TL;DR... in space! Star Saga 1: Beyond The Boundary [CYOA/board game/RPG]

[MMXI]

Alright, I've done as CappenVarra suggested and will post the results in the next update, but for now, let's decide where we should fly next so I can also incorporate that in the upcoming update.

Where to next? (Galaxy map)

I'm waiting for at least 3 votes to come in.

I'd like to go to that Gen place but I don't know where it is.

 

[Crooked Bee]

Well, we aren't supposed to know just yet. It's a blind voting.

 

[CappenVarra]

O-283 seems close and convenient (assuming we're on Supa now); I suggest we start there and continue counter-clockwise around the fringe around the Ghost worlds - B-351, B-294, O-228 etc. That gets us new visited worlds, but we are never too far from familiar territory and can make quick shopping trips as needed. Yeah, some space walls will get in the way, but I think it's better to be methodical and keep the bottom left corner of the map for later. Then again, if we want to meet the wildest and strangest aliens, perhaps we should do the opposite and go as far away as possible... But I like prof. Lee and don't want him to die just as his SEX-AXE (Space Exploring Xenobiologist and Adventurer eXtraordinairE) career has started

 

[Erebus]

I'd suggest the blue triangle not too far from Para-Para (I think the number is 163).

 

[Crooked Bee]

Hmm, so many different votes. I see Kz3r0 brofisted CappenVarra's suggestion, though, so I guess we'll take it. O-283 it is. Update incoming soon.

 

[Crooked Bee]

Following CappenVarra's plan, we buy 3 Fiber for 1 Fuel on Cathedral.

Next, in order to give a unit of Fiber to our drone for it to buy 2 Culture on Medsun, we must waste an entire phase trading with the drone. Kinda clunky and inefficient, but hey, whatever works.

Meanwhile, let's explore around a bit. First stop: speaking with the Disciple who lives near the spaceport to learn more of the history of Cathedral.

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Josuel leads you to the Disciple's quarters in a repaired ruin on the fringes of the spaceport. The Disciple is seated in the sunlight in front of the structure, writing in a journal. He is dressed in the costume of a Disciple-Acolyte of the Final Church of Man. Surprised to meet a cleric of the Church outside the Boundary, you greet the Disciple and try to ask him questions. He does not respond. You try again, and finally he looks up and says: "I am here by the sanctified authority of the Church, performing a personal penance on the world where the truths of the Final Church of Man were brought to light. Your companion—" he nods to Josuel— "was born here, and remains here as a result of the sins of his ancestors, who chose to stay on this world when the Word of God decreed that men should return to their homeworlds. You, spacefarer, should not be here. The Church cannot stop you from traveling in space, but whatever you seek there you will find damnation instead. And you are not welcome on this holy world."

Josuel shrugs apologetically to you. Clearly the Disciple is not in the mood for conversation.​

Welp. I assume this is Laran Darkwatch's questline rather than ours.

Meanwhile, the drone arrives to us from wherever he was and we load 1 Fiber onto it. Next turn we send it flying to Medsun Market while we head off to explore the mysterious spaceship ruins:

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Half a day's walk from the field where you landed is the ruin of another much larger spaceport. Its platforms were well constructed, but they are empty now except for a few ferns that have pushed up through cracks in the thermal plastic surface. In the center of the field is the skeleton of a spaceship of pre-Boundary design. Most of the steel plating has been stripped off, but the name Archangel still shows on her bows.

She was enormous, built in the proportions of the great space liners of her day. Those ships were slower than yours, by a factor of twenty. What they lacked in speed they made up for in size. Some were luxurious, carrying all the comforts and amenities that pre-Plague technology and art could create. Most were pure work horses, fitted out to carry hundreds or even thousands of colonists with their possessions and supplies to the expanding colony worlds. Few, in the days before the Boundary, carried weapons of any sort, and they traveled only established routes mapped out painstakingly by teams of explorers. In those days explorers were established and funded by the planetary governments and the liner companies. Even so, dozens of passenger ships were lost to pirates, hostile aliens, and the hazards of space. Most of their stories will never be told, lost in the upheavals that followed the Plague.

Exploring the ruin does not reveal much about the story or purpose of the Archangel. The great hulk has been stripped clean. A few control panels are intact, but there is no log or manifest—only empty circuit housings where they used to be. The Archangel was a very well-designed ship for the day. The lines of the hull are clean, functional, and, you realize after a bit of examination, designed to hold armaments. The weapons are no longer there. Not a single system is functional or even complete enough for repair. The drive engines are useless sculptures of alloy steel from which even the warp core and crystals have been taken.

You notice one odd thing about the drive housings: there seems to have been room in them for extra equipment. The standard Wamirian hyperdrive in use today is the two-axis drive, which suspends the warp core between two anentropic fields, one for each axis. Back in the flying days of the Archangel, the two-axis drive was only a theory, and all ships had but a single axis. This hull, though, seems to have been modified to mount a second and third anentropic field generator. Clearly there was more to the ship than the stories tell. She must have been modified while in space during the famous voyage, but you wonder why it was necessary.​

Ah, the ship of the founding fathers. Intriguing.

The ruins come next.

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You spend several days on foot exploring the ruins of the original human colony cities on Cathedral. They are extensive, indicating that the population was once very high—possibly as many as twenty million, if the settlements were widespread. The largest structures date from about the time of the establishment of the Boundary, being about 300 years old. Much of the construction was light prefab, commonly used in the original colonization period, but obviously unsuitable for longevity here on Cathedral. You suspect that the fabric shelters the inhabitants now make, out of a fibrous material derived from native plants, are more durable.

Cathedral was once the preferred site for religious colonies of many different faiths, and this is evident in the ruins. Rather than one large city, the ruins comprise many smaller settlements in clusters, with a very wide variation in architectural style from cluster to cluster. Many buildings were designed as meeting places or places of worship; clearly they once had ornate windows and spires.

There is no evidence that mass destruction ever took place here. The deterioration has been caused by time and neglect. The ruins have been well scavenged; they are bare not only of small items like tools, utensils, and canned food but also of workable metal fixtures and window glass. One ruin that you explore seems to be a shanty-town built of parts "borrowed" from the other sites, but it too has long since been picked clean.

On the third day of exploration you realize that you are being stalked. Because there is no native animal life on Cathedral, you are not really alert to the possibility of meeting dangerous creatures, so whatever it is is quite close to you by the time you become aware of it. Noticing its movements in the brush nearby, you wonder at first whether it might be a human being. You try to avoid it but it comes closer, and you see that it is a very large and hungry-looking dog. This particular canine has long since forgotten whose best friend it is. Somehow it has survived, as did its ancestors, on this abandoned world with no native animal life. You don't know how, but you can bet it hasn't done it by being weak or afraid of humans.​

Good doggy?

Bad doggy!

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You send the dog away yelping and licking its wounds. Only after its claws and fangs are far away from your throat do you begin to feel a bit of sympathy for the creature. You reject the idea of capturing it and trying to domesticate it; you'd do better with a pure-bred wolf from the preserves of Monument than with that wilderness-bred beast. You set some of your spare provisions on the ground for it to find later. At least, you figure, if it isn't hungry and desperate it's less likely to try to attack you again. Then, with a slightly more wary eye, you return to your explorations.

You find one other site of interest before returning to your ship. It was a settlement of an order of devotees who engraved accounts of important events on large steel plaques inside their temple. Most of the plaques have been removed, but the oldest and newest remain. The oldest tell of the founding of the colony eighty years before the establishment of the Boundary. The order was devoted to prayer and worship to find the spirit of God "on a new world, far from the sins of the old". The last plaque describes the mission of the starship Archangel seventy-five years later. Reverend Eric, the leader of their order, and dozens of other religious leaders from Earth, Leucothea, and Cathedral voyaged on the Archangel in search of incontrovertible answers to the mysteries of the nature of God.

The return of the Archangel was an event that is well-remembered on the Nine Worlds. The ship landed on Cathedral bearing the Holy Text Files written by its crew of clerics. The crew members never again spoke directly of what they had seen or experienced on their voyage, but their Holy Text Files became the basis of a new faith, the Final Church of Man. The Church taught that mankind was wrong to look for answers in the stars, and instead should return to the home worlds and seek a way to remove sin from the human soul. Only then would humans be able to seek their way in the stars. The last inscription describes the dismantling of the colony as the devotees prepared to return to the Nine Worlds, inside the soon-to-be-formed Boundary.

You know the rest of the story. Several years later the Plague decimated humanity. When the cause of the Plague was proven to be a unique disease organism originating in outer space, the new Church became the greatest religious power in history.

The occupants of the settlement seem to have had a penchant for writing on walls, for in addition to the plaques there is graffiti scrawled on almost every remaining wall. Most of it is indecipherable. As you leave the ruins, your last sight is a line of graffiti: "The Final Church of Man", in huge faded letters across the last standing wall of a decaying cathedral.​

The drone trades whatever it has to trade on Medsun. We meanwhile go into the jungles where most of the people live and talk with them, hiring Josuel as interpreter.

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Reluctantly taking Josuel as your guide, you journey into the forests where most of the remaining human population live. The conditions there are a bit of a shock. You expected to see a low-technology society like that of the spaceport town. Instead you see utter squalor of a kind not seen inside the Boundary for centuries. The people are barely articulate and have no technology at all. They shrink in primitive fear from your clothing and Josuel's weapon. Josuel points out the elaborate cloth shelters in which they live, the few scraps of iron they use for cooking utensils, the open fires, the game pens filled with pigs.

"Boundary good them no, hay?" says Josuel. "Better is here than—" he gestures to the sky— "Cathedral, no one lives, but other worlds, no no one at all. Who knows?" It seems that Josuel has learned quite a bit from other spacefarers. He is saying that, if a world Cathedral's size could be reduced to this, how many smaller colonies have died completely? Yet Josuel speaks as if to recite simple fact, without bitterness or accusation.

There does not seem to be much to learn here for your purposes, however. You manage to communicate to Josuel that you wish to learn more about what happened on Cathedral at the time of the establishment of the Boundary. He leads you to the home of a woman known locally as the Prophet.

The Prophet is in fact a young woman who lives, not in isolation, but on the very edge of the populated region. You find her outside a small wooden hut which unlike the others has been painted white. You tell Josuel to greet her according to local custom, but before he can say a word the Prophet addresses you directly.

"Tell the story to all who will listen, is how it begins," she begins, staring upward and reciting from memory. "For the fathers of my mothers and the mothers of my fathers were there, they saw, and they wish it to be told, though their writings are destroyed and their lives hunted. There was a ship that sailed in search of God, a ship full of men who wanted to find God and bring God back home so that they could worship Him. It was from this cathedral the archangel ship went out, and promised to return. But it returned bearing lies and a ship full of liars, who said God is not there, look for Him elsewhere. For the fathers of my grandmothers were on the ship, and they met the Gods. The ship met the Gods on man's farthest outpost. God gave them the truth, which they hid in a place unknown, and returned with lies instead. There, where the archangel fell, the truth they hid. Their shame diminishes us all."

As the woman completes her recitation, you notice that a knot of locals has gathered in a circle around you. The woman retreats into her hut. You step forward to ask questions, but Josuel holds you back. "Her's not even know what are saying," he tells you. "Family hers tells the song parent to child, they remember and say." Josuel says a few words in Cathedral dialect, and the people part to let you by. They do not follow you as you return to the spaceport.

You ask Josuel, "Do all the groups live like that? In tents, with no power or running water?"

"Many better, some worse," he replies. "When astronauts come trade, it's better for all. When the stars are empty, it's hard. Some folks have pipes for water and wires for lights. These have piggies for meat, more useful."​

Fascinating. Yet hardly useful to us.

As we fly to Crater, a random event pops up. ...Or does it?

In an alternate universe...

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"Boss," your computer calls to you, interrupting your reading.

"Yes, what is it?" you ask, looking up from your book.

"I have a ship on my screen coming toward us at a very dangerous velocity. I highly recommend that evasive action be taken immediately, if not sooner."

Your computer certainly has a way of getting your attention.

You leap up from your chair, barking orders and making ready for battle.

"Er, Boss?" the computer asks, interrupting a particularly long and efficient-sounding string of commands of which you were, quite frankly, rather proud.

"...load the cannons... What is it now?" you snap.

"The ship has come to a halt alongside us and the captain wants to speak with you."

"Oh, well go ahead, I guess."

Your communication screen comes to life, revealing an elegantly dressed human male with silver hair and a neatly trimmed goatee.

"Greetings. I am the Captain of the ship which is now alongside yours. My ship is, I fear, in urgent need of resupply."

"Resupply?"

"That's correct. Some of my cargo bays have fallen empty. I was hoping you could lend me some assistance."

"What sort of assistance did you have in mind?" you ask suspiciously. You are beginning to get a bad feeling about this...

"Oh, I think three units of whatever commodities you have handy. Your choice, of course."

"Look, I don't mind lending you a hand if you need help but I don't think there's anything else I can do for you."

"It is I who am sorry. I have not explained myself very well, I'm afraid. You see, either you voluntarily give me the cargo or I shall be forced to take it from you—which would be a most regrettable turn of events."

"But that's piracy!" you sputter indignantly.

"Tsk, tsk, such nasty language," the stranger chides. "And yet so true; allow me to introduce myself. I am called Silverbeard the Pirate."

He patiently waits for you to decide what you will do—fight or make a "donation".

Fight!!!

Uh-oh...

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Silverbeard must have already heard of attack sequence two, because he has no difficulty in evading your shots. He returns fire with a much better success rate and manages to cripple all of your outer weaponry.

"Har, har, har," he chortles evilly, as he grapples with you and boards your vessel. It's all over in a matter of minutes. He takes all your cargo as you stand helplessly by, watching your hard-earned commodities disappear while Silverbeard holds you at bay with an enormous blaster.

He bows graciously when he leaves, and his ship soon disappears from view.

"Boss," your computer begins, "I've been examining Silverbeard's ship readouts. I think we can defeat him when we have made some of our own ship improvements."

You ask what would be required, but all your computer can tell you is that you will need more speed and better armaments. There may be other improvements it is not presently aware of that would be helpful as well. That is something you plan to keep an eye out for while you are exploring the planets in the Fringe.

You ask for the bad news in regard to the ship's damages and find it will take four phases to put things in order. Sighing, you turn to the task at hand and begin repairs.​

Oh my.

Luckily, all that didn't happen (because I backed up the game files). Fuck this shit.

Ahem, yeah. Here's the random event that actually happened:

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"Whee!"

You nearly jump out of your chair in surprise. "What in tarnation was that?" you demand to know.

"We seem to be picking up an alien transmission from somewhere, Boss. Would you like to me to locate and track the signal?"

"Sure, I'd like to know what that awful sound was. It sounded like someone was in agony." You wait nervously while the computer tries to reestablish contact.

"Got it, Boss. I'm opening channels now."

"Whee!" you hear again.

"Hello?" you ask tentatively. "Is there someone there? Do you need assistance?"

You wait in silence, biting your fingernails nervously.

"Whee. We cannot speak now. We are playing with our new toy. Get your own and have some fun. Go to Corbis and look for Super Slip. With this stuff, you can slide anywhere, no friction. Whee!"

"That's all, Boss. I've lost the transmission or they've stopped sending."

You thank your computer and think about what you have just learned.​

Hmm, duly noted.

On Crater, we buy a Stunner and some Entanglement mines.

Stunner: A common hand weapon that delivers an electric shock when it touches your enemy. (Hand-to-Hand Attack Contact.)

Entanglement mines: Space buoys that, when triggered, project strong hypermagnetic forces, making it difficult for a spaceship to fly past. (Ship-to-Ship Attack Special.)​

As we fly to Supa, yet another random event occurs.

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You are "resting" your eyes when you hear a strange but decidedly human-sounding voice call to you from your radio.

"Hello, is there anyone out there?" the voice wants to know.

You instruct the computer to open the transmitting channel and you reply, "Hello, I read you loud and clear."

For the next few minutes you find yourself exchanging pleasantries with an Ensign Grey from the Institute for Space Exploration. She is very friendly and is interested in trading information with you.

You decide that this is a reasonable offer and you accept.

For what little you feel free to tell her (you don't want to give everything away), you receive the following data:

On the planet Gnarsh you will be able to obtain Fluids should you so desire.

That's all you learn. It would seem that you aren't the only one who knows how to play it close to the vest.​

Alright, it's only fair, I guess.

Finally, on Supa, we buy a Stealth System for our ship. Hell yeah. Off to O-283 we fly!

Along the way...

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You are feeling very restless, but are not sure why. You are holding your own out here beyond the Boundary, and have even gotten one of the three alien abilities you need to find before you can return to Harvard.

Maybe that is the problem. You only have one of the abilities so far. You need to start seriously thinking about getting the other two abilities, or you may lose the golden opportunity you have to do anything about the intolerable research conditions back on Harvard.​

The game tries to scare us into hurrying up, but as far as I know there is no time limit on our mission.

Meanwhile, we arrive.

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You know there's a planet here somewhere.

Your map shows a dot in this sector, and a label—Jaquar. So why can't you find anything?

You check your position again, on the Deep-space Navigator, but you're still right where you thought you were, right where there's supposed to be a planet. But there's nothing in sight on your screen except a sun, a few orbiting comets, and an extensive asteroid belt. If there ever was a planet here it must have blown up, thereby creating all the asteroids. You don't know a whole lot about astrophysics (just enough to fly your ship), but even so, the idea seems a little farfetched. Frustrated, you do the only thing possible—take it out on your ship's computer.

"Do you see a planet anywhere around here?"

"Negative."

"Why not?" you demand hotly.

"Because there's no planet here to be seen."

"Then why's it labeled on the map, smarty?"

"The map shows important galactic features, inhabited planets, valuable sources of certain commodities, and the colonies of any spacefaring races. Jaquar must therefore be one of those things."

"So why haven't we found the planet?"

"We have."

"What? Where?"

"Somewhere in this asteroid belt is the logical assumption."

"Oh, I give up. Just let me know when you find something."

"Affirmative, Boss."

You keep yourself busy for the next few hours when you hear your computer say, "Jaquar, ahoy!"

"Where?" you ask, rushing toward the screen. "I don't see anything."

"The asteroids, Boss. Analysis of internal communications indicates a Darscian colony of advanced technical level is located throughout the belt. I've located what appears to be a major spaceport. Would you like me to begin a landing approach?"

Several hours later your ship is safely berthed in an artificial hold, cut into the interior of a small asteroid. The inhabitants appear to be members of an alien race known as Darscians and have the characteristic four arms, two legs, broad, flattened head, and golden fur of their people.

Since you do not yet speak High Darscian (the prevailing language here), your first action after landing is to look into ways to learn it. Only one clear choice presents itself:

• EOMFNI (14 phases, or 7 phases with Telepathy or a Universal Translator) Hire a local instructor and have him teach you High Darscian. This option will cost you one cargo unit of your choice.

Well, this could take a while. On the other hand, there is no time limit, and hey, maybe these aliens can teach us a new ability? So what do we do?

Do we learn High Darscian, and if we do, what commodity do we trade for it? (Current cargo: 1 Fiber, 1 Food, 1 Crystals, 1 Fuel, 1 Primordial Soup)

 

[CappenVarra]

Cool.

Since we're a Xenobiologist, the choice is clear: yes, learn the language!

Trade Fuel or Fiber, they're easy enough to get.

Also, updated inventory (btw, did you buy the Hypnotic Gas Sprayer as well? Can't see it in the update, so let me know to keep track):

Inventory

Personal (7/13)
    - Attack (4/8)
      1. Contact: Stunner (1/3)
      2. Projectile: Exploder, Blaster (2/3)
      3. Special: Hypnotic Gas Sprayer (1/2)
    - Defense (3/5)
      1. Armor: Skin Armor, Laser Reflector (2/3)
      2. Mobility: none (0/1)
      3. Special: Phrrm (1/1)
Ship (5/13)
    - Attack (3/6)
      1. Contact: Ram (1/2)
      2. Projectile: Photon Torpedoes (1/3)
      3. Special: Entanglement Mines (1/1)
    - Defense (2/7)
      1. Armor: none (0/2)
      2. Mobility: none (0/3)
      3. Special: Pulse Inverter, Stealth System (2/2)

 

[Crooked Bee]

Yes, I bought the Sprayer. Forgot to mention that.

 

[Monty]

Well, I guess 'meeting' Silverbeard gives us something to aspire to in terms of weaponry! Judging by our scores he was far more powerful.

Agree we should learn the language, it could help us find an ability or some useful trading.

Let's trade the fiber. We can use our fuel for more munitions, munitions for more fuel, then fuel for more fiber.

 

[Monty]

PS: Judging by the Silverbeard combat screen it appears that the pulse inverter is a defense 'special', I thought it was 'armor' too...

 

[CappenVarra]

PS: Judging by the Silverbeard combat screen it appears that the pulse inverter is a defense 'special', I thought it was 'armor' too...

Thanks, updated the inventory to show it in the proper category.

 

[Stygian Lurker]

We learn the language, and we are not giving Primordial Soup. Any of the other commodities is OK.

 

[Crooked Bee]

As a Xenobiologist, Professor Dambroke is more than willing to take as much time as needed to learn the alien language.

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Your instructor, a short female Darscian named Yarlec, comes to your ship to teach you High Darscian. Yarlec is endlessly patient with you as you learn the strange vocabulary and grammar of the language. With her help you find alternate ways of mouthing certain of the High Darscian consonants which are unpronounceable without the Darscians' hinged palate. You practice basic conversation and reading from early in the morning to late in the evening every day.

While Yarlec is teaching you the language, she also teaches you a lot about Darscian customs, history, and culture. You learn the following:

Unlike some galactic species, Darscians are a totally peaceful and nonaggressive race. They are tranquil, non-violent, and in control of their actions at all times. They feel only positive emotions, and seldom display even those, preferring to keep their feelings private.

They are also very intelligent, determined, and resourceful, and have developed a highly advanced civilization, being proficient at such things as interstellar space travel, communication with aliens, and colonization of other planets. Yet they have no weapons, and no conflicts with other spacefarers. They accomplish what they want without competing with other races or each other. That is their way.

The Darscian race wasn't always so nice. In the beginning, they were almost as violent and inconsistent as humans. They fought wars amongst themselves, felt negative emotions such as anger, fear, and jealousy, and required complex bureaucratic governments to keep control of their people. Today, they are ashamed of their barbaric past and are thankful that they will never be like that again.

The reason they can be so certain of this lies back in their history over sixty thousand years ago. At that time, their violent ancestors had not yet developed interstellar space travel and were thus confined to their home planet, Darscold. There they struggled with a number of difficult problems: war, pollution, mutation, overpopulation, disease, and so on.

One day, alien explorers of great power and technological sophistication came to Darscold. These aliens, who were later named the "Mentors", landed and introduced themselves as a friendly race who wanted to help get rid of some of the Darscians' troubles. They gave many things, such as neutreonic medicine, rudimentary antigravity, and chemical processes for renewing the polluted environment. They freely offered advice on all matter of political, economic, and sociological problems. They said they did not travel often in this part of the galaxy, but when they did, they liked to help any young intelligent races that they found. But they withheld the greatest gift of all, and the one the Darscians coveted most: the secret of interstellar space travel.

They asked the Mentors why this secret was withheld from them. They were still confined to this one planet, and were subject to its whims. If a stray asteroid were to collide with their world, it would be the end of the Darscian race. It was only by traveling to other stars, and colonizing other planets, that survival could be guaranteed.

The Mentors answered that their race was too aggressive and too violent to roam freely about the galaxy. The Darscians would interfere with other worlds and with more primitive races who could not defend against their technological prowess. If they truly wanted to travel to other stars, they must promise never to use space as a battleground, never to fight another war. If this promise were made, the Mentors would give them what they wanted.

The Darscians happily accepted the Mentors' offer and got the warp drive in exchange for giving up violence forever. The Mentors enforced the terms of the bargain by actually changing the Darscians' genetic makeup so they could not possibly fight a war. Within a month a new and better Darscian race was created. Aggressive instincts that had been passed along the evolutionary ladder were suddenly gone.

No modern Darscian could even think of committing a violent act, even in self-defense. They are unable to feel anger, hatred, greed, jealousy—all the savage emotions that created so much trouble for them so long ago.

The Mentors were never seen again. In one month they gave the Darscians more than they could have accomplished themselves in two hundred thousand years of evolution. War had been eliminated in exchange for a permanent peace. The Darscians were free to fly among the stars.

Some think that one day the Mentors will return. Others believe that the Mentors grant each race only one visit, and rejoice in the knowledge that the Darscians made good use of theirs.

You have learned everything you can here, including a proficiency in High Darscian. You thank Yarlec for her time and patience as well as for the interesting history lesson.

As you make your way through the city, you wonder what became of the Mentors, a race obviously much more advanced than any you have yet seen. You mull this over while you make your way back to the ship.​

These "Mentors" sound kinda scary, don't you think?

In exchange for the language course, we hand over 1 unit of Fiber.

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Jaquar does, in fact, turn out to be a colony carved into a hundred different asteroids. Despite having originally evolved on a world with a considerably greater gravitational field than Earth's, the Darscians seem to have adjusted remarkably well to a life of virtual weightlessness.

You, however, are amazed that anyone could live in such an environment. The lack of gravity and atmosphere would have discouraged virtually any other sentient race from attempting to establish a viable colony here. Your estimation of the Darscian people as a whole has increased greatly.

Jaquar, once you get used to its unique geography, is much like any other inhabited area; as with the other planets you have explored, you are faced with a number of possible uses for your time:

• UOOFFI (3 phases) Visit the Interstellar Trader's Market, located on the same rock as the spaceport.
• E8MHNA (3 phases) Learn something about all the Darscian planets.
• U8OHFA (7 phases) Spend some time studying the technology involved in the fantastic manipulation of mass and inertia the Darscians seem to have accomplished in their weightless environment.
• AO6FPI (5 phases) Learn about the robot-controlled shuttles the Darscians have equipped with jump engines to transport goods between the asteroids.

We check out the market and the robot shuttles first.

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Jaquar has quite a trading market and appears to be frequently visited by traders from other Darscian worlds.

When you arrive at the Interstellar Market Office you find Jaquar has Crystals to trade in the following amounts:

• 1 Crystals for 1 Iron
• 2 Crystals for 1 Fuel
• 3 Crystals for 1 Radioactives

You may select this option again.​

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There is a single company responsible for building all of the inter-asteroid shuttles—Darscians don't believe in competition! It's called the Ship Works. They specialize in jump engine drones the Darscians find useful in transporting ore from inside their system to the various Darscian worlds throughout the galaxy.

Such ships are useful for storing and transporting cargo. They can be used to make trades at any markets you have already visited that allow drones to participate in trade. They are also helpful in trading with other players for both items and cargo. Because of its jump engine, the drone ship only takes one turn to travel to its destination and complete its trade. In the meantime, you are free to continue on your own way with no loss of time for the additional move. The only drawback is the jump engine's lethal effect on living organisms who are unlucky enough to be aboard. The trick, therefore, is to send only nonliving cargo.

You are very interested in the conditions of trade for such a ship and, after inquiring, you learn the ships are available for sale.

One 3-cargo bay drone ship may be purchased here for the following: 2 Iron and 1 Fuel.

You may select this option again.​

Oh well, this would be good if we didn't already have a 3-cargo bay drone.

Anyway, I assume we'll want to check out all the options available to us on this planet, but first I want you to tell me:

1. Do we trade, and what and where? (Including drone trading if you think it is practical at this point.)

Current cargo: 1 Crystals, 1 Fuel, 1 Food, 1 Primordial Soup

2. Where to next? (After we've finished exploring Jaquar, I mean.) Do we follow CappenVarra's earlier suggestion and explore the unknown planets counter-clockwise, or not? (Galaxy map)

 

[CappenVarra]

So far, nothing new that needs buying... Not sure if we want to overstock our limited cargo space... but perhaps drone-trade 1 Food for 2 Tools on Crater (Tools being somewhat rarer than other commodities so far) and local-trade 1 Fuel for 2 Crystals?

Other than that, depends on further developments.

Also, The Final Church of Man did the Plague! Good thing we're a man of science

 

[CappenVarra]

All right, all right... since I'm apparently the official Armorer of the expedition, here's a little something to wake you guys up: a list of items we could buy if we gain access to only 1 new commodity (ordered to prioritize ship-to-ship items since we're weaker in that area).

Fluids
- [Crater] Warp winder (1 Culture and 1 Fluids) (Ship-to-Ship Defense Mobility)
- [Supa] Nuclear Rockets (1 Tools and 1 Fluids) (Ship-to-Ship Attack Projectile)

Medicine
- [Moiran] Auxiliary rockets (1 Medicine and 1 Fiber) (Ship-to-Ship Defense Mobility)
- [Supa] Stress Bulkheads (1 Fuel and 1 Medicine) (Ship-to-Ship Defense Armor)

Iron
- [Moiran] Magnetic deflectors (1 Food and 1 Iron) (Ship-to-Ship Defense Armor)
- [Wellmet] Force field (1 Culture, 1 Crystals, 1 Fiber, and 1 Iron) (Hand-to-Hand Defense Armor)

Computers
- [Moiran] Neuron Whip (1 Computers and 1 Munitions) (Hand-to-Hand Attack Special)

Radioactives
- [Moiran] Missile toes (1 Fiber and 1 Radioactives) (Hand-to-Hand Defense Mobility)


The accumulated cost of these items in commodities we can already get is: 2 Culture, 1 Tools, 1 Munitions, 3 Fiber, 1 Food, 1 Crystals, 1 Fuel. Since that's already too much cargo to hold (let alone leave space for new commodities), we can speculate on the cargo load-out that will leave us in the best position for future acquisitions - which seems to be achievable with a simple 3 step plan:

- (0) current (1 Crystals, 1 Fuel, 1 Food, 1 Primordial Soup) 4/10
- (1) drone-trade 1 Crystals for 3 Fuel on Para-Para (4 Fuel, 1 Food, 1 Primordial Soup) 6/10
- (2) drone-trade 1 Fuel for 3 Fiber on Cathedral (3 Fuel, 3 Fiber, 1 Food, 1 Primordial Soup) 8/10
- (3) drone-trade 1 Fiber for 2 Culture on Medsun (3 Fuel, 2 Fiber, 2 Culture, 1 Food, 1 Primordial Soup) 9/10

We can then easily get other required commodities from the above list (depending on which new kind we find) - but only once we actually do find it, since we're out of space:
- trade 1 Fuel for 2 Crystals on Jaquar
- trade 1 Fuel for 3 Fiber on Cathedral
- trade 1 Crystal for 3 Fuel on Para-Para
- trade 1 Fuel for 3 Munitions on Wellmet
- trade 1 Fuel for 1 Tools on Crater (or 1 Fiber for 2 Culture on Medsun, then 1 Culture for 2 Tools on Crater)
- ...

There you go: the state of the future acquisition prediction art, in service of prof. Dambroke's mission.

 

[Kz3r0]

We follow CappenVarra's earlier suggestion and explore the unknown planets counter-clockwise.

 

[Erebus]

I'd suggest going to 294 next, since it's rather out of the way and hard to access. Then we can go to 351 and keep exploring counter-clockwise.

 

[Stygian Lurker]

1. Do we trade, and what and where? (Including drone trading if you think it is practical at this point.)
I think that we need to boost our ship fighting capabilities. But I'm not sure what would be the best thing to buy.

2. Where to next? (After we've finished exploring Jaquar, I mean.) Do we follow CappenVarra's earlier suggestion and explore the unknown planets counter-clockwise, or not?
Here I agree with Erebus, lets go to 294 next, and continue exploring counter-clockwise after that.

 

[MMXI]

I've finally caught up. There's definitely a tasteful rape joke in there somewhere regarding the Darscians and their inability to feel anger, hatred, greed or jealousy.

Also, the Mentors do indeed seem strange...

 

[Monty]

I also like the idea of going to 294 and then counter-clockwise. I would guess that the rarest commodities (and most dangerous planets) are probably right at the furthest edge of the map (eg 260, 377). 294 is probably about as adventurous as we can get right now with our relatively weak ship, and we're near to it.

CappenVarra has the trading angle covered again. Anyone know if there is any limit to the number of systems we can fit, ie: if we get both the stress bulkheads and magnetic deflectors would we be prevented from potentially installing any more advanced armor we find later?

 

[Crooked Bee]

CappenVarra has the trading angle covered again. Anyone know if there is any limit to the number of systems we can fit, ie: if we get both the stress bulkheads and magnetic deflectors would we be prevented from potentially installing any more advanced armor we find later?

I don't think so. Iirc you can pretty much buy any piece of equipment you come across, but it is only the best one in each category that counts during combat.

 

[Crooked Bee]

We decide not to trade just yet; after all, we can always do it later. Instead, let's try learning something about all the Darscian planets.

Paragraph 185

During your exploring you've put together some interesting data regarding the Darscian people.

You learn there are five Darscian worlds: Darscold, the home planet, and four colony worlds, all of which are strongly tied together through trade. The four colony planets are all virtually impossible to inhabit; it is only through the Darscians' strength of will to populate those worlds that settlements are kept there.

Darscold is where the race originally began. It is the only Darscian world with reasonable planetary living conditions. Civilization has reached a Golden Age here and their main trade item is Culture.

Fiara is a high-gravity planet from which the Darscians' superb anti-gravity technology sprang. Their main trade item is Fiber.

Gazan is the Darscian people's most unstable colony. Not mentally, but rather in a physical sense. The constant planet-quakes and atmospheric turbulence make it a very difficult planet to build upon. Its major trade item is Iron.

Ioreth is a planet teeming with life. Unfortunately it is completely poisonous to every life form with which you are familiar, so it's not surprising to learn that their main trade item is Medicines.

Jaquar is a far-reaching colony, strewn across a cluster of asteroids, making interpersonal relationships a bit difficult. It has Crystals for trade.​

Sounds useful, but obviously we have to discover all those other planets first.

Next stop: studying the Darscians' mass and inertia technology.

Paragraph 182

After speaking with several Darscian scientists and doing some investigating of your own, you learn quite a bit about their mass and inertia technology.

Since their home world has always been incredibly overpopulated, the Darscians have been colonizing wherever they could. They were hampered by two phenomena. First, most of the inhabitable worlds in the galaxy have already been taken by other races, either through birth or colonization. Second, the Darscians are completely nonaggressive and have no chance at competing for the remainder of the good colonizing planets. So, the inventive race decided to opt for colonizing worlds other races wouldn't look at twice. Like a belt of asteroids.

When the Darscians first landed on Jaquar, they were as adversely affected by zero gravity as humans would be, but, in order to make the weightless asteroids a viable colony, they worked hard on a means to overcome the ill effects.

They discovered a field generator that projected a sphere of influence which acted on bodies outside the sphere as if the body inside the sphere had no mass. Ergo the ease of maneuverability. At the same time, the body inside the sphere felt as if there was one gravity acting upon it, so the debilitating effects of zero gravity were not present. The end result was a device that allowed the user to change speed and direction with no adverse reactions upon their own body. It is not uncommon to see a Darscian flying through space at great speeds and make ninety degree turns with just the flip of a switch. What a fabulous concept!

While you are doing this research, you make quite an impression on the local Darscians. Although you are not exactly clumsy in your efforts to get from one place to another, you ain't very graceful either.

One Darscian, whose name you never caught, feels some compassion for you, because she offers you a spare Mass & Inertia Control Belt she has with her, and you graciously accept.

You spend the next several days flying in sheer delight.

Inertia Control Belt: A device that controls the effects of inertia and momentum of a person, allowing one to instantaneously change speed and direction. (Hand-to-hand Defense Mobility.)​

Cool, the more defense items we have the better.

294-B is our next destination.

Baphi's the name. I wonder what we find here.

Paragraph 375

Orbiting this planet is a little trickier than usual because you must correct for the pull of four different moons which are all fairly large and quite close to the planet's surface. Baphi itself is not much bigger than Venus, in the Sol system, but appears from space to be a green and hospitable world. Your geophysical survey equipment indicates little in the way of heavy metals in the planetary crust and no trace of animal life on the surface. Both earthquake activity and ocean tides look to be major problems on Baphi, so you set your ship's computer to the task of analyzing the lunar orbits and their effect on planetary surface conditions. You begin to look for a place to land.

As you begin your final approach, however, your survey gear suddenly indicates a locus of artificial construction just to one side of your glide path. You quickly swing the ship back into orbit and plot a new approach that will bring you down close to the anomaly reported by your ship's instruments.

The artificial construction turns out to be a colony dome, long abandoned, of some alien race. Inside, you are able to glimpse shattered buildings and jumbles of machinery; the dome itself is cracked in several places and overgrown with Baphi's native vegetation—a kind of giant algae. There is absolutely no sign of any animate life form anywhere in the vicinity.

You take several days to set up a safe camp and make preliminary surveys of the surrounding country. At the end of that time you have the following possibilities to choose from:

• HHAA66 (4 phases) Investigate a high concentration of apparently poisonous, but perhaps very valuable, chemicals not far from your landing site.
• HXCAU6 (5 phases) Explore the abandoned colony dome.

I'm not gonna make you vote on this, because we'll be exploring all the available options anyway.

I don't think our Professor is afraid of poison.

Paragraph 23

What appears to have been a chemical waste dump is located between your ship and the ruined colony. Tests on the materials there show chemicals in high enough concentrations that you believe you can economically extract the commodity known as Fluids from the glop.

With some effort, you find you have purified enough of this material to produce one cargo bay's worth of Fluids.

You may select this option again.​

Yay, free Fluids. And we can pick up even more of them here should you so desire.

Now to the abandoned dome.

Paragraph 588

It dawns on you, while you are picking your way through the fractured wreckage of the colony dome, that the aliens who colonized here must have been from a moonless world. Clearly, they had no idea of the tidal forces which Baphi's four moons could generate. The moons must have come into some unusual conjunction, perhaps with the sun as well, so that their combined effects made it seem like the whole planet was being ripped asunder. There might have been earthquakes, and ocean tides greater than fifty meters. The colony dome, shaken from below and inundated from above, could not possibly have withstood the stress. What strikes you as truly remarkable, now that you think about it, is that the entire site wasn't swept clean.

Sifting through the wreckage reveals a great deal of rusting equipment, which you don't have time to catalog in this, your first brief visit. Although you can make few guesses as to the nature of the aliens who lived here, they were obviously technologically advanced, perhaps more so than you. The dome was constructed of a lightweight plastic material, and must obviously have had more to hold it together than is presently meeting your eye, perhaps something like a force field generator.

Examination of the remaining wreckage offers you other tantalizing hints of their scientific prowess. You notice one partially standing structure from which the low pitched humming of power is emanating. You also see some large pieces of equipment that still seem to be intact.

You have the following options:

• HXAC6U (5 phases) Explore the building with the humming sound.
• XXCCUU (3 phases) Search through the wreckage for possibly usable materials.
• DHQA86 (3 phases) Try to reconstruct the (hypothetical) force field that must have held the dome together.

Let's try finding something we could use here first.

Paragraph 11

This time you begin a systematic search of the entire colony, dividing the ground into quadrants and then searching each thoroughly.

You strike paydirt almost at once, uncovering some strange sort of exercise machine, obviously built for alien bodies. Intrigued by its design and its near perfect condition, you attempt to turn it on—and succeed! Apparently it was designed to run on battery power, since the dome has obviously long since been without its own power source.

While you are admiring your success, you inadvertently get too close to the machine, which grabs you up, spins you around, and begins to "exercise" you. Although your anatomy is no doubt substantially different from that of the aliens who designed the machine, the machine doesn't know that. Your arms aren't long enough to reach the power switch again, and there seem to be no other controls.

For the better part of an hour you are bent and twisted, prodded and poked, and heated and cooled by the machine, before it at last spits you out. Hastily, you turn it off and bury it again in the rubble.

You approach the rest of your search with a somewhat more careful attitude, but it scarcely matters since you don't find anything anyway. A final race around the colony (you seem faster all of a sudden), and you head back to your ship for the night.

After some preliminary tests you decide that the alien machine did, somehow, increase your speed. You can now move and react faster than you did before. What luck!

Superhuman Speed: The ability to run almost as fast as your favorite comic book hero. (Hand-to-Hand Defense Mobility.)​

Holy shit, this means we got our second alien ability!



But what about that force field?

Paragraph 797

Setting to work with the most likely-looking pieces of twisted and mangled machinery from the center of the dome, you begin an effort spanning several days to reconstruct the hypothetical force field generator which must have been used to support the dome's flimsy structure. You hope to learn enough to build a similar system for your ship.

Several days later you are still studying blasted machine parts, but at least now you know that your guess about a shield generator was correct. Although none of the original parts are presently in working order, you have managed to draw up a set of blueprints that should allow you to build a ship shield generator, if you can gather the necessary components.

You will need one unit each of Phase Steel, Warp Core, Munitions, Fluids, Radioactives, and Fiber. Once you are in possession of all these things, you know that you can assemble a working Ship Shield Generator. When you have all of the components, choose the following option:

• DMQN8J Build a Ship Shield Generator.

Please make a note of this action code; it is an "unlisted" action, so you will need to enter the code manually when you are ready to build a Shield Generator.​

That sounds handy, but obviously we don't have the materials yet.

And finally, it's time to investigate the humming sound.

Paragraph 830

You cautiously enter the intriguing building and make your way over to the source of the strange humming sound.

You find an elaborate case in which an ornate helmet has been placed. The humming seems to come from a power pack which leads directly to the helmet. Whatever the helmet may do, it is still active.

You carefully pick the helmet up and gingerly place it on your head. For a moment nothing happens. Suddenly you "feel" a bright flash of light inside your head, and you lose all touch with the physical world.

You feel your consciousness expanding throughout the planet. You feel yourself freed from bodily constraints. Within minutes your soul is as one with the planet Baphi, with the tide-racked oceans, the endless carpet of algae, and the hidden volcanoes. Relaxed, you feel the planet take you over.

And now you know there's something not quite right about it all. You sense that something in Baphi is awakening, earlier than it should, in response to something coming from beyond the planet, something like the sunlight which bathes it every day, but from a source far more distant.

You struggle with the feeling, yearn like the rest of the planet for the moment when you can be truly awake. But it does not come; you need more time, or more of the... something... from beyond the planet.

You reach toward space, but find yourself awake instead, and pondering the meaning of what you have just experienced.

It is not easy, but you manage to remove the helmet before you can be lured back into the seductive dream world you have just left.

Your head is throbbing from the jolt of energy you received and you feel disjointed and lethargic. Although you feel you can learn something very important from the alien device, you are afraid of probably damage your brain is incurring from the helmet. It is not, after all, designed for use by humans.

 

[CappenVarra]

For the better part of an hour you are bent and twisted, prodded and poked, and heated and cooled by the machine, before it at last spits you out. Hastily, you turn it off and bury it again in the rubble.

And it gets us Superhuman Speed, no less.

I vote for leaving the helmet be. Mind-melding with algae doesn't sound like such a grand idea to me. Yeah, the green dragon is sleeping and waits for the message of outer-space radiation to wake it, sure. Now leave it be and explore space!

On to Armorer duty: free Fluids!

- current (1 Crystals, 1 Fuel, 1 Food, 1 Fluids, 1 Primordial Soup) 5/10
- extract 1 more unit of Fluids here (1 Crystals, 1 Fuel, 1 Food, 2 Fluids, 1 Primordial Soup) 6/10
- drone-trade 1 Fuel for 3 Fiber on Cathedral (1 Crystals, 3 Fiber, 1 Food, 2 Fluids, 1 Primordial Soup) 8/10
- drone-trade 1 Fiber for 2 Culture on Medsun (1 Crystals, 2 Fiber, 2 Culture, 1 Food, 2 Fluids, 1 Primordial Soup) 10/10
- goto Crater, buy Warp winder (Ship-to-Ship Defense Mobility) (1 Crystals, 2 Fiber, 1 Culture, 1 Food, 1 Fluids, 1 Primordial Soup) 8/10
- drone-trade 1 Culture for 2 Tools on Crater (1 Crystals, 2 Fiber, 2 Tools, 1 Food, 1 Fluids, 1 Primordial Soup) 9/10
- goto Supa, buy Nuclear Rockets (Ship-to-Ship Attack Projectile) (1 Crystals, 2 Fiber, 1 Tools, 1 Food, 1 Primordial Soup) 7/10


EDIT:

Inventory

Personal (9/15)
  - Attack (4/8)
      1. Contact: Stunner (1/3)
      2. Projectile: Exploder, Blaster (2/3)
      3. Special: Hypnotic Gas Sprayer (1/2)
  - Defense (5/7)
      1. Armor: Skin Armor, Laser Reflector (2/3)
      2. Mobility: Inertia Control Belt, Superhuman Speed (2/3)
      3. Special: Phrrm (1/1)
Ship (5/14)
  - Attack (3/6)
      1. Contact: Ram (1/2)
      2. Projectile: Photon Torpedoes (1/3)
      3. Special: Entanglement Mines (1/1)
  - Defense (2/8)
      1. Armor: Pulse Inverter (1/4)
      2. Mobility: none (0/3)
      3. Special: Stealth System (1/1)

 

[CappenVarra]

Hm, I should probably change the inventory numbers to show "current items / items we know about but don't have yet" instead of "current items / total items" - since we're constantly discovering new items, there's no point in tracking completion progress of a moving number...

Something like

Inventory

Personal (9/6)
  - Attack (4/4)
      1. Contact: Stunner (1/2)
      2. Projectile: Exploder, Blaster (2/1)
      3. Special: Hypnotic Gas Sprayer (1/1)
  - Defense (5/2)
      1. Armor: Skin Armor, Laser Reflector (2/1)
      2. Mobility: Inertia Control Belt, Superhuman Speed (2/1)
      3. Special: Phrrm (1/0)
Ship (5/9)
  - Attack (3/3)
      1. Contact: Ram (1/1)
      2. Projectile: Photon Torpedoes (1/2)
      3. Special: Entanglement Mines (1/0)
  - Defense (2/6)
      1. Armor: Pulse Inverter (1/3)
      2. Mobility: none (0/3)
      3. Special: Stealth System (1/0)

Or move the numbers elsewhere completely... Dunno.

 

[Monty]

Great update again. I would assume the Professor would naturally tend towards trying the helmet again, he is after all on a voyage of discovery to learn more about the galaxy, so it would be hard to turn this opportunity down. But it seems we have far more to lose than to gain. Having already gained a special ability here the helmet probably offers interesting revelations about the alien life on the planet, but nothing critical to our mission. On the other hand a brain damaged Professor is not much use to anyone.

So would love to find out more but vote for caution in this case, let's leave the helmet alone.

PS: CappenVarra, I think the new inventory format is a bit clearer and clearly shows what we're lacking.