The Non-violent High Score List

[floatingatoll]

Ripcord O'Reilly said:
What's your best score acheived without firing a single shot?
Note: Use of either the vacuum collapser or the chromium gong is prohibited!

36,474 (large, large, science), but it doesn't count.

MrFantastic said:
I even used the mirror to save a Tan-ru fleet from a supernova.

I read today of an interpid explorer who rescued a fleet from a nova. The last planet in my travels went nova. It was soon to destroy both a jumbo shrimp and an alien homeworld. The death toll was to be considerable. It was fated to happen, and there was nothing I could do but watch as two worlds full of life burned. As a non-violent scientist, I just could not watch as those worlds that I'd so patiently explored would go up in a violent cloud of flame.

I set off the Limited Vacuum Collapser.

It just seemed the kindest thing to do! I was the one who traded their hyperdrives for a crystalline entity. I was the one who traded their thrusters for some old bauble. I was the one who ran off with the navigator, never to return. What choice did I have? Let them burn alive in the flames of a nova? Using the collapser saved them from the violence of nature.

After the nova exploded, I folded to the now-dead planet and set the collapser for 100 turns. Folding away, I paused at a nearby planet to remember what I'd done. A pang of regret hit me as the collapser went off inside the expanding ring of the nova; the fireworks will haunt me forever.