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BACKDROP: In MY 2433 several factions discovered the wreckage of a Progenitor interstellar spaceship on the farside of Nessus. After much investigation it was determined the ships star charts were intact, and that the hyperdrive engine could be cloned.
By MY 2452 the first fleet of scoutships had been built and sent out with a mandate to investigate all of the habitable planets catalogued in the ancient Progenitor ships star charts. The results were mixed: some scoutships returned with exciting news of “Eden-class” planets, while other scouts returned with tales of planets which had degraded over the eons. Still other scouts failed to return at all…
By MY2475 the "Diaspora of Man" had begun in earnest, with interstellar colony ships being sent out to the far reaches of the Milky Way as fast as they could be built. However with this explosive growth it soon became apparent that not all of the far-flung settlements were completely self-sufficient, and that to prevent catastrophes from occurring on newly founded colonies, a series of supply transports were desperately needed to keep the remote colonies supplied with all the essentials.
The Nirvana’s Dream was such a ship: built by Morgan Interstellar, it was leased by the United Nations for the sole purpose of re-supplying outposts on the fringes of the ever-expanding bubble of human-controlled space. The ship was crewed by peoples from various factions, each contributing his or her own expertise, and this included one Peace Keeper by the name of Shilpa Sanservanni, whose occupation was Resupply Specialist. In this most mundane of jobs Shilpa was very good: she processed supply requests from various outposts, and ensured her ship was stocked with the correct supplies, and that everything was sorted correctly into the supply shuttles assigned for each outpost.
On this day just like every other Shilpa sat down to her terminal and began by reviewing the requests which had come in during her sleep-cycle. Shilpa methodically went down the list, processing some of the requests herself, delegating others to her staff, sending replies to others asking for clarification on certain points. Approximately halfway through her list she came across a message from a specific University colony which caught her eye immediately. She selected the attached requests list and began skimming down it. Approximately halfway through she came across an entry “Hammer, 1, Multipurpose”. Shilpa immediately selected the embedded comlink to contact the person who had sent her the message, and in short order the visage of a University technician was before her. Shilpa, the personae of the Peace Keeping bureaucrat well in place, immediately came to the point “Yes, I have here a request for one hammer, multipurpose, but you have failed to fill out the data fields regarding to how the device will be used, nor where in your colony you would need such a device. These fields must be filled out before I can process the order for you”.
The technician on the other end of the transmission began replying in the same mundane bureaucratic language, and to all those around them on either end of the conversation it appeared to be just another supply request being finalized. But between Shilpa and her counterpart there were key words being transferred back and forth, verifying both of their authenticity of being Data Angels, and initiating a conversation between the two. The key words they transferred back and forth became sentences, and the sentences became a conversation:
Shilpa: DataJack Hammer here: you have need of me?
DataJack Cosmos: Yes. We have located a new Morganite colony which for some reason doesn’t show on any official records. About all we know is that they appear to have located some new artifacts that seem to be economically related. Currently you are our only agent in this sector.
Shilpa: How urgent is this request?
DataJack Cosmos: very. As you are aware a lot of our infiltration and probe actions are economically entwined. Therefore if the Morganites have discovered some new variant in the economic alghorhythms which control society, it behooves us to find out what they are, and the sooner the better.
Shilpa: send me the coordinates of this unknown colony and I will see what I can do.
Shilpa leaned back in her chair and reflected for a moment: in order to execute this mission, she was going to have to throw away this persona she had maintained over the last few years. She smiled inwardly at herself at the choice: continue on with the mundane existence of a Resupply Specialist, or once again assume the job (and the risks!) of being a Data Angel operative. There really was no choice. Shilpa keyed a comlink to one of her operatives onboard the Nirvana’s Dream, and in the same coded language she had used earlier set the wheels in motion:
Shilpa: Hello Rathmani, could you be a dear and get me a cup of Dalgali Bay Special Blend [I need you to hose the Maintenance Workstation, and force the operator to reset the console]
Rathmani: ah yes, Dalgali Bay. Would you like cream and sugar in that [do you want me to hose it real good?]
Shilpa: yes, please [yes, hose it good].
Shilpa cut the comlink and sat back, thinking about what her next moves would be. First, she needed the Maintenance Console reset in order to activate some replacement coding she’d put in place for just such a situation. From there, well, things would become a little more dicey…..
Janjouri was a Maytag repairman. He didn’t know exactly where that phrase had originated, however he did know that it applied to someone who serviced equipment that didn’t need servicing, and that was his job on the Nirvanna’s Dream. On a day in and day out basis Janjouri sat in his office, doing very little if anything. Every now and again the monotony was broken by the Maintenance Console computer telling him that he needed to replace a widget somewhere onboard the ship. This would take a minimum of time, and then it was back to sitting in the office, doing nothing.
Only today was different: because that clumsy oaf Rathmani had dumped his special blend tea into the central Maintenance Console, Janjouri was now having to go through the console replacing it circuit by circuit. Worse, it appeared that the extra cream and sugar which had been in the drink had really hosed the main console good! Janjouri cursed as, step by step, he rebuilt the entire maintenance console circuit by circuit. Once this was finally completed, Janjouri performed a manual reboot of the system which monitored all of the ship’s functions. Janjouri sweated while he worked: this was much more complicated than anything he had ever had to do before on the Nirvanna’s Dream.
After what seemed an eternity, which included several missteps by Janjouri, the system slowly came back online. While not an overly religious person, Janjouri prayed to what gods he knew that he had followed the steps in the aged manual correctly, and that the system he had rebuilt would work as expected. Janjouri watched as the Maintenance Console ran self-diagnostics, first on itself, then on the interfaces with the various sensor clusters throughout the ship, and finally on the main systems which monitored the engines and life support. Janjouri held his breath as the final sets of diagnostics ticked off the last of the sensor reports, and then surprised himself by exhaling loudly when the system turned green, signifying all was functioning as expected. “All in a days work” he exclaimed to those who had clustered around to watch the maintenance tech work, and then he headed back to his office.
A couple hours later the maintenance console reported that the B-Deck recycling tank had a malfunction, and that the main nutrient filtration unit would have to be replaced. Janjouri cursed: there was almost no worse job than to muck around with than the recycling tank equipment!
Janjouri labored long and hard in the recycling tank, wading through the half-filled tank several times with different componentry, before the maintenance console finally told him the recycling tank was back online. Janjouri stumbled back to his office, and still covered by the muck of the recycling tanks, collapsed into his chair, letting the fatigue of the days events overwhelm him. Never had he ever had a day as bad as this one! For the briefest of moments he thought he heard giggles coming from the Resupply Specialist’s station. Well, what would she know of a hard days true labor? Her job was probably the most boring on this tub!
Janjouri had a pounding and throbbing sensation at the front of his skull from all of the day’s work and frustrations. Just as he was reaching for a sedative the maintenance console chimed again. Janjouri cringed as he turned to view the readout, wondering what the problem was now, and then felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end: the maintenance console was reporting that one of the reactors was overloading! Janjouri, being the good Maytag Repairman that he was, did exactly as the Maintenance Console told him to do: he hit the emergency evacuation button.
Shilpa smiled inwardly to herself as the emergency claxon sounded, signaling that everyone needed to move immediately to the ship’s emergency evacuation pods. It had been all too easy to dupe the maintenance technician into thinking there was a critical system overload. Now, armed with a portable console, all she had to do was wait till everyone was in their escape pods, then she could link into the main network, lock everyone else out of the system, and then the ship was hers. From there it would be a simple matter of taking this ship to the coordinates given her by Cosmos and performing her probe operation against the Morganite colony. The captain and his crew wouldn’t like being locked up in their escape pods for weeks while this happened, but it couldn’t be helped. And besides, the pods were well stocked with the supplies for the colonies they were bound to visit.
Shilpa sat down into the comm seat of her team’s escape pod and jacked her portable console into the net. The console screen came to life, and Shilpa entered her backdoor command in order to gain access to the ship’s operation console. The password was accepted, and the screen changed to that of the ship’s main operation console. However almost immediately the screen blanked, and then was replaced by a commlink window. Shilpa, taken aback by this unexpected turn of events, stared at the person in the comm. window. “Captain?” was all Shilpa could manage.
The image smiled at her and pointed to his ear where there now resided a small skull and crossbones earpiece. “Pirate”, Shilpa stated flatly, a hollow feeling starting to grow on her insides.
The captain of the ship, Captain Rassmussen, smiled malevolently out of the commlink “Probe Team Fail!” he exclaimed, before continuing more matter of factly, “I’ve had my eyes on this ship for quite some time now. And when I finally came upon a method of commandeering her by rewriting some code, what should I find but someone else had already put in place such software”. Captain Rassmussen smiled again, “and so not knowing who had put that code in place, I had to wait until they made their move. And now here we are”.
“Here we are”, Shilpa agreed, not saying anything more for the moment: what she didn’t say couldn’t be used against her.
The captain smiled again (damn that smile was getting annoying, Shilpa thought!), “I have to admit, I never figured it was the resupply clerk. But I guess it fits: someone who had way too much time on their hands, and who had constant access to the ship’s computer network. Tell me Datajack, what were you going to do with the ship once you hijacked it?”
Shilpa, seeing her opening, coiled seductively in her chair, “something that might be worth your while, if your interested….”, she let her words trail off.
The captain ran his eyes slowly over Shilpa, “while I find the offer intriguing, I think I would be too worried that the environmentals to my cabin would stop working some evening.”
Shilpa, seeing that her gambit wouldn’t be picked up on, tried a different tack, “so what are you going to do, make us walk the plank?”
The captain laughed out loud this time, “you’ve been watching too many Morganite recvids: we’re not the cold blooded killers they make us out to be. And besides, your too well stocked in those escape pods for us to wait you out”. The captain motioned to someone offscreen before continuing, “however there is another old pirate tradition that matches more closely with what we plan to do to you and the rest of the crew”.
“And what is that, praytell?”
“We’re going to strand you on what amounts to a 26th century desert isle”.
Shilpa looked up into the sky where the ship that had almost been hers was departing orbit. So close, she thought, so close. And how different the turn of events were that ended up with her and her team here on this small planetoid! The captain hadn’t been lying when he had compared this worldlet to a desert isle: what little water there was here all seemed to be locked away in the strange xenoflora which grew everywhere, and there was hardly any atmosphere at all. Shilpa could also tell the gravity was significantly less than a standard G: this worldlet was definitely going to take some getting used to!
Idly Shilpa wondered how the other groups who had been marooned here were faring, and how well they would be able to adapt to this world. Yes, Shilpa thought, Adaptation was going to be the name of the game on this world, and if her faction were to survive, she and her people had better learn to adapt quickly in this new environment!
Directions
1) In your alpha centauri/Scenarios subdirectory create a folder called "Adapt", and download and unzip the attached files into it.
2) Start up SMAX, then select "Scenario", "Play Scenario", and then go to the subdirectory "Adapt" and choose the scenario. The game will automatically load up with the Data Angels.
Enjoy!
D
By MY 2452 the first fleet of scoutships had been built and sent out with a mandate to investigate all of the habitable planets catalogued in the ancient Progenitor ships star charts. The results were mixed: some scoutships returned with exciting news of “Eden-class” planets, while other scouts returned with tales of planets which had degraded over the eons. Still other scouts failed to return at all…
By MY2475 the "Diaspora of Man" had begun in earnest, with interstellar colony ships being sent out to the far reaches of the Milky Way as fast as they could be built. However with this explosive growth it soon became apparent that not all of the far-flung settlements were completely self-sufficient, and that to prevent catastrophes from occurring on newly founded colonies, a series of supply transports were desperately needed to keep the remote colonies supplied with all the essentials.
The Nirvana’s Dream was such a ship: built by Morgan Interstellar, it was leased by the United Nations for the sole purpose of re-supplying outposts on the fringes of the ever-expanding bubble of human-controlled space. The ship was crewed by peoples from various factions, each contributing his or her own expertise, and this included one Peace Keeper by the name of Shilpa Sanservanni, whose occupation was Resupply Specialist. In this most mundane of jobs Shilpa was very good: she processed supply requests from various outposts, and ensured her ship was stocked with the correct supplies, and that everything was sorted correctly into the supply shuttles assigned for each outpost.
On this day just like every other Shilpa sat down to her terminal and began by reviewing the requests which had come in during her sleep-cycle. Shilpa methodically went down the list, processing some of the requests herself, delegating others to her staff, sending replies to others asking for clarification on certain points. Approximately halfway through her list she came across a message from a specific University colony which caught her eye immediately. She selected the attached requests list and began skimming down it. Approximately halfway through she came across an entry “Hammer, 1, Multipurpose”. Shilpa immediately selected the embedded comlink to contact the person who had sent her the message, and in short order the visage of a University technician was before her. Shilpa, the personae of the Peace Keeping bureaucrat well in place, immediately came to the point “Yes, I have here a request for one hammer, multipurpose, but you have failed to fill out the data fields regarding to how the device will be used, nor where in your colony you would need such a device. These fields must be filled out before I can process the order for you”.
The technician on the other end of the transmission began replying in the same mundane bureaucratic language, and to all those around them on either end of the conversation it appeared to be just another supply request being finalized. But between Shilpa and her counterpart there were key words being transferred back and forth, verifying both of their authenticity of being Data Angels, and initiating a conversation between the two. The key words they transferred back and forth became sentences, and the sentences became a conversation:
Shilpa: DataJack Hammer here: you have need of me?
DataJack Cosmos: Yes. We have located a new Morganite colony which for some reason doesn’t show on any official records. About all we know is that they appear to have located some new artifacts that seem to be economically related. Currently you are our only agent in this sector.
Shilpa: How urgent is this request?
DataJack Cosmos: very. As you are aware a lot of our infiltration and probe actions are economically entwined. Therefore if the Morganites have discovered some new variant in the economic alghorhythms which control society, it behooves us to find out what they are, and the sooner the better.
Shilpa: send me the coordinates of this unknown colony and I will see what I can do.
Shilpa leaned back in her chair and reflected for a moment: in order to execute this mission, she was going to have to throw away this persona she had maintained over the last few years. She smiled inwardly at herself at the choice: continue on with the mundane existence of a Resupply Specialist, or once again assume the job (and the risks!) of being a Data Angel operative. There really was no choice. Shilpa keyed a comlink to one of her operatives onboard the Nirvana’s Dream, and in the same coded language she had used earlier set the wheels in motion:
Shilpa: Hello Rathmani, could you be a dear and get me a cup of Dalgali Bay Special Blend [I need you to hose the Maintenance Workstation, and force the operator to reset the console]
Rathmani: ah yes, Dalgali Bay. Would you like cream and sugar in that [do you want me to hose it real good?]
Shilpa: yes, please [yes, hose it good].
Shilpa cut the comlink and sat back, thinking about what her next moves would be. First, she needed the Maintenance Console reset in order to activate some replacement coding she’d put in place for just such a situation. From there, well, things would become a little more dicey…..
Janjouri was a Maytag repairman. He didn’t know exactly where that phrase had originated, however he did know that it applied to someone who serviced equipment that didn’t need servicing, and that was his job on the Nirvanna’s Dream. On a day in and day out basis Janjouri sat in his office, doing very little if anything. Every now and again the monotony was broken by the Maintenance Console computer telling him that he needed to replace a widget somewhere onboard the ship. This would take a minimum of time, and then it was back to sitting in the office, doing nothing.
Only today was different: because that clumsy oaf Rathmani had dumped his special blend tea into the central Maintenance Console, Janjouri was now having to go through the console replacing it circuit by circuit. Worse, it appeared that the extra cream and sugar which had been in the drink had really hosed the main console good! Janjouri cursed as, step by step, he rebuilt the entire maintenance console circuit by circuit. Once this was finally completed, Janjouri performed a manual reboot of the system which monitored all of the ship’s functions. Janjouri sweated while he worked: this was much more complicated than anything he had ever had to do before on the Nirvanna’s Dream.
After what seemed an eternity, which included several missteps by Janjouri, the system slowly came back online. While not an overly religious person, Janjouri prayed to what gods he knew that he had followed the steps in the aged manual correctly, and that the system he had rebuilt would work as expected. Janjouri watched as the Maintenance Console ran self-diagnostics, first on itself, then on the interfaces with the various sensor clusters throughout the ship, and finally on the main systems which monitored the engines and life support. Janjouri held his breath as the final sets of diagnostics ticked off the last of the sensor reports, and then surprised himself by exhaling loudly when the system turned green, signifying all was functioning as expected. “All in a days work” he exclaimed to those who had clustered around to watch the maintenance tech work, and then he headed back to his office.
A couple hours later the maintenance console reported that the B-Deck recycling tank had a malfunction, and that the main nutrient filtration unit would have to be replaced. Janjouri cursed: there was almost no worse job than to muck around with than the recycling tank equipment!
Janjouri labored long and hard in the recycling tank, wading through the half-filled tank several times with different componentry, before the maintenance console finally told him the recycling tank was back online. Janjouri stumbled back to his office, and still covered by the muck of the recycling tanks, collapsed into his chair, letting the fatigue of the days events overwhelm him. Never had he ever had a day as bad as this one! For the briefest of moments he thought he heard giggles coming from the Resupply Specialist’s station. Well, what would she know of a hard days true labor? Her job was probably the most boring on this tub!
Janjouri had a pounding and throbbing sensation at the front of his skull from all of the day’s work and frustrations. Just as he was reaching for a sedative the maintenance console chimed again. Janjouri cringed as he turned to view the readout, wondering what the problem was now, and then felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end: the maintenance console was reporting that one of the reactors was overloading! Janjouri, being the good Maytag Repairman that he was, did exactly as the Maintenance Console told him to do: he hit the emergency evacuation button.
Shilpa smiled inwardly to herself as the emergency claxon sounded, signaling that everyone needed to move immediately to the ship’s emergency evacuation pods. It had been all too easy to dupe the maintenance technician into thinking there was a critical system overload. Now, armed with a portable console, all she had to do was wait till everyone was in their escape pods, then she could link into the main network, lock everyone else out of the system, and then the ship was hers. From there it would be a simple matter of taking this ship to the coordinates given her by Cosmos and performing her probe operation against the Morganite colony. The captain and his crew wouldn’t like being locked up in their escape pods for weeks while this happened, but it couldn’t be helped. And besides, the pods were well stocked with the supplies for the colonies they were bound to visit.
Shilpa sat down into the comm seat of her team’s escape pod and jacked her portable console into the net. The console screen came to life, and Shilpa entered her backdoor command in order to gain access to the ship’s operation console. The password was accepted, and the screen changed to that of the ship’s main operation console. However almost immediately the screen blanked, and then was replaced by a commlink window. Shilpa, taken aback by this unexpected turn of events, stared at the person in the comm. window. “Captain?” was all Shilpa could manage.
The image smiled at her and pointed to his ear where there now resided a small skull and crossbones earpiece. “Pirate”, Shilpa stated flatly, a hollow feeling starting to grow on her insides.
The captain of the ship, Captain Rassmussen, smiled malevolently out of the commlink “Probe Team Fail!” he exclaimed, before continuing more matter of factly, “I’ve had my eyes on this ship for quite some time now. And when I finally came upon a method of commandeering her by rewriting some code, what should I find but someone else had already put in place such software”. Captain Rassmussen smiled again, “and so not knowing who had put that code in place, I had to wait until they made their move. And now here we are”.
“Here we are”, Shilpa agreed, not saying anything more for the moment: what she didn’t say couldn’t be used against her.
The captain smiled again (damn that smile was getting annoying, Shilpa thought!), “I have to admit, I never figured it was the resupply clerk. But I guess it fits: someone who had way too much time on their hands, and who had constant access to the ship’s computer network. Tell me Datajack, what were you going to do with the ship once you hijacked it?”
Shilpa, seeing her opening, coiled seductively in her chair, “something that might be worth your while, if your interested….”, she let her words trail off.
The captain ran his eyes slowly over Shilpa, “while I find the offer intriguing, I think I would be too worried that the environmentals to my cabin would stop working some evening.”
Shilpa, seeing that her gambit wouldn’t be picked up on, tried a different tack, “so what are you going to do, make us walk the plank?”
The captain laughed out loud this time, “you’ve been watching too many Morganite recvids: we’re not the cold blooded killers they make us out to be. And besides, your too well stocked in those escape pods for us to wait you out”. The captain motioned to someone offscreen before continuing, “however there is another old pirate tradition that matches more closely with what we plan to do to you and the rest of the crew”.
“And what is that, praytell?”
“We’re going to strand you on what amounts to a 26th century desert isle”.
Shilpa looked up into the sky where the ship that had almost been hers was departing orbit. So close, she thought, so close. And how different the turn of events were that ended up with her and her team here on this small planetoid! The captain hadn’t been lying when he had compared this worldlet to a desert isle: what little water there was here all seemed to be locked away in the strange xenoflora which grew everywhere, and there was hardly any atmosphere at all. Shilpa could also tell the gravity was significantly less than a standard G: this worldlet was definitely going to take some getting used to!
Idly Shilpa wondered how the other groups who had been marooned here were faring, and how well they would be able to adapt to this world. Yes, Shilpa thought, Adaptation was going to be the name of the game on this world, and if her faction were to survive, she and her people had better learn to adapt quickly in this new environment!
Directions
1) In your alpha centauri/Scenarios subdirectory create a folder called "Adapt", and download and unzip the attached files into it.
2) Start up SMAX, then select "Scenario", "Play Scenario", and then go to the subdirectory "Adapt" and choose the scenario. The game will automatically load up with the Data Angels.
Enjoy!
D
In this one I'm exploiting a bug I found in how the game deals with artillery - let me know what you think of it.
although the damn bloodthirsty PK's are swarming me atm so I'm just ignoring stealing from him anymore for awhile so that I'm not fighting on two fronts. 
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