WW15 - Chiron is a harsh mistress

[waterbat]

I got confirmation that Bigger will allow a quote of his PM (only because others have already broken the rule). I think he intended us to have to describe the dreams and not quote them. In any event, here is the text:

You waited so long to heed us, earthempath,
Almost we pruned you, as we may yet prune your branches.

We welcome you, earthempath and earthwheat and earthtree as honored guests, for you add great power to our ancient song--planetfungus and planetworm and planetmind sing and play here, and you are welcome among us.
But you are the children of a dead planet, earthempath, and this death we do not comprehend. We shall take you in, but may we ask this question--will we too catch the planetdeath disease?

For even now amongst you we see...
the destructive chaotic behaviours. We have learned earthempath. We know who must be pruned.
The ones you call

"Academician Prokhor Zakharov" "CEO Nwabudike Morgan" "Sinder Roze". You, we have grazed these already.


There remains the malefic seeds "Lular H'minee" "Sister Miriam" "Chairman Yang" "The Merchant" and "The Worker". Join us in composting these antiplanet antichildren...

Only then may we be saved from the planetdeath disease. No longer mere earthbeings and planetbeings we, but bright children of the stars! And together we shall dance in and out of ten billion years, celebrating the gift of consciousness until the stars themselves grow cold and weary, and our thoughts turn again to the beginning.. When the final antichild sleeps the forever sleep we shall Transcend together.

[waterbat]

now - this dream was transmitted at night - at the same time as Serdoa and Zak died.

In trying to dicipher this I forgot that the poster would not have known they died.

There were 11 people left when i got the dream, and the dream mentions 11 people.
3 "voice of planet":
planetfungus and planetworm and planetmind
3 people who are to be accepted into their transcendance:
earthempath and earthwheat and earthtree
and 5 that need to be culled:
"Lular H'minee" "Sister Miriam" "Chairman Yang" "The Merchant" and "The Worker"

I went down this path for a while until I realized that there should have been 13 alive when this message was sent. Sister Miriam (mentioned above) and Marr(not mentioned) died.

So... who are my buddies earthwheat and earthtree ?

We get 2 win conditions, the rest of the village gets only 1?

Notice how this message is completely different from the others - its very tactical. I wouldnt be surprised if it is complete BS or .... if it is valid, but the worm(s) but their own name in the "list to be culled"

The Merchant - really throws me for a loop.

[waterbat]

also - the message seems to place blame (You, we) for the deaths of Zakharaov, Morgan, and Roze, but I dont think I voted for any of them.

[Maniac]

There is no merchant specialist in SMAC. CEO Morgan is the free market/merchant faction leader, but he's dead already.

[Maniac]

So... who are my buddies earthwheat and earthtree ?

They're plants. It's text taken from the Pholus Mutagen secret projects. It involves hybridization or symbiosis or whatever of the terran and fungal ecologies.

[waterbat]

I did vote for Roze, so I guess I did help prune him

Notice also the message seems to indicate that they have 3 members. That's why I responded to Molach that more than 1 was acting.

But - Since they don't understand death, they might still be counting dead worms as part of the three.

[Maniac]

3 "voice of planet":

Where did you hear that phrase?

[waterbat]

Molach I believe - wasnt he the one who said he thought the third party might be the conciousness of the planet - let me check.

[Maniac]

It just seems strange that someone with no knowledge of SMAC would use that specific phrase.

[Bobchillingworth]

Huh, "The Merchant". And then before of course we had the first dream sequence which mentioned a "Datajack", and neither role has been claimed by anyone.


I'm calling BS on this ("this" being the content of the message). Am I supposed to like scan like thestick or someone and be astonished as "Worker" turns into "Merchant", neither of which sounds incriminating in the slightest as far as names go? That seems to be getting into the realm of absurdity. I'll keep scanning people of course, but if/when I find something suspicious, I expect it will be much more dramatic, like uncovering "Planetmind" or something similar, since the hunt now is for a 3rd party.


Either someone is sending messages out there who is seriously confused in regards to what people's names actually are (including, for the Datajack message, their own), or somebody is trying to screw with us. The themes for both the first and third dreams are the same- kill "X player(s) for your own good". How convenient for a wolf, or for that matter a 3rd party.


I think it's a blatant attempt to drive us apart as a group and against each other, and I would ignore it. I'm less sure on the origin of the messages- dreams 2 & 3 (plus that picture) are clearly from a Planet faction perspective, but that could be faked for an additional chaos factor. Or some could actually be Planet and some others could be Wolf, who knows how many message-senders we have out there. Whatever the case, don't trust them.



There is a seriously off-chance that the messages could actually be legit, that because the "datajack" and "merchant" have names which peg them for death at the hands of wolves and/or worms they were given cover IDs, but occam's razor says that the messages being plain disinformation is the much more likely scenario. And if people are actually using cover ID like that, to protect themselves from village enemies, should I even reveal it if I find them?