Planetfall: Humanity's New Challenge (turn reporting thread)

[Black Sunrise]

Spartans call Planetary Election.

Santiago vs Black Sunrise

Current election results:
Santiago has all three AI votes, for 20 total votes.
I have the votes of myself and Morgan. 14 total.

If the other two players cast their votes for me, I will provide information
request regarding the AI factions as desired. I fear I will make little
cash, so cannot afford a materiel reward for your loyalty, but, on the other
hand, who wants a leader like Santiago anyway?

[Darsnan]

"Sir, we've finally been able to establish a link with the 'net."
"Good work, ensign! How come we've been experiencing so many problems with our communications lately?"
"I don't know, sir. It could be the snow squalls that keep hitting us, or it could be the newly established Peace Keeper telecommunications 'net that's interfering with our communications."
"What, at 64kb/ second? There aren't enough Peace Keeper's on all of Planet to clog the 'net with that data rate!"
"Heah, you know the Peace Keeper's: all talk, no action..."

Turn passed to Spasm at 8:45pm est 12/28

[Black Sunrise]

Weather pattern: Continued snow, blizzard conditions.
Systems functional, communications seem slow. Possible sunspot activity?

[Darsnan]

A Treatise on the Formation of a Symbiotic Relationship with Planet
Part One: the Formation of the "Superorganism"
By Dr. David Suzuki, Gaian Chief of Natural Sciences

A Government, or High Command, and its populace, can be viewed to a certain extent as a living organism. Indeed, many parallels can be drawn between the evolution of a society, and that of the steps taken by an organism as it grows. Take for instance the government of the United States of America in the latter half of the 20th century: from the mid-1940's through the early 1950's came the American generation known as the "baby-boomers", a dramatic increase of the population in a short period of time. This explosive population growth could be equated to the early growth stages of an embryo after fertilization. In the 1960's came the building of infrastructures such as the "SuperHighway System", which could be equated to the arterial and venal blood vessels of an organism, ferrying both nutrients to where they are needed (the "arteries"), as well as transporting away waste materials (i.e. "venal blood vessels"). The 1980's brought a massive buildup of the American military, as well as the diversification of civilian auxilaries such as the development of SWAT Teams: these could be equated to the development of an immune system, with various versions of white blood cells developed to combat a myriad of invaders. The 1990's saw an overbuilding of the global communications system, or the World Wide Web, which equates to a Central Nervous System connecting every facet of society, or the "organs" of the organism.
With the coming of the food shortages of the 2000's gripping several continents, as well as domestic demands for cheaper food supplies at home, the need for biologically engineered food sources became obvious, with control being administered by a central authourity, usually the gonvernment. To this end the Food Banks came into being in the United States, with similar institutions coming into being in other countries, some being administered by the United Nations, or Peace Keepers. These then could be equated to the digestive tract of the organism.
The problem that the United States faced after this was that their government was growing at a linear pace, whereas the entities around them and the problems facing them were mutating faster than they could react to. This lead to the stressing of the government, or organism, and an organism under stress leads to paranoia and delusion as to the desired goals, and accomplishments, of the government. From there led to the overall disintegration of a majority of the societies that had been so carefully cultivated in the 20th century, leaving us where we are today.
The Gaian Way seeks to avoid this linear growth of the organism, or government, as well as forming a permanent bond with Planet. Where the United States failed was in its linear learning, and building, curve. This could be directly traced to the fact that they were, for the most part, devoid of selective genetic breeding techniques, and therefore were constrained in their advancement by whatever the breeding genepool gave them to spur their growth. It is the Gaian intent to bypass, or expedite, our genetic lineage in such a way as to accelerate the growth of the Gaian symbiotic organism with Planet. To this end we will determine what are the best genes that are necessary to accomplish this, and harvest them, either overtly through voluntary genetic donations, or, if necessarily, by covert means.

[Black Sunrise]

The Leader would also like to point out that if he had wanted to remain in communication with his ex-girlfriend, Santiago, he would not have arrainged to be on a different drop-pod than her. "The woman is a damned psychopath, and I'm considering ordering extra guards brought on-line to enforce the order of protection I have against her," The Leader is quoted as saying at a recent informal discussion.

[Black Sunrise]

"Sir. We have finally dug the capital out. Unfortunately, it appears likely it will snow again tommorrow."

"Continue efforts to keep the ways clear. Our new Terriforming unit will come on-line soon, and that will go far to keeping us free of this crap"

The leader twitched his head, bringing up a radar display. Strange cloud formations glowed omonously.

"And direct Base 002 to begin studying these weather patterns. There is something ... odd ... about them. A better understanding of Planets weather might do us good in the future."


In other news, India Telecomunications announced the invention of a new cell-phone network. As soon as towers for it are constructed, our people will be able to quickly communicate with each other. Benefits should be many, not the least being that we will be able to keep a better eye on native life sightings.

[wgabrie]

Nothing of note this turn, but it seems the gaians forgot to send the spartan comm frequence during trade. We will withhold the 40ec until the comm frequency appears in the trade list.

Turn to a worm bitten Black Sunrise.

[Darsnan]

The Gaian High Council meeting came to session. Lady Deidre started it off,"Well, I hear we have made some very good strides in climate control over the last Turn!"
The Meteorologist on the staff seemed to shrink inwards at the comment. His reply was less than confident,"well, yes, we have made some very good gains, but we would rather awit until fruition before revealing what we have accomplished."
"Nonsense! We are all very eager to hear what you have been up to lately."
"Well, M'Lady, we have finally been able to produce a very heavy snowfall."
"Well, that's very good news indeed!" Lady Deidre looked at the meterologist inquisitively," why would you feel that this is bad news?"
"Well, M'Lady, its not that we caused the snowfall thats the problem - it's where the snow is falling thats the problem."
The dawning of comprehension creeped into the face of Lady Deidre. She put her head into her hands and began massaging her temples,"alright, and just where is all of this snow falling that you caused?"
"Directly over the Peace Keeper enclave. We estimate that they have already received over a meter of snowfall with the last two planet turns, and there seems to be no let up." The meterologist saw the look overcomnig Deidre's face and quickly added, "but we do feel that this will produce bumper crops for the peace Keepers next summer!"
Lady Deidre looked icily at the meterologist,"I'm sure they'll be thrilled to hear this. All right then, is there any way we can turn off this phenomenon?"
The meterologist eagerly replied, shaking his head positively," we anticipate that we can force the weather pattern to move over our position in one planet turn."
"Please see that you do. Dismissed."
The meterologist needed no second prompting to leave the council chambers. Next on the agenda came the situation involving the Morganites. The Trade Minister reported first, "they seem concerned that we will be generating a very large amount of energy credits for selling the Spartans comm frequency at 40ec's to each faction."
"Poppycock", replied the Political Officer,"that's just political posturing. Who should know better than they that once a monopoly is broken, the price comes down considerably. Why I'll bet right now that they are already re-selling the Spartan frequency at 30ec's to each of the other two factions, thus undercutting us, AND making a profit out of buying the frequency from us in the deal!"
There were nods and vocalizations of agreements from around the table, and Lady Deidre smiled secretly to herself: things were progressing nicely.....


Turn to Spasm.

[wgabrie]

Three worms in Morgan terratory last turn. 1 Captured worm thanks to our knowlege gained from the Alien Temple. 2 Eliminated thanks to our troop readiness.

And the Gaians who are selling comm links for 40ec worry us deeply. They'll have what, 40 x 3 = 120ec. They'll have more then the rest of us. I'm supose to be the trader here

[SPasmofiT]

Yet another turn!

[Darsnan]

Lady Deidre and her chief science officer watched the video relay from Scout Darsnan: the ghastly scars on both Black Sunrise, as well as the others visible told of the battle that had taken place, and of the price the Peace Keepers had paid to survive. And yet they turned down the offer of Gaian aid, even under these circumstances!?!
Deidre turned to her Science Officer,"do you think they suspected our alterior motive?"
"I doubt it", Sagan replied, "both the Spartans and Morganites are more astute, and they never suspected a thing. I think it's just Peace Keeper pride."
"Yes - a stubborn people." Deidre leaned back in her seat to finish watching the video feed, "but today, they have earned my respect."

Turn to Spasm.

p.s. Spartan comm frequency - 40ec's!!!!

[Black Sunrise]

The leader stared out the porthole at the swirling snow.
He triggered his personal recorder.

"Four light years, we still get buried in the crap. Ugh. Must rush work on the formers, maybe we can dig our way out."

A small red light indicated a communication from the science lab.
He stared at it for several minutes before triggering it with a twitch of his head. Apparently something was wrong with his arms.

On screen, a white-jacketed officer came into view. The officer appeared to be studying something off-screen.

"Sir... we've come to some tentative conclusions. First of all, the native creatures are attracted to the strange Monoliths. Second, the Monoliths make them MUCH more dangerous. Third, while at the Monolith, for a bit of time they hold still. We believe this phenomenon to be some kind of a growth stage. We think it may be what saved us."

The officer glanced at the screen, blanched, looked hurridly away.

"That and our troops."

"Yes." The leader remarked dryly. He twitched his head again. The screen changed to the communications room.

"Scout Darsnan. We have reached a decision. We thank your people for their hospitality and offer of assistance, but we fear you misunderstood our intentions. We were offering you help. Help in the form of valuable information. Information that Planet was far more dangerous than you suspected. Return to your people. Give them our regards. Inform them of what you have seen here."

The screen blackened. The last image Darsnan saw was a hideously scarred face, heavily bandaged. Mind worm infestations are a terrible thing to resist. Especially when you lead the attack yourself. The Peacekeeper people were lucky to have his guidance still. Perhaps future medical research might even allow him to walk again.

[Darsnan]

The reports came flooding across Deidre's desk from every sector. In one report, two scout teams had cornered a mindworm boil, "The empath talents assigned to each scout team seemed to confuse the creatures. We flamed them down where they massed. Suggest having an empath assigned to each scout team". Another, "we followed the beacon into the fungus to what we thought would be another Unity Pod. Instead it turned out to be a Unity Escape Module filled with dead Spartans. They appeared to have died upon impact. After contacting the Spartans with the sad news, we buried the Cohort with full military honors, as is Spartan custom." A third report from the Gaian Trading Commission,"Colonel Santiago sends her best. She and her staff seem to have come out the worse for wear from the Unity disaster, and are very eager to establish trading relations for much needed equipment. Our coffers should start filling up with enough money from these trade agreements to make even CEO Morgan blush! We also suggest selling the Spartan comm frequency to anyone else who would be interested." Another was a request for a planetwide broadcast selling the Spartan comm frequency, which Deidre initialed against her better judgement, " To anyone who can hear this broadcast and is interested in obtaining Colonel Santiago's comm frequency: we are willing to share this information for 40ec."
And yet, the one report that she was consciously looking for failed to appear: the fungus seemed to have swallowed Scout Darsnan without a trace, and there hadn't been any comm signals from the Peace Keeper's enclave for over a Standard Turn now.....

Turn to Spasm

[wgabrie]

Mogan scans over the comm report with a smurk. "I see you have been able to glean out that their headquaters is still standind" noded Morgan in aprovingly. "Yes" replied the comm officer. She then goes into the technical details of the comm probe. "Can we get more spesific information from their brodcasts?" morgan asks. "No" she replies, "We would need to infultrate their datalinks first" she finishes. As she turns to leave you ask her what her name is. "It's Sinder Roze" she replies. "Sinder Roze is it" added Morgan "I have been setting aside Talents for um... a special Ops and would like you to join" I'm honored she says as she leaves.

[wgabrie]

Morgan sits in the visitors lounge at Morgan Industries where his top economic leaders have come bringing with them news on the progress of the other Morganite colonies. "Our other bases are developing acording to plan" says Sub Head advisor Britney Regan "However our bases are underdefended, and will need three unit turns to defend". "Thats good S.H. Regan" replied Morgan. "Dismissed". As everyone gets up to go, The Young Comm officer barges in with some news on the developing peacekeeper situation. You forgive the rudness and ask what news she has to report. She informs you that low level comm signals are still eminating from peacekeeper frequences. "What do you make of it" you ask her. "We are unsure at this time, but we think this might be a trick to reveal ourselfs too early" replies the young officer. "It will take one unit turn to analize the comm data" she finishes. You thank her for the information as she leaves. After she is gone, you realize you still don't know her name. Hopefuly there will be time to learn her name later.

******

Do you think it's realy a trick?