We all gripe and moan about how bad it is to play against the AI. But things could be worse. We could be living in the game under the control of this A.I. master.
Consider for a moment the plight of the poor ship captain trying to make sense of his erratic and illogical empires commands...
Beyond Reason
2403.4
Captain Johnson took the pad from the lieutenant and reviewed the final crew manifest and gave it his approval. His crew numbered close to 4000. That was a number that usually boggled the mind of the "Fighting Navy" Officers he shared drinks during the down time between runs. "4000 people!" they would say, "Why does it take 4000 people to run a bucket of bolts that doesn't even have a measly uranium cannon, on a mission that if successful will result in the complete dismantling of the ship?" and they'd shake their heads and mutter something about having to pull teeth to avoid getting shafted on their own billets cause the damn colony ships were siphoning off all the qualified sailors. What they didn't have a concept of was the amount of manpower it took to take care of 34 million colonists for the 8 months that it would take to reach their destination.
The Captain reviewed the "Cargo" manifest. It used to bother him to refer to these people as cargo, but after a few of these trips, you started to not think twice about it. It helped that he had a well trained crew that could handle all the people issues and leave him to running his ship. Captain Johnson respected his crew, and they respected and even loved him in return. He had the highest recidivism rate among the active Captains in the "Dirt Navy", and was only short of one or two others in the entire history of the Imperium. And they were only as high because the early rules against ships crews staying and becoming part of the colony at missions end he thought to himself. Nowadays only the most highly trained and experienced officers were restricted from resigning at the end of a voyage. But even with that freedom almost 87% of the crew members offered severance on his Last mission chose instead to stay with their Captain for another trip. The average was under 40 percent Johnson noted with no small measure of pride.
"Did we get orders yet XO?" he asked the commander.
"No Captain," he replied, "not yet."
"Well, I hope those pencil pushers in the colony ministry understand how expensive it is to keep one of these beasts sitting idle." Johnson snorted. He loathed bureaucrats in general, but the dunderheads that ran the Imperial Ministry for Colonization he held in particular contempt.
Johnson decided against sending off a sternly worded communication and instead went back to reviewing the list of colonists. He could if he cared too, pull up the complete files of every man, woman and child among the 34 million souls entrusted to his care for this voyage, but he had never done it before. He didn't know a Captain in the navy that had ever tried. He instead concentrated on the few hundred "Representatives", elected and appointed officials that were responsible for keeping the colonists in line during the trip, and would be assuming control of the colony at it's end. It was the former that he was more concerned with of course, not the latter.
He tried to put himself in the mind of the average colonist that was at this moment shuffling onboard and steering his wife and kids into the hopelessly overcrowded decks that would be their home for the next several months. He tried to discern what it was within a man that would make him submit to such an ignoble journey with little guarantee of a reward at the end or in many cases, as was the case with this group, even an idea on which godforsaken rock they would end up.
Surely many of them were doing so not of there own free will. It was not beneath the Imperium to "insist" when insufficient numbers volunteered to populate the new colonies. Many more no doubt had an illusion that this was something they had decided on their own. But they were more likely a slave to their circumstances. Facing a choice between a life of hardship, poverty, and over population on the homeworld, and a life of hardship, and poverty on a new colony world, with only the benefit of a little more elbow room. Their hope was that their children would be able to reap the rewards from the blood and sweat they would put into the ground building the new colony. Not having children of his own, Johnson could only wonder at the spirit which drove a man to do such things for his progeny.
As the Last of the population finished boarding and made their way to their bunks, and the Last load of supplies was carted onboard and stowed for the trip, Johnson started to send that message to the Colo-Ministry after all. But before he could do so, the XO spoke up. "Orders received Captain. 'Move to Olontra coordinates (3, 6), Colonize Olontra V' "
Olontra system? Thought Captain Johnson. That's a new one, at least to him. He had heard the name in a recent fleet briefing. It had been discovered recently and if he recalled correctly it was way out to the east of claimed Imperium space. He was trying to remember if he had heard anything peculiar about it because typically ships aren't sent to a system so soon after being charted. This mission could have some risk involved if they were going too close to uncharted space, or worse known hostile territory. He had done a few of those runs before, and didn't relish another one.
The worst had been the colonization of Syphius V. That had been his third trip as a Captain, and by far his most dangerous. It had been in a system on the border with the Drushoka, and was early on during the war. Twice he had to run and hide in storms to avoid passing raiders. The original orders had been for Syphius III, but when they arrived, the Drushoka had beaten them to it. In retrospect the Ministry should have recalled them, or at least sent them to a different system. But in their "infinite wisdom" they decided to push on and ordered his ship to colonize the fifth planet. Had Johnson and his crew stayed another month at the colony before returning they would have died along with the millions of colonists that perished when the Drushoka fleet attacked and obliterated the undefended planet. The Last he heard they had still not recolonized it, although the "Fighting Navy" had gotten their revenge, glassing two Drushoka worlds in Syphius and three more in Knoglam beyond. He had bought a lot of drinks the night he ran into the Captain and crew responsible for that bit of repayment. And drank a lot himself to forget the people that he had taken to their deaths.
He turned over the command chair to the XO and went to the nav station. A few buttons later and he had the Olontra system up on the screen, as well as the course plot the Ministry had sent along with the orders. "Why that's 10 months travel time," snarled Johnson. "Don't they realize this ship doesn't have any extra supply storage?"
Johnson realized that if anything, ANYTHING went wrong on this trip his ship and his crew, and 34 million colonists would be moving along on inertia alone, and starving to boot. He had heard horror stories about the "death ships" that traveled beyond their supply capacity. He shuddered. The worst part of it was it was so unnecessary. For one thing, if they wanted to colonize Olontra, they should use one of the extended range colony ships. The Imperium had the technology. They could slap a few extra fuel tanks in one of these monsters, and get an extra 4 months travel time out of them easy. But that came at a severe cost in cargo capacity. He had seen the designs and they only held about an eighth of the number of colonists, and the Ministry felt that was too few to assure a successful colony.
But even at that it was unnecessary. He surveyed the systems between here and Olontra and there were several with decent planets that were still not yet colonized. They were a little low on minerals in some cases, but not that low. Johnson figured anyway that the lower number of minerals on those worlds would more than be offset by the mineral drain that a couple of derelict colony ships would cause. No, he thought, there had to be something else about this planet.
The Captain punched up a few buttons on the computer and brought up the Cargo manifest again. After a few minutes he had found what he was looking for. Colonists came from all walks of life, but this Groups was a little unusual. There were a lot more archaeologists and exo-biologists than was typical. Ruins, Johnson thought. They had found ruins on Olontra V. That had to be it. why else would they risk the lives of the colonists and his crew on such a long mission?
"Damn Scientists." muttered the Captain. He hated them almost as much as he hated bureaucrats. The Captain gave orders to get ready for launch.
To be continued...
"Beyond Reason" - A space Empires IV story
Linear Mode
