RefSteel's Report: Crossing the Stars in an Eggbeater Dinghy

[RefSteel]

[EDIT: Due to Imageshack problems with many of the images for this report, I have moved the whole thing over to its own page on my Meklon Gambit site. The in-report pictures there are smaller, but you can click on any of them to see the full-sized versions if you wish.]



Memoirs of a Sakkra Emperor

Introduction:
I was born to the throne of Sssla, first-hatched child of Emperor Reptilius Basiliscus Ophidian the Ninth, but I was no imperial child. In my youth, I ran wild, always sneaking away into the swamps and mountains around the capital with my friends from the lower castes. No high-born warriors we! My best friend was an outcast, Draco Sstarshine, the son of a mere scientist, with the added humiliation of a speech impediment. An outcast - but the lizard who first told me of the wonders of the stars! Draco and I would spend hours together on the mountaintops when my minders thought me asleep, pulling stars and planets close with his father's telescopes, dreaming of a time when we might visit them ourselves. I defended him against all shame, and ensured he and his father had time for their studies with all the little influence I could muster as a child, and he rewarded me well: With still greater stories, and still greater views of the stars! It is Draco who gave me my pet-name, for with his flawed pronunciation, the diminutive of my name became "Ref." So when I ascended the throne at last, in the year 2276 of the Ophidian line, I became Emperor Reptilius Basiliscus Ophidian the Tenth in official ceremony, naturally shortened to RBO-10 in political briefings ... and just stayed Ref, in private, to Draco and my other once-outcast buddies, now the chief advisors of the emperor of Sssla! Sometimes I long for those innocent days. If only we could have always remained at peace!

2300: To the Stars!
My first Centennial celebration was a tremendous success in spite of the mistrust in which I was held by the military aristocracy. All the commoners hated my predecessor's draconian solutions to the chronic danger of overpopulation, and at the height of our celebrations, I proposed my solution: To just let them breed like crazy, and find more room among the stars!



Here you can see our initial plan of exploration and colonization. The green star just to the southwest was tempting, being closest, but the yellow star was nearer to the heart of the galaxy, would expand our scout's range further when we built our colony supply depot there, and - sharing our own star's color - seemed most likely to harbor a planet like our homeworld. Moreover, it lay close to the eastern red star, which according to Draco's calculations was also likely to hold a hospitable world in case our hope for the yellow star failed. We therefore sent our prototype Colony Ship northeast while our prototype Scouts moved to the flanking red and white stars; meanwhile, Sssla's factories would start turning out the cheaper assembly-line model Newscouts, to speed our exploration. That way, when the first one off the line was sent to the nearby green star, we would be able to explore all four stellar systems within three parsecs of Sssla in the year...

2303: Birth of an Interstellar Empire



The yellow star, dubbed Romulas, harbored a beautiful world, covered with lush, verdant jungle, with plenty of space for 80 million lizards to breed. We colonized it at once, and 4 million Sakkra departed to begin their new lives there. Far more were clamoring to go, but I had other plans for them, especially since we had spent most of our time and energy building Newscouts in lieu of infrastructure in the first few years of the interstellar age (notice the five ships still in transit toward the distant reaches of the galaxy and the new fleet at Sssla, which consists of two more Newscouts waiting to receive their orders; we would also build two more by the following year). Knowing that they would breed at an immoderate rate anyway, I would only send 3 million more over the course of the next few years - one transport in 2305, two in 2306 - and that would be it for many years. I wanted more colony ships, as soon as I could get them, especially in light of the other scouting reports we received! Though the white star unsurprisingly had no habitable planets - just the Antares asteroid belt - the red star was Beta Ceti, a warm desert world with room for 45 million lizards. And the green star ... the green star was Arietis.

Once the homeworld of an ancient and powerful people, Arietis Prime held only crumbling ruins and desert sands. According to the records found there, the planet's people were known as the Arietans, bitter enemies of the "Guardians of Orion" - as our chief historian put it so eloquently, "whatever that's supposed to mean!" The Arietans were a space-faring people who had developed technology far in advance of our own, but our engineers and scientists found to their deep regret that the powerful, unknown forces that destroyed Arietan civilization did a very thorough job of the thing, aided still more by the passing centuries. Away teams managed to recover little of immediate value except plans for a military rocket barely more advanced than our own nuclear missiles (whose use I had banned in 2283), tentatively named the Hyper-V on the basis of patchy records found in the ruins.



Disappointment in this feeble discovery was quickly drowned however. Though the fallout of the ancient war with the Guardians left Arietis a mere desert, capable of supporting no more than 35 million Sakkra, enough remained of the ancient cities that I hoped we could someday learn to match and even exceed the Arietans' knowledge. We just needed a long-term research colony to delve deeper into the place's secrets (this was my mantra in the early years, I'm afraid). I was almost sorry we hadn't sent our prototype Colony Ship there at once ... but it's hard to argue with our beautiful jungle world at the heart of the galaxy (especially with Sakkra commoners breeding like ... like ... well, like commoner Sakkra, if you've any notion of what that means)!
Perhaps more important still was the fact of the Arietans' existence! From what our away teams could gather, they were not saurian in nature, but fur-covered marine mammals (small wonder that they died when their world was turned to a desert!) bearing a slight superficial resemblance to certain types of otters that live in Sssla's seas. (There was also the question of the Guardians, but surely they couldn't be important! After all, they'd lived centuries ago, and we'd never heard from them!) For the first time, we came to understand that we were not alone in the galaxy. My military advisors at once began to clamor for war ships built around the new Hyper-V rockets. Ridiculous notions, frankly. We had yet to meet another living species, and I believed that when we did meet others, we could learn together from all our neighbors in the vast galaxy we shared, forever at peace! Look, I was young, okay?

continued below...

The die roll at Arietis will have a huge effect on the game. Any planetology or construction tech would provide a huge boost - especially coming as it does on the second or third turn of the game - as would any propulsion tech other than Stabilizer (especially an engine, considering our propulsion tree). Even semi-advanced weapon, shield, or computer techs could provide significant benefits. The draw I got had little or no impact on my game, but it wasn't the worst possible outcome by any means. I've seen Artifacts worlds yield Robotic Controls 3 ... and if you had to pay 15 BC per factory starting from turn 2 or 3 ... well, I'll bet it made things challenging!

[RefSteel]

2305-08: Welcome to the Galaxy
When we discovered the desert world of Kronos, my military advisors hinted darkly that this world and Beta Ceti might once have held other civilizations, destroyed more thoroughly than Arietis by the fabled Guardians. The advisors in question were laughed out of the room as usual. Scouts also sent back reports on the dead world of Vulcan, beautiful arid Mu Delphi, and the large but barren planets known as Trax and Simius. Draco believed it would be possible to build enclosed colony domes and water recycling plants to claim those worlds as well, but that would be a project for another year. We had more important things to consider in 2307, as an urgent message came in from our satellite observatory:



For the first time, we had spotted a functioning starship belonging to alien beings! Draco calculated that the "Psilon Scout" must be bound for Beta Ceti, and must originate at the yellow star (which he tentatively named "Mentar" for obscure reasons) to which the cursor is seen to point in this image. Our Newscout pilot prepared a full diplomatic reception (well, he broke out the cold cuts anyway; our Newscouts were economy models, sadly lacking the room for quite the reception we might have wished), but when the Psilon Scout arrived, it immediately turned and fled as if from an enemy - as did a second Psilon Scout that reached Mu Delphi simultaneously. My military advisors proclaimed a double victory, apparently embracing their role as court jesters. They were laughing out of the other side of their faces when we discovered yet another starship, a Klackon Fighter according to its call sign, down at Trax. Unlike the Psilon Scouts, the Fighter closed on our Newscout, warming up its weapon systems, and our pilot was forced to hastilly re-stow the cold cuts and retreat! If there's one thing I can't stand, it's wasting luncheon meat, but I chalked it up to a misunderstanding (I said I was young, okay?) and ordered the Newscout pilot to return to orbit and attempt to make amends to the Klackons. After all, how could they not have peaceful intentions with ships called "Fighters"? I may also have been slightly distracted, awaiting scouting reports from around the galaxy, including Crius, a white star with an icy world in the far north, and Argus, a beautiful jungle like Romulas except for two small differences: First, the Klackons had already established a colony there ... and second, our mineral scans returned the same approximate concentration of metals and energy sources that they usually detect when scanning empty space. Our Newscout pilot's attempts to greet the people on the surface all met with dismal failure - they looked like ants, crawling about with their heads down, never even looking skyward - so we recalled him to the Antares asteroid field, hoping to avoid any more "misunderstandings" with our neighbors.

2309-20: Beyond the Nebula
The Klackon Fighter had left Trax by the time our Newscout returned, so I was able to return my attention to scouting reports. We discovered barren Maretta, and minimally habitable Yarrow, where we met another cowardly Psilon Scout. Our pilot didn't even bother finding rye bread for the cold cuts this time. Another cowardly Scout pilot, this one something called a "Darlok," would later arrive at Maretta, and retreat toward one of the yellow stars in the far north of the galaxy. Meanwhile, I finally managed to find a scientist capable of leading our efforts in the field of planetology. I don't know what it is about my people, but they can never seem to get their heads out of the breeding nest and battlefield long enough to think about really important things. It seems the only exceptions are outcasts like Draco with whom - and here I mean absolutely no offense to my best friend - no one would ever want to breed. Case in point:



... I don't believe I had ever before seen a lizard in quite that shade of blue. Draco's recirculation ideas went right over her head (indeed, she had a bit of a one-track mind, always talking about pollution cleanup; it did occur to me that the ... interesting hue of her scales might have come from living too close to a factory exhaust duct, coloring her goals and opinions) but I approved her proposed research project nonetheless. After all, Improved Ecological Restoraton technology would free up more energy for more exploration!

It would do a number of other valuable things for us too, as Sargon points out in this thread.

Once our new project was identified, I gave our science teams a large start-up investment; their funding would slow down a bit once everything got started, but grow steadily as the years progressed. Most of our energy continued to go into infrastructure, and we were soon rewarded with the total industrialization of Sssla!

2321-33: The Race for Arietis
As Sssla prepared to complete its final factory, I ordered work to begin on a new assembly-line-model colony ship, called the Lander. Additional Newscouts were built at Romulas as well, and sent south in anticipation of extending their range via the Arietis refueling depot. Hoping to extend it still more, I opened a center for propulsion research, where more scientists came out of hiding to work on Hydrogen Fuel Cells. Draco visited and asked them why they didn't suggest Deuterium, and they chased him off so quickly, I began to suspect none of them knew what the word "Deuterium" meant. I didn't pay much attention, since Hydrogen Cells would be plenty for my purposes, for a little while at least. Meanwhile, in anticipation of taking Arietis, I ordered 15 transports from Romulas back down to Sssla. Romulas had nearly reached its population limit in spite of my neglecting its early growth. This is what it means to be Sakkra.
In 2328, our first Lander arrived at Arietis, and the ancient home of the Otter Weirdos was ours! Then as if to celebrate the glorious occasion, the Klackon leader finally acknowledged my many peaceful transmissions as well! We hurried coldcuts and rye out to a picnic table (having heard rumors that Klackons love to crash picnics) only to find that he wanted to talk by hologram only. That, and that he was Emperor Xantak, a Ruthless Diplomat ... and a giant bug. When our Newscout pilot at Argus said the Klackons looked like ants, I thought he just meant they looked small from orbit ... but no. Worse yet, Xantak had called only to babble at me. When I asked him to establish trade between our people, he wouldn't agree to so much as a 25 BC agreement ... and as soon as I broke the connection, I discovered the reason why that might be!



The Colony Ship wouldn't be armed of course, but the Cutlass would, and it looked like they were due to reach Arietis on the following year! (This scan also reveals the full extent of early Klackon space - the stars Argus, Kholdan, Proteus, Jinga, and Lyae - for those who are interested in the field of ant-thropology.) Our fleets in the region all consisted of unarmed Newscouts, and with Arietis just founded, it couldn't possibly build anything in time to meet them. I was convinced that the Klackons would just turn around and leave our planet to us, but my military advisors weren't getting laughed out of the room anymore. I raged against the injustice of assuming Xantak was an enemy ... but he had refused trade, and he had sent an armed Fighter after our peaceful Newscout, and he was sending an armed escort with his colony ship ... and most telling of all, he refused to come to my picnic!!! Though I hated to do it, and knew it would set our colony ship production back, I ordered a pair of armed starships built at Sssla, with orders to proceed immediately to Arietis. These Monitor 1.0s would be more than a match for the Cutlass, and I hoped they would establish Arietis as a permanent Sakkra colony once and for all.

Romulas was too far away to send anything in time, and Sssla had already sunk two turns into colony ship production. The Monitor 1.0s, with medium hulls, Battle Scanners, Mark 1 computers, and a pair of Laser Cannons apiece, would arrive just one turn after the Klackon fleet (via RELOC). A cloud of small laser popguns would have done the trick too, and would have helped to shoot down the inevitable transports (inevitable because the bug ships would be in orbit unchallenged for a turn) but as the Sakkra, I wasn't worried about lost population; I was a lot more worried about lost production, and the Monitors had two huge advantages over popguns: First, they could be used to scan enemy fleets in case of a more prolonged war, and second, (and most importantly) with Sssla going to pure research and reserve production, it could almost but not quite build three. This meant that almost a third of the shipbuilding BC already built up at Sssla would be preserved for more colony ship production. If I could have designed a ship that cost barely more than half the investment I'd already made, that would have been even better, but no such possibilty existed.

Eager for battle and space to breed, fully 30 million of Sssla's people volunteered to board transports for Arietis in company with the Monitors while Romulas sent a few more transports to Sssla. The exodus of warlike breeders had an unforseen positive outcome at Sssla as well: Would-be scientists came out of hiding, as their bullies were all departing, and I was able to open four more fully-functional research centers. Even as my Newscout was forced to retreat from Arietis, the new research proposals were carried before me. Our Construction Team was advised to work on improving our factory-building rate with Improved Industrial Tech 9, though factory waste reduction was also a possibility. My military advisors hissed and kicked and wrestled each other in the high court, scrambling to suggest any number of projects opened up by our examination of Arietis records - Anti-Missile Rockets, Neutron Pellet Guns, and Hyper-X Rockets all had their screaming, choking, war-crying advocates - but I ignored them all (as usual, I suppose) and suggested that we develop Hand Lasers to ensure our success in case of ground invasions. The other labs got to work on Battle Computer Mark II and Class II Deflector Shields because the scientists in charge couldn't think of anything else to do. Mineral resources were being shipped to Arietis by the ton, and of course the transports too were on the way, but it would still be many years before the planet could possibly be ready to fend for itself.

When our Monitors arrived, they confirmed that the Cutlass was a fighter with a single laser cannon and nothing else, while the Klackon Colony Ship bore nothing but a standard colony base. No one was surprised to see the bugs retreat from our war ships, and I confess even I was equally unsurprised to see insect transports incoming from Argus - if there's one thing I can't stand, it's an unprovoked ground invasion, but Xantak had showed the "color of his throat sac" very clearly. Fortunately, there was good news coming: Soon after one of our Newscouts discovered Centauri (the beautiful terran world in the far south, as large as Romulas), we made our first scientific breakthrough of the interstellar era, as our bright blue planetologist introduced improvements to our ecological cleanup technology. She was eager to go on with plans to terraform our worlds to increase their maximum population, but I reminded her of Draco's recirculation plans again, and in light of new discoveries (and working out her waste cleanup obsessions) she took the idea and ran with it, seeking to develop Controlled Dead Environment technology. Meanwhile, transports continued to move between Romulas and Sssla and Arietis to help develop the one-time homeworld of the Great Otter Weirdos (hereafter the GOWs) after the battle - or to retake the world if the bugs' invasion somehow broke through!
Our Monitors each shot down a single Klackon transport, leaving 26 million insectoids to assail our 35 million loyal lizards! Neither side had any technological advantage, but our people knew the terrain, and 22 million of our brave warriors survived! The carnage was terrible - more than 40 million sentient beings died in space or on the surface in the course of that single battle - but all that our people could talk about was the glory of victory. For my part, I reconciled myself to the outcome by considering the joy it brought my people, and the fact that Arietis was no stranger to violence; it had seen its entire population wiped out, and its fertile slopes reduced to desert, in a far more terrible battle in its ancient history.

Plus, the research we would do there was going to ROCK!

continued below...

[RefSteel]

2334-50: The Age of Discovery
We settled into an uneasy peace with the Klackons, seeing no further signs of aggression as our Newscouts made new discoveries - a radiated world at Rigel (the blue star in the far south of the galaxy) and the Klackon colony of Proteus at a minimally habitable world - and as our second Lander arrived at Beta Ceti, establishing our newest colony! Encouraged by our years of peace, I made a half-hearted effort at restoring diplomacy, and Xantak surprised me, not only agreeing to trade 25 billion credits per year, but offering to exchange technology. Of course, all he had were Deuterium Fuel Cells for our knowledge of ecological restoration, so though I tried to keep a straight face as I politely declined, I could practically hear my advisors' eyes rolling at him. The commerce agreement seemed a good start at least.
Over the course of the next several years, we chased a cowardly scout from a small ice world called Willow, just southeast of the nebula (the coward was something called a Bulrathi, apparently out of the northeast) and gathered scouting reports for Cygni - a tiny inferno of a planet near Simius and Centauri (a Psilon Colony Ship fled, but I think it had just been parked there twiddling its thumbs, honestly) - and Lyae, a terran Klackon world a little larger than Romulas. For standing on and off from Lyae for years, trying to get this report and finally succeeding, the local Newscout was officially named the Perseverance, and retired to easier duties.
After discovering Hand Lasers in 2339, our weapons labs were ordered to move on to Neutron Pellet Guns, as some form of consensus had finally developed among my miltary advisors (though I did notice that some were missing, possibly ambushed by their colleagues on the way to the imperial palace). The propulsion lab discovered Hydrogen fuel cells the same year, and proceeded with Irridium Fuel Cells. This seemed like a good idea at the time, but I did begin to worry a little bit about them; I feared they might have one-track minds to outrival even our blue planetologist's.
Colonizing Mu Delphi in 2342 put us in touch with the Psilon emperor, an Honorable (so he claimed) Technologist named Zygot who still hadn't expanded beyond his homeworld. Zygot agreed at once to trade 75 BC per year, and also offered the always-popular exchange of Deuterium Fuel Cells for our factory cleanup technology. Popular, that is, with those offering the Deuterium. I didn't bite, as you can well imagine. We also received a report from a roving golden News Droid: Some race called the You-Mans or something was the first to control six worlds, though I had yet to see as much as a Scout from them. This would have been a greater cause for concern if I didn't know my Sakkra were going to reach the same benchmark themselves in just four years. Meanwhile, the Darloks appeared to have developed long-range colony ships - though not armed ones, fortunately - as we chased one away from Kronos the following year. At the same time, we found that the purple star south of Mentar was Paranar, with a toxic planet that appeared to be made of pure neutronium! My industry and military advisors started drooling so heavily at that report, I had to bring in sandbags to keep them from flooding the throne room.

With Xantak feeling better about us, I renegotiated our trade agreement up to 125 BC per year, hoping my dream of peace might become a reality, shortly before our fourth Lander arrived at Kronos and established our newest colony. This finally led to contact with the Ape Men (or whatever they called themselves) and revealed that we'd won yet another race by just a year or two:



It wasn't as exciting as perhaps it looks; the Colony Ship wasn't armed, and beat a hasty retreat from my terrifying Newscout on arrival. You can see all of Monkey space here though (Ryoun, to which my cursor is pointing, is a white star just off the screen; add that to Thrax, Quayal, Sol, Stalaz, and Misha, and you'll find that we have indeed caught up with them). At the white stars north and south of the incoming Colony Ship, you can also see various Newscouts departing from the ice world of Crius and the Antares asteroids to take advantage of the new Kronos fuel depot and scout out to our new maximum range.

The Monkey's name was Alexander, and I greeted him warmly and suggested something I knew he would love: a 125 BC trade agreement. He had no interest in trading techs though, which I assume means he either he didn't have Range 5 or he did have Improved Eco, considering what everyone else in this galaxy was always offering.
More scouting reports came in from the ice world of Nitzer at a green star in the southeast, the Rayden asteroid field at the red star far northeast of the poor Psilons' homeworld, and the decent-sized but dead world of Gion at the red star south of Rayden. Meanwhile, in yet another act of bad faith, the Klackons sent a fleet of ten Cutlass fighters to Antares. My Newscouts had no choice but to retreat, regretfully yielding a scouting report of its beautiful asteroid belt.

2351-2367: A Plague on Both Your Houses!
Around the time we confirmed the location of the Darlok homeworld, we lost a star ship for the first time in Sakkra history. One guess why.


Everyone wave hello to the nice Guardian!

At the same time, our layabout construction research teams finally learned to make Improved Industrial Tech 9 work. I was beginning to doubt they ever would. Though IIT8 was also available (and we could have gone back for Reduced Waste 80) I asked them to work - preferably a little faster - on Duralloy Armor instead. We soon managed to scout the tiny, minimally habitable Human world of Quayal, and the arid world of Exis, with decent size but little in the way of mineral resources. It was 5 parsecs directly south of Mentar, so even granted that it was a pretty useless world, it was hard to understand how the Psilons had failed to colonize it. As far as I can tell, they'd had deuterium fuel cells (and Colony Ships sitting around at their homeworld) for just ages. Maybe they forgot to research Controlled Already-Habitable-Planet Environment or something.
When Class II Shields were discovered, our always creative force field research teams started work on Class III Deflector Shields, though I had to think long and hard about the other option they proposed: Ordering Out for Pizza. At the same time, we built a new colony at Yarrow, and established diplomatic contact with the Bulrathi. These Aggressive Expansionists were allied with the 'Loks, and still had only three planets. I proposed a 100 BC trade agreement, and the big bear agreed, giving me still greater hope for peace in the galaxy. (Can I still claim youthful folly?) Thinking along these very lines, I deceived myself into perhaps the biggest mistake I was to make in the course of my reign.

Seeing that the Apes and Bugs were both relaxed, and having no immediate plans to visit any of their worlds, I proposed a Non-Aggression Pact with each, over the loud objections of my military advisors - so loud they drowned out Draco's voice actually agreeing with them - and was accepted. Asking the Klackons if they'd like to exchange technology, I also found they still held out hope that I'd give them Improved Eco for Deuterium. Keep dreaming, Xantak. Keep dreaming.
Almost as soon as I returned from the holo-transmission chamber, I realized my mistake: There were still border worlds with both of these races that we each could reach. Historically, my orbiting Newscouts had established my claim to the planets, and all was peaceful there ... but with the new Pacts in place, our fleets could share space over these worlds, and the aliens would be all too likely to colonize planets right underneath my Newscouts' noses, forcing my ships into "violation" of the treaties! It was too late to do anything about it, but I waited with dread for the inevitable outcome of my decision.

A GNN report came in around this time, and my eyes got really big. There had been a computer virus ... and it struck the Sakkra ... and for a moment I thought the field it hit (Force Fields) had been in percentages! Then I saw that a total of 48 RP had been wiped out, and remembered the tech had come in two turns before, and I had barely started up a new one. So I just grinned.

Soon enough, our Planetology teams devised the means of colonizing barren, dead, and ice worlds, with self-contained atmospheric recycling domes and advanced hydroponics. I voiced my congratulations, and their blue-scaled chief scientist was so excited about the idea, she proposed developing bases for even less hospitable worlds. Most of my advisors were drooling again, and we couldn't have that - if there's one thing I can't stand, it's a flooded throne room - so in spite of the fact that the proposed technology would open the ultra-rich world of Paranar to our colonies, I ordered work instead on Improved Terraforming +30. I defended my choice vehemently for two full years, but then I had other things to worry about: I began to pay for my real mistake ... of the diplomatic variety.

In 2360, the Klackons colonized the large, barren world of Trax while our Newscout watched from orbit. We had a Deathlander with one of the new colony bases ready to take the planet, about to depart from Arietis, but it was too late. I cursed the Klackons endlessly, but all the cursing in the world couldn't bring Trax back into the fold. The Deathlander was forced to head back to Vulcan instead, and within a year, I saw more Klackon ships approaching Simius and Centauri. I marveled at Spica, a little desert world at a red star in the galactic northeast, so close to the Bulrathi that it had no excuse to remain uncolonized for so long, and then went right back to cursing the Klackons - way more fun than cursing my own folly.

Soon enough, our computer researchers came through, and I suggested ECM Jammer II in lieu of yet another battle computer, in hopes that any new technology would open the way to less warlike projects going forward. At the same time, we found that the Bulrathi colony of Gienah, at the yellow star northwest of Ursa, was a lovely terran world, fortunately with few minerals to speak of.

Submitting to tremendous pressure at home from Sakkra who felt our opportunities for expansion and new breeding space were slipping away, I broke my non-aggression pact with the bugs in 2365. In hindsight however, this only compounded the original mistake. The damage was already done, as the insect colony ships, which were armed by this time, were already en route. They would go on to take Centauri and Simius over the course of the next two years. Seeing that the Bugs were allied with the Monkeys, I regretted breaking our pact even more, and called on Alexander, Emperor of the Humans, to try and at least correct part of my error.



Thankfully, he was willing to cancel his buggy alliance. That accomplished, along with the beginnings of anti-insect spy training operations, I went back to more important business. Some of my advisors supposed that meant war with the Klackons. Draco knew me better than that, and realized it meant research.

2367-82: Spreading Like the Plague
Fortunately, the Klackons weren't the only ones building colonies. In 2367, we acquired Crius, Vulcan, and contact with the Darloks - Xenophobic Diplomats led by something named Morfane. He/she/it agreed to a 25 BC trade deal, but remained uneasy with me. I was uneasy myself for that matter, but not with Morfane: Xantak was the danger; I supposed that the Darloks would play no significant role in the galaxy. And considering the year, I can't even claim anymore that I was young at the time anymore!

The next year, we colonized Maretta, and we got our first spying report on the bugs the year after that. Their position in the galaxy was certainly dangerous, but their technology to that point was neither severely advanced nor especially well-chosen - notwithstanding the fact that I wanted to get my claws on some of their knowledge (like Nuclear Engines!) almost desperately! Meanwhile, our own research was coming along nicely; our weapon design teams figured out how to build Arietan-style Neutron Pellet Guns, and were ordered to move things forward wth a Merculite Missiles project because the Ion Rifles that were also proposed were practically redundant with our hand lasers, and if there's one thing I can't stand, it's redundancy. Then a Newscout reported that the blue star in the far north was Rhilus, a world as toxic as Paranar, but neither as large nor as filled with neutronium, and in 2372, we colonized Willow, and that did it: The Galactic High Council was called, finally! I was up in the polls against Alexander of the Humans, to no one's surprise. The Bulrathi abstained with their 3 votes, and that's what saved me; everyone else voted for Alex - even the Psilons, who were on the opposite side of the galaxy from the Humans, my nominal friends, and lacking anything resembling the means of even establishing contact with Humanity! Alexander wound up less than one vote shy of being voted emperor of the galaxy! Can you imagine? A mighty Sakkra emperor slaving for a monkey?! Ridiculous. Nor was that the worst of it: There was another election scheduled in just three years! There were no Alliances in effect when I checked our diplomatic reports, so the trouble was just that everyone loves monkeys. Most of my advisors would have loved to start a giant galactic war to ensure a stalemate, but even if I shared their opinions, three years just wasn't enough time. I wasn't going to slave for any old ape ... and a war of the whole galaxy versus me just didn't sound like the way toward peaceful research and discovery.

I was ready for some good news, and our propulsion teams came through in 2372 with stable Irridium Fuel Cells, having finally worked out the glitches that kept them off our ships for so long (some minor thing - they exploded when entering hyperspace or something). Deeply pleased by the options this would open for our exploration craft, I asked for the team's suggestions for their next research project. They were unanimous: Dotomite Crystals. Another. Bloody. Fuel Cell Technology. Nothing else was offered, or even hinted. Had anyone - even a hatchling just coming out of its egg - volunteered to replace them, I would have fired the entire propulsion team. I think I've already said something about redundancy.

In 2374, a Newscout at the Human colony of Stalaz reported that it was a huge arid world, sadly lacking in mineral resources. Though I'd tried for three years to come up with some kind of diplomatic shenanigans that would ensure some breathing space, I finally gave it up as a bad job, and resigned myself to hoping for a repeat of the last election - in spite of the liklihood that the Klackons' colonies would have grown significantly. Needless to say, the election was not a repeat.

With the development of ECM2, I politely asked my computer research teams if they could be any less worthless than the propulsion lab had been. And, no. No, they could not. I allowed them to develop Battle Computer Mark IV because the alternatives were going back for the Mark 3 or ordering them to test-fly a starship fitted with pre-fix Irridium Fuel Cells. Then I went to face the music.

I was up against Alexander again, but there were more votes on the table - 23. The Bulrathi still had 3, and still abstained, which meant the 5 I expected to hold myself would still be - just - enough to block the election. It was therefore merely a pleasant surprise to see the Psilons abstain, perhaps finally remembering that they had never actually even met a single Human being. I still had to abstain myself, but it wasn't as close as I expected it would be ... and I had 25 years to turn things around and get a veto!

Over the next few years, the Psilons finally got it together to colonize Exis and Dolz (the southeasternmost star in the galaxy) by bringing a significant armed fleet to each. At the same time, my Newscouts found the Galos Asteroid Field at the northeasternmost star in the galaxy; the toxic world of Tyr - not quite as rich or as large as Paranar, but close enough to start the drooling again - at the blue star in southern Human space; and the aforementioned Dolz, another desert world. (And near Orion. The conspiracy theorists had a field day.) Alexander and Morfane were both willing to increase our trade packages as well, to 250 and 125 BC per year, respectively, and I took both opportunities in the name of peace. Peace! This after I had watched the alien fleets' behavior for more than half a century! Not long after, when I saw that Zygot and Xantak were allies, I asked the wise Psilon to reconsider the situation ... but he was perhaps not so wise as I imagined, as he refused. Xantak seemed in a surprisingly good mood when I spoke to him, but still wouldn't trade Nuclear Engines to me.

The years progressed, and as if to underscore the pointlessness of the Propulsion teams' Dotomite project, our Newscouts arrived at the farthest reaches of the galaxy. At the northernmost white star, way out in the west, we found Kailis, a good-sized barren world with a new-built Human colony. Ryoun, the known Human white star nearby, proved to be a vast steppe world with amazingly fertile cropland, while Jinga (the Klackons' colony at the red star in the far southwest) held a smaller and less fertile steppe world of its own - smaller, less fertile, and with about as many minerals as a bale of cotton candy. The Humans' colony of Misha, at the westernmost star in the galaxy, proved to be a little Arid world, and that was just about everything.



By my count, by 2382, I had managed to scout all but ten of the stars in the galaxy. Of those, five were home worlds, and one was Orion (all indicated in the now-standard Ref style of map notation.) Moreover, the entire galaxy had been colonized, with the exception of three types of planets: 1) Inferno or Worse, 2) that isolated Tundra way at the south end of the galaxy, and 3) ?!?!?! What was that desert doing there right next to Bulrathi space? Even if they didn't have the range themselves, they'd had alliances on and off for decades with other races that did, and it was 2382 for Tiamat's sake! Seeing this, I designed a Farlander (with a standard colony base and reserve tanks) on the impossible chance that the place would remain available for yet another decade. I could never understand the minds of these alien peoples. Most likely, they couldn't unerstand themselves.

Those were trying times. I longed for our research projects to complete, but I still had only outcasts to work with, and they all seemed to have one-track minds, their real creativity bludgeoned out of them at an early age by bullies. When the new deflector shield designs were finished in 2380, no one could offer any ideas but Class V Planetary Shield. Fortunately, this is the option I'd have chosen anyway, for once, but I longed to have some kind of choice in the matter of our technology path, and I longed in vain. When at last, in 2382, after endless hemming and hawing and broken promises, our Planetology Lab developed Terraforming +30, I wanted them to go back for Toxic colonies, but the only way our blue planetologist and her crew could think of to advance the state of the art was by developing Controlled Radiated Environment technology. I wasn't going to wait and wait for Toxic to come in only to have to start Radiated for one little isolated planet and the next step in our knowledge of planetology, so I had no choice but to order research on radiation-proof colony bases immediately.

Trying times indeed for me, but my people at least were happy, and I was coming more and more to realize that this, and not personal fulfillment, was the true measure of an emperor. Even as I saw Kailis join with the Humans, Gion became a Sakkra colony, and the itinerant newsdroid popped up again to announce we were the first race to control 12 worlds! And in hopes of at once pleasing my warlike people and advancing my own lust for knowledge, I discussed trades with Alexander and agreed to accept Fusion Bombs for my Class III shields. I still hoped in my heart for a lasting peace, and shields of that class didn't much bother me, my NPGs, or my Merculites-to-be ... and my researchers had no more notion of how to design Fusion Bombs than of how to invent an engine technology!

2383-94: You Knew It Was Coming...
I was sick of my Sakkra research teams and their empty promises (they kept swearing, year in and year out, that they were just on the verge of a breakthrough in Construction technology) so I asked around among the other races to see if things were going any better for them, and if we might therefore manage to learn anything from more competent researchers. To my surprise, I found that my least favorite friend Xantak was ready to offer Nuclear Engines for my Class III Shields! If I had to watch my pilots rowing around the galaxy in warp-1 dinghies for one more year, I was going to scream, and I had already decided (with Alexander) that giving the shields away wouldn't hurt me too badly, so I readily agreed. (Xantak would alternatively have given me the engines for our latest terraforming technology, but I wasn't completely insane.) This led me to design a Farlander 2, just like the Farlander, but with Nuclear Engines instead of eggbeaters, and ordered one at Mu Delphi. No sooner did I do so however than the Bulrathi sent a fleet to Spica, the desert world I'd been hoping to poach. With two large Claws and an armed Colony Ship, they had no trouble chasing my Newscout away, obviating the need to finish the Farlander 2. Fortunately, my recent technology trades had finally lit a fire under my own researchers. Fearing that I would disdain Sakkra research entirely for that of my alien friends, my construction teams finally worked all the kinks out of our new Duralloy Armor, and even gave me a full menu of decent options for future research! I considered advanced factory construction and waste reducton technologies, but decided to hedge my bets in the end since there was no telling when or if our computer teams would come up with factory controls more advanced than Pac-Lizard joysticks. This left me with another opportunity to make my people happy, by requesting that we develop an Automated Repair System for our starfleet.
Around this time, I also scrapped our lone Farlander and our two redundant prototype Scouts. In their place, Sssla was ready to build an LRDeadland2 - nuclear engines, a dead colony base, and extended fuel tanks strapped haphazardly onto a large hull - which would be sent down to the isolated little tundra world of Nitzer immediately. Throughout this period, transports were being sent from non-hostile worlds to hostile (or important - i.e. Arietis) ones to help overall population growth rate, and I actually introduced breeding subsidies on non-hostile worlds, the most popular policy of my entire reign. In keeping with my developing philosophy, putting the happiness of the Sakkra before my own, I began to be content with my lot ... until 2390.

That's when the plague hit Sssla. Millions would die, and all I could do was try to ride it out while my people tried to research a cure, aided by laboratory parts and equipment (but no people! I refuse to solve a plague by sending healthy people to their doom!) shipped in from all the rest of our core worlds. So I sat in my throne room and gritted my teeth. If there's one thing I can't stand - one thing I really, really, really can't stand - it's a planet-sweeping plague, no matter where or when!

In the second plague year, our spies managed to steal the secrets of Controlled Barren Environment from Xantak's least interesting research laboratory. I sent them ironic congratulations from my hermetically-sealed palace chambers. I hate the plague. More importantly, we formed our colony at Nitzer, and with Crius and Maretta about to face overpopulation, I regretfully ordered transports from each back down to Sssla, hoping with all my heart that they would arrive at a healthy world. Have I mentioned lately that I hate the plague? Well, good.

Millions of healthy Sakkra drew ever closer to the plague zone, and I knew I could never forgive myself if they arrived at a diseased and deadly world, but in 2394, my hope was finally answered!



Far less trying than the plagues of legend, this one lasted only four years - with all possible medical resources diverted to Sssla the whole time of course - which doesn't change the fact that I hate plagues more than anything. Even more than Klackon poachers! When the last case was proven cured, I at last emerged from my hermetic palace to congratulate the pox-scarred medical technicians heartily. Truly, bravery and hard work in the line of duty had paid off, and they were worthy of all possible praise! There were celebrations across the planet's surface, and throughout the empire, and I was still in a terrific mood when I returned to the palace and received a holo-transmission from good old Morfane of the Darloks. I asked cheerfully after his health (or her, or its) - all ready to spring the good news when she (or maybe it or he) asked after mine, and Morfane answered ... that the 'Loks were "tired of diplomatic games." I just stared for a moment, disbelieving. The shifters were the proud owners of three worlds in the far north of the galaxy, and they didn't scare me in the least. I said, "You have got to be kidding me," but the connection was already broken. I was flabbergasted, but not particularly concerned. Crius and Vulcan got started on missile bases right away, itching for a fight, but Maretta couldn't be bothered to make more than a token effort in that direction while it worked on its infrastructure, even with some outside resources helping out. If the 'Loks were tired of diplomatic games, they could play all the war games they wished; I doubted theu would hurt a single Sakkra child. Games indeed! Still, it was troubling news; there was no possible reason for them to declare war on me, and nothing in their leader's personality had suggested it (or he or she) might turn on me so suddenly. Had it not been for my carefree mood following the end of the plague, I would have been deeply saddened by the end of galactic peace ... and I might have remembered to do something about it!

continued below...

[RefSteel]

2394-99: The Galactic "War" Begins
I started spying on the Darloks, even though Draco claimed it was a hopeless cause. It was one way to gain knowledge without relying on the outcasts, idiot-savantes, and just-plain-idiots among the Sakkra, and there was no sense in worrying about diplomatic trouble when we were in the middle of a war with the shape-shifting freaks. Then the next year came, and Zygot of the Psilons decided he wanted a piece of me! He too was tired of diplomatic games! The two tiniest and most hopeless civilizations in the galaxy both had it in for me! I realized too late that I should have taken diplomatic action against the stupid 'Loks immediately. So much for peace!

At that point, I tried taking diplomatic action, believe me, but the bugs refused to break with their Psilon allies in war or peace. At least the Bulrathi agreed to end their Darlok alliance. They wouldn't consider all-out war, but I'd always been happy with peace. In spite of feeling Amiable toward us, they also refused a non-agression pact though, so Bullux might have just been in a bad mood that day. Alexander also refused a Darlok war, but he had other things I was willing to discuss, particularly Deep Space Scanner. He was ready to exchange it for neutron pellet guns, duralloy armor, six-parsec fuel cells, or warp 2 engines, and in the end I decided to take it for Nuclear Engines in hopes of inspiring someone to likewise give or trade engines to me. The scanner would help my spies a little bit, but its main purpose was of course to warn of incoming enemy fleets. In hindsight, Irridium would probably have been a better trade, but the outcome didn't really hurt me.

The following year, perhaps jealous of alien scientists getting all my attention again, our scientists came up with radiation-proof colony bases! Still wishing to advance the state of the art, I was offered the chance to go for Cloning (by Tiamat! - on top of our normal breeding rate?!), Atmospheric Terraforming or Advanced Eco Restoration. Making the Sakkra happy was becoming my top priority, and I wanted all the room for them that I could make, so it was time to learn to make hostile worlds friendly. If only we could do the same with hostile aliens! Just as I left my meeting with our Big Blue Planetologist, the holo-call beacon lit up, and I saw that the bugs were coming to join the party. Xantak begged my pardon for failing to mention his hopeless intention of destroying my people. (Oh, he didn't call it hopeless. You just wait.) I ignored it for the time being, holding onto an imaginary peace as long as I couldn't have the real thing, while I scrapped my previous colony ship designs in favor of the Sunlander 2 and LR Sunland2, each with Nuclear Engines and a Radiated base, the latter with reserve tanks as well. Sssla would finish a Sunland the following year, and Mu Delphi would finish the cheaper version the year after. A Sunland was also being built at Crius, and a Sunlander at Beta Ceti. In the meantime, I could have tried extreme measures to set up defenses at Nitzer in case of bug or brain attack, but I doubted I could succeed, and hoped they'd just ignore the snowball anyway. I did not ignore it of course, and sent it resources from our reserves continuously.

Our labs developed Dotomite Crystals in 2397, and our excited research teams revealed their plans for ... still ... no ... engines. I could have gone for Energy Pulsars, hoping to speed the race to still more advanced technology, but instead selected Warp Dissipator (hey, at least it wasn't more range) as I no longer expected to ever see a decent engine from the clowns in charge of my propulsion laboratory. I resigned myself to sending transports at warp 1 indefinitely. Meanwhile, with a Psilon colony ship and Star Streak approaching Mu Delphi (or the vicinity) we arranged to build a missile base there simultaneously with shipbuilding. With the Humans suddenly allied with the Darloks, I realized I might face a war on all fronts before long. I took it philosophically though. The Sakkra were itching for a fight, and for more space to breed. If I couldn't have galactic peace, at least I could make my people happy!

The funny thing is, I was thinking of Draco, and how to convince him we could live without galactic peace, when I received a design for a postcard, requesting approval to send it to Morfane.



Draco wasn't as infallible as I had thought. That 'Lok research lab that held the secrets of Reduced Industrial Waste 80% had fallen like a ripe peach. I passed up Computers (which would have been ECM I according to my reports) and Propulsion (almost certainly Deuterium) because I wanted the instant boost to our economy (we had no reduced waste tech to that point). Then the following year, one of my aging Monitors finally limped to the Darlok homeworld and discovered their fleet.



In addition to this essentially worthless collection of ships, the planet had 10 bases, but they bore only class 2 shields and Hyper V rockets. Mind, my Monitor still had to retreat, but I wasn't too worried about the 'Loks, even before Battle Computer IV came in, which would ensure my spying superiority for some time to come. Better still, I finally had a choice in the field, and not only between the latest battle computer and ECM technologies! Oh, those were available, but I gladly selected Improved Robotic Controls IV!

The election was coming up, and I was convinced I'd hold a veto, barring spores and insane shield levels on the incoming Psilon fleet, but I still tried a little electioneering. Alexander was allied to both the 'Loks and the insectoids, and though willing to go to war with either one, would not do so unless I gave him our terraforming technology. After a brief recess to roll my eyes and make fun of his ridiculous demands among my advisors, I moved on to requests for breach of alliance, but he may have overheard us laughing, because he wouldn't even consider the possibility. That time wasted, I got serious, proposing a trade for his Personal Deflector Shields, agreeing to give him Duralloy for them. My people were clamoring for ground wars, and I didn't want them to go in unprepared. With that hole filled, and Alexander sick of talking, I called up the Bulrathi to propose a united front of ground-pounders against the evil shape shifting dweebs ... and he agreed to go to war with the 'Loks! With good old Bullux on the right side of things, I felt a little less lonely in the galaxy, and suggest a Non-Agression Pact as well. Again he agreed, demonstrating that he really was just in a bad mood the last time I asked. Since we had no special use for Bulrathi technology (I could tell because he claimed to have no use for mine) and I didn't feel like renegotiating trade contracts at the time, I called it a day on the diplo front. I was building missile bases on most of my worlds in preparation for Planetary shields, and just to be sure Mu Delphi would win its battle, I also made plans for a new ship design, the LR Newt 2.0, with Nuclear Engines, Maneuver 2, Reserve Tanks, and an NPG apiece. Mu Delphi was to build me 11 while also completing its third missile base, so that they could then replace the outmoded Newscouts around the galaxy. And then we came to the turn of the century.

2400-11: The Quotation Marks Go Away
The Psilons arrived at Mu Delphi, and by Tiamat, the Star Streak had Death Spores! No shields though, and between it and the colony, their only ship-to-ship weapons were two lasers - one normal, one heavy. Mu Delphi fired on the Star Streak, our Newts advanced, and our helpless Newscout retreated. The next planetary volley aimed for the Colony Ship, and I guessed right: The first one took out the Star Streaks without trouble. Though My Newts tried to close with the Colony Ship, it retreated before I could destroy it, thus leading us to the High Council meeting!

I was up against Xantak, as I suspected I would be, so there was no danger at all. Then the first things I saw were the 29 vote total, meaning I (just) had my veto, and Bullux giving three votes to me! That made me feel warm and fuzzy for a bit, though it didn't really matter to the election. Morfane (3), Alexander (5), Xantak (6), and Zygot (2) all voted for the bug of course, but it didn't make a difference. I abstained with my ten votes, and it was a deadlock again. With various bug ships approaching Sakkra space however, the war between the two powers in the galaxy was about to get serious, whether I liked it or not.

I wasn't worried.

In 2401, we colonized Paranar, underscoring the fact that the aliens should never have declared war. With a pure-neutronium planet on which no one else could even land, to say nothing of Arietis and our countless other worlds (and Tyr, about to be ours in the far West) and a massive lead in computer technology ... well, anyone can lose a battle here and there, but we weren't going to lose a war with anybody. Case in point: A pair of Human Corvettes that had appeared before I ever colonized the world seemed to be bound for Nitzer, moving s-l-o-w-l-y. I thought about it a while, but decided in the end to just let them arrive unopposed, and unless Alexander was truly more Honorable (ha!) than Xantak, let him send his transports the long, long way - at warp 1 - across the galaxy. Meanwhile, sick of watching the outdated version crawl through space, I ordered Sssla's assembly plants to build a trio of Monitor 2.0s with LR tanks, scanners, mark 2 computers, Duralloy armor, Nuclear Engines, maneuver class 2, and a pair of NPGs apiece.

The next year, we colonized Tyr and Rigel, and the year after that, as Klackon laser boats retreated from the Arietis missile bases and the large Klackon Avengers were found (by a Monitor in Klackon space) to be spore ships, we colonized Cygni and confirmed that the "honorable" monkeys had sent 55 transports toward Nitzer. We would really have to make an effort to shoot those down when they arrived ... but according to Draco's calculations, we would have a decade and a half(!) to prepare. In spite of this betrayal, I asked Alexander about breaking his alliances or going to war, but he was just a broken record. I called Zygot, and he refused my offer of peace. I shrugged and said, "It's your funeral," and went to see how our Arietis labs were doing.

In 2404, after a bunch of uninteresting battles, in which the interloper (my scanner or their "invading" fleet) simply retreated from defenses that included nothing new, Automated Repair System came in! For the first time in history, my construction research teams did a semi-competent job of meeting their promises! Their only new idea was Improved Industrial Tech 6, but I was perfectly happy with it - a great complement to RC4 - and tried offering peace to the Darlok people. Morfane refused as the aliens always seem to do, spoiling my hope for interstellar peace. "It's your funeral," I murmured, but Morfane didn't hear me. I went to listen patiently to my hundreds of shouting, squabbling military advisors, but my mind wasn't on their screechings. It was time for a long-overdue conversation with Draco Sstarshine.

With real sorrow, I explained the diplomatic situation to him, trying to make him understand that there was no more hope of galactic peace, that for all our hopes and wishes - though we would do our best to restore the peace if ever we could - the aliens had betrayed us and would continue to do so if given the opportunity. I said that against all my wishes, I felt I had no choice but to design and build an actual combat fleet. Draco looked away for a long moment, then looked back and told me, "I hate to say this after all our long friendship, but it would be wrong not to admit it: I've been humoring your pacifist tendencies for ages. Peace is well and good in the cause of learning, but those aliens have knowledge that our soldiers can steal faster than we'll ever get it by diplomacy!"
I blinked a couple of times, and tried to take it in. Then I said, "Okay, then!" And so our policy was made. From there, I proceeded to our assembly plants with Draco and both of the military strategists who were believed to be almost sane. After some work at the computers, we came up with the ship design that was to form the backbone of our fleet until nearly the end of my reign:



The purpose of the Gecko is basically to take anything the enemy can throw at it and still survive (thanks to its auto-repair - they just don't have that much to throw at it, honestly), while hammering enemy fleets with its NPGs. Simple, effective, and good enough to see to our security for a long, long time. The first would roll off the line at Sssla in three years.

We killed a Klackon Avenger at Kronos in 2405 long before it got near enough to the planet to think about sporing. A large Psilon Dark Star arriving at Beta Ceti the same year killed two of our little Newts as it approached the planet (it had Death Spores as well as Heavy Lasers) - they charged right in since it had a class II shield and an asteroid layout that would reduce our bases' effectiveness - but it was amazingly slow, and still armored with cardboard, so it too was destroyed before it reached sporing range.

In 2406, we scouted the Darlok colony of Reticuli, in the far north, an Ocean with little in the way of minerals or energy, and built a colony at Rhilus, right next door. Then the Newsdroid popped up, and announced to the galaxy that Mu Delphi had gone radiated overnight, due to an industrial accident on a scale nevere before imagined by my people. In other news, it reported that we were up to 18 systems, and if our expansion was not contained ... but, no, I'm afraid it was wrong. For all intents and purposes, we already did control the galaxy.

The horrible industrial accident would require massive waste cleanup and - far worse, as far as my people were concerned - cut the world's maximum population severely. I combatted it the only way I knew was sure: By ordering everyone onto ecology restoration, and sending half the planet's population off-world, to someplace that could contain them - in this case, Simius.
What's that you say? A Klackon colony? No, no, there must be some mistake. I'm quite sure it's ours! It's been on our list of colonies-to-be for almost a century!

The following year, Alexander and Bullux simultaneously dissolved their non-aggression pacts with me. Oh, well. Their funerals. Still, I had such hopes for the bears....
Since this meant I was at hot or cold war with everyone in the galaxy, I tried calling up the Psilons, but their ambassador indicated that his people remained suicidal. In a symbolic move, I finally scrapped our Newscouts and the old Monitor 1.0s, leaving no more warp 1 starships in my fleet.

In 2408, in a Klackon attack on Kronos, our new Gecko design saw combat for the first time. The planet started by firing at the 4 Knight missile boats, but changed its mind after two volleys and opened up on the Avenger spore ship. In the end though, it didn't matter. The Gecko just seriously rocked. With support from the planet, it took out all the offending Klackon ships while our Newts dodged Knight-based missiles. We lost nothing in the fight. And as if to prove their ... um, unique level of intelligence, the Humans chose that moment to join the hopeless war against me and my mighty lizard people.
All together now: Their funeral!

The same year, our new colonies submitted a joint petition saying they wanted to feel like they were participating in the war effort, so I designed the little Bombard 2.0, with Nuke engines, Manuever 2, and one Fusion Bomb on each. The closest thing to bad news was that Planetary Shield Vs were ready to roll out the following year - they were expensive, couldn't help against spores, and won't let us build more bases on any world where they hadn't been completed. Our next research project in the field would be a Repulsor Beam (still no choice in force fields!) which could deal with spore ships, fortunately. Just to give you an idea of what Paranar could manage even at this early date - especially when receiving reserve funding, as it did perpetually - it went cheerfully about the business of building a shield and missile base in a single year with plenty of production left over for other projects to boot.

In 2410, we killed another bug fleet at Kronos, in spite of four Avenger spore ships (all burned before they could reach the planet). The Gecko again proved its worth. According to GNN, our production ranked below the Klackons', but above everyone else. Since the Newts were really intended as armed scouts rather than actual fighters, I also designed Firenewt 2s, each a fighter with a single NPG, plus Shield, Computer, Warp, and Maneuver of 2 apiece. The following year, a Klackon death fleet of 5 Avengers and 15 Lancer laser mediums arrived at Sssla. The Lancers took out our Monitor and small collection of Firenewts, and the Avengers managed to reach the planet and drop spores! ... Well, one of them did. It managed to drop exactly two rounds before it too was destroyed by the Gecko and pair of bases, bringing the planet down to 122 population. The Gecko went on to take out 5 of the Lancers before the rest could retreat. In response, with transports long en route to Simius from much of the southern empire, the first sets began to depart for Centauri, in quantity. If there's one thing I can't stand, it's bioweapons dropped on my homeworld. I can swallow a lot in the name of peace, but that was too much! The bugs were going to pay dearly.

2412-19: Offensive
Our first military offensive began at last! Simius was defended by eight medium Pegasus spore ships and a pair of Hyper-X bases. My attack fleet consisted of 21 Bombards, 8 Newts, and a Gecko. The enemy ships, being defenseless, retreated, but the bases took out nearly all our Bombards before we managed to burn them both down (they had only Shield 3, not enough to stop my NPGs, so the Gecko would have gotten them eventually). Our troops outnumbered the bugs two to one, but it would be awfully close - they had Ion Rifles to our Hand Lasers, and they were on defense - but in the end, we were victorious, with 13 million Sakkra remaining, to salvage technology from the 89 Klackon factories! After much anticipation, we received ... um ... Controlled Tundra Environment. So ... yay?

There was worse to come. Five Knight Hyper-X boats showed up at Simius the next year, and though I managed to destroy one, our local Gecko was lost under a storm of rockets, due to a miscalculation and piloting error! Klackon transports would be en route at any moment, and their transports move at warp 2! I tried to scrounge a small fleet of fighters to handle the problem, but I was going to need a lot more than I had on hand!

By the next year, there were six Knights at Simius, and all we had at hand was the single Firenewt Simius itself had scratched out the same year. It closed and fired, doing minimal damage, but dodged the enemy missiles successfully, thanking Tiamat that they fired some at the planet as well as the ship (they took out a few factories, but that was it) and when the Knights ran out of ammunition, the Firenewt could closed without danger, and forced them to retreat! Unfortunately, the story doesn't end there. Klackon troops from Centauri hit Simius immediately, and though our brave defenders killed 27 million bugs, they reclaimed the planet, and - from the same factories (actually fewer, thanks to their missile strikes) that gave me one lame and obsolete tech - they took NPGs, ECM2, and Class 5 Planetaries! My military advisors all screamed as one that the pilot of our Gecko should be tortured for his error, apparently forgetting that he died in the fireball when the rockets hit his ship. More pragmatic, the rest of my people prepared to take back what was rightfully ours, itching for the fight to come, with tens of millions boarding transports from our core worlds!

Throughout this period, Human and Klackon forces were arriving at my planets only to flee or be destroyed. With 8 layers of shields, my bases were immune to everything but Klackon spore ships, and my bases and Geckos could get rid of those easily. A major battle at Kronos in 2415 saw a huge Human Warship and a large support fleet burned down by nine missile bases and a couple of Geckos (I did lose some unimportant small ships, but that's it). The same year however, 5 Klackon Avengers reached Beta Ceti, supported by 31 Lancers and 323(!) little Daggers. Fortunately, my Gecko was all but immune to laser fire, so it pretended the escorts didn't exist, and with help from the local bases managed to take out all the Avengers, though the last one managed to drop a couple rounds of spores (much like the one at Sssla some years before) before it was burned. The Lancers all died as well, but most of the Daggers managed to retreat. This only incensed me more against the Klackons, who not only use bioweapons routinely, but had the gall on two separate occasions to actually manage to drop the things!

It would never happen again. At long, long last, too late to save millions at Beta Ceti, our weapons teams developed Merculite Missiles, which would slaughter any further incoming insect fleets. The chief weapons researcher mentioned with some reluctance that he could advance the state of the art by studying Graviton or Fusion beams, but then started mumbling incoherently. I liked both options, and in the course of deciding which to choose, I started to say, "I understand that..." ... and as soon as the "I un..." was out, he interrupted, "Yes, sir! We shall get to work on Ion Rifle immediately!" He raced from the throne room without another word or even a backward glance, and if I weren't such a peaceful soul, I would probably have just executed my entire weapons research team! (And the propulsion one too, but that's another story.)

A sheer misclick. I moved my finger on my laptop's track pad, and the cursor careened over Ion Rifle and interpretted the motion of my finger as a click. If the game wasn't already in hand, I would have been furious, especially after a careless tactical blunder cost me so much time and effort at Simius. Fortunately, the game is in hand, and it doesn't really matter what I research. My propulsion team of course is just being blamed for our no-engines Propulsion tree. Hey, I've gotta blame somebody!

Next, our incoming troops (they thought they were coming to reinforce our own colony, but were pleased with the prospect of battle when we briefed them in mid-space) killed all but 11 million of the bugs at Simius. Then, with hundreds of transports on the way to two of his worlds, fresh from sporing millions of innocents on Beta Ceti, Xantak offered me peace. I laughed heartily. When I was all done laughing though, there he still stood, asking, "Well? What about that peace treaty?"

If there's one thing I can't stand, it's a cheeky insect with death spores. Xantak had gone too far. I sighed, and looked him in the eye and said, "When the last insect in the last nest on the last world in Klackon space has been burned from its foul, dark hole, then and only then will there be peace!" It was a promise I intended to keep.

To repay the generous Klackons, I designed the Bombard 2.1, identical to the 2.0s except for the addition of a Class 2 battle computer. Unfortunately, there was more trouble coming. The Bulrathi, the furry, loveable teddy bear Bulrathi, my friends since we first met, who voted for me in the centennial election, who agreed to join my Darlok war with me, who signed a Non-Aggression Pact ... er ... well, I guess they broke that, yeah, but ... the only race with which I was not at war in the galaxy, arrived at Yarrow with two Huge Grizzlies. I was aware that they were coming, but thought I had another year, and didn't have enough resources in the area to get any ships into play, or indeed to finish the planetary shield and build more missile bases than the one I already had there. The Grizzlies had plenty of Hyper-X rockets to beat my single missile base and its three layers of shielding ... and they each carried 25 Death Spores. In the first year of bombardment, they destroyed 9 factories, and killed 53 million Sakkra. Officially, of course, we still were not at war. After all, why would we be?

With Geckos around to do our scanning for us, I scrapped the Monitor design in favor of the MerCobra 2, which carried a pair of Merculite 2-racks, Class 2 computers, and Nuclear Engines, allowing Maneuver Class 2. Everyone - everyone - within anything like reach of Yarrow and Bulrathi space started building them at once, especially including Paranar (which was previously responsible for lots of Firenewts and Bombards). One of my spies in Human space learned the secrets of Improved Terraforming +10 and I was so busy getting ready for the Bulrathi front (not the war front, you understand - the Bulrathi peace front!) that I didn't even remember to give him a back-handed compliment.

In 2418, my forces reached the Klackon world of Centauri. We easily dismembered the fleet of Dagger fighters, and then closed with the planet, losing a couple dozen Bombards en route. Once there though, we lost only one more bomber before it was all over. I didn't bomb the planet. I just let my 218(!) transports arrive. I was expecting roughly two to one losses, and it came to roughly that; we still filled the planet with a few million Sakkra to spare. We also had a sizable fleet of Firenewts at Nitzer, but fully 24 Human transports somehow got through nonetheless. Fortunately, we still held the planet easily. Part of the reason was that we had rapidly outfitted our defenders with Ion Rifles after learning how to do so in the factories at Centauri, thankfully allowing me to choose one of the weapons research projects I actually wanted ... under the auspices of a new head weapons scientist (the old one unfortunately had to be reassigned to a mental institution ... on the Yarrow colony). We also learned how the Klackons make their (and the Bulrathi's) favorite things: Death Spores ... in case I should ever have the slightest wish to even look at them. More importantly, we found designs for a Fusion Beam and Deuterium Fuel Cells, the first an entirely worthwhile weapon, the second clearing junk out of the way so our spies could concentrate on more important things in enemy propulsion labs. I chose Graviton Beam as my new research project, as I knew I would never have a need for Omega-V Bombs or any other weapon more advanced in the course of my reign. For that matter, I would never need the Graviton Beams.

Zygot approached me with a peace offer, but I turned him down. I was busy deciding what to do about the 50 ursine transports approaching Yarrow, and didn't want to worry about reading fine print or signing anything. I would later reconsider, but at the time, I was busy forming a desperate plan to thwart Bullux's evil scheme.

First, our Centauri fleet returned to Simius, where it had no chance to reach the Klackons' Avengers and Daggers before the enemy's retreat. I had left one Firenewt behind at Centauri, and with the 11 others the planet built for itself, it took on 11 Klackon Daggers as they arrived. I assumed it would be no contest, and I was correct: We didn't lose a single ship, and all the Daggers died, bringing us to the fourth battle on the surface of Simius in just eight years. The 94 transports in my first wave would be more than enough, naturally.



Notice that we found no new technology there. I had taken the planet twice, with 170 total factories, and the bugs had taken it once, with the same 81 you see here. In the course of those battles, I learned the secrets of Tundra bases, massively obsolete, and they managed to steal three valuable technologies. Now, that, my friends, is what I call offensive!

continued below...

[RefSteel]

2420-25: The Last Hope
With Bulrathi transports about to arrive and steal my technology, not incidentally sitting their immovable ursine behinds on Yarrow, which would force me to send in unreasonable numbers of troops or bomb away all its hard-built factories, I resorted to a move of desperation. The huge Bulrathi ships, complete with 25 Death Spores apiece, were still in orbit, and I managed to build a single Firenewt to face them. In spite of its clever attempts at dodging, its superior speed wasn't superior enough, and it perished ... but not before accomplishing its true purpose: Giving the Bears' overzealous pilots a chance to commit a major strategic blunder.



By using their death spores to destroy the colony in the course of the battle, they rendered it uninhabitable for their incoming 50 millions. The Sakkra at Yarrow were doomed anyway, and living on a contaminated world. With this stroke, I would be able to decontaminate it with the help of a colony ship later on, and the Bulrathi would lose their chance for a foot-hold in Sakkra space. It wouldn't have done them any good if they had it, but it saved me a lot of logistical headaches ... and isn't that the really important thing? The peaceful Ref of the 24th century would have balked at seeing his own people spored to death when they could have died fighting Bulrathi, but I had a different perspective after the Bulrathi betrayed me ... and the people of Yarrow would die knowing they were taking 50 million Bulrathi with them! I at once proceeded to scrap our old Newts in favor of a bare-bones Lander 2.0 and ordered one at Maretta, ready to restore Yarrow to me.

We continued to repel or destroy incoming enemy fleets while (in spite of our five front war) never neglecting our all-important scientific discoveries! The first came as we infiltrated the Darloks' Reticuli research center again and stole ECM1 from them. Next, our research centers came through with Atmospheric Terraforming, and I let our blue-scaled Planetologist know that Advanced Soil Enrichment would be much appreciated, though Terra+50 looked pretty nice too (as did Advanced Eco Restoration, which she had suggested on a previous occasion). All our hostile worlds started work on atmospheric terraforming, with the sole exception of Rhilus (which was still immature, vulnerable, and in the heart of Darlok space, and therefore wished to remain uninhabitable, at least for a while longer, to the enemy) while our fleet and transports were converging on Trax, the last of the Klackon-poached worlds that should have been ours for decades at least.

Just as our Simius fleet dispatched a trio of Avenger spore ships and chased a Knight missile boat away, in 2422, our Construction teams came through with Improved Industrial Tech 6! The new possibilities were IIT5, Reduced Waste 40 (which I would normally have chosen) ... and the one I chose after all, just to make a statement to the galaxy: Armored Exoskeleton technology!

The following year, the Yarrow colony was reestablished, with its first set of transports already en route through the nebula. Its factories (and waste, which we had allowed to build up while we struggled to complete that single Firenewt) remained intact after its sporing, but we would need to do a lot of terraforming to restore it to what it had been. Meanwhile, a moderately substantial Psilon fleet was seen heading toward one of my eastern worlds (Draco kept cursing our lack of something called "Improved Scanners," but I had no idea what he meant) and I decided the Brains' lives had been hard enough with their miserable starting position. I was prepared to dismember the Bears and the Klackons for their perpetual sporing, but I didn't feel like diverting energy from Paranar or a portion of my Bulrathi fleet to deal with the Psilon fleet, and with an election coming up, I still had a faint hope for peace. If the other races could agree to stand behind me, I still hoped the galaxy could unite in peace under my rule ... a peace that would begin as soon as the united galactic forces exterminated the vile insects from the face of the galaxy! I therefore called Zygot and asked if he would be willing to make peace. For once, an alien leader agreed to this request, to my shock more than my relief. I didn't go so far as to actually form a trade agreement or anything of course, and continued working on planetary shields all around Psilon territory; after my experience with Bullux, I had no illusions that, barring my election, there could be any lasting peace.

In 2424, I sent my fleet of MerCobras, with its attendant Gecko, directly up to Ursa, and scrapped the Lander design, its purpose served, for a new fighter, the DiNewt 2.0, with Nuke engines, Maneuver 2, Comp 2, and a pair of NPGs each. After a spy of unknown race (and about whom we cared not in the least) destroyed ten factories at Beta Ceti, the High Council convened. I was up against Alexander again, with the insects taken out of the running thanks to their loss of Simius and Centauri. Hillariously, Bullux gave his three votes to me. I guess he was technically at war with old Alex, though their war was completely phony, and he technically was not at war with me, though he'd destroyed one of my colonies and I had a death fleet on the way to his homeworld, with more reinforcements on the way. Morfane of course threw his three votes the other way, as did Alexander himself with six. (My immediate reaction was, "That's second-best? Sheesh!") Xantak still had six himself, and of course voted for the monkey, so I wouldn't have won the election even had Zygot voted for me (he abstained with three). I had 15 votes of my own, equal to or greater than any other three races combined, but politely abstained. It always pays to be polite in diplomacy ... even if diplomacy is about to become irrelevant to the galaxy! The alien peoples had chosen, and they had chosen unwisely. When Alexander followed up the election by asking me for peace, I told him how sorry I was that I could not in conscience look to peace while a single Klackon remained among the living. Besides, as Draco pointed out, there was much knowledge to be gained from the Humans, including planetary surveys which could never be made unless we cleared away their missile bases and fleets! The fleet I'd been building at Kronos was primarily defensive, but significant in size, and right by Human space ... and Tyr, right in the middle of Human space, started building Bombards that very year!

2426-30: The Last Straw
The battle for Ursa was swift and painless. Dozens of MerCobras moved into position, fired their volleys, moved back, and retreated. My Firenewts advanced but wouldn't really be needed; my large Gecko was more dangerous than their huge Grizzly in ship-to-ship combat, and the missile volleys wiped out all the planet's bases! I wound up losing some eight of my Firenewts by engaging the enemy too directly, but...



...the 15 survivors dealt the final blow to the Grizzly, and took control of the Bulrathi homeworld's orbit.
Next, at Kronos, we discovered that the new Human Cruisers had Fusion Bombs - just one on each ship, and they were armored with cardboard, but they also had class 4 shields ... and there were 18! Each also bore a number of Ion Cannons of the standard and Heavy varieties, and when I carelessly failed to consider just how much damage those could do, I lost my local Gecko to their fire! Fortunately, they also stopped to deal with my DiNewts, and though they managed to kill a lot - only 30 of the DiNewts managed to retreat - the bases pounding from behind took out all the Cruisers in the meantime, and the rest of the harmless-to-my-shields Human ships retreated. Then at last came the long-anticipated battle for Trax, the planet that should have been mine all along but for a foolishly-made NAP agreement. I feared that the Klackons' new medium Horsemen might carry Fusion Beams or something ... but they turned out to be Hyper-X rocket boats. I took a moment to send a message to my number one enemy: "Sorry, Xantak. Not going to cut it." Then I sat back and watched the carnage. We had two Geckos on the Klackon front, and with the 78 Firenewts, they made directly for the missile boats, running interference, watching the spore ships flee. Only 74 of the new Bombards and 55 of the old ones made it to the planet, but it was enough. The bases all went down in flames before they could get off another shot ... as did all the missile boats. After an unknown spy took out 7 of Yarrow's idle and irrelevant factories, we scouted Ursa, still unimproved with even the slightest terraforming, and I did a token bombing run (a token run because there were no actual bombers present) on its factories and population. I did not bomb Thrax and its 148 factories however. My first wave of 191 transports was coming in against 78 million bugs. Being equal except for their defensive browny points, we were left with 96 million survivors to swarm over the factories. So we got their state of the art Battle Computer Mark V, finally acquired an Improved Space Scanner, and ... that was all. I hated the bugs more and more every time I took one of their worlds and somehow failed to find Sublight Engine plans in the ruins. Meanwhile, Bullux called me a villain for attacking his planet. I didn't even bother mentioning Yarrow, and he didn't even bother declaring war on me. Morfane, on the other hand, was extremely pleased with my behavior at Ursa, and babbled about the incredible threat of the Bears. I did not fail to remember that he, she, or (I think I'm definitely going with) it was the one who started this whole galactic war in the first place.

The first thing our lovely new scanners told us was that we were threatened at no less than 7 different worlds! Looking over the incoming fleets, I wasn't overly concerned about most of them - the threats were distant, feeble, or both. I thought one exception was the Human fleet bound for Crius...



...as, at the time, I was biting my claws over those 4 Cruisers. What I'd forgotten was that they represented - at most - 4 Fusion Bombs per round, while each of my bases would be lobbing three merculite missiles at them long before they could close to bombing range. Meanwhile, my fleets continued to gather on all three fronts that mattered, with 66 Bombards en route to the southernmost Human colony of Misha. For the rest of my reign, I would continue to advance my fleets, sending transports whenever it seemed appropriate, sometimes long before it actually was (a handicap of lacking decent engine technology).
In 2427, the battle for Crius went better than expected, as I thought my instant defensive fleet of 5 MerCobras would be wiped out, flying far too close to the enemy fleet in the course of launching their missiles.

One reason I prefer exploit guidelines to exploit rules: The missile back-up rule from the exploit list states that missile boats in the presence of friendly missile bases must advance to the limit of their ability. With Merculite 2-racks, my MerCobras could hit any point on the screen long before they reached the advanced position you see here, and thus would not have actually exploited the AI's anti-missile yo-yo behavior. Nonetheless, in order to follow the letter of the rule, I had to put them in the line of fire, giving up part of the value of their advanced, long-range missiles. Didn't matter here of course, but it's something to consider.

Fortunately, they survived the first shot from the Cruisers, and safely retreated. After that, it was just a matter of letting our bases clean up or chase off the enemy fleet, and hitting Ursa and Misha with orbital bombardment. I'm sure you can imagine how pleased I was to receive this charming call from Bullux shortly after I bombed his homeworld....



You heard him correctly! My attacks proved the honor in my words of peace!
To be perfectly fair to Bullux though, I did kill more Humans than Bulrathi that year.

The next time we bombed Misha and Ursa, we did more damage to Ursa (bombers had finally arrived there, and most of those at Misha had left to hit the Humans elsewhere), so Bullux called us butchers and asked how he could believe us "when you call yourselves friends." The poor teddy was obviously confused. I saw that I'd need to do something drastic to make him realize we were at war, and prepared to do so. Meanwhile, Morfane had seen what was going on in the rest of the galaxy, and begged us for peace. I reminded it that it's the one who started the dogpile on us in the first place, and suggested that it take a nice, cool, refreshing jump in the nearest lake.
In 2429, after 124 Bombards wiped out Human defenses at Stalaz without incident or loss, followed by a few more bombing runs and our conquest of Misha with just three casualties, GNN reported that we nearly controlled a majority of the galaxy. Things were coming along pretty well, though monstrously slowed by our miserable warp speeds.



I knew we would have little trouble eliminating the Klackons in time for the next High Council meeting while incidentally acquiring enough votes to guarantee my election. Thereafter, without the infernal bugs spreading their doctrine of madness and murder throughout the galaxy, under my firm hand, all the races could cooperate in our pursuit of knowledge, in harmony. So I believed.

Don't you hate it when you forget about the Bulrathi?

Bullux warned us that very year that we would soon pay dearly for repeatedly bombing his homeworld. I laughed aloud; we'd repeatedly bombed his homeworld, he'd been able to do nothing about it, and he expected us to pay? Ha! Ha ha! Ha-ha ha-ha ha-ha-ha! There was just the little matter of two huge Grizzlies about to arrive at Maretta.

Now, I knew my lone Gecko could defeat them both in ship-to-ship combat, and the planet would be able to help out too with a trio of Merculite bases. What I may have slightly forgotten was the reason two Huge ships couldn't stand up to a single Gecko in the first place. We destroyed one before either could ever reach the planet, and the Gecko was completely safe ... but the other did reach the planet, and dropped its entire massive payload of Death Spores. We killed it just as it was trying to depart, but by then...



You could kind of say that was payback for my trick at Yarrow, when I got them to do this intentionally. Or you could say it was a massive war crime for which all the Bulrathi people would pay with their lives. Yeah, I'm going with number two on this one. They were my friends, and they betrayed me, and they attacked me, and they completely destroyed two of my colonies with illegal bioweapons! (Admittedly, the first was because I wanted them to and the second was because I was careless and not really paying attention. But still!) Even the Klackons weren't as vile. The Bulrathi would be the first to go.

2431-Present: The Last Years
After that, things started looking up, which wouldn't be hard to do considering how they looked for our Marettans. First, my spies cheered me up a bit by stealing Inertial Stabilizer from the monkeys. Then I had a chance to take out my agressions on Stalaz. And on Ursa. The latter finally (finally!) prompted Bullux to make our war official. I should point out that my still-lasting peace with the Psilons meant that I technically had never yet been at war with all five other races at once. I decided that was a good (or at least a moderately amusing) policy, and resolved to keep it up through the rest of my reign. Technically.

A moment later, the Darloks came calling, and made the mistake of complimenting me for beating up on the bears. I remembered just then that I hadn't done much to the Shifters since they started the whole mess in 2394, and resolved to change that as soon as possible! Even so, I almost forgot about them again immediately, practically falling out of my chair when I got another "Good work, sir!" from Alexander, whose southern worlds I'd been bombing steadily for the past several years! Annnnnd Xantak joined the fun! My, the Bulrathi were unpopular little creatures. Kinda seems like it might have been a bad move for them to turn on their only friends, then. (Or, let's put it another way: I was simply the last to find out how horrible the ursines really were!)

36 of our Bombards took out Quayal's missile base at the cost of a few of their number, and retreated from the fleet in orbit, in 2431. This was more or less typical of the small fleet actions ocurring in Human space that year since I hadn't been paying much attention in recent years, and was sending fleets out almost at random. Thanks to the galvanizing attack on Maretta however, I was starting to pay attention again! In any case, the real battle line was at Stalaz, which I bombed one last time just before the troops arrived and added it to my imperial collection. Ursa of course was also bombed, leading the Humans and Bugs to compliment me once more on my bear-killing techniques, even as I continued to destroy their ships and/or colonies. They ain't seen nothing yet. (Actually, I maybe wasn't paying that much attention though, as I kept building tactically slow Bombards instead of designing something with Inertial Stabilizers on it....)

In 2432, in spite of the fleet in orbit, I burned 115 of 121 Bombards in exchange for all but one of Sol's missile bases (the last six bombers, out of ammunition, had to retreat). The bases at the Argus colony went down next under the guns and bombs of my main bug-squashing fleet. Then I let Bullux know what I thought of his antics at Yarrow and Maretta.


Do you think I made my point? I do hope Bullux wasn't in his palace when his homeworld turned to glass. I really wanted him to see the rest of his civilization burning too!

Argus, of course, did not get bombed. We took it by force on the ground, and collected obsolete Improved Industrial Tech 8, and then ... I'm not sure what was next; it was something I'd never seen or heard of before. Surely, surely, it couldn't be...



An engine? Sublight Drives?! If I didn't have the photographic evidence, I still wouldn't believe it, we went so long with warp-1 transports in my reign. Yet there the tech was hiding, on Ultra-Poor Argus, along with Robotic Controls 3, which I suddenly realized was valuable as well, since I din't actually have RC4 yet, having slowed our research to a crawl in favor of shipbuilding.

Our lone remaining DiNewt 2.0 (yes, we only had one of them just then) was scrapped in favor of a superior version: The Newt 3.0 had a pair of NPGs like its predecessor, plus Duralloy Armor, but also sported Sub-Light Engines, Inertial Stabilizers, and the best maneuverability class available in the galaxy.

At Stalaz, as expected, in 2433, 13 of our new Newts met 14 Human Couriers (fighters with Ion Cannons). I lost only a single Newt in wiping out the enemy. At Misha, my small fleet of Mercobras only managed to kill half the incoming Couriers with their missiles, so we reverted to plan B. The Mercobras moved in as lures while the system's lone Newt hung back, and when the Couriers fired on the Mercobras, the Newt moved in and returned fire. The process was slow, with the Newt dodging in and out constantly, and the Newt's lack of computers showed clearly: I lost 2 Mercobras to the Couriers' fire before destroying the enemy, ultimately holding the planet's orbit. A Klackon spore fleet with escorts hit Argus, and the escorts killed a few Firenewts, but the Gecko destroyed everything but the retreating missile boats before any other damage could be done. I then elected to bomb Quayal in spite of having transports en route, not remembering exactly how many bombers I had in orbit, and....



...just got away with it! Orbital bombardment left exactly one population unit alive! Lest I believe that I'm lucky though, this was immediately followed by a GNN special report.



The quake hit our Rich world, right on the Human front, the lynchpin of our defense in the northwest. Fortunately, we had addressed all the immediate threats to our worlds in that sector already, and the planet could build back those factories fast.

I finally got around to attacking the Darloks in 2434, above the poor oceans of Reticuli. Their fleet was built around Hyper-V rockets and generally moving slowly (there were some heavy lasers present too, which all died under the fire of my Gecko) and after some nimble dodging, we owned the planet's orbit. With over a hundred Bombards at the Bulrathi world of Gienah, losing only 11 before we closed, we had no trouble making the missile bases disappear in a burst of Fusion flame. Simultaneously, our main Bear Hunting Fleet reached Spica, whose single Hyper-X base couldn't touch our ships before our MerCobras' superior missiles removed it from the face of the planet. Down at Argus, a Klackon Knight and pair of Horsemen tried to take on the local defense craft, failing to remember that Geckos eat bugs for their daily snacks. Ignoring the Hyper-X rockets due to their insufficient numbers, our Gecko sent all their ships down to the planet in flaming wreckage. Nonetheless, our Bombards, with their low tactical speed, were showing their age in real battles. We lost 194 of them at Lyae, killing only two of the planet's 10 Stinger bases, largely due to the attrition attacks of 64 fast Cutlass Fighters. Yes, our Gecko could gobble the Cutlasses up, but not fast enough to keep them from killing our bombers. This left me with much to think about, so I thoughtfully bombed Reticuli. I thoughtfully bombed Gienah. I thoughtfully glassed Spica. And I thoughtfully watched and grinned and cheered as our ground forces captured Quayal. Meanwhile, Bullux decided our words of peace were honorable again - after all, though we wiped out roughly half of his empire (one of three planets glassed, another severely damaged) ... we also bombed the Darloks! And Alexander wanted to talk to me too!


"Ummmm ... no. Alone, my empire can dismantle the 'threat' of the evil Bulrathi empire ... and yours into the bargain, Alex. But thanks for calling! Byeeeeeee!"

The Klackons had a little more right to thank me for blowing up lots of bears, since after all I didn't manage to kill many of their people (well, not this year, I mean...) - the crews of a couple missile bases, maybe some collatoral damage on the surface, and a few dozen fighters - but still. I think Xantak still hadn't gotten it through his head that I was coming with bug spray for him!

It figures that the one race that really understood the galaxy was the Brains. With some kind of new age babble about coexisting in perfect harmony, Zygot asked me to agree to an Alliance - the kind of Alliance where my giant monster death fleets wouldn't kill little old him. I sadly regretted that important affairs of state prevented my giving his request the due consideration it deserved, but offered his envoy a comfortable place to wait for my schedule to clear: Right beside all the other races' envoys, at the bottom of the nearest lake.

Seeing a large Bulrathi Claw due at Gienah in two years, where I had nothing but Bombards, I sent my Spica Bear Hunting fleet to ... Hyboria. Gienah would be glass before the Claw could arrive. Meanwhile, having already scrapped the Firenewt and the old (2.0) version of the Bombard, I went ahead and finally designed a modern bomber: The F-Basilisk3, with a Fusion Bomb, a Mark 4 Battle Computer, an Inertial Stabilizer, Sublight Drives, and the galaxy's best maneuverability.

In 2435, we defended Stalaz without losses, won Sol's orbit at the cost of a few Bombards, and glassed Gienah as expected. I also bombed Sol pretty heavily, but I was still expecting Alexander to call and compliment me on my handling of the Bulrathi. Instead, he surprised me by calling me reverend, claiming to bear "greetings from the most powerful humans," and declaring our war to be senseless, suggesting that we call an end to the thing. I looked very earnest and thoughtful for a moment, frowned a little with still deeper thought, and said, "See, now, here's the problem 'zander: This war was senseless when you declared it. It was a purposeless exercise in simian stupidity. But you can't just go back on it once I start cluster-bombing your homeworld, okay? Have some courage, man! Have some conviction! Fight to the end! For Humanity!!!"
I closed the connection, and looked at Draco, and Draco looked at me. We both said the same thing at once: "This guy is so, so dead."

Realizing belatedly that new factories wouldn't pay for themselves before I eliminate my enemies, I stopped industry production outside of Tyr, Paranar, and (for sentimental reasons) Arietis. It was also for aesthetic reasons only that I designed the Lander 3.0 (Standard Colony Base, Sub-Light Engines, and nothing else) to be built at Vulcan, Willow, Gion, and Yarrow (back up to speed already; sorry, Bears!) in time to colonize what was once Bulrathi space. Just about everyone else was building Basilisks.

In 2436, our Gecko and MerCobra's took care of Nyarl's Darlok fleet while 16 Basilisks made quick work of its Darlok bases. Thanks to our Bombards evading missiles instead of pressing the attack, we lost nothing in the course of the battle. I gambled in Klackon space and over-reached, so though our 55 Bombards did take out Jinga's lone missile base, only 34 survived, and they had to retreat from 11 Cutlass fighters. Meanwhile, at Lyae, a piloting error by our Gecko allowed the hundreds of local Cutlasses to kill all the Basilisks at the planet when they'd only burned two of eight bases. This resulted in the loss of all our transports at the planet, a grave misfortune which would have been much graver if we hadn't stolen sublight engines a few years before. (Thank Tiamat for warp 2 transports!) There was no gamble in Darlok space of course, and we conquered Reticuli with 32 million Sakkra left over to roam the oceans. Since we bombed the planet before landing (as well as Nyarl) Bullux called to cheer us on, which reminded me that a) he was still alive, and b) this would have to change ASAP. Oh, and the Psilons told us their patience was exhausted - they threatened (but didn't actually declare) war. This in spite of the fact that they were the only race I had never attacked throughout my reign, in spite of knowing that I could crush them like ... well, no, honestly, a lot more easily than a bug ... in spite ... I looked at Zygot in disbelief and then glanced down at the report Draco had handed me. It was from Admiral Ssitzenlusst over at Paranar, complaining that his massive mixed fleet in the heart of Psilon space was getting bored. I shrugged, and looked up at Zygot. I said, "Your funeral, buddy," and gave the orders my admiral had been awaiting.



I dunno. If you're running the little white empire in the southeast, do you threaten to attack the galaxy-spanning green empire? (You'll have to look hard to see the Bulrathi empire here; they were so thoroughly doomed by this time, they barely warranted an appearance on the map, and were fading away.)

As if to underscore the parenthetical point above, the Ursine Claw retreated from Hyboria when our fleet arrived in 2437. True, it had no chance against us, but at least it could have gone down with a fight. Hyboria was the last planet in the Bears' empire! Our MerCobras took out all five of the planet's missile bases before our bombers could get close. We thwarted various Human attempts to attack our planets and fleets, at a total cost of one Newt, destroying a large cruiser, 10 medium destroyers, 16 little Couriers, and a medium Corvette in only battle where they didn't just flee ... and then I was ready for the real fighting to begin. At Proteus, the Klackons' spore ships retreated, but their six Stinger bases managed to kill 16 of our 108 Basilisks before...



...they ceased to be. So much for the "real fighting." It was nice to finally have bombers with real combat speed.

Meanwhile, in the north, the Bulrathi had enough of their invincible bear transports up at Nyarl to take the planet from the 'shifters, almost certainly. Unfortunately for them...



...those transports couldn't land on glass. You can also see in the inset that I took measures to ensure that Alexander wouldn't bother me with an "attaboy" this year. Most emperors don't take kindly to seeing their homeworld bombed into the ground. We did burn down Hyboria as well, but not Proteus: I had over 200 transports arriving to purge the bugs from its surface! First, the Humans tried to land transports on Quayal and got burned to atoms for their trouble. Then the Darloks tried to land on Reticuli. 6 got through, and promptly died, killing a couple million lizards who will be replaced by our eager breeders by next year. Finally, my transports tried to land on Proteus.



They were a little more successful than the aliens' had been. 31 of my transports arriving at Jinga also managed to run the Klackon gauntlet there (I had sent them at warp 1 from long range, long before I knew when I'd be able to take the planet's orbit) and killed millions of bugs, always a good thing. Meanwhile, the always-persistent Bears had a colony ship due at Maretta in just a couple of turns. Unfortunately for them...



...they needed still-existant colonies for that ship or their species to survive!

While our troops were at Proteus, they stopped at the local mall and picked up Class IV Deflector Shields, Hyper-X Rockets, and Gatling Laser. Then, since my MerCobras were slow-moving and far from everything, I scrapped them for parts and a new design:



The Komodo 3.0 was a purely gratuitous Fusion Beam Cruiser to be built at Paranar and Tyr for the following simple (but excellent) reason, as expressed by the great Draco Sstarshine: "Because we can!"

In 2438, we achieved space superiority over the Darlok and Psilon homeworlds, losing a few dozen of the slow Bombards (mostly at Mentar) and nothing else. We also tried to take Lyae for the third time, closing with the planet and firing a single volley.



That was that. The small stack of Cutlasses burned under Gecko fire, and the Knight retreated. Our fleet of Newts at Misha tore incoming Human transports to pieces (these, like various other sets in previous years, were sent to reinforce what at the time of their departure had been a Human colony). Our transports at Exis of course came through without trouble, and though luck was not with them, I had sent enough - barely - to overcome ill fortune; outnumbering them 60 to 47, and with technological superiority, we took the planet with one million survivors! Still, a victory is a victory!

In the wake of the Bulrathi's destruction, the galaxy looked like this:



Believe it or not, I was pleased to see that the Darloks had re-colonized the glass world of Nyarl (although pleased for aesthetic reasons only). It certainly wasn't going to help them survive! As the instigators of the galactic war that had come to embroil us all and kill hundreds of millions throughout the galaxy, the vile Darloks were next on my List!

In 2439, we achieved space superiority at the Human colony of Thrax, losing some of our slow Bombards. With no interest in Human infrastructure, we bombed out all its factories and cut its population to less than a third of what it had been. Meanwhile, we lost exactly 3 little Newt fighters across the galaxy defending our worlds (and chasing a Psilon colony ship from still-spored-out Maretta) and destroying enemy fleets. We also colonized Maretta again ... and killed 100 million insects when our transports hit Lyae. The second wave was already on its way. The following year, we destroyed the Human defenses at Ryoun, the Psilon defenses at Dolz, and (though we lost so many Basilisks in the fight that - slightly - less than a hundred were left at the end) the Klackon defenses at Kholdan. We also wrecked or chased away a bunch of helpless alien fleets, (at the cost of 10 more small ships) ... and committed yet another utterly careless piloting mistake that cost us our small fleet (and incoming transports!) at Lyae! There was only one thing that could possibly cheer me up after losing so much for such an empty reason:



That's right! Aesthetic-Reasons-Only Colonies!
(And yes, I had intentionally timed them to arrive at Sol and all the ex-Bulrathi worlds simultaneously.)

Sakkra being Sakkra of course, most of my people didn't feel much better about the mistake as a result, though they did appreciate the extra room to breed. Fortunately, I found means of consoling them as well:



After destroying Trax and bombarding just about everything else still in enemy hands, I confirmed that, thanks to that piloting mistake, all my Lyae transports were destroyed by the Klackon fleet. Not so at Ryoun and Kailis, where our incoming troops killed 32 million monkeys. Not so at Jinga, where our ground forces killed 31 million bugs, nor at Dolz, where we killed 24 million Brains. Not so at the Darloks' colony of Nyarl ... nor their homeworld ... nor the Psilons'. This prompted the newsdroid to pop up again with a long-awaited announcement:



The Darloks, the originators of the terrible galactic war, were no more. Over a billion sentient lives had been lost since this backward race of shape shifters decided to pick a fight with the biggest lizard on the block for no discernible reason ... but they will never again cause such mayhem. And as he heard the news, Xantak appeared before me with a great example of his terrific Arthropodian humor!


"Ha, ha! Good one, Xantak! Peace! Hilarious! And hey, did you hear the one about the giant Sakkra death fleets going home instead of bombing your worlds into oblivion?"
...
"Neither did I."

Now, I mentioned that we scouted Kholdan, right? This, then, is our galaxy!



By 2441, the insect fleet had left Lyae. I was prepared to deal with them there anyway (maybe even if I did make another piloting error) but it never came up. There were no space battles worth mentioning, so...



...the biggest disappointment of the year was falling just short of glassing Kholdan (which was already low on population due to my bombing and the transports they sent off to Lyae). Seeing that the Klackons wouldn't fall that year anyway, I ceased bombing at that point (though Ryoun and Kailis had already been destroyed), and with Lyae reinforced by the aforementioned Klackon transports (though some died on their way in) we killed "only" 36 million insects on the ground there and failed to take the world.

Not so at Dolz.



Our conquest of that world yielded Enhanced Eco Restoration and Battle Suits. And our Computer teams at Arietis reported that there was a chance of developing Robotic Controls 4 by the following year! I may have given up on peace - I might indeed have turned almost my entire economy into a gigantic war machine - but I never (quite!) stopped our all-important research projects!

This was especially important since certain sources of knowledge had just been cut off forever.


Bye-bye, Monkeys! Bye-bye Brains! It's been fun sharing the galaxy with you!

The last space battle in which non-Sakkra could hope to achieve anything was held in the skies of Kholdan in 2442. Our small squad of Newts and a few of our Basilisks were destroyed in the course of reducing all but one of the enemy fighters to atoms. The last Cutlass followed the larger ships of the enemy starfleet in their retreat. A dozen little Cutlasses and a large Knight did seem to think they could defeat my Gecko at Jinga (their attendant Pegasus spore ships retreated at once) but were torn to pieces in spite of their false convictions.

Shortly thereafter, we had a sentimental moment at Thrax:



You can see the beautiful vistas, the verdant flood plains across the bay from our lander, under scudding clouds, even as Corporal Sshowssoff plants our flag for the first time on its soil! Of course, this shot was taken after our colony ship's nanite swarm restored the planet; not long before, the surface had looked a little more ... glassy. Still, a sentimental moment: It was to be our final wartime colony.

Alas, I was not there to see it; I had made a promise to Xantak, and I intended to see that through before we could finally settle down to research in true and lasting peace: A peace that would begin at the very moment when I told Xantak it would do so. The last bugs cowered in their last nests on the last worlds of the Klackons, and it was time for them to burn.

We arrived at Kholdan.



And at Jinga.



And Lyae.



I was intrigued by the new technology we recovered from the ruins, but everyone was to busy celebrating to even report its nature in an official capacity. At long, long last....



Peace and glory would finally reign again, for in the year 2442, we exterminated the last of the murderous, treacherous aliens from our galaxy. In time, we would come to Orion and learn the secrets of the Guardians, of whom only a single automated defense ship remained. We were victorious; peace and learning, and the freedom that they bring, would spread at last throughout the galaxy!



If there's one thing I can't stand, it's a sarcastic newsdroid.

[RefSteel]

My glorious starfleet, as it appeared in 2441:



You can see that Warp 3 starships now (just) make up the majority of our fleet, though we learned the technology in time for only the last ten turns of the game. The colony ship bound for Thrax is also visible here. I never built a huge ship throughout the game; with our ships moving at a virtual crawl throughout the game and wars on isolated, distant fronts, it made more sense to go with several larges than a single huge for almost every conceivable circumstance, and our technological superiority (Average difficulty helps wth this as does the hopeless land surrounding Psilon space) rendered anything larger unnecessary. In hindsight though, a Large bomber design with autorepair would probably have saved a lot of time - getting ships to the front at Warp 1 and Warp 2 was a pain, and low tactical speed meant lots of attrition on every bombing run. They wouldn't have been much good against the Klackons' Stinger bases in the late game, but that's when the Basilisks finally showed up anyway, with (finally!) actual speed.

My technology as of 2441:



The amount of research being done is somewhat misleading, as I hadn't been teching at this rate (more like ~1/10th of this speed) in many years; colonies away from the front had been switching projects to factories and reserves or research for the past few turns as it became impossible to imagine them contributing to the war effort before it was already over, but almost every world had been building ships or troops for most of the latter part of the game. It also of course is missing the tech we stole from the Klackons at Lyae on the final interturn; while I don't know for sure what that was, I can make a pretty good guess:



Though this report is 8 years old (I stopped spying as soon as I - finally - got Sublight Engines) the bugs haven't had the resources to tech much in that time, and I was able to confirm that it was up to date by loading the final save, increasing my spy rate, and retreating my fleets from the battles in the interturn. I found that, indeed, Battle Computer 3, Mass Driver, and Stinger Missiles were the only techs the bugs had on me, and Lyae (which I captured intact on the final interturn)...



...had 258 factories! This is no guarantee of anything, and I did have some pretty bad tech-nabbing luck in this game, but I calculate the odds that I'd pull all three Klackon techs in this case at roughly 89% (there's actually slightly better than one chance in 200 - admittedly very long odds indeed - of not pulling any tech from all those factories, though in this case we know that didn't actually happen). Okay, granted, working that out was a pretty pointless exercise ... but it was still a good excuse to show a couple extra screenshots!

Finally, here's the galaxy as it would have looked in 2442 if you could continue a game beyond its completion. The map key should be self-explanatory.




I hope you all enjoyed my report and had as much fun as I did with the game! I'm off to sleep now (way too late - those images took far too long to load with my dialup connection) but I'll hopefully get to comment on everyone else's reports tomorrow ... and have a first look at Imperium 11!

[dathon]

Wow. That report, the in-character writing, the pictures, just... wow

You must have put in a LOT of time and effort, and I must say, the result is awesome. It was truly a pleasure to read.

dathon

[haphazard1]

I'll second dathon -- an excellent game, and an even better report. Great work, and a pleasure to read.

Thanks especially for the thoughts on ship design. As a MOO noob, I have a lot to learn in this area.

[sargon0]

Great game & great story, Ref, as usual.

I know NPG's can last but really! Considering your mediocre pull from the artifacts planet, that was a really efficient extermination.

[RefSteel]

Thanks very much for the comments! The report did take a long time to compose, but I really love writing - I often have more fun writing my reports than playing the games ... which, with MoO is really saying something! I think Sullla mentions somewhere on his site that old-school games are great because they leave so much to the imagination rather than forcing you into an art director's vision of your story coughMoO3cough and I remember Sirian writing that he loved the ground combat in MoO because you don't really get to see it - you just know that millions of sentients are fighting across the surface of a world until the last on one side is gone - and you get to imagine for yourself what that's like. So ... well, I like this kind of opportunity to let my imagination run away with me!

Oh - and if some kindly administrator would be willing to change this thread's title to the new title of my first post (or something else with Imperium 10 in it) that would probably make things easier to sort out in the future. (Though I certainly hope our complete lack of engines will be unique to this Imperium!!!)