Beyond Alpha Centauri::::::Discussion Thread 6

[Lonestar]

DRIVE BY POSTING IN PROGRESS!!!!

-Great Lakes Recruit Training Center


Woot! Graduating from Boot Camp on Thursday, Should have regular Internet access again wihin 2 weeks.

Alls well so far. Mostly been sitting around watching Movies since we got done with "Battlestations" on Wednesday.


Can someone summerize what the heck has ben happening? I'll be back in a hour or so.


Seaman Apprentice Lonestar

[Sovereign]

WELCOME BACK LONESTAR!!

Congrats on your graduation! About damn time you got back!


Mellian quit and Cybergod is nowhere to be found. So Kass is taking over the EC and TAF, and ending up with EC as dominant, dissolving the TAF.

Not much else going on, except building up of relations between GHE and UCS. Also, the Cadre civil war is heating up.

The Temple story is beginning to shape up, but for the most part, BAC was semi-dormant while you were gone. You didn't miss any "major" stuff, and its 2702 now in the story.

MI, Sparta, and EC is gonna do the peace talks very soon IIRC.


So, when shall we await the return of the mysterious Protectorate?

[Sovereign]

Hmm...

President, I have a good suggestion about the Temple story.

Here goes....


Berrik would serve as a major center of civilization for the ancient Empire or extraterrestial civilization or whatever.

We could make it so that Berrik would be like a "New York City" or "Los Angeles" of that ancient civilization. Or another analogy would be Earth = Homeworld and Chrion = Berrik.

It wouldn't make sense for a "Homeworld" to be a gas giant, since virtually any planet bound sentient life that requires a city and infrastructure to live in needs to have evolved and developed on a "solid" planet like Earth or Mars. Or even Venus.


Here's how I think we could do this... the Berrik will be very important, yes, as an economic or technological "capital" of the Ancients. Then using the star maps we find, we can assemble an expedition to the Homeworld. Maybe we could discover that it's the Fraal or a civilization that precedes the Fraal, like the Fraal precedes the Progenitors, Gorn, Bree, Humanity, etc.


What do you think?

[Kassiopeia]

Lonestar, willkommen zurück.

Originally posted by Mr. President
Additionally, since no-one seems to have objected to the Gaians being handed to me, I need to ask: Where do they live? Alynzia's only post in the story mentioned a moon near the Greater Hive Empire, and I seem to remember a place called Artilak from even earlier than that.

The completely unaccepted and out-of-scale map produced ages ago can be seen here.

[Mr. President]

Lonestar returns! Huzzah!

Berrik would serve as a major center of civilization for the ancient Empire or extraterrestial civilization or whatever.

We could make it so that Berrik would be like a "New York City" or "Los Angeles" of that ancient civilization. Or another analogy would be Earth = Homeworld and Chrion = Berrik.

It wouldn't make sense for a "Homeworld" to be a gas giant, since virtually any planet bound sentient life that requires a city and infrastructure to live in needs to have evolved and developed on a "solid" planet like Earth or Mars. Or even Venus.


Here's how I think we could do this... the Berrik will be very important, yes, as an economic or technological "capital" of the Ancients. Then using the star maps we find, we can assemble an expedition to the Homeworld. Maybe we could discover that it's the Fraal or a civilization that precedes the Fraal, like the Fraal precedes the Progenitors, Gorn, Bree, Humanity, etc.

Right, I see what you're saying. So I should not make the homeworld Berrik? That's fine, I'll go and change it later.

The completely unaccepted and out-of-scale map produced ages ago can be seen here.

What exactly is wrong with the map? It looks all right to me, if you only want a schematic sort of diagram. I can't think of any way to represent a three-dimensional galaxy on a two-dimensinal computer screen.

The Star Children actually don't seem to be on that map.

[Kassiopeia]

The problem is the fact that the size scale is warped.

The GHE spans all the way to the Galactic Core, which is something like 50k Lightyears away from the edge, i.e. the diametre is 100k; also, that means Sol is 25k LY from the centre, which is just plain WRONG, IIRC/IMHO/the works.

Also, according to that map, Chiron is much, much father away then 4.29 LY. There's just so much more stars out there, and I think the Hive just simply can't make it to the galactic centrum... the distances would be much too big. I fail to remember, how fast was the FTL communicator?

I tinkered a bit better map a while ago, let's see if I can find it. If we could manufacture a 3D map like the one in Attack of the Clones or in Asimov's books, hell, even I used one in one of my stories, it would be cool and simple, but alas we cannot.

[Frankychan]

Wassup Lonestar?

Glad to see you made it outta boot camp arright. Where were you stationed? My cousin was in Texas for his basics.....

Well, I edited out my last post....please forgive my PWD's (posting while drunk).

Anyways, Kass, you have a point there. Let me try to explain Hive space,

There is space that is designated as "Hive". Even though it may seem that Hive space spans to the core, there are large gaps between habitated worlds.

Although there are Hive colonies outside designated Hive space, the heavily populated area's are (1) expanded from the homeworld and (2) mostly concentrated near Spartan space. So if you look at the map, most Hive populated worlds are focused closer to the Spartan side than say, Sol or any of the other factions.

As I see it, since there are gaps in the Hive's population centers, FTL communications are relayed via cloaked comm-satellites that act as a human nerve. The signal is received on one end by the satellite, then is forcebly pushed to the next relay point (although a human nerve doesn't quite work this way).

Hive omnipresense (sp?) is acheived through the various spacestations littered throughout space that is adjacent to actual designated Hive territory.

So, an encounter with a "Hive fleet" is actually made up of ships from maybe three or four homebases. When the encounter is concluded, the surviving ships return to their home port. The only exception is fleets especially created for specific tasks (such as the invasion of Samnos).

Well, whomever decides to take on the task of being the Gaian's author, just ask me questions about the Gaians relationship with the Hive. Before Alynzia dug out, we had a brief correspondence discussing our relationship and how we view each other. So far the Gaian's hold three worlds within Hive territory. I believe it is New Lanark, a moon in the Hive homesystem, that the Gaian's have a joint research with Hive scientists....although they are treated more as guests than allies. (Gaian's were the first faction to befriend the Hive).

But other than that, they are kept in the dark about Hive politics, society, blahblahblah.

UCS will be actual first alliance with (almost) free-reign in Hive territories, but I'll have to draw up a treaty......maybe I'll post it up on the GHE website.....

[Frankychan]

One last thing,

Hive space IIRSprayberC, is marked by the concentration of Hive presence. One could blunder right into "designated" Hive space and not know it until they encountered a garrison fleet. But I've been thinking that Yang has started to put up marker beacons's a few LY's from designated Hive space that tell other factions that "Hey, you're go into Hive space soon so back off!".

But these markers are mostly near the Spartan border since that area has seen most of the Spartan-Hive skirmishes.

[Mr. President]

So Gaian territory, or some of it, is an enclave in Hive territory? Okay. Would non-Hive visitors come to those worlds? If so, I presume they'd have to be carefully insulated from seeing Hive ships, people, etc.

[Kassiopeia]

I see... I do agree that the Hive is a sparsely colonized large, vast area of space, but that still doesn't mean the scale isn't distorted.

[Kassiopeia]

I've spent last three days reading transcribed scripts of Red Dwarf. The show is just absolutely hilarious!

Sometimes i think it's cruel giving machines a personality. My mate Petersen once brought a pair of shoes with artificial intelligence. Smart Shoes, they were called. It was a neat idea. No matter how blind drunk you were, they would always get you home. Then he got ratted one night in Oslo, and woke up the next morning in Burma. See, the shoes got bored just going from his local to the flat. They wanted to see the world, man, y'know? He had a helluva job getting rid of them. No matter who he sold them to, they'd show up again the next day! He tried to shut them out, but they just kicked the door down, y'know? Last thing he heard, they'd sort of, erm, robbed a car and drove it into a canal. They couldn't steer, y'see. Petersen was really, really blown away by it. He went to see a priest. The priest told him, he said, it was alright, and all that, and the shoes were happy, and they'd gone to heaven. Y'see, it turns out shoes have soles.

David Lister in Red Dwarf Series II Episode 5, "Queeg"

But my favourite episode is probably "Backwards".

"The man, two years after getting free from prison after a 15 year sentence, removes two bullets from the chests of two cashiers and places 10 thousand pounds to the bank's vault."

[Frankychan]

Originally posted by Mr. President
So Gaian territory, or some of it, is an enclave in Hive territory? Okay. Would non-Hive visitors come to those worlds? If so, I presume they'd have to be carefully insulated from seeing Hive ships, people, etc.

Yeah, I guess you could say that. Alynzia wanted to have the Gaians to have a cordial Gaian-Hive relationship. So, we worked things out where the Gaian's would have a few holdings within Hive space. Usually used for joint scientific projects. But you'll have to also check w/Lonestar cause in one of his posts he has a Protectorate saboteur in one of the Gaian bases in Hive territory.

As for New Lanark (Gaian moon in Hive homesystem), there are all kinds of safeguards to make sure they don't know what Yang is doing. there are designated fly-zones where Gaian ships have to follow the flight path or be shot down. Alynzia made the Gaians feel like they are guests and not actually holding territory in Hive space. Her posts kinda hint to it; sterile walls and all that jazz.

Originally posted by Kassiopeia
I see... I do agree that the Hive is a sparsely colonized large, vast area of space, but that still doesn't mean the scale isn't distorted.

Yeah, its more like "zones" of population centers, the closer one gets to these main pop centers, the more Hive traffic one would encounter.
But yah gotta give Sprayber props for making the map I have no sense of astronomy at all! I'd just get a big crayon and start making circles of influence

[Sprayber]

If ya'll remember I instructed everyone to disregard the Galatic Core on the map because it is much much farther away. I put the map up so that ya'll could give suggestions, but no one ever suggested anything. So I forgot it. Hive space is the way it is becuase to the factions at the time, there was no definite boundries. The map was also pre protectorate so you wont find them on there. Once again, if you have suggestions for me i'll change some stuff.

[Sprayber]

Some other points

Alynzia desinated Merek and Megrez as Gian planets, then the story about Gian territory all the way over into Hive Space popped up. So take that for what it is worth. I always considered the whole Gian-Hive arragement to be a little odd anyway.


University. I set that up back when the University had no writer.

Gorn-Bree-Uv Watt(Tarn) are all vague regions where the human factions are considered. There are no map (currently) of their exact locations and coordinates. I would doubt seriously that even the Hive would have a full map of Bree territory. The Hive would have locations of Bree planets close to the Hive for practical reasons.

Note: Bree and Gorn space is littered with dead planets that have been devastated by their war. Their core worlds would be heavly defended.

any questions

[Mr. President]

Oh, Merek and Megrez! I think I saw those. I don't really have any questions or anything about the map, as I think it's fine the way it is for now, but perhaps we should put the Protectorate on there in some way, shape, and form.

As for New Lanark (Gaian moon in Hive homesystem), there are all kinds of safeguards to make sure they don't know what Yang is doing. there are designated fly-zones where Gaian ships have to follow the flight path or be shot down. Alynzia made the Gaians feel like they are guests and not actually holding territory in Hive space. Her posts kinda hint to it; sterile walls and all that jazz.

Cool.

[Frankychan]

Nod, things are picking up rather nicely!

Sprayber-do you still want to collaborate on the Bree, or just want me to take over some of their background? BTW, is it arright if Yang sends another transmission to Kessel?

Mr. President- Gaian-Hive relationship is mostly research related but we can include them into the EC-UCS-GHE triad....but then we'd have to rename it to Quadripartite-or somethingsomething.....

just gabbing nonsense.

gonna start building up Hive aggression for the upcoming "tussle" match. I don't know if we discussed it, but what will be the reason?

[Frankychan]

Forgot something,

what the heck is that AC-Democracy thread thing added into the AC forums?

[Kassiopeia]

gonna start building up Hive aggression for the upcoming "tussle" match. I don't know if we discussed it, but what will be the reason?

If you're talking about what I think you are talking about, then I don't think anyone of us has any clues as to when and why it'll take place.

[Kassiopeia]

frankychan, it's exactly what the name says - the democracy virus strikes again, this time the AC crowd.

[Frankychan]

ROFL, I do not know what this "Democracy" thing is all about, can you kinda explain what Apolytoners do there?

[Kassiopeia]

Oh. The basic idea is that we have a leader, a cabinet of ministers, and they play this single game of SMAC, and they arrange polls, and they officials are elected via votes, so the entire forum crowd basically decides what is done in the game. If we are contacted by Santiago, our Commissioner will act according to our general guideline of diplomacy set by the Minister of Diplomacy, for example. If our stance is to kick Santiago's buttocks the moment we encounter her, then the Commissioner will proceed to do so.

[Mr. President]

Franky - As mentioned in my last post, Drone military intelligence is going to send some probe rafts (small, stealthy crafts with long-range sensors) to the edge of the Hive region. If you like, Hive patrols can find them soon after and destroy or capture them and the incident can be the excuse for the beginning of dialogue between Yang and Adams.

Sorry for all those dumb-ass comments about the Gaian territory earlier. See, I actually did know of Merak and Megrez, but for some reason I thought that they were Morgan planets. Duh!

I think Gaia might want to stay out of the tripartite alliance just to be out of the line of fire, since a frontal assault from the Free Drone Republic looks able to roll over them in no time, at least on the two-dimensional view.

[Sprayber]

Originally posted by frankychan
Nod, things are picking up rather nicely!

Sprayber-do you still want to collaborate on the Bree, or just want me to take over some of their background? BTW, is it arright if Yang sends another transmission to Kessel?

What are your ideas on the background of the Bree Franky? The Hive would have a little more information into the Bree regarding culture but try to keep them somewhat mysterious even to the Hive. The Spartans and Drones would have extensive information as far as fighting them goes since we both spent decades in battle against them but only the stuff one would gather during military operations.

As for the Spark. The cadre system would work but not right now. that should be little later. and yeah go ahead and contact kessel.

[Sprayber]

Ok guys. one more thing.

Let us finish the talks in our next posts. get your leaders down and give your prespective of the talks and the results and let our leaders get on their way back to where ever they are going.


the results are.

MI returns all of taken territory and makes payment that u guys talked about

and

Earth withdraws from the systems of the Cooperate Sector

Spartan then hands over rest of Cooperate sector back to MI.

All in all back to the status quo.

Is this acceptable to everyone?

[Mr. President]

About that last post of mine: I didn't mean to impugn the tripartite military, only that the Gaians might be the weak link in such an alliance, with their distantly smaller population and economy. And they looked sandwiched on the map. No help would be forthcoming from the ever-neutral Firaxis.

What are your ideas on the background of the Bree Franky? The Hive would have a little more information into the Bree regarding culture but try to keep them somewhat mysterious even to the Hive. The Spartans and Drones would have extensive information as far as fighting them goes since we both spent decades in battle against them but only the stuff one would gather during military operations.

As for the Spark. The cadre system would work but not right now. that should be little later. and yeah go ahead and contact kessel.

That sounds about right with respect to knowledge of the Bree - Sparta and the Republic would have learned about their tactics and military but just about nothing about their culture and history.

As for the Cadre Civil War, it also seems like a powderkeg to me, waiting for a fuse. Bring that in later.

MI returns all of taken territory and makes payment that u guys talked about

and

Earth withdraws from the systems of the Cooperate Sector

Spartan then hands over rest of Cooperate sector back to MI.

All in all back to the status quo.

I know I'm not directly writing for this, but why was Morgan paying reparations again? It seems to me that he'd feel tremendously wronged in this conflict. I remember a few story pages ago he was in fact demanding restitution from Earth for the actions of InEn.

[History Guy]

Morgan??! Hand over Capella! Never!! Come and get me you Terrans!! (loads shredder rifle)

Actually, I thought that the Terrans could hold onto their conquered spots and the Morganites would hold onto Capella (as he has found something there, something he hasn't told you guys about, that is worth more to him than the Corporate Sector!). As for reparations, those things aren't really in the plans, but are a safe guard. Just in case the Terrans decide not to listen to reason, etc. Morgan isn't going to use the money if he doesn't have to. It's a last resort. He wants the war over so he can start operations in Capella...ummm...I mean...so the Spartans don't loose any more land in the Corporate Sector.

[Kassiopeia]

Ok. So we'll have the situation so that we'll have our respective representatives down at Firaxis. All Earth cabinet members aren't dead yet, so I should have someone there, my M of Foreign Affairs probably. The Terran Alliance rep will be there too, of course the TA won't be around much longer but still.

So... my rep will have his voice in the next post... down at Firaxis. He'll suggest the restoration of the status before the war, but I guess if Morgan proposes what History proposed here, they'll agree.

[GeneralTacticus]

We have confirmation this time around that the builders actually *WILL* turn up this time, so we're leaving today.

[Mr. President]

See you soon, General. Have a nice time.

I read through the whole story in my spare minutes (when did it get so long? ), and fixed some glaring mistakes in my posts.

[Frankychan]

Peace out GeneralTac-see ya when you get back.

Uh, I hope I have been consistent.....from what you can tell, have I?

(Nevermind my usual ramblings though! )