Game Stories

[BeeDee10]

The game I remember the fondest at the moment was also the most bloodless I can ever recall playing to its conclusion. I began with the intention of being a near-Neutral race, content to live peacefully without expansionistic bent. Imagine my delight when my home system ended up with _two_ huge native-atmosphere planets in addition to my homeworld; I'd be able to build up a nice little civilization without having to spread out at all.

Despite our lack of expansionistic intent, my people were still highly inquisitive and interested in what lay beyond their horizons. After colonizing those two big new worlds, we sent unarmed long-range scouts out through our home system's two warp points to see what lay beyond. One warp point led to the home system of the Zynarra Holdings, and the other led to the home system of a people known as the Praetorians. The Praetorians were engaged in rapid expansion, so there was some initial concern over their intentions towards us, but it seems they were happy to focus their attention in directions other than our home system and so we forged a secure and long-Lasting alliance. Ditto the Zynarra, who like us weren't interested in occupying every system they could reach.

Ah, good times, peaceful times. My little unarmed scouts penetrated all of the accessable universe on epic multiyear journeys, making contact with alien civilizations and then making peace with them so rapidly that they never wanted for resupply; there was always an ally nearby who was willing to send them on their way with a full load of fuel. The three worlds of my home system were fully developed with a population of around eight billion in total, most of them devoted to pure research.

And then those researchers reported a disturbing discovery; there was a plasma instability in the core of our sun. They predicted that it would continue to magnify, and that in three years' time our home system would be destroyed in a supernova.

Naturally, this information was a major shock to me and the ruling council. There was no explanation for what had caused this so suddenly, and no way was known to stop the explosion from happening. We had three years in which to evacuate our race's entire population, but no transports to do it with and nowhere to move them to. Furthermore, although our neighbours were our allies, how would they react to our sudden desperate need for new living space? We had only limited weapons and shipbuilding technologies, and no navy beyond a small coast guard fleet.

Fortunately, panic was not in our peoples' natures. First and foremost: Suspend all current pure research projects and devote all effort into designing bigger transport ships and cargo-hauling technologies. Second: find someplace to move our people to. There was an excellent planet in the home system of the Zynarra holdings, and since they neither breathed the same atmosphere as us nor had the technology to colonize that type of planet we felt it was a reasonable request to put a colony there. The Zynarra were most agreeable.

Still, just one planet in just one system? This sort of all-eggs-in-one-basket is what got our people into this desperate situation in the first place. The Praetorians also had a planet that was ideal for our people, though they had already colonized it with a small domed outpost of their own. We purchased it off of them in exchange for some of our technological advances.

With destinations secured, and our tireless researchers producing plans for population transports capable of hauling a billion people each in quick order, the Exodus began in earnest. It was a heart-rending experience leaving behind our race's home like that, with no overt indication that anything was even slightly awry. We'd had to keep the information secret from our own people until just a few months before we started shipping people out, in order to prevent our allies from learning of our dire straights before we'd ensured they would welcome us.

We stripped the home system bare, even taking the constellations of defence satellites with us and dismantling our planetary facilities for raw materials to rebuild on our new homes. But on each planet approximately a million people refused to the Last to board the evacuation ships. We respected their wishes, as much as it pained us.

The Last transport dropped a few sensor buoys to record the death of our star and left. Our former home system was destroyed the next turn.

Coming soon: Part 2, in which a peaceful people turn paranoid.

[Mordante]

(In which the 3rd placed player in a large pbem game attempts to ensure revenge against his foes by surrendering his entire empire to the second place player)

*Senate Homeworld; Productivity, Aldan System, Central Military District, Shards Protectorate*

Unified Galactic Calendar 2404.1

Dusk on Productivity is a time of peace and pause, a contemplative period of self-examination and gentle jest in company or isolation. The million lights of the city of industry are dim suggestions of the gleaming majesty to come. The factories are still, the process silent, the crystalline spires of vision cloaked lightly in the ironic murmurs of a populous at play.

Today the world is host to guest-ambassadors from the great and glorious Playbodium consortium; a loose affiliation of pornographers turned merchant adventurers and free-lance spin-doctors from the spinward reaches of the galactic cluster.

The Playbodium/Shards relationship is an old and an odd one; and in the years since first contact, the Senate had endeavoured to build friendship and cooperation with the eccentric pervert-forces of Playbodium Primus. In recent years this relationship suffered greatly when the Playbodiums attempted to interfere with the Senate’s rimward expansion into contested space, culminating in the “broken peace” atrocity when Playbodium forces were intercepted by a Senate carrier group in the process of invading the Wertreken system with a “Jiz” class mine-layer.

In recent months the truce had been restored with the Playbodiums agreeing to cede the Qornor system in part-payment for their past infractions in the field of espionage, disinformation and (albeit) talentless martial aggression.

Now the Playbodium ambassador “Girthus Stem” had come to Productivity in an heralding bow-wake of diplomatic froth and high-handed incivility. Refusing to discuss politics by sub-space, the obese Playbodium claimed his right to speak before the gathered Senate of the Shards Protectorate and the ambassadors of many allied and assimilated neighbouring species.

Galadan hall of public works had been cleared and appointed with the accouchements of diplomacy for the occasion; seven full senators of the oligarchy were standing present and serene, while a host of lesser dignitaries lined the approaches to the glittering splendour of the adamantine conference chamber.

To the left “Girthus Stem” lurched past quarrelling ambassadors from the Shanshu Imperium and LGM Collective. The Shanshu dignitary cloaked in a shadowed robe of star-silk and counter surveillance drones; the LGM diplomatic staff croaking complaints and inducements in a pointed barrage of lisping undertones.

To the right the Playbodium trundles past the waiting agents of the Emphirian Hive and Sarnek Pash. The Emphirian’s anxious and agitated; the Sarnek Pash leaking swamp-stinking liquid from their poorly-designed environmental suits.

Now approaching the conference hall Girthus Stem draws up his not inconsiderable bulk and belches once, twice, and a third time for luck, before breaking wind in the general direction of the representatives of various minor non-aligned pocket empires and twilight powers.

“Representatives of the Senate of Shards”, the Playbodium begins without preamble, “I am here to strike a mighty blow against the tyranny of your empire, to roar defiance at the plans you have set, to begin the struggle which will seal your doom … to break the crystal table settings of your hopes upon the brushed-steel ornamental dildo of our revenge!”

Rising silently to address this tirade, the seven senators of the oligarchy gaze with polite smiles at the impromptu theatre of the absurd being re-enacted for their pleasure.

“No more will the Playbodiums suffer the insufferable good-natured cooperation of the fragile nithling wisp-born shards!

*Some gentle applause from the Senators*

“No more will the Playbodiums play games of diplomacy with a race determined to avoid the pigsty ambience of debauched malignance!”

*A few murmurs of “bravo”, “extraordinary”, “it is most convincing”, from the gathered Senators and audience*

“We will now undo your plans in one foul swoop, oh how you will gnash your teeth with rage when you understand the immense cunning and deplorable insight of our mighty ruler!”

*The onlookers are entranced and spellbound at the sight of the purple-faced fat-man from the Playbodiums ranting in animated zest*

“How? You ask, How? Muhahhaaha, muhahhahaha, muhahaha … muhahaha … muhhahhhaahh HA! I’ll tell you!”

Gilthus Stem now wheels about with wild staring eyes and spittle-flecks arching in astonishing trajectories up and above his bloated sweating features.

“How? How? – Know this Shards, in one gesture we undo you, we consign your future to oblivion, we bind your dreams in the used condom of our cunning lust”.

Struggling now to breath, the Playbodium staggers forwards a pace and drops his voice to a not entirely affected wheezy-rasp.

“We ……”

*Choking and spluttering*

“Weeeeee ……”

*The beginnings of something like a death rattle*

“Weeeeee eeeeee … We …”

*Girthus staggers to his knees*

“We … offer unconditional surrender … to … The Sarnek Pash!”

*Silence*

*Then a ripple of applause*

The playbodium is clearly in great difficulties; the years of eating to many diplomatic feasts and indulging heavily in every vice know to the prodigious imaginations of his people have taken their toll.

The Senators rise to their feet and offer their own gentle applause for the amateur dramatics of the Playbodium ambassador. A medical team approaches discretely and with the aid of a anti-gravity lifting platform, they convey the unconscious form of Gilthus stem to the hospital facility.

“Ahem,” a small voice is heard. “Ah, I say!”

A slight-formed sub-clerk from Girthus’ retinue addresses the Senate.

“We meant what we said Senators, the Playbodium Eroticarchy hereby surrender life, liberty, and the pursuit of sexual experience to the amphibian mercies of the great and glorious Sarnek Pash”.

The Senators are silent for several moments.

The clerk continues, “From this day forward the Eroticarchy is no more than a subject people destined to exist on the sufferance of our greater neighbours, we kneel before the Sarnek Pash, we crave the attention of their shock-rods, we worship their dank crevices, and we will pledge ourselves to the maintenance of their every physical need and pleasure. This, by order of our Primus, is our revenge against the Senate of Shards”.

The Senators now turn as one to address the ambassador from the Sarnek Pash.

“In view of this surrender, will your empire honour the commitments previously offered by the Eroticarchy in the Qornor system and beyond; will our relations continue essentially unchanged?”

Approaching the snivelling playbodium clerk with flurry of slick-footed movements, the Sarnek Pash ambassador dips his eye-stalks in affirmation, answering the Senators with a quick and steady response.

“Indubitably kind hosts, we accept the playbodium surrender with pleasure and will happily maintain those commitments they made before assimilation. I am sure that the Sarnek Pash will make good use of our new food; the storehouses of the Commonwealth are bottomless in their needs”.

*A whispered exchange between the Ambassador and an aid*

“Friends … not food of course”, his amphibian features wrinkle in pan-cultural amusement, “you’ll pardon the eccentricities of our prototype translation software I hope sirs”.

And thus the pinnacle of the Playbodium hopes had passed into History. New friendship gleamed between the Senate of Shards and the Sarnek Pash, and having been most fittingly (self-abused), the remaining population of the Playbodium worlds was taken into bondage and servitude by the smelly fish people.

Unconfirmed rumours tell of the ontime Playbodium Primus working in a organ-farm under the close attentions and lash of a Sarnek Pash overseer (third class) on Lapzooli IV. Of Girthus Stem the news was perhaps a little happier; for having made such a successful debut appearance (and subsequent recovery) in the field of comedy-drama on Productivity, he was catapulted to pan-galactic stardom in a continuing panoply of such genre-defining roles as “fat-man runs amok”, “the flesh is not weak” and the eternal classic “the price of blubber”.

The End (of the playbodiums)

[BeeDee10]

(Sorry about splitting the posting in two like this, had to leave the terminal for a while)

Part 2: Diaspora

We spent the next few years getting settled in to our two new homeworlds, rebuilding our infrastructure and erecting an understated defence grid around them. Our allies were understandably surprised and unsettled by what had happened, especially the Zynarra and the Praetorians, and we didn't want to cause further offence by building fortresses inside systems which were still their own territory. Fortunately our neighbours forgave us readily enough; we'd established a good enough reputation in our previous relations. It looked like perhaps we _could_ return to our previous state of secure serenity, in two systems instead of our original one.

And then a war broke out, between the Zynarra Holdings and the United Flora Empire. We never learned what caused it, exactly, but it must have been grevious; the United Flora seemed bent on exterminating the Zynarra entirely. Naturally, we were quite dismayed; the Zynarra had graciously allowed half of our population to take refuge in their system, and on top of that their philosophy of neutrality had always been close to our own. We pleaded with the United Flora, we offered to mediate, we even _demanded_ that they cease their attacks, but despite their own alliance with us they refused our requests.

The Zynarra were hopelessly outmatched, and we had no significant warfleet to help defend them with in any case. Certainly no match for the United Flora. I regret to admit that we panicked, and saved the Zynarra species in the only way we could think of; we requested that they surrender their autonomy to us and declare themselves a part of our own governance. It must have seemed like a bitter betrayal, but the Zynarra had no choice; their homeworld had already been heavily bombed by the Flora and their other colonies destroyed.

It was at this point that we finally decided that, even though we were on excellent terms with every intelligent species in the galaxy, it would be a good idea to construct a defensive fleet sufficient to conduct a war. With the entire Zynarra system now under our administration, we had a good foundation upon which to build real fortifications again. The United Flora had proven themselves to be unpredictable irrational savages once already, after all, who knew when they might turn on us to finish off the surviving Zynarra under our protection?

It was only shortly afterward, while our society was still reeling from the shock of what had just transpired, when our researchers made another deeply disturbing discovery. Since our sun had mysteriously exploded much of our effort had gone into attempting to understand the science of stellar manipulation, perhaps one day to give early warning of another such event or even find some way to stabilize an unstable stellar core. We had expected that any such results would take centuries to achieve, it was a very long-range goal of ours. But instead, we discovered stellar manipulation techniques that were surprisingly easy. Theoretically, we had discovered a way to build a device that could fit onto a starship and induce a catastrophic instability in an otherwise perfectly stable star.

We already knew that it was possible to build devices that could obscure a starship from our most capable sensors; we'd researched such a device ourselves only a short time earlier. We also knew that our sun had apparently been perfectly stable until only a few years ago. Although there was no direct evidence, the implications were too important and frightening to ignore; some intelligent agency could have been responsible for the explosion that destroyed our home.

Someone out there had tried to exterminate us, someone who had technology far in advance of our own. This information was deemed of the utmost secrecy classification; now we _knew_ we couldn't completely trust our good neighbours. We needed a new strategy.

By now the galaxy was extensively populated by the more expansionistic races, but there were still many systems scattered throughout space that had small uninhabited planets well-suited for our kind. We began the Diaspora; seeding the far reaches of the galaxy with small colonies, fortified resupply depots and spaceyards so widely dispersed that no single agency could possibly attack them all at once. Although we continued devoting some effort to researching stellar manipulation technology, we started a crash development course on improved cloak-penetrating sensors. Soon our fleet of scout ships, long mothballed after having explored all reachable star systems, were again patrolling the far reaches. But we never spotted a single cloaked ship, even after our researchers had developed sensors capable of penetrating any theoretical cloak believed to be possible. It was unnerving and frustrating. But it would have been suicidally foolhardy to return to our old state of blissful neutrality; we knew better than anyone that there's no going home again.

We eventually had outPosts and colonies scattered almost _everywhere_, and our agressive population dispersal program resulted in rapid expansion. We had become exactly what we resolved we would not. But even so, we never claimed the systems we planted our colonies in; they were outPosts, not posessions. We never crowded our allies when we could help it, and tried to keep our military understated. It seemed to be working well; our allies remained brotherly and seemed to accept our assurances of peaceful intent.

Until, over the course of three dark months, every civilization in the galaxy suddenly turned on us as one and declared war. It was a brutal shock, even considering the other shocks we'd come to accept already in our recent collective history. There was no warning, no indication that anything like this had ever happened to anyone else before. Fortunately, nobody except us seemed to be _prepared_ for war; we had almost a full year after the great betrayal to prepare and try to figure out what had happened.

Our researchers came through for us again, discovering techniques to subvert and confuse other empires. It became clear what our mysterious enemy had done; unable to exterminate us any longer by destroying single star systems, they had executed a massive communications mimic operation and turned everyone against us.

But who _were_ they? And how could we find out with everyone in the galaxy at war with us? Frustration, frustration. But at least we were prepared to face the challenge this time.

The Great War was essentially won in the course of only a single year of actual fighting. Each of our far-flung outPosts had its own garrison of warships and troops, and each was behind enemy lines; the only "border" we could be said to have was the Zynarra's home system. Almost simultaneously, our troop ships landed on and captured the core worlds of every empire. Without a common resource base, none could maintain a large fleet on their own; they rapidly fell. As we captured each, we very carefully interrogated their leaders and searched their planets for signs that they were the ones who had destroyed our homeworld.

Finally, the only species left unconquered were the Sagella. Their home system was remote, in a far corner of the map beyond a string of nebula systems and a black hole. They'd never expanded far beyond it, and we'd never set up an outpost inside it due to a lack of suitable unoccupied planets.

Nebula systems and black holes; the perfect inspiration for researchers working on cloaks and star-destroying weapons.

We began massing a combined fleet just beyond the black hole. It was time to make the galaxy safe again, once and for all.

[BeeDee10]

There's an amusing little epilogue to that story which kind of creeped me out at the time. As I gathered my ships to invade the Sagella, it occurred to me to switch sides and see if I could stop the juggernaut that I'd created. The Sagella had only a couple of planets in that one system, but it was extremely defensible with those black hole and nebula neighbours and the Sagella had decent technology. I set about frantically building warp point defences.

A few turns later, I get the message: "Our researchers have discovered a plasma instability in the core of the star <insert home system's name here>, and predict that it will go nova in 3 years." Of course, this time there were no allies for me to take refuge with. the Sagella were doomed. And since the explosion would destroy all evidence of their civilization, my people would forevermore remain convinced that the Sagella had destroyed their home. And perhaps had found some unknown way to escape, covering their tracks with another destroyed star system.

I've got to play a sequel to that game someday...

[Nitram Draw]

Great stories!
Are you all a bunch of writers in real life?

[BeeDee10]

Well, I do write short stories as a hobby, but nothing published. Perhaps one day. Practice, as they say, makes better.

Now that finals are over, I've been thinking of getting involved in a multiplayer game and writing a chronicle of it as it goes along. I love the RP side of this game, however irrelevant it may be to the victory conditions.

[Nitram Draw]

The running commentary does make the game "feel" better.
I was particulary interested in SJ's attempts to stop the massive DN onslaught with cruisers.
I have enjoyed reading all the commentaries. Thanks guys.