(July 10th, 2024, 01:53)RefSteel Wrote: No pictures this time ... and precious little gameplay. If I get my computer working again before Haphazard has time to play, I'll say so and get the save again, but in the meantime, to my intense disappointment, this is all there is:
I had ambition, once, to hold this place: To lead the people of Altair to victory with honor, that we might soar across the galaxy - across our galaxy, and one day perhaps beyond - and lead the alien peoples side by side with us into an era of prosperity, discovery, and peace. I dreamed of uncovering secrets that no one had dared before me, of inspiring futures never before imagined, of leading by example, of ... you see: A thousand hopeful dreams, far richer in ideals than in humility - for who was to lead our people there but me? I grew old, still dreaming, working toward the dreams that I could never have achieved, compromising my conscience along the way in the name of achieving this high perch, supposing that my actions here would pay for all once I got here, shutting my inward eyes to all the things did - that I told myself I had to do - that no achievement once here could ever repay. It was a long struggle and slow, and now that I'm here, old and frail and of failing health, where are the ideals I abandoned or realized must be impossible along the way? What am I but another Sovereign in the line, holding power over half the galaxy and compromising still in search of more?
Now even that is ended.
I gloried in my early opportunities, facing off against the Mentarans, vile enemies that I had convinced myself they must be, for were we not at war with them? Had they not sent over half a billion people to their deaths from across nearly their entire dictatorial Republic-in-name merely to briefly claim a world of ours? I shut my eyes to the name of the world they so briefly claimed - named after all not by our people but by the Hive in an earlier reach for power across the galaxy. I shut my eyes to the friendship we had enjoyed with the Mentarans for the better part of two centuries, and to the cynical choice by which we had chosen sides when they abandoned their Earthling one-time allies in horror and despair on witnessing the extermination by Earth forces of the helpless, harmless Fiershan kittens: Since even in the face of this unspeakable act of genocide, the Mentarans held to their pacifist ideals as long as they could, their well-funded military wing still existing only to defend their worlds against incursion, refusing to declare a war unless war was brought to them, we joined forces instead with the murderous, treacherous, turn-coat monkeys who sang the praises of pacifism while exterminating an entire sentient alien species ... by declaring a mutual war on the peaceful Mentarans, the monkeys' long-time allies killing hundreds of millions of their citizens, and looting all we could from their homes and factories. I applauded the decision - a clever one, and sure to bring us victory - as would anyone in the position ... anyone who had learned to do what was necessary to reach the position ... that I had achieved.
Perhaps now that we are the victors, clearly and unstoppably though not yet officially, over the entire galaxy, the best I can do to honor the dreams of my younger self is to write more clearly and truly than other victors are wont to of our history.
I am not proud of my actions as Sovereign, brief though they have been. I exchanged technologies, for absolutely no good reason, with the shadowy people known across the galaxy for secrecy, sabotage, and theft: Doubting that any ships they built on their lone little world would make a difference to anybody, I let our scientists teach them to build our most-advanced space drives, and in exchange for what? A black-hole generator we can never deploy on a ship, that will do us no good except, I suppose to miniaturize our cloaking devices by some insignificant degree. I didn't think about it much at the time; I just like trading, and supposed a little extra in the way of high-tech design would be a good thing, but in hindsight this was a simply awful trade, and all I can think of is that in my subconscious mind, I must have intended some insignificant recompense to them for our people's actions not many decades since, when we drove them out of every star system but the weakest they controlled: No more than we did to the Hive and the Conclave before them and the helpless, hapless kittens whose remnant population, too small to ever be restored, now consists of a handful of refugees: Former merchants, caught in Mentaran space when the Earthlings murdered the last feline on Fierias, now with no home to return to. Even these are slowly aging - if indeed any remain at all. It hasn't been long, but I can't be sure which Mentaran worlds they were on, and now there are fewer of those with any population but ours - apart from a few rock or monkey traders - every year.
The rest was predictable, dictated by the positions of our planets and our fleets. Tens of millions of soldiers set out from each of more than a dozen worlds toward Mentaran space, meeting our attack ships as they converged on isolated Darwin and on Edison, their closest true core world to our space, while a smaller fleet ensured we could recapture Acanceh without delay - but I was not content with capturing three Mentaran worlds after a single year in office: As soon as I was annointed Sovereign, I began preparing for other conquests as well, launching ships and transports that wouldn't reach my first targets in time two yet two more Mentaran core worlds, anticipating victory by what I then optimistically supposed would be the end of my second year: Glashow out near our Ixlu colony ... and Mentar itself.
A year into my reign, my plans were coming to fruition, with all three of my targets captured: In spite of Edison's forty-plus bases, our sheer numbers told, even though none of the new Nightjar bombers could arrive in time: Upgraded versions of the newest warp-8 Shrikes with a still-better battle computer and a stabilizer to boot, they would take the skies in their hundreds for the first time just that year. I still had more and better plans than that as well, and began dispatching forces - transports and ships included - to achieve my goals at Mentar and Glashow, perhaps even preparing for the conquest the following year of both remaining Mentaran worlds outside of what I intended to be their zoo.
That was when disaster struck, to the point of catastrophe - not for our growing empire, which nothing can stop now, but for me ... and for my ambitions especially.
Our robotic control technology is incredibly advanced, and we were pushing it still further when I took office: Our most-advanced robotic interface technology could enable a single bird to handle the strategic command of our galaxy-spanning empire far more easily than anything I grew up with, and I can appreciate that, certainly. Yet ... it's not what I grew up with, and I don't like the way the new technology works or the way it automates things for me ... and so I never learned to use it, but have worked all this time through a cobbled-together interface built from components to which I'm used. And after my first year in office was complete, after I'd made my initial wave of orders but before I had finalized anything, suddenly, out of nowhere, I woke to find a critical component of the giant kluge on which I relied had failed irrecoverably. Too late to learn the new devices, with no replacement for the old, and with the galactic situation evolving every day, I became - literally overnight - the wrong choice to lead our people. I can't do it, and must step down far sooner than I intended or desired. The daunting task of fixing what I lost - for I had used it for everything long before I became Sovereign - or of making do without it and finding another way was utterly crushing for me, and it only made matters worse that I hadn't even begun to achieve even the latest, most-pragmatic, least-joyous versions of my plans for the galaxy.
What it gave me, if anything, was time to reflect, and if I look upon my life as a contender for the High Perch of the Sovereign - the Requisite Sovereign of Gudavi-02, as we say - to see what I have become and to make what very little amends I can for all that I have done among the peoples of the galaxy.
Notes for the next Sovereign:
- I ... have no idea. I mean, okay, we have invasions of Mentar and Glashow in the works, and I think I'd already dispatched everything necessary to take them when I saved and quit last night? Not sure. My computer froze this morning (on opening my web browser; I didn't have the game running at the time) and when I restarted it, it couldn't find the file system. My repair attempts so far have been in vain. There are a couple more extreme measures I can try, and all my most-important work was backed up anyway - very little was lost; as you see, I even have the mid-turn save I made for this game when I quit to go to bed last night, though I barely had time to start and was only one turn in. But I don't have a computer capable of running Remnants right now (I'm writing this on an XP laptop that's almost 20 years old!) and trying and failing to fix the machine took up basically all of today, so...
- The save is attached, in case you want to play on from there. I'll let you know when/if I get my main computer back in working order. In spite of the tone of my report above (I like experimenting with tone in these) I've enjoyed playing this one with all of you; it's been a great game! (And hey, maybe I'll have a fix sooner than I fear....)
Goddamn, even with the tonal warning I still wasn't quite prepared lmao. Really sucks to hear about the computer, hopefully it gets miraculously fixed.
Just an update: My best friend let me borrow her laptop, so I was able to create a bootable USB and use linux tools to inspect my computer's storage media, with the result that I was able to recover absolutely everything from it (mostly already backed up, but still) ... and also confirmed that the media in question is permanently dead. Quick research indicates that in this case this also means I basically have to get a new computer. (I will make a better choice when selecting a new computer!) I mean ... it technically works with the bootable USB - I could even play Remnants in theory if I had any gaming time available - but catching up after the crash, getting a new computer, and setting it up are likely to leave me no gaming time for at least a week at this point ... at which point I have a bunch of family coming to visit from overseas. The storage media failure could have been a whole lot worse, but it's still rather upsetting. Fortunately, the game is getting close to wrapping up anyway, and hopefully I'll be up and running again for the next one!
So, the roster is a bit of a mess right now, but: - haphazard1 (UP - if you have time over the weekend?)
- Dp101 (on deck?)
- Brian Shanahan (back from holidays?)
- Fenn (just played, apart from one turn)
- RefSteel (skip until late July, by which point we'll surely have won!)
Glad to hear you were able to recover your data, RefSteel. And had a backup as well. So at least you still have your info, once you do get a working machine again. Good luck with that part, and setting stuff up again.
I should have time to play, hopefully later today or early tomorrow. Sorry for being slow to get to the save, but end of week is a busy time.
OK, finished playing the turns. It was a busy, battle-focused turn set as our bird warriors wiped out the Mentaran fleet and conquered planet after planet. Mentar, Hawking, Pascal, and Glashow were conquered, with Advanced Damage Control and Bio Terminator being looted. The brains are left with Koch as their only world.
There was a lot of tough fighting, as the brains have equal ground combat tech plus the defender's bonus. And their bases and ships were mostly firing Scatter Pack 10s, which are nasty against small ship swarms. Seeing 500+ stinger-equivalent missiles being launched at us each turn was not fun, but our very fast ships were mostly able to avoid them or escape. The first few turns were the trickiest, as the brains still had something of a fleet and enough speed to hit any of a dozen of our worlds in a single turn. We got bombed in a few places, as there were just not enough Surgeon fighters to cover everywhere. We have lots more ships now, though.
Our own scientists also discovered Terraforming+80 late in the set, and all our worlds have been boosted to the new max size. Advanced Cloning was selected as the next Planetology project. Factory building is ongoing in a lot of places, and IRC6 is solidly in the percentages so even more (very expensive) factories can soon be built if desired. Pulse Phasor and Industrial Waste Elimination are also in the percentages, and Sub Space Teleporter is close to entering percentages as well.
We have a lot of ships of various types, mostly clustered around Mentar and the nearby former brain worlds. We could go after the rocks or the humans if desired. Some rationalization of our fleets might be in order, as we have multiple versions of bombers and fighters that are somewhat out of date and no free design slots.
Our defenses are only up to date in a few places; most of our worlds could use improved shields and upgraded bases if we expect a campaign against the humans or rocks to put them at risk.
We might want to make peace with the brains at some point, as we have no need to continue the war and don't want to xenocide them.
I believe Dp101 is now up, with Brian Shanahan on deck (if he is back from his trip). Good luck!
Came back Friday evening and am busy with a few bits work wise (specifically one of my promotion competitions) that I won't be able to play until Tuesday.
Travelling on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.
Sounds like you've gotten us into a great position, Haphazard! I definitely should have concentrated more on new fighters on my one turn; I didn't fully realize until I actually played that turn just how effective our bombers in the numbers we had could already be. I'm glad you were able to overcome the Mentarans' nuisance stealth bombings and reduce them to a hapless little OPE!
(July 14th, 2024, 05:53)Brian Shanahan Wrote: Came back Friday evening and am busy with a few bits work wise (specifically one of my promotion competitions) that I won't be able to play until Tuesday.
I hope it was a great trip - and good luck with the competition! And I think that means the roster looks something like this:
- haphazard1 (just played) - Dp101 (UP!)
- Brian Shanahan (skip until Tuesday, but that probably still means on deck)
- Fenn (on deck if Dp101 somehow turns the save around like lightning or doesn't have time to play)
- RefSteel (skip until late July, by which point we'll surely have won!)
Staring at the game now, will play later. When's the next council vote? Because I'm looking at the galaxy and I'm currently doubtful I'll get a full turnset lol. We have 61% of the galaxy's population, with room to grow, and currently it seems like we could probably just run straight over the rocks without even pausing if we managed to take out the brains. Modern bombers with triple omega-Vs... I thought we'd need neutronium bombs to crack maxed shields, but apparently not. We can even put a battle scanner on a small now! Accidentally played a turn already (switched from playing dominions 6 to this, and for that game n goes to the next idle commander, whereas here it ends turn, whoops) which nabbed robotics controls 6, and I anticipate this'll be a story of taking out multiple rock worlds per turn until the game ends. Some reserve spending is also occurring to get new star gates up across the empire on the new frontline, but it all feels frankly excessive at this point. Will play the rest of the turns actually on purpose later lol.
At this point with our unassailable lead, it'd be quite justified to hit Next Turn ten times. But if you want excitement, Orion's right there for the taking...
You do make an excellent point, I'll see about that. Turn 199 was the last council meeting, right? So next one will be 224? So any concerns relating to how much population we'll end up at won't be realised until after my set. It'll be interesting seeing how well the latest and greatest designs do up against the Guardian.
I had not thought about Orion. (I almost never do, other than losing an early scout ship.) But that would be interesting. And the rocks should be no tougher than the brains and hopefully easier. I did not look at their ground combat tech; how good is it? The brains were equal to us there (or we were equal to them, really), which made for somewhat painful invasions.
Mentar, Hawking, Pascal, and Glashow were conquered, with Advanced Damage Control and Bio Terminator being looted. The brains are left with Koch as their only world.
We have lots more ships now, though. 
And the rocks should be no tougher than the brains and hopefully easier. I did not look at their ground combat tech; how good is it? The brains were equal to us there (or we were equal to them, really), which made for somewhat painful invasions.