Completed Let's Multiplay Alpha Centauri - Binary Dawn - Game 2

[Kalin]

Redacted

 

[Hellraiser]

„Bedlam” did not even begin to describe the situation. The madness aboard the Unity has reached critical mass; sabotage, betrayal, murder. The demons that haunted humanity throughout history latched on even to those chosen to join the Unity expedition.

The demons took Lal’s beloved, sowed chaos and destruction on what was Mankind’s crowning accomplishment. Even here, light years away from home, they sought to sabotage everything the noble UN ideals stood for.

His colleagues, those that were meant to run various aspects of the expedition, decided to seize the initiative and carve out little kingdoms on the dying ship, vying for control as everything was crashing down around them.

“We need you Pravin.” A voice told him. It sounded young, its accent African and the tone was somehow positive.

Lal looked in its direction and saw Endale Zeru, one of the technicians he occasionally saw during the cryogenics stasis pod related meetings of the medical officers.

“You need me, why? It is over, the mission is a failure. Humanity has lost.” Lal told him.

“Do not be so gloom, brother. It is not over yet.” Endale reminded him.

He did not know Endale Zeru well. He knew he could do his job well, otherwise he wouldn’t be aboard the Unity, but Lal didn't bother socializing with the other expedition members much. Lal lived in his own world with his wife, his time occupied fully by her and by his work. It was a world that was taken away from him by some shadowy figure possessed by the evil that took residence onboard the ship.

“The vultures are already feasting on the corpse, how can you deny that it is *dead*?” Pravin asked the young technician.

“Brother, ideals don’t die as long as there are people that believe in them,” the technician told him. “All of us need to remember that.”

“Yes, we cannot let it end like this! We cannot let everything go to waste!” Someone shouted.

“What do you propose Endale?” Pravin asked with noticeable pessimism but also curiosity.

“The others, they have forfeited their ranks and stations on this mission.” Enthusiastly Endale begun what could be best described as a sales pitch, one aboard a ship that is sinking, in mutiny and on fire. “The captain is dead, you are the highest ranking officer that has not deserted his post, you should lead us and carry on the torch of Captain Garland!”

“Me?” Lal was visibly confused by the proposal. He was asking himself how could he have any right to pick up the torch after Garland.

“Who else? It is stated so in the charter of this mission, in the event of unavailability or death of the commanding officers the chain of succession is as follows...” Endale started quoting fragments from the Unity mission charter, command protocol and addendums followed by reading out loud the command structure and names of officers.

“…as you can see here you are, 37th in line to command after the captain. But do you see the others here? They ran like rats and abandoned the great mission! Have you abandoned your post and mutinied?” Endale asked with conviction.

“No, I did not.” Lal replied.

“Then you are acting captain, simple.” Endale replied swiftly, the mind of Pravin Lal barely registered when he started and when he ended his statement.

“I am afraid I know next to nothing about being a captain, I am a doctor not a commander.” Lal contested the claim.

“What you know does not matter brother! You are in command now, it says so in the charter.” Endale quickly rebutted. “Law is law.”

“It says so in the charter… right, it is my duty.” Lal started to agree, it is his duty, this is what he swore. How can he not act when the UN needs him to act?

“It is brother! We must salvage what we can, there is still time!” Triumphantly Endale told him.

“Yes, all of you, gather all the useful equipment the others did not yet take! In section K2 we should find a landing pod, we’re taking it and we are going to protect this mission and what it stands for!” Lal proclaimed. “We must work together to save ourselves and the mission!”

“That is the spirit brother!” The technician was visibly filled with joy.

A crowd gathered and started cheering. It was formed by the undecided, those that did not choose a side yet or were too afraid or too weak. Those crew members who were still loyal to their duty, those believing in the ideals of the mission and those that alone would not be able to save themselves in the madness of the Unity’s final days.

“All of us have the duty to preserve and carry forward the ideals that put us on this ship and in this place, we will bring them with us to Chiron and we will make them flourish.” Lal told the crowd. “We will build a better world than the one we left behind."

A thunderous applause followed. Pravin did not image such a reaction, it encouraged him. He was still grieving his loss but he could see what his new life was supposed to be, a life of a leader.

They were last to leave the Unity behind, the others made their way down already. It was not known if they survived, where and when they would meet again and what their agenda would be. But the mission had to continue as long as the ideals born on Earth did not die with those believing in them. It had to continue despite the demons that no doubt also made planetfall together with the Unity survivors.

 

[RK47]

Footage of Rover Patrol R-00047
Noon 1350 hours Sector K Coordinate 01-03-88



http://www.fromtexttospeech.com/output/0219827001550831068/45138592.mp3

 

[Jason Liang]

nice take on Gaians

 

[Storyfag]

Oh, another thread to stalk. Good. Carry on

 

[Hellraiser]

ALIENS MADE HER A MUM!

An anonymous woman from habitat E in UN Headquarters claims that the Monolith made her pregnant! Mrs. K (full name redacted by The Suns editors), aged 17 is convinced that the alien installation conceived a child within her uterus though some advanced and previously undiscovered radiative phenomenon. She is supported by her parents, her mother says that their “little buttercup definitely does not just shag around the habitats like some trollop, she only studies really hard with her besties up to two a.m., she doesn’t have the time for guys”. Her father is quite certain that “these alien blokes should pay up if they can’t be arsed to put a rubber on that huge phallic thing, soon all girls in the habitat could be pregnant because that bloody thing is so close to us”.

The parents demand that in the absence of the aliens responsible for constructing the monolith the UN should pay child support. We have asked Commissioner Pravin Lal if it is indeed the responsibility of the state to support the girl and her to be born baby.

Timothy Rubbishpeddler: Commissioner, will the UN pay child support to Mrs. K?

Commisioner Lal: Mr. Rubbishpeddler please just call me Brother Lal or Lal. All of us humans are all one big family here on Planet. No need for such crippling formalities.

Timothy Rubbishpeddler: Right, call me Tim then. So, what is the stance of the UN?

Commissioner Lal: Well Tim, it is without a doubt obvious that in the situation where the father cannot be identified or reached the government should support the welfare of the child.

Timothy Rubbishpeddler: What about the Monolith? The father of Mrs. K calls it a reproductive menace, will you put a helmet on that soldier or maybe snip a tube or two?

Commissioner Lal: There is no evidence that the Monolith is responsible. We need further medical research to be certain what it does to humans living nearby. For now however I can confirm that we cannot tamper with the device, it is a piece of cultural heritage of a civilization we have never met in person. We must respect it and cherish the fact that so far it seems to beneficial to our nascent colonial society and our currently only settlement.

Timothy Rubbishpeddler: Are you saying that the alien device knocking up our girls is beneficial?

Commissioner Lal: We should treat all children regardless how they were conceived as a gift. I know certain parties might find it controversial but the reality is we are an endangered species on this Planet and we cannot afford the luxury of birth control. As a doctor I can guarantee to every mother or expecting mother that we all as a society will support them, in a sense their children are also our children. We are all brothers and sisters.

UN SURVEYORS FIND MORE USELESS ROCKS – ARE OUR TAXES PUT TO GOOD USE?

The terrain explored beyond the sectors supporting UN Headquarters appears to be devoid of anything of use. Meanwhile Commissioner Lal insisted on outfitting another surveying expedition, they even gave them guns! What for? Will the bloody rocks try to stab them with a rough edge? This bloody planet is just rocks and some grass, there is no danger here except for boredom and that from taking off your helmet outside the habitats.

Just think of the other and better uses for the resources and energy assigned to this expedition. We could build a proper football stadium, life support and all! Children could get better meals in schools than the plant pulp they serve them! The guns could make base corridors safe from crime! The personnel assigned to this geographical nonsense could be building new habitats or exploiting the geothermal resources found just next to our bloody base! Anything but this lolly-gagging in the sticks like some Apollo program fetishists that Lal ordered!

We need to demand that the UN takes proper action regarding the allocation of our limited resources, not some field trips that yield nothing useful to the taxpayer! We need the Commissioner to act in our interest and not in the interest of some shadowy group of “talents” that likes wanking to rocks. Either that or Lal needs to go!

 

[Jason Liang]

page 4 plz

 

[Nahel]

The problem with that awesome Gaian proganda is that it makes us root for your loss. Deirdre needs to be purged

 

[Grimgravy]

Things have not gone well of late. First, there was the dreadful business aboard the Unity. Who in their right mind sabotages the ship they're on? It was all I could do to rally my faithful employees and salvage some of my property. Then the escape pod landed here, of all places. Our landing site has nothing to recommend it! There aren't even any Unity cargo pods near by! Note to self, demote that pilot. Incompetence cannot be tolerated. Thankfully there are some further afield, and I'm hopeful that their contents will prove beneficial If only the local flora didn't hinder movement so much. I must get R&D on that at once.

CEO Nwabudike Morgan - Personal Log

Spoiler

Another terrible starting location for me. If I have any close neighbors, it will be a short game for Morgan Industries. No pods in my initial base area.

 

[RK47]

Spoiler

 

[Hellraiser]

Spoiler

Poo Power is the future! Hoped a pod will let rush the rec tanks in either of my bases for free like it did for Merc with his tree farm, but oh well.

In any case no sign of anyone else so far.

 

[Storyfag]

For some reason, this version of Gaia's Stepdaughters gives me Sexmission vibes.

 

[RK47]

Never a good idea to go on a solo-podding spree.

 

[hoothoot]

How much these images made by yous and how many them from ingame?

Either way this is hilarious

 

[RK47]

How much these images made by yous and how many them from ingame?

Either way this is hilarious

in game footage

Spoiler

 

[Hellraiser]

"I BARELY GOT OUT ALIVE!"
SURVIVOR’S SHOCKING ACCOUNT OF HER TERRIFYING ENCOUNTER WITH LAL’S MOTORIZED SQUADRON OF TERROR!

It was a warm sunny afternoon on the 17th of May, mission year 2116. Liz Humpington was camping together with her friends in the wilderness north of UN Headquarters enjoying Chiron’s great outdoors.

“We were there already for two days, minding our own business. You know, having fun outside with our breathing masks on. We were drinking vodka mixed with juice through the liquid tubes and shagging in the planetgrass.” Liz told us. But their fun in the wilds was about to turn into a nightmare.

“I was just very much into riding Harry’s knob under the stars when I heard this terrible sound. At first I thought it could be bears, but then I remembered there are no bears on Planet.” Liz became to tremble as she told us her story.

“A bright flash of light blinded me. I thought those child support avoiding aliens came back and wanted to impregnate me!” For a moment we had to pause our interview as tears begun to pour out of her eyes. Such was the trauma inflicted upon her by the events that have happened.

“Then I saw the wheels and felt the wind blow right at my naked bum as the rover convoy rushed past just mere 6 metres away from me and Harry! There was this awful rustle and noise of engines, I felt like in Mad Max: Fury Road! I could feel they would come and kidnap me to rape me!” Liz broke down, we gave her a moment gather the strength needed to force through the trauma inflicted by the UN Recon Rover unit.

“They were gone a moment later but so was my mood, I just couldn’t go on and had to get off. Harry was also quite traumatized; he got blue balls from this affair. They could have ran us over while we were shagging! Ever since that day I just can’t… I just can’t even try to get back on any bloke’s knob. I just cry and the memories and the fear come back when I just think about having intercourse.”

Due to the extensive mental trauma Liz is now unable to work, study or fornicate, a shadow of her former self requiring constant support of her family due to the crippling and terrifying experience.

Liz is now fighting in court against the UN Planetography Bureau for a lifetime pension that would at least slightly lessen the great burden of post-traumatic life. The Planetography Bureau however insists that any pensions for mental trauma need to be provided by the UN Psychiatry Agency. The UN Psychiatry Agency however claims that UN Social Security Services are responsible. In an endless game of hot potato Lal’s bureaucrats refuse to acknowledge responsibility and give justice to Liz who has been scarred for life by reckless unity rover drivers! Pravin Lal himself insists that “the UN cannot be held responsible for the safety of anyone venturing into the outdoors without notifying their local Planetography Bureau, Peacekeepers Command Post and getting a proper license for excursions beyond the 30 kilometre base zone radius.” Such is his shameless and arrogant victim blaming in this case!

LAL’S ADMINISTRATION WASTES MORE MONEY, THIS TIME ON BLOODY TREES OUT OF ALL THINGS!

Trees, have these useless things ever been on Planet? No, not so far. But the good Brother Lal seeks to rectify the situation by planting a forest. That’s right, a bloody forest, just outside of UN headquarters. Dear reader, one has to ponder the kind of madness that inhabits Pravin Lal’s addled brain. He would have our UNIDO Michaelangelo construction crew waste their time and machinery on “terraforming” some meadow and what for? To have some pines visible from his office window no doubt.

This is the kind of hubris that governs the commissioner and his administration, a reckless desire to do what serves his interests and some shadowy cabal of talents. The people do not need forests! We need football! We need talent shows on the telly! We need good old fashioned MMA and celebrity gossip. Not some ecological boondoggle that will only benefit some dendrophiles that wank to conifers!

What will they even do with the trees? Will we eat bark or maybe build habitats out of wood? There is absolutely no benefit to our colonial society from some bloody trees visible from Lal’s ivory tower!

Make entertainment not pines! Put the needs of the people first Brother Lal! Not the needs of your detached from reality Talent buddies!

Spoiler

Found some snazzy unity rovers in a pod. Was hoping for a free rush of rec tanks in UN Terraforming Agency but oh well, this is still good. So far no sign of anyone else, with the rovers I should be able to quickly learn if I share my piece of clay with anyone else or not.

UNH-1 is now complete so I am now planting trees with my formers, making the UN great again, preparing for some new bases.

We're on turn 19 now so next turn the first power ranking should be available, it won't say much for now but in 20 turns we should see who had a good and who had a bad start.

 

[Grimgravy]

Spoiler Alert

Morgan had a start. This game is Racist I tell ya!

 

[Grimgravy]

Twenty cycles on this Capitalism forsaken planet. So much time, so little progress. Morgan Industries grows slowly and we have had zero territorial expansion. We are not alone and the natives are hostile. We still have not found a way to exploit them. The ancient alien structures seem more promising, but proper use of them is still cycles away. How very frustrating!

CEO Nwabudike Morgan - Personal Log

Spoiler

So I'm surprisingly not (by a sliver) at the bottom of the Power graph. I'd guess the no tech thing is hampering Miriam, but what is holding back Yang? Curious. I know what disasters have befallen me.

 

[Hellraiser]

FYI Sparta and Gaians are in the lead for now.

University seems to have built two colony pods since they have two power dips. Otherwise inflated by the free tech as usual.

I am curious how come the graph seems to start from a higher position for the Gaians, lucky tech from pod on first turn maybe? Would explain the tech lead. Or they found someone and are tech trading. Sparta seems to the most obvious choice (would make it interesting to see how long they can coexist next to each other before remove granola happens) but it could also be the University.

Sparta grew quickly due to settling their second base. IIRC Merc deduced in the smacbox that Kalin landed on a river for extra energy and movement for his second pod.

I close the first league of factions so to say and it seem I have a healthy lead over those second league factions. My starting position is pretty good resource wise, lots of moist tiles and caught some special resources on them. Slower expansion due to getting loos for poos, we'll see if the pooconomy pays off or if it will become a stinker.

Believers are probably lower than in reality due to the tech penalty, so their rank is misleading.

Hive shouldn't be that far behind, but maybe the -2 econ is affecting their research this much and maybe Brozil found no pod resources for his bases yet.

Morgan had an unlucky start but he can catch up fast. Depends how soon he starts getting commerce monies.

 

[RK47]

While I do understand the need to grieve over the loss of our comrade,
may I remind you the credits spent on mourning is better used on upgrading the survivors' equipment?

- Steven Kuan,
Survivor of Gaian Pod Retrieval Rover Force's Mind Worm Massacre

 

[Hellraiser]

I loaded up the turn to see two Spartan laser rovers and some foil (probably stacked with a transport foil, didn't bother checking as it doesn't matter). One of the rovers is sitting next to the reproductive menace of a monolith and next to the forest, on the spot where I last saw UN Headquarters.

I did expect UN HQ getting attacked like that from the sea sooner or later this game, also as karma for me pulling the same thing twice in prior games against other players. But losing the HQ by the 25th turn is not what I expected. There goes making the UN great again. Those rovers are probably going to murder whatever remains of the UN in 5 turns.

Kalin confirmed in the turn tracking he did it because he got the starting locations from the Unity wreckage and saw me going for the project. Possibly I started going for it too early, but the only way I could have stopped this attack is if I knew it was coming 15 turns earlier.

I got more or less AO's starting position from the previous games, north of the freshwater sea. I think it's even worse now because the damn continent is so narrow and dense fungus start immediately to the north, no Pholus Ridge nearby, no Unity Wreck to the south. Only saving grace is the moisture and the lucky pod resources I got, which didn't do much in the end.

In any case I loaded up my test game to check where the Unity wreck is on Merc's map to check the map and try to figure out where the Spartans came from:

Seems he's in the west somewhere around where the AI Gaians are, he had to build the ships somewhere on the coast. I started diagonally down-right from the position of the Peacekeeping Pod on this screenshot.

 

[Hellraiser]

Spoiler

Chump move perhaps, but from my end it was Kool Kosmic Karma and I reckon Hellraiser would've done the same if he were in my jack boots!

Spoiler

The invasions from the sea to kill/take the HQ? When it would serve my interests, sure. Not much else one can do as Sparta, however I am sceptical if it was the right move at this point in the game. But besides you I guess nobody really can guess where and how the situation with the other factions will develop, so I will find out in a few months or so if this really was worth it.

 

[RK47]

Poor KoaLal...

Spoiler

however I am sceptical if it was the right move at this point in the game.

 

[Hellraiser]

The UNIDO meeting room looked like it was abandoned long ago. It was messy, disorganized and the very definition of chaos. It was the middle of the night with Nessus hanging high above horizon, shining through the windows. The lights were dim to the point where one could be convinced that Nessus' reflected light illuminated more in the room than the LEDs. The UN's highest ranking officials however seemed to ignore the late hour as they continued their meeting.

"Endale, I trust that everything is in order?" Pravin asked his friend and right hand.

"Yes Brother, the fruits of the Mesopotamia Plains are many and we have collected them." Mr. Zeru replied full of joy.

"Good, how many did we get?" The commissioner continued.

"More than the most optimistic of forecasts predicted Brother!"

The plains were indeed full of nature's gifts, they have sustained the factions population for over 20 years without any threat of starvation. FAO has done a wonderful job at ensuring hunger was not known on planet, at least in the UN domain.

Lal continued his status check. "The next item on our list, the exotents and mobile habitats, have they been allocated as planned?"

"They have, the pioneer four group distributed them as ordered." An older feminine voice replied. Lal turned his eyes towards the eternally serious Suh Yun-hee, Executive Director of UNIDO. He did not expect an answer from her, but then again Yun-hee made a habit of answering in the place of others.

"Yun-hee what is the status of the buoys?" Lal decided to shift the topic to something that was Yun-hee's responsibility.

"All have been deployed." She confirmed.

"And the land-based transmitters?"

"Also in place and broadcasting, the signals are bouncing off the ionosphere around Planet." Her voice was devoid of any emotion. "It will take them months to find them all. If anyone is listening they will hear it in that time, what they will do after that I cannot say."

"It is as much as we can still do for mankind and our former colleagues," Lal told her, "warn them of the criminals that have been sabotaging the Unity's mission even after Planetfall."

"I think we are done." Yun-hee coldly summarized.

"Yes, it is time for farewells. I pray we see each other again, in this life or the next." Lal told them. "Goodbye."

They left the room one by one, each carrying what they thought they needed to take with them. Should the worst happen to him he comforted himself with the thought that perhaps he would see his wife again in the afterlife, if reincarnation was not an option.

In this life Lal had no other choice, the blue helmets lacked the training, weaponry and numbers to combat the mobile squadrons of Spartan rovers. The laser weapons of the invaders made entrenchment pointless, the thirty thousand corpses in U.N. Headquarters proved it.

Santiago offered him peace, Planet's first extortion attempt fitting off a criminal kingpin. Their hackers infiltrated the UN datalinks and relayed the achievements of UN Talents to their warlord. But the war criminal wanted more than that, she wanted slaves, "helots" as she called it. Puppets aiding her mad quest to brutalize mankind on Chiron as some kind of client state serving her mafia state.

In the end, given the treachery already demonstrated by the so-called federation, it was unlikely the Spartans could be trusted to allow the ideals of the UN to continue while under her boot. Pravin believed that surrendering on such or any other terms amounted to the legitimization of the crimes committed by Santiago's rogue state. Even worse it could be seen as amnesty for Santiago's prior crimes aboard the Unity or for the war crimes she committed after Planetfall, opening a pandora's box on Planet.

The caravans have departed, each in a separate direction. They carried with them everything worth saving. The people became refugees, fleeing from the horror of war crimes the tyrant Santiago unleashed on their brothers and sisters of U.N. Headquarters. Silently they marched onwards, forbidden to use their radios. Most were doomed to perish from natural disasters, Spartan kill squads or the terrifying mind worms which the UN encountered just a few weeks before the Spartans attacked. Some would possibly starve to death, but perhaps part of them would meet the others, those who would not be tainted by the same evil that possessed the stowaway warlord. And perhaps they would take them in.

As they distanced themselves from U.N. Terraforming Agency explosions echoed, the demolition charges did their work. Santiago will find no reward for the crimes she has committed in the rubble. It is doubtful that she will understand the folly of war and bloodshed that she has unleashed, but at the very least this will buy more time for those that would be next.

And while the UN is no more there is still hope for mankind, those who once lead the expedition under Captain Garland still live and each of them still carries some piece of Earth's legacy that is worth preserving.

Spoiler

GG WP, mistakes were made, lessons were learned.

Decided to hero my only remaining base, better to die free than live a slave. Can't do much else, hard to fight rovers with scout squads

Unfortunately SMAC does not allow you to simply disband/abandon which would be more in line with Lal's beliefs. I thought we had restarting turned off but in any case I was at Kalin's whims regarding restarting as he could just troll around and not kill me off but just contained me in permanent stasis until I surrender. Also he managed to infiltrate me which gave me less options in effectively repelling him.

Not sure if restart would carry over the infiltration, but even if it does not given how the map looks (lots of water and island, little sea fungus) and that he has the starting locations of all players from the Unity wreckage he could quickly find me and kill me with his small fleet before I could research and build the needed defenders. After UN HQ got murdered my research ETA increased by over 60 turns. Also better to save the RP ideas for another game.

 

[RK47]