare space, because they still aren't going to Paladia really: By the time they arrive, there'll already be twenty-odd million Paladians on their way up to Tyr, but more will want to follow after them almost right away! Tyr is a beautiful world, and it's got room for just a whole lot of human beings. We want to get them there as soon as we can - more reason to always plan ahead!

Second Term: 2340-2345

June 15th, 2340

Okay, so this isn't that important, but it's a cute little thing I enjoy. Check out Paladia here! It's got exactly two factory-cities, and thanks to our current ecological restoration techniques, the planet's ecology can handle the output of both of them naturally! That's the upper limit though: As soon as we build even one more factory, we're going to have to start working on cleanup ourselves to keep the planet's environment from going downhill, and that's costly! Most of the time, our third factory will actually cost the planet more in pollution and administrative costs for dividing resources than it provides with sheer production! It'll obviously be worth it anyway because the factories after that will more than make up for the costs once we build enough of them, but with two factories just barely finished, this is a perfect time to take a break and work on other projects here - and I just got word from Colonial Economic Analyst Adriana Xing that Paladia's net production this year just happens to be 25 billion credits: Just precisely enough to get half of its terraforming finished and make room for more people and growth! I love it when things come together nicely this way. ... Of course, if I had any planetary reserves or a good way to create them, I could arrange for it to happen intentionally, but that might be going a little far for a little thing I enjoy because it's cute.



Also cute: Our 19 little Shy laser fighters chasing our colony ship to Phantos! They'll be ready to protect Celtsi from any minor Silicoid colony fleet within three years of the Phantos fuel base going up - one year sooner than if I'd routed them through Selia. I'll want more defenses there eventually, but I'm hoping those can wait until we get our own colonies ready and hopefully develop some better engines at least. We've got 19 million more Darrianites ready to head out for Paladia too, to go with the same number from last year, so everything's coming up 19s it seems! I'd love to say there's a deep, secret reason for this but ... the truth is, it's a complete coincidence. I'm just making sure the factories at Darrian and Sol don't sit idle as people slowly move from Sol up to Darrian to Paladia and soon Tyr, and that Paladia doesn't really get overpopulated when transports arrive there, and then the fighters are just the number that Earth happened to be able to produce last year.



February 12th, 2341

Gonna bury the lede here a little, and mention something about Dolz, that red star out beyond Quayal that President Thrawn once said might provide the only excuse - if it was a terrific world - for pursuing Simius ahead of Tyr. I agree with his thinking on that one, and the barren world we actually found there, just big enough for maybe 30 million Silicoid rocks, is emphatically not a reason to change course. That lede I was burying though? I just got back from the holochamber. It turns out the Bulrathi figured out how to extend their hyperwave fuel range to six parsecs. When I heard that Emperor Grunk was calling on me by holocomm, I didn't even know what to say! That guy is huge - and blustery - and ruthless - and from what I hear, he's almost as in love with technology as we are! Plus he's allied to the Alkari I guess, and his empire ... well, let's just say it looks like he needed some alliances to get it started. Those are three seriously spread-out stars!



I kind of want to see if there's a peaceful way to live with him - maybe find out what technology he likes, or even start some trade - but ... I mean, he's terrifying! I don't mean his size and his beariness and everything; I don't mean how he rules an empire of bloodthirsty conquerors; I mean he's practically a stranger! And worse, he represents like hundreds of millions of people who are also pretty much strangers! I'd get tongue-tied before I even requested the transmission or anything! Maybe he'll ask me for some kind of nice agreement and I can just nod or something? I dunno, but there's no way I'm calling him!



July 4th, 2342

We had a nice dedication ceremony today at the Museum of Cultural History in Denver. It was a sculpture of a woman with a torch in one hand and a tablet in the other - one of the enduring symbols of the North American continent's cultural history. This one was from an empire based on the continent that had an important influence on world events for a couple of centuries according to the plaque. I dunno - there are too many empires rising around the 17th to 21st centuries for me to keep track of all of them really. The statue is nice though, and it's got a beautiful poem to go with it, with a reference to some really ancient history! I wonder if the Meklar have poems like that.

Not like the fleshy giant of beanstock fame,
With wooden club to terrorize the land;
Here at our Meklon landing-pad shall stand
A mighty robot with lights it can aim
With laser-like precision, and its name
Machinist of Exiles. From its servo hand
Shines galaxy-wide welcome; its photocells command
The spaceport that twin cyber-habitats frame.
"Keep, bedtime stories, your childish frights," it sends
In broadcast mode. "Give me your broken-down car,
Your damaged cable with old frayed-out ends,
The electronic refuse of your trash-choked star.
Send these, your discards, to the one who mends
And uses them to raise the techno-bar!

Probably not. They're ruled by a crazy cyber-nut who's committed to spreading across every star it can possibly reach. And it's done a pretty impressive job of that so far, too!



I still can't believe their diplomatic ships were able to meet us at Tyr when we founded the colony earlier this year! That means they've got seven-parsec range on those ships at a minimum! I'm frankly afraid to meet with them. I mean, I smiled and waved nervously when they called me by holocam to say hi, but that was all I could manage really. Maybe once I get to know them better......

...

...oh, who am I kidding? I'm never going to dare to try calling them.

We've got lots of people on their way up to live on Tyr though at least! Twenty-one million are leaving just this year, and there are more where they came from! So that's nice, and the ceremony today and everything, but ... I'm glad I'm home now. It's good to be quiet and safe again, where nobody bothers me.



March 2nd, 2343

It happened! It actually happened! The holochamber call indicator lit up and I flinched, and checked it, trembling all over, and then it turned out it was Grunk! And he asked for a trade agreement of 100 BC every year! I couldn't believe it, and I'm pretty sure if I felt myself blushing any hotter, my hair would have caught fire or something, but I managed to nod somehow, and so we're agreed! That's pretty exciting news; it almost makes up for that other diplomatic surprise I got earlier this year when our long-range scanners picked up an Alkari colony fleet about to arrive at Simius. If only there hadn't been fighters in that fleet ... but I've been over this before, and Collassa's definitely a great world, so I guess I'm glad the Simius colony ship is going there instead and everything. I think I'm even going to have a chance to shave a few unimportant billions of credits off our budget again since I figure our next colony ships can only make it to safe worlds in our back lines, so there's no point in putting lasers on them anymore, the way there is when they're headed for the front, and I can call the new unarmed design a SafePlace because that's the kind of planet where it's going to make a colony, but ... I mean, those BCs aren't very important, because there aren't very many of them, and ... anyway, how'd I get on that subject again? Just because it's been eating at me for like a month? Come on! New trade agreement! We're only even losing about five billion credits a year on the start-up costs; it'll start turning a profit practically overnight!

I think I'll celebrate. In fact, I've been wishing for a while that I could get some nuclear engines. I'll let the tech guys know they should get to serious work on Nuclear Propulsion Labs finally!



June 24th, 2344

I just don't even get it. I mean, I thought the Bulrathi had a spread-out empire! I can't even get my mapping software to show all three of the Alkari stars at the same time without zooming out to see the whole galaxy! It's gotta be something to do with all these alliances they've put together with everyone we know. I don't understand how they can all stand to talk to each other all the time like that! So Grunk and INT-986 both say Farseer is honorable apparently, but I'm not sure what honor there is in poaching Simius like they did, and attacking our scouts before we even met diplomatically. I don't know. The passive espionage agents I have monitoring Alkari transmissions all say they're always trumpeting their industry, but that could just be propoganda. We'll see if they actually build factories - or just more of those Fighter ships.

Either way, I guess this doesn't change domestic policy: No reason to change the 8 million visas I was planning to approve for emigration from Paladia to Tyr - following 21 million from last year, just like the year before, obviously. I'm just glad the Silicoid Scout we met at Gienah earlier this year wasn't also an escorted colony fleet! I mean, sure, it wouldn't be the end of the world if it were, but I've got more aliens around than I can deal with already! I mean, imagine: What if Grunk or INT-986 or Farseer calls me? What if I have to talk to one of them?!



January 1st, 2345

Well, I guess Phantos will be the last of our front-line colonies, but at least we've built it now, and we've got our nineteen fighters coming; they should be in orbit there next year! Also, it looks like the Inoa-Bettwy-Turinsky hyperspacial relativity algorithms are right after all, and they're affecting the perceived time for all our colony ships at distant stars. That, and they forgot to set their clocks forward. Anyway, this is way more exciting than that report from the Ajax asteroid filed, the only thing worth mentioning at that red star in the middle of the dead zone between human and Meklar space. I just hope this doesn't put me into range of the Silicoids - I'm not sure I could stand having to deal with another emperor who'll probably think I'm ignoring it once we have contact! I mean, I could maybe deal with that by talking with other emperors, but there's really just no way! First my tongue would seize up, and then I'd just freeze, and even if I managed to start actually talking, I'm sure they'd just think even worse things about me!



September 18th, 2345

Oh noooooooooooooo! It looks like the Silicoids we met at Celtsi only got there because of their alliance with somebody else: Mirana and her Mrrshans! She just called, and she's terrifying - I mean, okay, huge hunting cat and everything, but worst of all, she's a whole different sentient being who I've practically only just met! She said we'll do fine as long as I acknowledge her superiority, which kind of flustered me, although it was hard to tell because I was already pretty much completely flustered already, and then I was deathly afraid that I hadn't acknowledged it the right way or that it didn't count as acknowledging because it wasn't true except for things like fleet strength and production capacity and whatever like that, and then mercifully she ended the transmission. I'll tell you one thing: I'm never going to dare calling her on the holophone!

Anyway, one nice thing about her is that the shape of her empire actually makes sense, like ours and the Meklar's and unlike everybody else I've met, and one of the ways she doesn't have any superiority to acknowledge is the whole number of worlds thing: We've actually got one more than her if you include little Phantos, and pretty soon we'll have another, since our first SafePlace is heading out to our back lines! And hey, there's even a chance - the research teams say it's just a 1% chance, but still - that we'll figure out how to live on dead planets by next year!

Third Term: 2345-2350

November 21st, 2345

The one nice thing is that everybody seems pretty content about sharing the galaxy with me. I mean, obviously my fellow humans, with the election results from last year, but even the aliens seem kind of laid back about everything - as far as we're concerned at least. There are those alliances some of them have with each other, and a couple of inter-alien wars, but they seem to be happy to let us just stay out of their way. I'm just terrified if I ever actually tried to talk to one of them, all of that would change, so I don't dare! We know so little about them too: The only ones we're even trading with are the Bulrathi, and they're the ones we've known for the longest of anybody! I'm going to start trying to fit in some foreign intelligence spending when I can fit it in - just a little bit for now, and it'll take forever at this rate, but it's a start - beginning with the Meklar since they're really powerful and their autocratic machine-leader is out-and-out crazy. Hopefully I can trust the others to be nice to me at least....



May 23rd, 2347

I ... guess I should stop waiting for the Alkari and Mrrshans to call and explain about those fleets. I mean, if I'd seen them coming last year, I could have kept the Shy fighters in place and hoped to try to stop them, although with Mrrshans and Alkari and the size of those cruisers, there wouldn't be any real hope of that. We'd need a lot more fighters to have a chance. I wouldn't have authorized those civillian transports that might be going to their deaths; that would've been foolish if I knew. And I guess I could have known if we had better scanners, but those weren't even started when I came into office; there's no way we could have finished them this fast. Maybe Phantos was just a little too far away, and too close to too many aliens, to take. If that's what the aliens think though, and they're willing to kill a bunch of humans just to make the point - which ... I kind of have a feeling they are, unfortunately - I'd rather find out this way, and at this relatively minor world far from home than later on, and too late! There was a famous leader in human history named Admiral Sirian who once said that if you never lose a colony to enemy attack, you aren't expanding your territory enough. I ... don't know if I agree with that sentiment. But it looks like Phantos is going to be lost here, unless those Mrrshans and Alkari are a lot more friendly than they seem to me.

On the plus side though, our scientists are doing really well on figuring out all the planetology stuff they've been working on, and the colony ship I launched a couple years ago was a SafePlace: In less than nine moths, it should build a colony on a nice little fertile world that should live up to the starship's name.



February 29th, 2348

I mean, I could definitely make an argument in hindsight that the SafePlace for Endoria should have been about thirty laser fighters instead. If I were clairvoyant then four years ago that might be exactly what I'd do. Maybe. Against Mrrshans and Alkari though, I don't know if it would have been enough, and what I was thinking was, we'll need this fuel base and hyperwave relay to reach the stars out on the galactic rim with the big terran world and the dead one that's covered in mind-bogglingly huge deposits of unobtainium. Especially since we're so close to a breakthrough on artificial ecologies that can thrive and support a colony even on an utterly dead world, I figured getting all that stuff set up would be pretty great! It's a shame about Phantos, but I don't think there was anything we could do.

At least the Shy fighters arrived at Celtsi finally. I could send them back to Phantos now, only...

See, it's looking like they can't actually get there as soon as the Mrrshan fleet, and I've said I don't think they can defeat either of those fleets, haven't I? And when they do get there, probably about the same time as the Alkari, what's going to happen? First the Alkari will attack them, if I know these aliens at all, and even if - by some kind of miracle - we win, the Mrrshans will come in right after them and fight us too! The best thing I can do is to let them come, I think. Then maybe they'll fight each other over the orbit of the world and the Shy fighters can come back afterward and clean up what's left. There's every chance it won't matter: If I know these aliens at all, they're going to send transports in as soon as they control the planet's orbit, and our little cloud of Shy fighters won't be able to shoot many of the invaders down even if they do win. It's the best hope we've got though, either for a remote chance at holding the planet or to make the aliens buy it dear - or at least not too cheaply - if they send their transports in.



March 8th, 2349

Good news at last! I was starting to feel like there wouldn't be any in my whole third term - well, unless you count all our new colonies and colonies-to-be. I'm not even bothering to run for re-election - I know how people are looking at me right now - and there's even a movement to impose term limits so nobody can be president more than ten years in a row! That's the thing about expanding to the stars though: If you do it well, you end up meeting whatever else is out there eventually - and that's when battle plans can come into contact with the enemy. Should I have pushed more into research? Especially propulsion? In hindsight, maybe. Should I have built more factories? Maybe, but I didn't think we'd have the population to work them all and still quickly build up the new worlds, some of them on the front lines, where all our people will be establishing our colonies. Should I have ... errr ... dared to ever even at least pick up the holophone and talk to a single alien ever? I ... but I couldn't! I couldn't, okay? I ... please don't ask that of me....

But we can populate dead planets now, and one day we'll be able to terraform them three times as much as we can do already! That, to me, is cause for celebration!

Gotta celebrate something anyway! And not only does this qualify, but we're already in the process of founding our Collassa colony - with a brand new colony ship just produced for that lovely terran world in our back lines, out toward the edge of the galaxy!



January 19th, 2350

I mean, I know I'm a lame duck about to get kicked out of office - doubly so with the term limit amendment to the imperial constitution now in place. I still stay up at night trying different superimpositions of our scans on that Meklar fleet, trying to see where it could possibly be headed. I made a mock-up with a faded afterimage of the incoming fleet from exactly a year ago today, and I keep trying to make it line up with different things, but at this point, I just can't say. Like I decided last year when we first detected it, we have to assume until proven otherwise that it's Tyr - I just hope it isn't! The nearest Meklar world is seven parsecs away, so that's something anyway, but with no reserves to help fund a missile base or defensive fleet here, there's a limited amount I can do right away. We'll have to see what the next president can accomplish here; Tyr's a really important world - at least to me - and I'd really like to keep it out of their biomechanical servos.



One thing that's pretty hopeful: Apart from the Meklar and their runaway economy, we're just about on par with all the other races in the galaxy! Well, we would be if we could only hold the worlds we've got so far, but the neat thing is, we should have even more worlds pretty soon if all goes well anyway! Even though I'm going out on a down note, I don't think I did a bad job at all as president!



I mean, granted, the leaders of the factory-builders union might disagree, but you have to remember that only three of these worlds even had any humans on them when I took office, and one of those had only just been colonized! The trade the Bulrathi proposed is already turning a profit besides, and there is one other thing: The Meklar may be allied with the Alkari, but their at war with the Mrrshan-Silicoid alliance already! Between that, the INT-986's insanity, and whatever ends up happening at Phantos, it wouldn't surprise me if all the aliens in the galaxy end up embroiled in a war with one another before too much longer. If they want to go after each other's throats - or ... whatever Silicoids and Meklar have instead - that would be A-Okay with me! Until that crazy Meklar emperor or one of those other bloody-minded aliens decides to drag us in too, at least!