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TL;DR... in space! Star Saga 1: Beyond The Boundary [CYOA/board game/RPG]
- Thread starter Crooked Bee
- Start date
Stygian Lurker
Liturgist
- Joined
- Jan 28, 2011
- Messages
- 577
1)Yes
2)Yes
2)Yes
Professor Lee Dambroke, interplanetary Man of Mystery! 
If we encounter any obstinate guards, can we ask them to fetch us some orange sherbert?
Yes and heck yes!
If we encounter any obstinate guards, can we ask them to fetch us some orange sherbert?
Yes and heck yes!
Breaking into Forward Liaison seems to be the (marginally) more popular choice, so let's see what comes out of it.
You guys are reckless and real lucky this is just one of the safe introductory planets. At least we've learned that a guy from ISE gave us those star maps as well as some additional information on the Space Plague that may or may not be of significance later.
On top of breaking into the planet's most classified area, Professor Dambroke will go on a little romantic trip across the Boundary.
So our Professor really is super spy material...
No option to stay inside the Boundary, probably because we haven't accomplished our "find 3 alien abilities" mission. I wonder if those Para-Paran Boundary patrol ship schedules are going to be important later.
Vote on what planet our intrepid explorer visits next! (Galaxy map)
Paragraph 424
Finally, after taking a deep breath, you open the door. An officer dressed in a red uniform, bearing the logo of the spiral arm galaxy, salutes you and moves aside, allowing you to enter the door to the Forward Liaison Office before he and his six men leave through it. You return his salute with a curt nod and walk by.
If there are such things as lucky stars, yours are working overtime. Of all the lab coats you had to choose from, you must have picked the one that came complete with prestige. It's obvious that the security officer didn't know who you were but did recognize the VIP uniform. Getting around in Forward Liaison may be possible after all, if you keep quiet and let the black lab coat do your talking.
Despite the relative ease with which you entered this sector, you still feel uneasy. The people here aren't as open with their information as they were in Lateral Liaison. In fact, you distinctly feel many pairs of eyes upon you as you make your way around. You have the paranoid impression they are on to you, and are just waiting for you to take the rope they are feeding you and hang yourself.
Just because you are paranoid doesn't mean they're not after you.
Using every ounce of willpower you possess, you concentrate on projecting an image of belonging. You walk with confidence and casually examine data terminals you pass along the way. If you see an empty room, you enter and read everything in sight. With nerve-wracking slowness, you gradually learn some very interesting information.
One of the first rooms you explore is filled with numerous data stations, each having an operator conversing with unknown people and inputting data from the conversations into their computers. From standing behind one such operator, you overhear a one-sided conversation:
"This is Lieutenant Huffman of the ISE. I was wondering if you have any information to trade today?"
After a brief pause, he continues, "Very interesting. I think we can be of some assistance, yes."
The lieutenant again listens to the response and then continues, "No. But I'll have our Research Department look into it and will get back to you as soon as I can."
You do not hear the other end of the conversation, nor can you read the data he is inputting into the computer, so you move along before you attract attention.
Over in a corner of the same room you see an unoccupied terminal with a file carelessly left onscreen. You lean over to read the data but all you see are the words "Alien Technology Analysis" before you are forced to leave as the operator returns to his station. He gives you a suspicious look but doesn't say anything to you. Obviously the black lab coat is intimidating to the young operator; he doesn't feel he has the authority to question a stranger wearing it as to why they are reading his terminal screen. You nod authoritatively and start across the room.
You stop in mid-stride, however, when you see someone you recognize. Across from you is the same strange man you met in the Tavern on Wellmet, the one who gave you a copy of Vanessa Chang's star chart! You would like to thank him, but you are afraid he would not be very understanding about your sneaking into a top secret facility and spying on him. You wisely do an about face and leave the room via an alternative exit.
As you pass by the doors of a room bustling with activity, you overhear snatches of conversation.
"Minister O'Brien of Earth is on her way..."
"...can't forget to tell the Space Patrol..."
"...the ISE sent O'Brien the data..."
Again, you would like to go in and see what these things really mean and how everything all fits together, but the people in the room all know each other. To wander in would only bring unwanted attention to yourself, possibly resulting in discovery. You move on to the next area.
Here your luck changes for the better. After one of the two operators tells the other that he is going for some coffee, the second offers to accompany him and they both leave. The room is now empty and the terminals are functioning, so you are able to sit down and read some information.
After several minutes of acclimating yourself to the workings of the machines, you find that you have stumbled into the Medical History section of the Forward Liaison office. You start reading the records which were left on screen by the operators, and find out some very interesting facts about the Space Plague.
You do not have a great deal of time, coffee breaks being notoriously short, but you quickly scan the data and find:
The ISE is still carrying on active testing of the virus responsible for the so-called Space Plague that decimated humanity 300 years ago. You don't find this overly surprising, but it's not something you read about every day. Research has proven the Plague to be of artificial construction. No genome existing in nature is free of either "junk" DNA or repetitive coding sequences, but the virus which carried the Space Plague consisted of 100% efficient DNA—no junk, no repetition. Now, molecular biology was never your strong suit, but this certainly makes one sit up and take notice. The Plague was never actually cured; it just faded away. The reason for this still isn't known, but one hypothesis is that something unknown in our genetic make-up was able to counteract the plague-harboring virus. This is genuinely puzzling. Natural selection in the true Darwinian sense would be far too slow a process to save a species with a generation time of 25 years from a killer virus with a generation time of fifteen minutes.
You hear the sound of footsteps approaching. Leaping from your chair, you manage to position yourself in an inconspicuous corner of the room as the operators return. What a quick coffee break!
Returning unnoticed to the hallway, you see that the number of people has dramatically increased. Despite the crowd, you feel less secure than before. You make your way back to the door you passed through to enter the Forward Liaison office, and have no difficulty in exiting. Not only are the security guards still giving you preferential treatment, but you are also heading into a lower security clearance area.
As you are leaving the Lateral Liaison sector, you neatly replace the lab coat and ID where you originally found them. Mentally, you thank whoever was kind enough to leave them out for your use.
Finally, after taking a deep breath, you open the door. An officer dressed in a red uniform, bearing the logo of the spiral arm galaxy, salutes you and moves aside, allowing you to enter the door to the Forward Liaison Office before he and his six men leave through it. You return his salute with a curt nod and walk by.
If there are such things as lucky stars, yours are working overtime. Of all the lab coats you had to choose from, you must have picked the one that came complete with prestige. It's obvious that the security officer didn't know who you were but did recognize the VIP uniform. Getting around in Forward Liaison may be possible after all, if you keep quiet and let the black lab coat do your talking.
Despite the relative ease with which you entered this sector, you still feel uneasy. The people here aren't as open with their information as they were in Lateral Liaison. In fact, you distinctly feel many pairs of eyes upon you as you make your way around. You have the paranoid impression they are on to you, and are just waiting for you to take the rope they are feeding you and hang yourself.
Just because you are paranoid doesn't mean they're not after you.
Using every ounce of willpower you possess, you concentrate on projecting an image of belonging. You walk with confidence and casually examine data terminals you pass along the way. If you see an empty room, you enter and read everything in sight. With nerve-wracking slowness, you gradually learn some very interesting information.
One of the first rooms you explore is filled with numerous data stations, each having an operator conversing with unknown people and inputting data from the conversations into their computers. From standing behind one such operator, you overhear a one-sided conversation:
"This is Lieutenant Huffman of the ISE. I was wondering if you have any information to trade today?"
After a brief pause, he continues, "Very interesting. I think we can be of some assistance, yes."
The lieutenant again listens to the response and then continues, "No. But I'll have our Research Department look into it and will get back to you as soon as I can."
You do not hear the other end of the conversation, nor can you read the data he is inputting into the computer, so you move along before you attract attention.
Over in a corner of the same room you see an unoccupied terminal with a file carelessly left onscreen. You lean over to read the data but all you see are the words "Alien Technology Analysis" before you are forced to leave as the operator returns to his station. He gives you a suspicious look but doesn't say anything to you. Obviously the black lab coat is intimidating to the young operator; he doesn't feel he has the authority to question a stranger wearing it as to why they are reading his terminal screen. You nod authoritatively and start across the room.
You stop in mid-stride, however, when you see someone you recognize. Across from you is the same strange man you met in the Tavern on Wellmet, the one who gave you a copy of Vanessa Chang's star chart! You would like to thank him, but you are afraid he would not be very understanding about your sneaking into a top secret facility and spying on him. You wisely do an about face and leave the room via an alternative exit.
As you pass by the doors of a room bustling with activity, you overhear snatches of conversation.
"Minister O'Brien of Earth is on her way..."
"...can't forget to tell the Space Patrol..."
"...the ISE sent O'Brien the data..."
Again, you would like to go in and see what these things really mean and how everything all fits together, but the people in the room all know each other. To wander in would only bring unwanted attention to yourself, possibly resulting in discovery. You move on to the next area.
Here your luck changes for the better. After one of the two operators tells the other that he is going for some coffee, the second offers to accompany him and they both leave. The room is now empty and the terminals are functioning, so you are able to sit down and read some information.
After several minutes of acclimating yourself to the workings of the machines, you find that you have stumbled into the Medical History section of the Forward Liaison office. You start reading the records which were left on screen by the operators, and find out some very interesting facts about the Space Plague.
You do not have a great deal of time, coffee breaks being notoriously short, but you quickly scan the data and find:
The ISE is still carrying on active testing of the virus responsible for the so-called Space Plague that decimated humanity 300 years ago. You don't find this overly surprising, but it's not something you read about every day. Research has proven the Plague to be of artificial construction. No genome existing in nature is free of either "junk" DNA or repetitive coding sequences, but the virus which carried the Space Plague consisted of 100% efficient DNA—no junk, no repetition. Now, molecular biology was never your strong suit, but this certainly makes one sit up and take notice. The Plague was never actually cured; it just faded away. The reason for this still isn't known, but one hypothesis is that something unknown in our genetic make-up was able to counteract the plague-harboring virus. This is genuinely puzzling. Natural selection in the true Darwinian sense would be far too slow a process to save a species with a generation time of 25 years from a killer virus with a generation time of fifteen minutes.
You hear the sound of footsteps approaching. Leaping from your chair, you manage to position yourself in an inconspicuous corner of the room as the operators return. What a quick coffee break!
Returning unnoticed to the hallway, you see that the number of people has dramatically increased. Despite the crowd, you feel less secure than before. You make your way back to the door you passed through to enter the Forward Liaison office, and have no difficulty in exiting. Not only are the security guards still giving you preferential treatment, but you are also heading into a lower security clearance area.
As you are leaving the Lateral Liaison sector, you neatly replace the lab coat and ID where you originally found them. Mentally, you thank whoever was kind enough to leave them out for your use.
You guys are reckless and real lucky this is just one of the safe introductory planets. At least we've learned that a guy from ISE gave us those star maps as well as some additional information on the Space Plague that may or may not be of significance later.
On top of breaking into the planet's most classified area, Professor Dambroke will go on a little romantic trip across the Boundary.
Paragraph 789
It takes you no time to accept Dr. Peterson's invitation to see "Sundown Road" on Norstar. You wouldn't miss this opportunity to find out how the Para-Parans manage to cross the Boundary.
The next morning finds you and Doc on the docking platforms on the surface of Para-Para. The trip across the Boundary will be made in a nondescript freighter boasting a two-person crew and six passengers. You notice that both the crew and your fellow passengers are wearing "traveling clothes". They're definitely going for that "anonymous" look, so popular with the smuggling set. It's your first tip-off that the trip across the Boundary isn't a sure thing, and nobody on board wants to get caught in an obvious Para-Paran uniform. You take a few minutes to secure your own ship, which will remain docked on Para-Para while you're away.
The freighter is a small, fast ship; with six people on it, it's a small, fast, crowded ship. Luckily, your fellow passengers are friendly and don't seem to mind. You spend hours swapping stories and conversation. You learn that these trips aren't frequent. There's usually only one scheduled run every month. This isn't a cargo van; these "taxi" trips are for getting people from Para-Para to the Nine Worlds and vice versa. Cargo requires large cargo holds, which make a ship slower and therefore easier to detect. It's much easier to break the Boundary in a small ship.
It seems that it's an old Para-Paran custom to refer to the meal eaten just before crossing the Boundary as their "last meal". It's also traditional to serve the best food and the best drink at hand. Fortunately, one of the passengers has come equipped with two bottles of something light blue. Somebody cracks a joke about biochemists (you figure the formula recited was the punch line—real funny stuff these scientists, you betcha) and they start passing around little glasses. It could be just a trick of the lighting or the stuff could be fluorescent. You take a sip and pronounce it a stiff drink. The captain and her first mate toast the company. However, when the mate seems ready to take a second glass, the captain vetoes it.
Toast follows toast, and in an attempt to get up from the table, you clumsily knock it over. Everything winds up in a broken heap on the floor except half a bottle of the light blue liquid, which you miraculously manage to salvage. You hide the "miracle" bottle and a few hours later offer it as a surprise present to the first mate.
It takes you no time to accept Dr. Peterson's invitation to see "Sundown Road" on Norstar. You wouldn't miss this opportunity to find out how the Para-Parans manage to cross the Boundary.
The next morning finds you and Doc on the docking platforms on the surface of Para-Para. The trip across the Boundary will be made in a nondescript freighter boasting a two-person crew and six passengers. You notice that both the crew and your fellow passengers are wearing "traveling clothes". They're definitely going for that "anonymous" look, so popular with the smuggling set. It's your first tip-off that the trip across the Boundary isn't a sure thing, and nobody on board wants to get caught in an obvious Para-Paran uniform. You take a few minutes to secure your own ship, which will remain docked on Para-Para while you're away.
The freighter is a small, fast ship; with six people on it, it's a small, fast, crowded ship. Luckily, your fellow passengers are friendly and don't seem to mind. You spend hours swapping stories and conversation. You learn that these trips aren't frequent. There's usually only one scheduled run every month. This isn't a cargo van; these "taxi" trips are for getting people from Para-Para to the Nine Worlds and vice versa. Cargo requires large cargo holds, which make a ship slower and therefore easier to detect. It's much easier to break the Boundary in a small ship.
It seems that it's an old Para-Paran custom to refer to the meal eaten just before crossing the Boundary as their "last meal". It's also traditional to serve the best food and the best drink at hand. Fortunately, one of the passengers has come equipped with two bottles of something light blue. Somebody cracks a joke about biochemists (you figure the formula recited was the punch line—real funny stuff these scientists, you betcha) and they start passing around little glasses. It could be just a trick of the lighting or the stuff could be fluorescent. You take a sip and pronounce it a stiff drink. The captain and her first mate toast the company. However, when the mate seems ready to take a second glass, the captain vetoes it.
Toast follows toast, and in an attempt to get up from the table, you clumsily knock it over. Everything winds up in a broken heap on the floor except half a bottle of the light blue liquid, which you miraculously manage to salvage. You hide the "miracle" bottle and a few hours later offer it as a surprise present to the first mate.
So our Professor really is super spy material...
Just before the ship is about to run the Boundary, the captain asks you if you would be so kind as to fill in for the first mate. She knows it is an imposition, but you are the only pilot among the passengers, and your assistance would be appreciated. You assure her it's no trouble at all.
Crossing the Boundary in this freighter is a lot like crossing the Boundary in your ship—keep your eyes peeled and run like hell—with one important addition: in front of you, on the first mate's screen, is classified Space Patrol information concerning the whereabouts and schedule of each Patrol ship in this sector. No wonder the Para-Parans can cross the Boundary so often without incident. They know beforehand when and where the Patrol cruisers will be. You check the readout carefully, noting that it's dated for this week and that the computer holds records dated for the next two weeks. You have no idea how the Para-Parans get Space Patrol information. Do they steal it? Buy it? Trade for it? Is it just given to them?
The rest of the trip to Norstar goes quickly. The freighter lands with false registration, and no one ever blinks an eye. You and Doc have a great time. "Sundown Road" is everything the critics said it was. When you board the freighter for the return trip across the Boundary, you notice that you and Doc are the only original passengers present. The other four will probably catch a later "taxi"; in the meantime, four new passengers have taken their place. Upon your arrival at Para-Para, you say a fond farewell to Dr. Peterson. You locate your own ship and carry on.
Crossing the Boundary in this freighter is a lot like crossing the Boundary in your ship—keep your eyes peeled and run like hell—with one important addition: in front of you, on the first mate's screen, is classified Space Patrol information concerning the whereabouts and schedule of each Patrol ship in this sector. No wonder the Para-Parans can cross the Boundary so often without incident. They know beforehand when and where the Patrol cruisers will be. You check the readout carefully, noting that it's dated for this week and that the computer holds records dated for the next two weeks. You have no idea how the Para-Parans get Space Patrol information. Do they steal it? Buy it? Trade for it? Is it just given to them?
The rest of the trip to Norstar goes quickly. The freighter lands with false registration, and no one ever blinks an eye. You and Doc have a great time. "Sundown Road" is everything the critics said it was. When you board the freighter for the return trip across the Boundary, you notice that you and Doc are the only original passengers present. The other four will probably catch a later "taxi"; in the meantime, four new passengers have taken their place. Upon your arrival at Para-Para, you say a fond farewell to Dr. Peterson. You locate your own ship and carry on.
No option to stay inside the Boundary, probably because we haven't accomplished our "find 3 alien abilities" mission. I wonder if those Para-Paran Boundary patrol ship schedules are going to be important later.
Vote on what planet our intrepid explorer visits next! (Galaxy map)
We're just that cool. 
So, is it time for use to go exploring possibly hostile planets, or should we play it safe?
We have a basic weapon, but no armour or other protection to speak of yet. Let's visit another of the known worlds first.
OPRBO. Can't for certain make out the name, but I think it's Medsun.
So, is it time for use to go exploring possibly hostile planets, or should we play it safe?
We have a basic weapon, but no armour or other protection to speak of yet. Let's visit another of the known worlds first.
OPRBO. Can't for certain make out the name, but I think it's Medsun.
Erebus
Arcane
- Joined
- Jul 12, 2008
- Messages
- 4,770
I was hoping we'd learn something about alien technologies, but we still got valuable info (including the possibility that the Plague itself might have been created by aliens).
Maybe we need to start venturing a little bit farther ? I suggest going to Supa.
Maybe we need to start venturing a little bit farther ? I suggest going to Supa.
Mrowak
Arcane
- Joined
- Sep 26, 2008
- Messages
- 3,947
Our professor is almost a goddamn ninja - except he is kinda lauzy at getting the interesting information once he has entered those top-secure areas. Also, the lack of proper id cards in there shatters my suspension of disbelief. 
Anyway, let's go for 163-B this time.
Anyway, let's go for 163-B this time.
Sure, Medsun. The way these guys voting to risk life and limb are going, we need all the easy popamole tutorial planets we can get 
Stygian Lurker
Liturgist
- Joined
- Jan 28, 2011
- Messages
- 577
Supa.
MMXI
Arcane
- Joined
- Apr 28, 2011
- Messages
- 2,196
Yeah, head to Medsun. I like the way this game has little emotional engagement. You'd assume there would be a long and detailed description of a romantic trip to Norstar, but instead it goes into detail about how you can jump the boundary and leaves the description of the actual time on Norstar to half a paragraph at the end.
Fuck you Mass Effect.
Fuck you Mass Effect.
Mrowak
Arcane
- Joined
- Sep 26, 2008
- Messages
- 3,947
Medsun it is.
Paragraph 884
Medsun, according to the limited information in your computer's Ghost Worlds file, supports one of the oldest and most successful human colonies outside the Nine Worlds. The planet has a stable human-compatible ecosystem, productive oceans, belts of quality crop-producing lands, and a gentle climate. Apparently this has made it very attractive to human colonists, for the file notes that many spacefarers of the post-Boundary era have chosen to retire here. There is only a brief mention of the native "aliens" that also populate Medsun; the description says that they are intelligent and cooperative and that they coexist peacefully with the human colonists.
Considering the planet's large human population, estimated at between five and ten million, you are surprised that your orbital scans reveal no big cities and almost no heavy industry. Instead, the planet is dotted with small towns and villages. In all of the villages, typically-human architecture mixes with triangle-cluster forms that are characteristic of native Medsunian construction. Nowhere is there evidence of segregation or friction. The technology level of both cultures is low. The telecommunications network is primitive, in poor condition, and uses not a single orbital satellite. The roads are adequate only for low-speed vehicles. The electrical power grid, powered by a single large generating plant comprised of old-style inertial fission reactors, is in good condition but would not support more than the most basic power needs for the planet's population. You learn later that the Medsunian natives never developed space travel capability and that the human colonists seem to have no interest in pursuing it. The spaceport where you land, not far from the power plant, is maintained only for the purpose of offworld trade and to accommodate the occasional arriving colonists.
When you disembark you are greeted by a small delegation of Medsunians. They are short, stocky, and alarmingly yellow in color, but their basic form is bipedal and humanoid. Their strangest characteristic is the way their nearly-spherical heads are affixed to their torsos. Instead of a single neck, each Medsunian has three separate round appendages that diverge from the shoulders, then draw back together and attach to the head at three separate places. Each appendage is flexible and extendable, allowing Medsunians to turn their heads in a disconcerting variety of ways.
During the two hours it requires for them to inspect your ship for prohibited cargoes and dangerous diseases, you have a chance to converse with the Medsunians. They all speak an old-fashioned dialect of Earth Standard (which they call English), even when talking among themselves. They explain to you the terms for your stay on Medsun: you will be given food, lodging, and necessities free of charge at the spaceport facilities. This generous arrangement is common to most worlds that receive interstellar trade, for two different reasons: to encourage traders to visit and, on less friendly worlds, to limit the amount of contact between the spacefarers and the natives. The Medsunians request in return that you refrain from violent or overly aggressive behavior, which neither they nor the human colonists will tolerate.
You ask the Medsunians why no human officials are present in their delegation. They tell you that humans do not customarily greet arriving ships because they have no interest in doing so. The trade market, however, is run entirely by humans, as is the power station, which is beyond the Medsunians' technical capabilities. Many other activities are carried out jointly between the two races, such as the administration of the Academy of Knowledge, a nearby research institute devoted mainly to xenobiology and comparative anthropology. However, most of the colonists spend their time living peacefully on the land and creating artistic works.
"You humans have taken very well to life on Medsun," says one Medsunian. "Your creative energy is very great once it is turned aside from hostility and conflict. Between your people and ours, we have made this world a center of culture that is treasured by many races. Aliens come in ships from many far stars to trade for what we create. Only the very best do we keep for ourselves, in a museum north of here which you are of course welcome to inspect."
You thank him, thinking perhaps you may check it out later. First, though, you want to look around a bit more, and you spend a few days mingling with both humans and natives. You find that the human colonists are indeed all peaceably employed, just as the Medsunians said. They have no complaints, and no one seems to be under any pressure to do things they don't want to do.
Nonetheless, you begin to feel uneasy. You don't see what it is about this planet that makes it so popular. The Medsunians are friendly enough, but also unsophisticated and boring. The low-technology culture is adequate for survival but it lacks the comforts and varieties of modern civilizations. Your ship's meal processors alone offer a greater variety of foods than any Medsunian marketplace you've seen. Even the weather on Medsun doesn't live up to its reputation: the climate, while perfect for growing crops, is not very pleasant; it alternates between cold drizzling rain and too-hot sunlight. Worse, the gravity is just enough greater than what you're used to to make you feel tired and lethargic. All in all, you're not in a very good mood as you contemplate your options:
As usual, we hit the market first...
So this is a Culture market...
...and the options available are: 1 Culture for 1 Fluids; 2 Culture for 1 Fiber; 3 Culture for 1 Radioactives. Do we need Culture, I wonder? Just to remind you, our current Cargo is: 1 Fluids, 1 Crystals, 3 Fuel (5/10).
So...
1. Do we trade 1 Culture for 1 Fluids?
2. I'm pretty sure we can visit all the locations here, this being one of the non-dangerous planets, but who knows?
The options are: historical records, museum, or Academy of Knowledge. You choose where we head first.
Paragraph 884
Medsun, according to the limited information in your computer's Ghost Worlds file, supports one of the oldest and most successful human colonies outside the Nine Worlds. The planet has a stable human-compatible ecosystem, productive oceans, belts of quality crop-producing lands, and a gentle climate. Apparently this has made it very attractive to human colonists, for the file notes that many spacefarers of the post-Boundary era have chosen to retire here. There is only a brief mention of the native "aliens" that also populate Medsun; the description says that they are intelligent and cooperative and that they coexist peacefully with the human colonists.
Considering the planet's large human population, estimated at between five and ten million, you are surprised that your orbital scans reveal no big cities and almost no heavy industry. Instead, the planet is dotted with small towns and villages. In all of the villages, typically-human architecture mixes with triangle-cluster forms that are characteristic of native Medsunian construction. Nowhere is there evidence of segregation or friction. The technology level of both cultures is low. The telecommunications network is primitive, in poor condition, and uses not a single orbital satellite. The roads are adequate only for low-speed vehicles. The electrical power grid, powered by a single large generating plant comprised of old-style inertial fission reactors, is in good condition but would not support more than the most basic power needs for the planet's population. You learn later that the Medsunian natives never developed space travel capability and that the human colonists seem to have no interest in pursuing it. The spaceport where you land, not far from the power plant, is maintained only for the purpose of offworld trade and to accommodate the occasional arriving colonists.
When you disembark you are greeted by a small delegation of Medsunians. They are short, stocky, and alarmingly yellow in color, but their basic form is bipedal and humanoid. Their strangest characteristic is the way their nearly-spherical heads are affixed to their torsos. Instead of a single neck, each Medsunian has three separate round appendages that diverge from the shoulders, then draw back together and attach to the head at three separate places. Each appendage is flexible and extendable, allowing Medsunians to turn their heads in a disconcerting variety of ways.
During the two hours it requires for them to inspect your ship for prohibited cargoes and dangerous diseases, you have a chance to converse with the Medsunians. They all speak an old-fashioned dialect of Earth Standard (which they call English), even when talking among themselves. They explain to you the terms for your stay on Medsun: you will be given food, lodging, and necessities free of charge at the spaceport facilities. This generous arrangement is common to most worlds that receive interstellar trade, for two different reasons: to encourage traders to visit and, on less friendly worlds, to limit the amount of contact between the spacefarers and the natives. The Medsunians request in return that you refrain from violent or overly aggressive behavior, which neither they nor the human colonists will tolerate.
You ask the Medsunians why no human officials are present in their delegation. They tell you that humans do not customarily greet arriving ships because they have no interest in doing so. The trade market, however, is run entirely by humans, as is the power station, which is beyond the Medsunians' technical capabilities. Many other activities are carried out jointly between the two races, such as the administration of the Academy of Knowledge, a nearby research institute devoted mainly to xenobiology and comparative anthropology. However, most of the colonists spend their time living peacefully on the land and creating artistic works.
"You humans have taken very well to life on Medsun," says one Medsunian. "Your creative energy is very great once it is turned aside from hostility and conflict. Between your people and ours, we have made this world a center of culture that is treasured by many races. Aliens come in ships from many far stars to trade for what we create. Only the very best do we keep for ourselves, in a museum north of here which you are of course welcome to inspect."
You thank him, thinking perhaps you may check it out later. First, though, you want to look around a bit more, and you spend a few days mingling with both humans and natives. You find that the human colonists are indeed all peaceably employed, just as the Medsunians said. They have no complaints, and no one seems to be under any pressure to do things they don't want to do.
Nonetheless, you begin to feel uneasy. You don't see what it is about this planet that makes it so popular. The Medsunians are friendly enough, but also unsophisticated and boring. The low-technology culture is adequate for survival but it lacks the comforts and varieties of modern civilizations. Your ship's meal processors alone offer a greater variety of foods than any Medsunian marketplace you've seen. Even the weather on Medsun doesn't live up to its reputation: the climate, while perfect for growing crops, is not very pleasant; it alternates between cold drizzling rain and too-hot sunlight. Worse, the gravity is just enough greater than what you're used to to make you feel tired and lethargic. All in all, you're not in a very good mood as you contemplate your options:
- EPMBNY (3 phases) Contact the Interstellar Trade Market representatives to learn what products the humans on Medsun are interested in importing or exporting.
- UPOBFY (4 phases) Examine historical records to try to gain some insight into why the humans on Medsun are so passive and complacent.
- AP6BPY (3 phases) Inspect the artifacts on display at the museum.
- E9MDNQ (6 phases) Travel to the Academy of Knowledge in the hope that the researchers there will share their discoveries about the physiologies and psychologies of alien races.
As usual, we hit the market first...
Paragraph 755
All offworld trading on Medsun is conducted by the human colonists; it is one of the few elements of life on the colony that is not shared with the native Medsunians. The natives never developed space travel before the colonists' arrival, and show no interest in it now. The task of negotiating with space traders is undertaken by colonists who, you later learn, were once spacefarers themselves.
"Certainly a colony with a population this large has a considerable need for imported goods from higher-technology worlds," you explain to one Hiram Leadbelly, former smuggler and now chief human interstellar import/export manager on Medsun. "Medicines, computers, tools, and crystals are what you need to improve the colony's standard of living."
"I can understand how a person might feel that way," says Hiram. "But most folks here like the world the way it is. All we need is a good supply of radioactives to keep the electric company happy, and process chemicals for controlling sewage and keeping the ecosystem in balance. Oh, and the crews down south are still building bridges, and using up Fiber like it's going out of style, so I'm authorized to pick up some of that."
"What sort of chemicals?" you ask.
"Oh, process chemicals is just an old name for what you call Fluids. I should have remembered, since I used to haul them around the Void myself and I never knew what they were for either. They're just chemical reagents and catalysts used for turning one kind of glop into another—toxic glop into fertilizer, metabolic waste glop into pollution-free fuels, that sort of thing. We use it for sewage treatment and papermaking and such. With a lot more of it you can change a whole planet's atmosphere, not that anyone would ever want to do such a thing."
"So your only needs are radioactives, fiber, and fluids? What about your industries?"
"We don't have any, except what I said. We and the locals get by just fine with what's at hand." You are ready to argue with him about that statement, but somehow the way he says it makes you realize that the Medsunians are indeed just fine the way they are. An hour from now you will wonder why you gave in so easily, but it all makes sense at the moment.
The only thing that is produced in abundance on Medsun is Culture, and that is what Hiram Leadbelly offers you in trade. He will supply one Culture for one Fluids, two Culture for one Fiber, and three Culture for one Radioactives.
You may select this option again.
All offworld trading on Medsun is conducted by the human colonists; it is one of the few elements of life on the colony that is not shared with the native Medsunians. The natives never developed space travel before the colonists' arrival, and show no interest in it now. The task of negotiating with space traders is undertaken by colonists who, you later learn, were once spacefarers themselves.
"Certainly a colony with a population this large has a considerable need for imported goods from higher-technology worlds," you explain to one Hiram Leadbelly, former smuggler and now chief human interstellar import/export manager on Medsun. "Medicines, computers, tools, and crystals are what you need to improve the colony's standard of living."
"I can understand how a person might feel that way," says Hiram. "But most folks here like the world the way it is. All we need is a good supply of radioactives to keep the electric company happy, and process chemicals for controlling sewage and keeping the ecosystem in balance. Oh, and the crews down south are still building bridges, and using up Fiber like it's going out of style, so I'm authorized to pick up some of that."
"What sort of chemicals?" you ask.
"Oh, process chemicals is just an old name for what you call Fluids. I should have remembered, since I used to haul them around the Void myself and I never knew what they were for either. They're just chemical reagents and catalysts used for turning one kind of glop into another—toxic glop into fertilizer, metabolic waste glop into pollution-free fuels, that sort of thing. We use it for sewage treatment and papermaking and such. With a lot more of it you can change a whole planet's atmosphere, not that anyone would ever want to do such a thing."
"So your only needs are radioactives, fiber, and fluids? What about your industries?"
"We don't have any, except what I said. We and the locals get by just fine with what's at hand." You are ready to argue with him about that statement, but somehow the way he says it makes you realize that the Medsunians are indeed just fine the way they are. An hour from now you will wonder why you gave in so easily, but it all makes sense at the moment.
The only thing that is produced in abundance on Medsun is Culture, and that is what Hiram Leadbelly offers you in trade. He will supply one Culture for one Fluids, two Culture for one Fiber, and three Culture for one Radioactives.
You may select this option again.
So this is a Culture market...
Culture: One of the twelve standard commodities that serve as the basis for interplanetary commerce. Culture is generally equated with native artifacts or artwork, and may include music, videos, literature, and so on.
...and the options available are: 1 Culture for 1 Fluids; 2 Culture for 1 Fiber; 3 Culture for 1 Radioactives. Do we need Culture, I wonder? Just to remind you, our current Cargo is: 1 Fluids, 1 Crystals, 3 Fuel (5/10).
So...
1. Do we trade 1 Culture for 1 Fluids?
2. I'm pretty sure we can visit all the locations here, this being one of the non-dangerous planets, but who knows?
- UPOBFY (4 phases) Examine historical records to try to gain some insight into why the humans on Medsun are so passive and complacent.
- AP6BPY (3 phases) Inspect the artifacts on display at the museum.
- E9MDNQ (6 phases) Travel to the Academy of Knowledge in the hope that the researchers there will share their discoveries about the physiologies and psychologies of alien races.
The options are: historical records, museum, or Academy of Knowledge. You choose where we head first.
Erebus
Arcane
- Joined
- Jul 12, 2008
- Messages
- 4,770
Interesting world. The description makes it almost creepy, suggesting that the inhabitants may be under some sort of mind control. (I don't think it's actually the case, but who knows ?)
Buying culture as if it were a normal kind of goods is fairly amusing, but 1 for 1 doesn't sound good. I vote against trading.
The museum and the academy could be very interesting, but I'd like to start by examining historical records.
Buying culture as if it were a normal kind of goods is fairly amusing, but 1 for 1 doesn't sound good. I vote against trading.
The museum and the academy could be very interesting, but I'd like to start by examining historical records.
Monty
Arcane
This is amazingly addictive considering the format, but can't be the easiest LP to stage so thanks for your efforts!
- Have a hunch that culture may be more scarce than liquids when we head to more distant planets so vote in favour of the trade.
- Agree with the historical records choice. We need to find out what's going on here before it affects us further.
- Have a hunch that culture may be more scarce than liquids when we head to more distant planets so vote in favour of the trade.
- Agree with the historical records choice. We need to find out what's going on here before it affects us further.
Yup. Creepy, and definitely some kind of mind control. Even our professor Dambroke is feeling the effect, since he didn't question Hiram more. I doubt the historical records will tell us much, but I feel they should be our first stop. 
And trade he did.
No more Fluids, but a little bit of Culture instead. Hopefully that was a clever choice.
Time to explore Medsun thoroughly, starting with the historical records to maybe gain some insight into why the humans on Medsun are so passive and complacent.
Succumbed to alien mind control techniques already, Professor?
Our trip to the archives doesn't lead to anything new action-wise, so let's hit the museum next.
That was... intriguing, I guess.
Now onto the Academy of Knowledge.
Phrmm sounds like a nice thing to have around, so let's learn it!
The damn aliens stole our Crystals, but hey, we now have an alien ability!
1/3 of our mission accomplished!
Well that was quick. It looks like visiting the tutorial planets in order has paid off for us. Will it continue to pay off? Let's take a look at our current status...
...and then decide: Where do we fly next? (Galaxy map)
No more Fluids, but a little bit of Culture instead. Hopefully that was a clever choice.
Time to explore Medsun thoroughly, starting with the historical records to maybe gain some insight into why the humans on Medsun are so passive and complacent.
Paragraph 271
The human colonists on Medsun are perfectly friendly to you and every other visiting space traveler. They are also intelligent and, unlike the natives, interesting to talk to. While they are understandably often preoccupied by the simple routines of survival—farming, building and maintaining shelters, manufacturing necessities—they spend all of their free time engaged in creative hobbies. Graphics, music, drama, and other fine arts are very popular, as are some of the sciences.
However, there are curious gaps. Those who have taken up architecture spend years designing intricate towers or cities, but neither they nor anyone else claim any desire to build them. There are no printing presses capable of producing copies of the essays, novels, and poetry the authors write; instead, original manuscripts are circulated until they become unreadable, or are piled in warehouses to be unceremoniously hauled away by traders like yourself as part of a cargo of "culture". The scientists are all engaged in purely descriptive research; they will carefully observe and document any phenomenon in nature, but are not willing to actively experiment in any way that directly affects the subject or phenomenon in nature, but are not willing to actively experiment in any way that directly affects the subject or phenomenon under observation. In astronomy this is not unusual—who can manipulate the stars?—but in some sciences it is senseless. In medicine, for example, what good does it do to study and record the exact course of a disease if one is not willing to attempt to cure it?
Most disturbing of all is that the Colonists have no interest at all in space or in anything happening on worlds other than Medsun. They talk with you as if you were an old friend, but they do not ask you about your travels. If you tell them anyway, they listen politely but show no reaction. If you ask them why this is, they shrug and say, "We don't need to travel in space any more, so events in space need not concern us."
Some of the Colonists maintain small private libraries of historical records of events on Medsun, and in the absence of public libraries or bureaucratic records you turn to these for insight. Perhaps, you reason, the original Colonists were members of a religious sect with highly pacifistic beliefs, or perhaps they once suffered at the hands of pirates and now pretend disinterest in order to conceal a deep-seated distrust of outworlders.
Your research turns up no evidence to support any such theories. Some colonists were members of religious groups that migrated from the failed colonies on Cathedral; however, they followed the original colonists by several decades. Most of the original colonists were eager pioneers from the Nine Worlds during the earliest days of space travel. They seem to have adopted many of their attitudes directly from the Medsunian natives, with whom they mingled freely from the very first landings.
From accounts of these early encounters you learn more about the natives as they were before the humans arrived in force. They were, of course, the dominant life forms on Medsun and had been for uncounted thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands, of years. Their culture and technological level had remained unchanged during most of that time, possibly due to their extremely pacifistic beliefs. To a Medsunian, acts of aggression are unthinkable—not only aggression against other intelligent beings, but against forces of nature as well. For example, to build a dam would be a highly aggressive act, even if its purpose were to divert a flood. To attempt to leave one's own world would be utterly irrational. The natives looked upon the first arriving humans with a degree of sympathy, assuming that the colonists must have left their own worlds involuntarily.
The early human pioneers on Medsun mention in their journals their hope that they could break the natives out of their cultural stagnation and lead them in technological advancement. Instead, the opposite seems to have happened.
On the way back to your ship, you ponder the implications of what you have learned. It is frightening that the adventurous spirit of a whole population of humans could be so thoroughly suppressed. On the other hand, the people are friendly, happy, and busy. Who are you to say they are wrong?
The human colonists on Medsun are perfectly friendly to you and every other visiting space traveler. They are also intelligent and, unlike the natives, interesting to talk to. While they are understandably often preoccupied by the simple routines of survival—farming, building and maintaining shelters, manufacturing necessities—they spend all of their free time engaged in creative hobbies. Graphics, music, drama, and other fine arts are very popular, as are some of the sciences.
However, there are curious gaps. Those who have taken up architecture spend years designing intricate towers or cities, but neither they nor anyone else claim any desire to build them. There are no printing presses capable of producing copies of the essays, novels, and poetry the authors write; instead, original manuscripts are circulated until they become unreadable, or are piled in warehouses to be unceremoniously hauled away by traders like yourself as part of a cargo of "culture". The scientists are all engaged in purely descriptive research; they will carefully observe and document any phenomenon in nature, but are not willing to actively experiment in any way that directly affects the subject or phenomenon in nature, but are not willing to actively experiment in any way that directly affects the subject or phenomenon under observation. In astronomy this is not unusual—who can manipulate the stars?—but in some sciences it is senseless. In medicine, for example, what good does it do to study and record the exact course of a disease if one is not willing to attempt to cure it?
Most disturbing of all is that the Colonists have no interest at all in space or in anything happening on worlds other than Medsun. They talk with you as if you were an old friend, but they do not ask you about your travels. If you tell them anyway, they listen politely but show no reaction. If you ask them why this is, they shrug and say, "We don't need to travel in space any more, so events in space need not concern us."
Some of the Colonists maintain small private libraries of historical records of events on Medsun, and in the absence of public libraries or bureaucratic records you turn to these for insight. Perhaps, you reason, the original Colonists were members of a religious sect with highly pacifistic beliefs, or perhaps they once suffered at the hands of pirates and now pretend disinterest in order to conceal a deep-seated distrust of outworlders.
Your research turns up no evidence to support any such theories. Some colonists were members of religious groups that migrated from the failed colonies on Cathedral; however, they followed the original colonists by several decades. Most of the original colonists were eager pioneers from the Nine Worlds during the earliest days of space travel. They seem to have adopted many of their attitudes directly from the Medsunian natives, with whom they mingled freely from the very first landings.
From accounts of these early encounters you learn more about the natives as they were before the humans arrived in force. They were, of course, the dominant life forms on Medsun and had been for uncounted thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands, of years. Their culture and technological level had remained unchanged during most of that time, possibly due to their extremely pacifistic beliefs. To a Medsunian, acts of aggression are unthinkable—not only aggression against other intelligent beings, but against forces of nature as well. For example, to build a dam would be a highly aggressive act, even if its purpose were to divert a flood. To attempt to leave one's own world would be utterly irrational. The natives looked upon the first arriving humans with a degree of sympathy, assuming that the colonists must have left their own worlds involuntarily.
The early human pioneers on Medsun mention in their journals their hope that they could break the natives out of their cultural stagnation and lead them in technological advancement. Instead, the opposite seems to have happened.
On the way back to your ship, you ponder the implications of what you have learned. It is frightening that the adventurous spirit of a whole population of humans could be so thoroughly suppressed. On the other hand, the people are friendly, happy, and busy. Who are you to say they are wrong?
Succumbed to alien mind control techniques already, Professor?
Our trip to the archives doesn't lead to anything new action-wise, so let's hit the museum next.
Paragraph 349
From the outside, the Medsunians' "museum" seems hardly worthy of the name. It looks more like a warehouse: a huge, featureless brick building with myopic windows and a single steel door. There is not even a sign to tell you you've found the right building.
Once inside, you change your mind.
It takes some getting used to. In fact, the inside at first reminds you even more of a warehouse than the outside did. Tens of thousands of objects are piled on hundreds of feet of dusty shelves, dimly lit by pinched skylights and hanging lamps that cast light grudgingly in no particular direction. Because of the sheer volume of material, and the dark emptiness of the museum, it takes you a few minutes to realize what you are looking at. Every single item is a masterpiece. If you were to display any object from this museum in any museum on the Nine Worlds, it would occupy the center of a spacious white sunlit gallery, or be picked out alone in a thin bright spotlight in a silent room respectfully darkened.
You are at a loss to explain what this means. Have the colonists been able to create such works simply because they've had time on their hands? Do the masterpieces reflect the precision and patience that the humans learned from the natives? Or are they instead works of passion, motivated by the same violent human spirit that drives others to sculpt roads in the wilderness, paint empires across the canvas of history, write poems from star to star with the quills of fire that drive the ships into the voids beyond the Boundary?
If there is an answer, it is in the works themselves. You examine the contents of one nearby alcove and try with difficulty to focus your attention on one item at a time:
...a painting of a single flower that you are certain never bloomed on Medsun, nor on the Nine Worlds, nor anywhere else in the universe, whose surreal curving petals seem to wrap like smoke over the planes of higher dimensions...
...a handmade brass astrolabe, concentric disks set in layers with convoluted openings that when turned reveal the stars visible from Medsun, inlaid with abstract spirals and ruled in precise lines that seem to whisper "far from home, so far from home" no matter how the wheels are set...
...a carving of a breaking wave frozen in time made from a lump of raw transparent blue-gray glass melted from a viewport of an early spaceship, with the lines and motion of the spaceship somehow still locked, like a solution inside a puzzle, with the crashing of the wave, the circling water, the flying spray...
...an abstract composition, black ink on white paper, of shapes that form no recognizable image or pattern when your attention is turned toward it but coalesce into a face whose features suggest wisdom beyond the ken of humankind when you look away...
...two matched human figures, sculpted as bookends from white stone, that at first seem identical until you realize that one is standing on his homeland gazing at a far shore while the other stands on the far shore looking back toward his home, the difference suggested entirely by tiny almost invisible changes in facial expression and posture, but unmistakable nonetheless...
You spend a long time inside the Museum, thinking, studying the colonists' works. Then you return to your ship.
From the outside, the Medsunians' "museum" seems hardly worthy of the name. It looks more like a warehouse: a huge, featureless brick building with myopic windows and a single steel door. There is not even a sign to tell you you've found the right building.
Once inside, you change your mind.
It takes some getting used to. In fact, the inside at first reminds you even more of a warehouse than the outside did. Tens of thousands of objects are piled on hundreds of feet of dusty shelves, dimly lit by pinched skylights and hanging lamps that cast light grudgingly in no particular direction. Because of the sheer volume of material, and the dark emptiness of the museum, it takes you a few minutes to realize what you are looking at. Every single item is a masterpiece. If you were to display any object from this museum in any museum on the Nine Worlds, it would occupy the center of a spacious white sunlit gallery, or be picked out alone in a thin bright spotlight in a silent room respectfully darkened.
You are at a loss to explain what this means. Have the colonists been able to create such works simply because they've had time on their hands? Do the masterpieces reflect the precision and patience that the humans learned from the natives? Or are they instead works of passion, motivated by the same violent human spirit that drives others to sculpt roads in the wilderness, paint empires across the canvas of history, write poems from star to star with the quills of fire that drive the ships into the voids beyond the Boundary?
If there is an answer, it is in the works themselves. You examine the contents of one nearby alcove and try with difficulty to focus your attention on one item at a time:
...a painting of a single flower that you are certain never bloomed on Medsun, nor on the Nine Worlds, nor anywhere else in the universe, whose surreal curving petals seem to wrap like smoke over the planes of higher dimensions...
...a handmade brass astrolabe, concentric disks set in layers with convoluted openings that when turned reveal the stars visible from Medsun, inlaid with abstract spirals and ruled in precise lines that seem to whisper "far from home, so far from home" no matter how the wheels are set...
...a carving of a breaking wave frozen in time made from a lump of raw transparent blue-gray glass melted from a viewport of an early spaceship, with the lines and motion of the spaceship somehow still locked, like a solution inside a puzzle, with the crashing of the wave, the circling water, the flying spray...
...an abstract composition, black ink on white paper, of shapes that form no recognizable image or pattern when your attention is turned toward it but coalesce into a face whose features suggest wisdom beyond the ken of humankind when you look away...
...two matched human figures, sculpted as bookends from white stone, that at first seem identical until you realize that one is standing on his homeland gazing at a far shore while the other stands on the far shore looking back toward his home, the difference suggested entirely by tiny almost invisible changes in facial expression and posture, but unmistakable nonetheless...
You spend a long time inside the Museum, thinking, studying the colonists' works. Then you return to your ship.
That was... intriguing, I guess.
Now onto the Academy of Knowledge.
A human named Professor Ginger Harglot is your guide and contact during your visit to the Academy. He must have become a Professor before coming to Medsun, for there are no institutions of higher learning on the planet. There are public schools and training centers for specific occupations, but no real universities; the Academy itself is purely a research facility.
At the Academy of Knowledge, colonists and native Medsunian researchers work primarily on quantifying the similarities and differences between the two races. After all the years they have shared the planet Medsun between them, you would have thought that this work would have been completed long ago, but the researchers are very meticulous observers. This, combined with the enormous complexity of both organisms, has made their task the work of lifetimes.
"I believe that it is the similarities as much as the differences that make our research difficult," says Professor Harglot. "If we were studying two entirely different creatures, the comparisons and contrasts would be easier to discern. As it is, many apparent differences seem to have, as a basis, underlying similarities. For every known difference we can adequately characterize, there are at least a dozen more which are poorly defined at best.
"Also, we have to take into account a large variety of factors, such as the conditions under which we evolved. Although there are no carnivores on Medsun today, not even biting insects, the fossil records discovered by the archaeologist's group shows that conditions were much different in past. Ten million years ago there were plenty of carnivores; if anything it was a harsher environment than old Earth. The Medsunian physiology reflects this in many ways—for example, those redundant necks contain redundant spinal cords, blood vessels, and respiratory tubes. A native could survive even if two necks were severed. This is an adaptation most useful in a hostile world."
"What happened to the carnivores?" you ask, shuddering at a small fossil skeleton that looks like a mass of teeth and claws. "Why is the planet so different today? Did the natives kill them off?"
"It's possible," says the Professor, looking a bit put off by the suggestion. "The carnivores all disappeared rather recently as planetary history goes, sometime within the last million years, but we don't know why. Most likely it was a combination of causes. Actually this area isn't my specialty at all. Few of us are currently studying the physiological factors any more."
"What are you studying then?"
"I find the most interesting area to be the differences in mentation—the effects which we are able to produce with our different minds. That is where the more dramatic differences between ourselves and the natives appear. They, for instance, are completely unable to grasp some human concepts such as mental multiplication and division; it seems they don't have sufficiently strong mental symbols for numerical quantities. On the other hand, they have a technique called 'Phrmm' that we humans have only recently learned to understand, and other skills as well, that as far as our perceptions are concerned might as well be black magic. To the natives, for example, emotional telepathy is no more unusual than an ear for music is among us."
"Telepathy? You mean the natives are telepathic?"
"Oh, only in a limited sense, but definitely yes. For example, a beta-parent—did I tell you about the three sexes?—a beta-parent can detect fear in her child even when there is no known way for them to be in communication. There's nothing magical about it, you understand; it's just a matter of evolution and selection, just as our own mental powers are. In fact, the telepathic ability was probably stronger in previous eras and is now fading out, while the Phrmm response is probably growing stronger. It's all mediated by environmental pressures."
"What is the Phrmm response? How does that work?"
"Phrmm is the way a native reacts to a threat. It's not easy to explain in words, because humans developed a totally different set of responses in their evolution—predominantly the 'flight or fight' reaction so familiar to you. Phrmm is a completely different but equally effective reaction, as ingrained in the natives as fight-or-flight is in you. If you want to really understand it you may wish to learn it for yourself. We've been teaching courses in it for years now, with very good success rates."
If you wish to learn Phrmm, there is no charge, but it will take time to learn the technique. Plot option:
At the Academy of Knowledge, colonists and native Medsunian researchers work primarily on quantifying the similarities and differences between the two races. After all the years they have shared the planet Medsun between them, you would have thought that this work would have been completed long ago, but the researchers are very meticulous observers. This, combined with the enormous complexity of both organisms, has made their task the work of lifetimes.
"I believe that it is the similarities as much as the differences that make our research difficult," says Professor Harglot. "If we were studying two entirely different creatures, the comparisons and contrasts would be easier to discern. As it is, many apparent differences seem to have, as a basis, underlying similarities. For every known difference we can adequately characterize, there are at least a dozen more which are poorly defined at best.
"Also, we have to take into account a large variety of factors, such as the conditions under which we evolved. Although there are no carnivores on Medsun today, not even biting insects, the fossil records discovered by the archaeologist's group shows that conditions were much different in past. Ten million years ago there were plenty of carnivores; if anything it was a harsher environment than old Earth. The Medsunian physiology reflects this in many ways—for example, those redundant necks contain redundant spinal cords, blood vessels, and respiratory tubes. A native could survive even if two necks were severed. This is an adaptation most useful in a hostile world."
"What happened to the carnivores?" you ask, shuddering at a small fossil skeleton that looks like a mass of teeth and claws. "Why is the planet so different today? Did the natives kill them off?"
"It's possible," says the Professor, looking a bit put off by the suggestion. "The carnivores all disappeared rather recently as planetary history goes, sometime within the last million years, but we don't know why. Most likely it was a combination of causes. Actually this area isn't my specialty at all. Few of us are currently studying the physiological factors any more."
"What are you studying then?"
"I find the most interesting area to be the differences in mentation—the effects which we are able to produce with our different minds. That is where the more dramatic differences between ourselves and the natives appear. They, for instance, are completely unable to grasp some human concepts such as mental multiplication and division; it seems they don't have sufficiently strong mental symbols for numerical quantities. On the other hand, they have a technique called 'Phrmm' that we humans have only recently learned to understand, and other skills as well, that as far as our perceptions are concerned might as well be black magic. To the natives, for example, emotional telepathy is no more unusual than an ear for music is among us."
"Telepathy? You mean the natives are telepathic?"
"Oh, only in a limited sense, but definitely yes. For example, a beta-parent—did I tell you about the three sexes?—a beta-parent can detect fear in her child even when there is no known way for them to be in communication. There's nothing magical about it, you understand; it's just a matter of evolution and selection, just as our own mental powers are. In fact, the telepathic ability was probably stronger in previous eras and is now fading out, while the Phrmm response is probably growing stronger. It's all mediated by environmental pressures."
"What is the Phrmm response? How does that work?"
"Phrmm is the way a native reacts to a threat. It's not easy to explain in words, because humans developed a totally different set of responses in their evolution—predominantly the 'flight or fight' reaction so familiar to you. Phrmm is a completely different but equally effective reaction, as ingrained in the natives as fight-or-flight is in you. If you want to really understand it you may wish to learn it for yourself. We've been teaching courses in it for years now, with very good success rates."
If you wish to learn Phrmm, there is no charge, but it will take time to learn the technique. Plot option:
- U9ODFQ (9 phases) Study Phrmm at the Academy of Knowledge.
Phrmm sounds like a nice thing to have around, so let's learn it!
There are a variety of concepts that you must grasp in order to learn Phrmm. Some you manage to become proficient at without too much effort, but others seem completely beyond you, despite the patience of your Medsunian instructors.
Phrmm is a mental technique that the Medsunian natives evolved as a responses to threats, at the same time that Humans were evolving the instincts to fight or run away. But Phrmm is neither a method of fighting nor a better way to run. It is a way to pacify your opponent, through a combination of subtle gesture and extreme concentration, so that the attacker ceases to perceive you as a threat. The key to Phrmm is that your own perceptions of the situation are as important as the perceptions of the attacker: you must cease to consider yourself a threat as well. Some of this makes sense immediately: obviously if you are fighting someone and then stop fighting, you will seem less of a threat to your opponent, but what if the opponent was the aggressor? Wouldn't making yourself less threatening encourage your enemy to press his advantage?
"You must stop thinking in those terms," your native instructor tells you, over and over. "By defending you become just as much of a threat as if you were attacking. In trying to run from a rolling boulder you are forcing your will upon that boulder, just as if you were trying to break it with a hammer. To Phrmm is to try to influence the boulder another way, using your perceptions instead of your will."
"And if I Phrmm hard enough, I can make the boulder not want to hit me?" you ask sarcastically. You are becoming frustrated.
"At a sufficient level of aptitude, yes," says the instructor.
Somewhat chastened, you continue the study. You become quite adept at the simpler methods for pacifying a hostile opponent, but you cannot follow the technique into its higher principles. After a while it becomes clear that you can never master Phrmm completely without changing your entire attitude about most things. To truly learn Phrmm is to adopt a degree of complacency that you find distasteful, to accept events as unalterable even when you know you have the power to alter them.
There are times when you think you are almost able to accept these concepts. But always something in your mind interrupts: a memory of your home planet, uncounted billions of miles away, or a flash of a vision of swirling stars that dare you to come to them and challenge them in their own infinite dark battlefield. And you have to start all over again.
However, you are not totally disappointed when you leave the training. You have learned, at the very least, a variety of useful mental techniques that may get you out of a tough spot someday, and you've gotten a glimpse of an alien philosophy that few inside the Boundary would have imagined. You also understand a little bit better how the mixed population of Medsun is able to get along so well, and you know the reasons for their apparent lack of ambition. You return to your ship, feeling much more at ease about the colonies on Medsun...
...Until you see a group of natives and colonists busily removing cargo from your ship.
"What do you think you're doing?" you yell from where you are. The workers stop and stare at you. "I didn't authorize any cargo transfer!"
A native faces you apologetically, and you begin to regret your violent outburst. "My apologies," she says. "We had hoped to save you some time. Now that you have decided to remain on Medsun we will purchase your cargoes in return for assistance in fabricating a shelter and other aid." It all sounds very reasonable; already you feel your anger dissipating. Except for one thing:
"I'm not going to stay on Medsun!" you say. This is ludicrous. You should be foaming at the mouth and waving weapons, but instead you feel only mild annoyance at the mixup. You realize that they are using Phrmm, but there isn't much you can do about it.
"I apologize again. I had jumped to conclusions. Most every human who learns Phrmm decides to stay on as a colonist. I just assumed you..."
You manage to get up enough anger to shout, "Well, you assumed wrong! Now get these people away from my ship!" The assembled Medsunians scatter.
Back in your ship, your rage returns, then passes slowly. It is replaced by a sudden cold sweat. You wonder just what it is you escaped from, and how narrowly, and you resolve to be more careful in the future about letting aliens play with your mind.
You also realize that not all your cargo has been restored. Apparently some was hauled away before you returned to your ship. You ask around the spaceport, but the Medsunians claim to be unable to trace or recover the missing goods.
Phrmm is a mental technique that the Medsunian natives evolved as a responses to threats, at the same time that Humans were evolving the instincts to fight or run away. But Phrmm is neither a method of fighting nor a better way to run. It is a way to pacify your opponent, through a combination of subtle gesture and extreme concentration, so that the attacker ceases to perceive you as a threat. The key to Phrmm is that your own perceptions of the situation are as important as the perceptions of the attacker: you must cease to consider yourself a threat as well. Some of this makes sense immediately: obviously if you are fighting someone and then stop fighting, you will seem less of a threat to your opponent, but what if the opponent was the aggressor? Wouldn't making yourself less threatening encourage your enemy to press his advantage?
"You must stop thinking in those terms," your native instructor tells you, over and over. "By defending you become just as much of a threat as if you were attacking. In trying to run from a rolling boulder you are forcing your will upon that boulder, just as if you were trying to break it with a hammer. To Phrmm is to try to influence the boulder another way, using your perceptions instead of your will."
"And if I Phrmm hard enough, I can make the boulder not want to hit me?" you ask sarcastically. You are becoming frustrated.
"At a sufficient level of aptitude, yes," says the instructor.
Somewhat chastened, you continue the study. You become quite adept at the simpler methods for pacifying a hostile opponent, but you cannot follow the technique into its higher principles. After a while it becomes clear that you can never master Phrmm completely without changing your entire attitude about most things. To truly learn Phrmm is to adopt a degree of complacency that you find distasteful, to accept events as unalterable even when you know you have the power to alter them.
There are times when you think you are almost able to accept these concepts. But always something in your mind interrupts: a memory of your home planet, uncounted billions of miles away, or a flash of a vision of swirling stars that dare you to come to them and challenge them in their own infinite dark battlefield. And you have to start all over again.
However, you are not totally disappointed when you leave the training. You have learned, at the very least, a variety of useful mental techniques that may get you out of a tough spot someday, and you've gotten a glimpse of an alien philosophy that few inside the Boundary would have imagined. You also understand a little bit better how the mixed population of Medsun is able to get along so well, and you know the reasons for their apparent lack of ambition. You return to your ship, feeling much more at ease about the colonies on Medsun...
...Until you see a group of natives and colonists busily removing cargo from your ship.
"What do you think you're doing?" you yell from where you are. The workers stop and stare at you. "I didn't authorize any cargo transfer!"
A native faces you apologetically, and you begin to regret your violent outburst. "My apologies," she says. "We had hoped to save you some time. Now that you have decided to remain on Medsun we will purchase your cargoes in return for assistance in fabricating a shelter and other aid." It all sounds very reasonable; already you feel your anger dissipating. Except for one thing:
"I'm not going to stay on Medsun!" you say. This is ludicrous. You should be foaming at the mouth and waving weapons, but instead you feel only mild annoyance at the mixup. You realize that they are using Phrmm, but there isn't much you can do about it.
"I apologize again. I had jumped to conclusions. Most every human who learns Phrmm decides to stay on as a colonist. I just assumed you..."
You manage to get up enough anger to shout, "Well, you assumed wrong! Now get these people away from my ship!" The assembled Medsunians scatter.
Back in your ship, your rage returns, then passes slowly. It is replaced by a sudden cold sweat. You wonder just what it is you escaped from, and how narrowly, and you resolve to be more careful in the future about letting aliens play with your mind.
You also realize that not all your cargo has been restored. Apparently some was hauled away before you returned to your ship. You ask around the spaceport, but the Medsunians claim to be unable to trace or recover the missing goods.
The damn aliens stole our Crystals, but hey, we now have an alien ability!
Phrmm: The ability to put a living creature in the mood to be peaceful and friendly. (Personal special defense.)
Paragraph 267
You feel utterly jubilant over your success in acquiring proof of an alien ability by actually learning how to do it! This sort of proof will be hard for the academic world to refute. You hope you will be able to find two more such abilities so you can return home and publish your research.
Paragraph 267
You feel utterly jubilant over your success in acquiring proof of an alien ability by actually learning how to do it! This sort of proof will be hard for the academic world to refute. You hope you will be able to find two more such abilities so you can return home and publish your research.
1/3 of our mission accomplished!
Well that was quick. It looks like visiting the tutorial planets in order has paid off for us. Will it continue to pay off? Let's take a look at our current status...
...and then decide: Where do we fly next? (Galaxy map)
Monty
Arcane
Agree with Crater, but after that would suggest one of the unnamed planets nearby before heading back over towards Bugeye / Supa (Cathedral also sounds interesting with its 'failed colony' status).
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