Distant Worlds: Legends.

[johnhughthom]

Forming nebulae clouds...
Igniting stellar cores...
Emptying black holes...
Tidying up asteroid fields...
Initiating orbital motion...
Building mining stations...
Repairing battle damage...
Recharging reactors...
Recalibrating hyperdrives...
Fueling pirate ships...


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A Distant Worlds: Legends AAR

2754.01.06

The history of the human inhabitants of Ryas, a moon orbiting the gas giant planet Neroan 4, was a controversial subject, it's ten billion inhabitants had lived under the global rule of the Human Republic for over fifty years now but the preceding history had been twisted and distorted by years of war and infighting. What was certain was it had been united in the past, then splintered in to many factions, with war almost a constant situation, that the inhabitants had survived through to a peaceful coexistence was something of a miracle. The most radical theory was that the inhabitants of the planet were not native, and had fled some other world before a catastrophic event destroyed their home world. Millions of fertilized foetuses had been frozen, and put on a highly advanced spaceship, which was sent out into the galaxy to search for a world that could sustain human life. The ship landed on Ryas and the foetuses were developed into humans, growing in fluid tanks with computers used to simulate childhood growth and experience in the minds of the young colonists. They came out of the tanks, and spread across the planet, growing from a few million to just over ten billion in two thousand years.

Esari Undalian, President of the Human Republic, was pondering this. Historians had recently uncovered evidence that the story was true, and the catastrophe that had led the inhabitants of the home planet had been self inflicted. The Human Republic's technological advances over the past fifty years had been huge, great advances had been made in Undalian's term as President. His people were ready to strike out for the stars. There were many reasons, so as not to make the same mistakes as their people's preprocessors on another worlds, to exploit new resources, search for life, and because not to do it would be unthinkable.


The Human Republic had fully explored the Neroan system over the previous fifty plus years, mining stations orbited the gas giants and dotted the surface of rock and ice planets, extracting valuable resources which would fuel the expansion into the surrounding galaxy.
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The exploration program initiated by President Undalian had visited two nearby stars, the first had no planetary system, but the second did have. It was not thought there was a planet that could be colonised in the Zhar system, but more ships were on the way to see if the system contained any resources that could be used.
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Neroan was in a small star cluster of about 25 stars, the surrounding area had another four larger clusters, with about 400 stars in the vicinity.
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As he signed the order to build another four deep space exploration vessels, President Undalian had a feeling the next few years would be momentous for the Human Republic.

[johnhughthom]

2755.01.20

President Undalian watched the colony ship under construction on Ryas, it was to be unfathomably huge, with a capacity of 30 million people. The construction site, in the middle of a vast desert, made it difficult to grasp the scale, but this was only one part of many being constructed across the planet. Soon they would be launched separately and joined together in space, trying to launch such a vessel under Ryas gravitational pull would take more energy than the entire planet produced in a week. The design was modular, like all Republic vessels, this one was simply on a much larger scale.

The reason for all the construction, Sol 5:
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Discovered a few light years from Ryas, the planet was inhabited by another group of humans. The population here was much smaller than that of Ryas, just over half a billion, they had even less certainty regarding their history than the people of Ryas, believing themselves native to the planet. Ryas scientists are in doubt, however, that they are the descendants of another colony ship from the human homeworld. Their naming of their system, Sol, is seen as a throwback to their origins, as it is a name many historians have come across on Ryas, trying to piece together the origin of humanity.
The people of Sol 5 had been making their own first tentative steps into space, indeed that process had rapidly accelerated in the few months since the Republic exploration vehicle Hardy Interlude had discovered them. It was hoped the settlers from Ryas would bring the system under the Republic's banner, with full citizenship being granted to the residents of Sol 5.

The discovery of Sol 5 could have been the single greatest moment in the history of the Human Republic, while it was a momentous occasion it was not the shock that it may have been. It had been clear that the Human Republic was not alone in the galaxy almost from the moment Undalian launched his great exploration.

Almost the instant the first exhaust fumes cleared from the exploration vessels launch some new "friends" made their appearance. Alien pirates, calling themselves the Neroan Ravagers, attacked Republic mining ships and scientific vessels. The very name they had given themselves made their intent clear, and, despite a divided Republican Council, Undalian made it clear he would not be blackmailed and refused to pay for their "protection".
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The first pirate ship to attack was destroyed by the first fleet, as was the next only a few weeks later. Undalian's construction of a small military fleet had been unpopular and many accused him of imperial designs, it's destruction of the two pirate vessels was seen as vindication and he announced a plan to track down the pirate base and destroy it to stop future attacks. The pirate vessels were no more advanced than the Republic's so he knew the approximate range which narrowed down possible bases for the pirates.
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Around the time of the first pirate attack, another discovery showed that life was perhaps not as scarce as first thought. An abandoned military cruiser, larger than any current Republic vessel was discovered, floating derelict in a vast gas cloud. It was in working order, and the small crew of the exploration vessel Sneaky Treasure were able to board it and ascertain most of the design and systems were similar to Republic technology. A small team stayed on board to return it to Republic space, it would be a vital part of the fleet to rid the region of the Neroan Ravagers. A note was made of the destination in the onboard navigation computer, and an exploration vessel despatched to the location, relatively distant from Ryas, but well within range.
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Undalian glanced at the sky, the ship, which had been christened Fearless Inquisitor was due to enter the Neroan system any day now, he was keen to personally inspect a vessel most probably built by non-human hands.

[johnhughthom]

Outstanding. I wish I'd thought to post mine over here. Looking forward to more!

No reason you can't, just copy paste it over. More people need to see Poland Ball, and find out if can he into... space?

[johnhughthom]

2758.01.01

President Undalian sighed as he sat at his desk, it had been a raucous party the previous evening, a double new year and re-election celebration. A ping came his computer, glancing up he saw it was an incoming transmission from Meshku Kesky. Kesky was the governor of Sol 5, the human planet discovered four years previous. The colonisation had been a difficult process, the first colonists refused entry by the natives. Kesky had gone with the next attempt, and was able to smooth over the issues with the planet becoming a full member of the Human Republic a few months later.

He had called to discuss unrest on Sol 5, after rumours had spread regarding warnings received from a mysterious race of machine entities. The Ancient Guardians were not actual machines, but logic living inside machines. Luckily they were not a gregarious race, and did not want to engage with humanity. This enabled the Republic to keep them secret, a race of pure logic living inside computers was not something that was easy to get your head around after all.

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Luckily other information, corroborating the Guardian's warnings had not been leaked. Ancient ruins on a desert moon had been explored, and information on a race coming into the galaxy and attacking all sentient species.

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Other incidents in the preceding three years included an obelisk on another desert moon containing star charts from a number of surrounding systems and another derelict cruiser being found. This one was a booby trap, bringing home the dangers of exploration yet again. Luckily the exploration vessel was able to be repaired by a construction ship in the same system.

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An ancient fortress was also discovered, a training ground for a race long gone from this sector of space. A huge complex, devoted solely to training superior combatants for land combat. Unfortunately it was in a world inhospitable to human life, as technology grew however, the Republic would keep an eye on it as a potential base for training troops.

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The trouble on Sol 5 was not serious, and Kesky had been able to put it down without difficulty. President Undalian had a feeling that it was far from the end of the problem, the Guardians were a serious bunch and not eager to mix with humans. That they had made the effort to approach the Republic with their fears was a sign of the seriousness with which the machines took the danger that lurked in the galaxy.

[Papewaio]

Very interesting :bow:

[mambaman]

What game is this John?

[johnhughthom]

Distant Worlds: Legends (http://www.matrixgames.com/products/415/details/Distant.Worlds.-.Legends), I wasn't very creative with the title on this one.

[johnhughthom]

2763.01.01

President Undalian began his third term as President of the Human Republic after a landslide election victory. His term of office had seen mankind's knowledge grow, and there was optimism they would soon control a larger part of space, they were unfortunate in their location, being in the smallest star cluster in the region. Once they got a foothold in another cluster they would surely come to dominate the sector of the galaxy.
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They were perpared for colonising the first planet the came across, a colony vessel, believed to be another of those that had colonised Ryas and Sol 5, had been discovered. Most of the onboard data had been corrupted, so they were unable to discover where it had actually come from, but the frozen colonists were fine and the vessel was taken to Ryas, ready to be sent to the first habitable planet found.
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Another ancient relic was discovered, the Unity Forum, a former Galactic centre of diplomacy, it's archives would be a bonus to anyone taking possession. Unfortunately it was in a system inhospitable to human life, and it was not possible to take possession at the present time.
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The previous term had been marked by a number of victories over pirate gangs, three bases had been wiped out, and a third had proclaimed loyalty to the Human Republic and joined. Undalian had been wary of agreeing to take the former pirates, but their base was in a good strategic location and that particular group had never actually attacked human interests.
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Another new menace in space had been uncovered in the past five years, monsters who lived in the cold void of interstellar space! Giant Kaltor, as they were named, would be a potential hazard for smaller vessels. Luckily it was a Republic cruiser that first encountered them, after destroying a pirate base. There were four of them living among the ruins of a derelict fleet, scientists have speculated that they survive by consuming power from the decaying vessels, and some have even suggested using the creatures as weapons. Unfortunately no remains survived the fight, so knowledge of the creatures is limited.
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The Republic decided the derelict vessels were too far from their territory to send construction vessels to repair them, the cruiser was ordered to destroy the cruisers and capital ships so they could not be used against human fleets. A rare chance to test weapons systems against real targets.

An old signal intercept base that had been taken over near another former pirate base interrupted a transmission. It appeared to be decades, or centuries old, but it reinforced previous finds and warnings regarding a potential hostile race. The message was kept from the public, this threat was still only hypothetical, there was no hard evidence it actually existed.
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A sentient race had just revealed themselves before Undalian's re-election, the Boskara. They appeared to be hostile to the Republic, making a number of threats of retaliation if human military did not remove themselves from a Boskara controlled system. Undalian was baffled by this, the Republic had no ships in the system, indeed no human vessel had ever visited it so far as he was aware. To confuse things further, the Boskara offered a gift to the Republic, along with a thinly veiled threat that there was an ulterior, hostile, motive for the move. Undalian had expected to find alien motivations confusing, he hadn't quite expected them to be quite so...alien.
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He had a feeling his third term was going to be rather more exciting than the first two.

[johnhughthom]

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Umm.... Okay. Guess I'll have to look at the victory conditions for my next game.

[Papewaio]

Waiting for the next one. :)

[johnhughthom]

Waiting for the next one. :)

Putting me under pressure!

I actually had an opening post just about finished for another campaign this afternoon, but the darn org crashed on me and I lost it all. Not motivated enough to start another one at the minute. I will though, most likely sometime next week, and probably with an alien race to make that little bit different.

[easytarget]

So, did you fire another up another go at this yet?

I'm actually starting to develop some interest in this game. Despite what I consider a rather cumbersome purchase path.

[johnhughthom]

I've played a few campaigns, but struggled to come up with a decent concept for another bash at an AAR. Have a look in here (http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tt.asp?forumid=793) for some AARs, including an excellent one by our own Gelatinous Cube.

[easytarget]

No worries, I'm not in a big hurry, but I am interested in reading through some AAR's to get a further understanding of the game and how it plays out.

Thx

[johnhughthom]

Mine's on hold until photobucket resets my bandwidth, lol. Thankfully thats only a few days away.

You've used the 10 gb limit?