- Location
- Arizona
- Pronouns
- Him/His
Just a heads up, but I won't be posting any new chapters until at least the fourth - I'm in the middle of the desert. I can answer trivia, though, so ask away!
-
Going forward, links to content from Twitter (now X) will no longer be embedded. Pre-existing links should not be affected.
Victory Through Unity! (Planetary Annihiliation Self Insert Multicross)
100. Preparing for Dread (Begin Galactic Civilizations)
- Location
- Arizona
- Pronouns
- Him/His
Ah, Galactic Civilizations: an epic 4X game with some of the best AI characters ever made. A game I had played for hours just to win once.
And, of course, the starship editor.....
Eh, I'm getting sidetracked. Need to get back to the beginning of my adventures in the Gal Cov universe. That one was really fun.
XXXXXXXX
Alright, so what do I know about this universe?
Well, for starters, a long time ago, a war took place between two great Civilizations: the Arbor and the Dread Lords. Both sides vanished for some mysterious reason (the Dread Lords were sealed away by the Arnor, who then went into exile), leaving behind their technology. The younger races quickly started to expand to fill the power vacuum, but they were limited to traveling between planets using the star gates (why nobody sued Stardock for copyright infringement was beyond me), so the cosmos were rather small for a long time. The gates' inefficiencies also meant that the local evil aliens, the Drengin, had to plan put conquests literally millennia in advance, which ended up making them very pragmatic. Overall, things were peaceful....for a given value of peace.
Then humans showed up.
See, an alien race called the Arceans gave humans a star gate, one which couldn't be turned off, presumably so that they could invade Earth. Instead of turning it on, though, mankind reverse engineered the gate and combined it with fusion technology to create hyperdrive, which rendered the star gates obsolete. Mankind then eliminated any superiority this technology would give them by giving out the hyperdrive design to everyone, and settled for becoming the univere's best diplomats.
Yeah, that all seems about right. So what to do now?
Well, first off, I need to see if the Drengin ended up letting the Dread Lords out of the pocket dimension, which was a big plot point of the second game. If so, I prepare for war, if not, stop the Drengin from letting them out in the first place.
If the Dread Lords have gotten out, I'll also need to check if the Terran Alliance had succeeded in uniting everybody could be considered good to face the Dread Lords. In canon, that actually worked, but then the Drengin cheap shorted said alliance and ruined everything. Hopefully, I could stop that.
Also, I'd probably need to start convincing some of my creations to move onto the planets I was setting up shop on in this universe- the local AI faction, the Yor Collective, were subservient to the Dread Lords, and were one of the setting's 'evil' factions. Said Dread Lords had ordered the Yor to genocide the Dread Lords' former servants, the Iconians, who were still one of the major powers in this universe, so it would probably be best if I avoided associating myself with the Yor or showing any real similarities to them. At least for now.
Of course, first, I actually needed to see what happened so far in this universe before I could act.
Fortunately, I already had access to part of the Terrans network, thank to my hacking of the colony ship, so full scale access wouldn't be a problem. Now let's get to work!
.....
.....
.....
...Done!
So, let's see what's happened so far..... Okay, the Dread Lords have already escaped from their can, the Drengin are fortifying their territories (and readying a fleet to screw over the good guys, in all likelihood), and it looks like the Terrans just finished managing to unite all of the 'good' factions; that is, themselves, the Arcean Empire, the Iconian Refuge, the Torian Federation, the Altarian Republic, the Thalan Contigency,.....the Drath? Huh, well, that was unexpected. Who else did they get in their alliance?
.....They got the Slyne and Onyx hive to join them? Those guys didn't even show up until Gal Civ 3! Oh, and apparently the Iridium Corporation is already a big thing. Better start planning for those oddities.
................. How the HELL did they get the Xendar to team up with them?!
XXXXXXXXXXX
Yeah, there were a lot of unexpected curveballs in this universe.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
AN: Read and Review! This is Flameal15k, signing off!
And, of course, the starship editor.....
Eh, I'm getting sidetracked. Need to get back to the beginning of my adventures in the Gal Cov universe. That one was really fun.
XXXXXXXX
Alright, so what do I know about this universe?
Well, for starters, a long time ago, a war took place between two great Civilizations: the Arbor and the Dread Lords. Both sides vanished for some mysterious reason (the Dread Lords were sealed away by the Arnor, who then went into exile), leaving behind their technology. The younger races quickly started to expand to fill the power vacuum, but they were limited to traveling between planets using the star gates (why nobody sued Stardock for copyright infringement was beyond me), so the cosmos were rather small for a long time. The gates' inefficiencies also meant that the local evil aliens, the Drengin, had to plan put conquests literally millennia in advance, which ended up making them very pragmatic. Overall, things were peaceful....for a given value of peace.
Then humans showed up.
See, an alien race called the Arceans gave humans a star gate, one which couldn't be turned off, presumably so that they could invade Earth. Instead of turning it on, though, mankind reverse engineered the gate and combined it with fusion technology to create hyperdrive, which rendered the star gates obsolete. Mankind then eliminated any superiority this technology would give them by giving out the hyperdrive design to everyone, and settled for becoming the univere's best diplomats.
Yeah, that all seems about right. So what to do now?
Well, first off, I need to see if the Drengin ended up letting the Dread Lords out of the pocket dimension, which was a big plot point of the second game. If so, I prepare for war, if not, stop the Drengin from letting them out in the first place.
If the Dread Lords have gotten out, I'll also need to check if the Terran Alliance had succeeded in uniting everybody could be considered good to face the Dread Lords. In canon, that actually worked, but then the Drengin cheap shorted said alliance and ruined everything. Hopefully, I could stop that.
Also, I'd probably need to start convincing some of my creations to move onto the planets I was setting up shop on in this universe- the local AI faction, the Yor Collective, were subservient to the Dread Lords, and were one of the setting's 'evil' factions. Said Dread Lords had ordered the Yor to genocide the Dread Lords' former servants, the Iconians, who were still one of the major powers in this universe, so it would probably be best if I avoided associating myself with the Yor or showing any real similarities to them. At least for now.
Of course, first, I actually needed to see what happened so far in this universe before I could act.
Fortunately, I already had access to part of the Terrans network, thank to my hacking of the colony ship, so full scale access wouldn't be a problem. Now let's get to work!
.....
.....
.....
...Done!
So, let's see what's happened so far..... Okay, the Dread Lords have already escaped from their can, the Drengin are fortifying their territories (and readying a fleet to screw over the good guys, in all likelihood), and it looks like the Terrans just finished managing to unite all of the 'good' factions; that is, themselves, the Arcean Empire, the Iconian Refuge, the Torian Federation, the Altarian Republic, the Thalan Contigency,.....the Drath? Huh, well, that was unexpected. Who else did they get in their alliance?
.....They got the Slyne and Onyx hive to join them? Those guys didn't even show up until Gal Civ 3! Oh, and apparently the Iridium Corporation is already a big thing. Better start planning for those oddities.
................. How the HELL did they get the Xendar to team up with them?!
XXXXXXXXXXX
Yeah, there were a lot of unexpected curveballs in this universe.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
AN: Read and Review! This is Flameal15k, signing off!
Ryven Razgriz
I need a Gun and I'll let you know 'What's up?'.
- Location
- South East Asia
Oh shit, don't forget that GalCiv have Time-Travelling humans who mucked things up.
- Location
- Arizona
- Pronouns
- Him/His
Wasn't going to mention that until it became relevant, but you do have a point.
Also, I will be using the editors from Gal Civ II and Gal Civ III to make some ships for this series, so expect more ships to show up!
Ryven Razgriz
I need a Gun and I'll let you know 'What's up?'.
- Location
- South East Asia
Eh, you really don't need to do that. We can just work it out by you saying things like a 1.3km battleship or heavy cruiser or something. Still if that's what'cha wanna do then by all means do what makes ya happy.
- Location
- Arizona
- Pronouns
- Him/His
I know it isn't necessary, but I really like using those editors. And thanks for the encouragement!
101. Gathering Strength
- Location
- Arizona
- Pronouns
- Him/His
Okay, the curveballs were unexpected, but they weren't anything I could adapt to. Honestly, they made my job easier, as it meant that I wouldn't have to help the Terran's unite everybody while dealing with the Dread Lords. Now, all I had to do was demolish the Dread Lords, make sure the Yor and Drengin weren't in a position to muck things up, prevent the Thalans from doing anything to screw over mankind (though I will admit their reasons for doing so were completely justified), and locate the last of the Arnor and the Mithralar. Oh, and stop the Snathi from beoming a major power - those rodents were servants of the Dread Lords, and I didn't want to have to deal with them mucking up my plans down the line. Given that they didn't become a major power until after the Dread Lords were beaten, though, I'd probably have to give the Dread Lords a good thrashing before the Snathi would even show up - there weren't any mentions of them in the in any of the 'Good' races' databases, so I assumed they were still in hiding.
Ok, time to start preparing!
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
First thing's first - start settling more planets. Easy - just send some transports equipped with fabbers to a star system, give them some orders and a new colony goes up just like that. I made sure to add in some civilian buildings so that the planet's could still appear to be habited, even though I obviously didn't need civilians to make my army run well. Also, it appeared that, occasionally, colony ships got sucked into wormholes and spat out on the other side of the galaxy, and that this happened enough in the Terran Alliance's past that they were still encountering lost colonies, some of who had built their own mini-empires!
Well, that gave me an easy excuse to hide behind if they got curious.
While this was going on, I began searching the area around my new territories for any odd looking anomalies - they usually didn't amount to much, but hey, I'll take what I can get. Plus, any salvage I come across would be appreciated - new tech secrets were always a possible result from searching htose things, and if nothing else, I could sell the scrap back to the alliance for a quick buck.
To my surprise, I found plenty of wrecks and asteroids to examine while I waited for my initial bases to go up. Apparently this part of the galaxy lacked a lot of extant alike civilizations, so I was free to examine them without any claims of stealing. Hurray for me. Any advantage is one I could use, especially when I was just starting my journey on this universe. Even if I was leagues beyond everyone else, a hidden Ace was always appreciated.
Most of the wrecks I discovered, along with my finds in asteroid fields, awarded me minor stuff - better designs for research equipment, minor advances in manufacturing tools, that kinda stuff. A few rewarded intelligence on how to train and improve soldiers, which was sadly useless for me. Perhaps I could sell that off to the Terrans and their allies? Food for thought.
Back to setting up my bases m. When I'd hacked into the Colony Ship's databanks, I'd unlocked the schematics for all Terran units, along with the technology need to make more in my orbital factories. I'd already started designing some so that I could complement my existing fleet with several....versatile designs, as well as heavy hitters and specialized vessels. Bigger transports was high on that list. Additionally, I'd already created several constructor ships to build starbases - I'd found those resources you needed starbases to mine, and besides, starbases are awesome.
My examining of the ships did end up coming short in some cases, though - a few had nothing to offer me that I didn't already have.
Well, I guess I could just break it down for my own usage....
Or I could sell it to the 'good guys'.
I didn't really need the money, but it might make them friendlier to me. Since I was planning on giving the Dread Lords the boot in my first combat appearance, a friendly gesture before hand might keep them from doing something stupid. Though the Thalans might still find a way to muck things up.
Eh, be diplomatic now, deal with the problems later. I quickly drafted up a cargo hauler and some escorts, then set a path to he nearest inhabited planet that was aiding the Terrans. Time to mess around a little bit.
XXXXXXXXXX
AN: Read and Review! This is Flameal15k, signing off!
Ok, time to start preparing!
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
First thing's first - start settling more planets. Easy - just send some transports equipped with fabbers to a star system, give them some orders and a new colony goes up just like that. I made sure to add in some civilian buildings so that the planet's could still appear to be habited, even though I obviously didn't need civilians to make my army run well. Also, it appeared that, occasionally, colony ships got sucked into wormholes and spat out on the other side of the galaxy, and that this happened enough in the Terran Alliance's past that they were still encountering lost colonies, some of who had built their own mini-empires!
Well, that gave me an easy excuse to hide behind if they got curious.
While this was going on, I began searching the area around my new territories for any odd looking anomalies - they usually didn't amount to much, but hey, I'll take what I can get. Plus, any salvage I come across would be appreciated - new tech secrets were always a possible result from searching htose things, and if nothing else, I could sell the scrap back to the alliance for a quick buck.
To my surprise, I found plenty of wrecks and asteroids to examine while I waited for my initial bases to go up. Apparently this part of the galaxy lacked a lot of extant alike civilizations, so I was free to examine them without any claims of stealing. Hurray for me. Any advantage is one I could use, especially when I was just starting my journey on this universe. Even if I was leagues beyond everyone else, a hidden Ace was always appreciated.
Most of the wrecks I discovered, along with my finds in asteroid fields, awarded me minor stuff - better designs for research equipment, minor advances in manufacturing tools, that kinda stuff. A few rewarded intelligence on how to train and improve soldiers, which was sadly useless for me. Perhaps I could sell that off to the Terrans and their allies? Food for thought.
Back to setting up my bases m. When I'd hacked into the Colony Ship's databanks, I'd unlocked the schematics for all Terran units, along with the technology need to make more in my orbital factories. I'd already started designing some so that I could complement my existing fleet with several....versatile designs, as well as heavy hitters and specialized vessels. Bigger transports was high on that list. Additionally, I'd already created several constructor ships to build starbases - I'd found those resources you needed starbases to mine, and besides, starbases are awesome.
My examining of the ships did end up coming short in some cases, though - a few had nothing to offer me that I didn't already have.
Well, I guess I could just break it down for my own usage....
Or I could sell it to the 'good guys'.
I didn't really need the money, but it might make them friendlier to me. Since I was planning on giving the Dread Lords the boot in my first combat appearance, a friendly gesture before hand might keep them from doing something stupid. Though the Thalans might still find a way to muck things up.
Eh, be diplomatic now, deal with the problems later. I quickly drafted up a cargo hauler and some escorts, then set a path to he nearest inhabited planet that was aiding the Terrans. Time to mess around a little bit.
XXXXXXXXXX
AN: Read and Review! This is Flameal15k, signing off!
Ryven Razgriz
I need a Gun and I'll let you know 'What's up?'.
- Location
- South East Asia
ImO I would've appeared as a galaxy-faring roaming faction, then justify to every faction there is that space belongs to no one and that even if they wanted to stop me they wouldn't be able to simply for the fact that I have tens of thousands of ships at minimum.
EDIT: That and giant-ass roaming shield planets or tens of kilometers long armed colony ships. (The kind you see in Gundams 'cept with guns. Lots of guns.)
EDIT: That and giant-ass roaming shield planets or tens of kilometers long armed colony ships. (The kind you see in Gundams 'cept with guns. Lots of guns.)
Last edited:
- Location
- Море песка, солнце огня и множество злых сарацин
Should probably be "but they weren't anything I couldn't adapt to".
Nice new chapter!
- Location
- Arizona
- Pronouns
- Him/His
102. So much for a Peaceful Introduction
- Location
- Arizona
- Pronouns
- Him/His
My plan to introduce myself peacefully to the civilizations of this universe didn't last very long. The Drengin (of course) forced my hand. See, when they saw a vulnerable looking freighter with only a few fighter craft for escorts, they assumed 'this must be an target to destroy, so let's do that and loot the wreck for anything valuable'. Well, I assumed that was that these guys thought - normally, the Drengin were quite a pragmatic group of evil aliens, especially in regards to my later encounters with them. Guess these guys just wanted to shoot something.
Anyway, the Drengin force that my freighter had encountered promptly opened fire onckt with laser beams, presumably hoping to cut open the ship, since armor in the Gal Civ verse does squat against lasers. Unfortunately, my Progenitor alloy based armor was still as good as late game armor in this universe, which was more than enough to no sell the Dregin's lasers, allowing my Honey Bee Class Cargo Transport to come out of the engagement completely unscathed. While the Drengin tried to wrap their heads around how they had done less than scratch damage to my freighter, said freighter's escorts, officially designated Bull Ant Class Interceptors, made short work of the Drengin ships, which were far more vulnerable to lasers than my vessels were. Scans of the wrecks confirmed there were no survivors. A shame, really - I could've interrogated them without really hurting them, and I would've returned those Drengin to their empire unscathed, but alas, some thing sdon't go out the way you want them to. Oh well.
With nothing else to get in their way, the freighter and its escorts continued on their way, while I created more fleets to continue expanding my dominion. A few ships were sent through wormholes, in order to allow me to expand faster than simple FTL would take me. By chance, one of those wormholes put me Within Drengin territory, in a system where the Srengin lacked any presence, owing to a lack of inhabitable worlds.
When I realized what had happened, I smiled to myself. Time to take the Drengin out of the game.
XXXXXX
AN: Birthday chapter is up, enjoy!
Ready and Review! This is Flameal15k, signing off!
Anyway, the Drengin force that my freighter had encountered promptly opened fire onckt with laser beams, presumably hoping to cut open the ship, since armor in the Gal Civ verse does squat against lasers. Unfortunately, my Progenitor alloy based armor was still as good as late game armor in this universe, which was more than enough to no sell the Dregin's lasers, allowing my Honey Bee Class Cargo Transport to come out of the engagement completely unscathed. While the Drengin tried to wrap their heads around how they had done less than scratch damage to my freighter, said freighter's escorts, officially designated Bull Ant Class Interceptors, made short work of the Drengin ships, which were far more vulnerable to lasers than my vessels were. Scans of the wrecks confirmed there were no survivors. A shame, really - I could've interrogated them without really hurting them, and I would've returned those Drengin to their empire unscathed, but alas, some thing sdon't go out the way you want them to. Oh well.
With nothing else to get in their way, the freighter and its escorts continued on their way, while I created more fleets to continue expanding my dominion. A few ships were sent through wormholes, in order to allow me to expand faster than simple FTL would take me. By chance, one of those wormholes put me Within Drengin territory, in a system where the Srengin lacked any presence, owing to a lack of inhabitable worlds.
When I realized what had happened, I smiled to myself. Time to take the Drengin out of the game.
XXXXXX
AN: Birthday chapter is up, enjoy!
Ready and Review! This is Flameal15k, signing off!
Ryven Razgriz
I need a Gun and I'll let you know 'What's up?'.
- Location
- South East Asia
Ugh... Sorry to say but really? Why not screenshot it instead of taking your phone and doing that. No offense seriously but ugh.
- Location
- Arizona
- Pronouns
- Him/His
I'm having trouble doing screen shots ATM, I'll post a better image later. Also life got in the way of me using a better image.
- Location
- Arizona
- Pronouns
- Him/His
Artwork has been fixed (read: changed to screenshots instead of phone pictures). The links in the last chapter have been updated accordingly.
103. Colonization
- Location
- Arizona
- Pronouns
- Him/His
With the Drengin pirates dealt with, I decided to go back to working on expanding my forces before I geared up to battle the Dread Lords. The Dread Lords, in-game, were an absolute nightmare to fight - their civilian ships could take out medium sized warships easily. I wasn't sure how that would translate here, but since the majority of the technologies I'd acquired in my travels were designed for usage on the surface of planets, barring what I'd managed to acquire from hacking into the Terran Databases, I had a feeling things were going to be rough at first. Though I didn't think I'd take colossal casualties, I had the feeling I'd lose more machines in this universe than in any I'd ever fought in before. Therefore, it would probably be a good idea to make sure I could easily replace those losses before I started seriously engaging the Dread Lords in battle.
So, onwards to colonization!
XXXXXXXXXXXX
Once my initial fleets arrived at their target star systems, I immediately set them to work turning those systems into Forward Operating Bases. Orbital fabbers began building orbital factories and defenses, with a few assisting my ground fabbers in building surface infrastructure - factories, umbrellas, metal extractors, resource generators, power plants, storage, and so on. As the number of systems I controlled steadily went up from one to a dozen in roughly a matter of minutes, I noticed one problem I was suffering - while my ability to expand to other star systems was understandably slow, my expansion across the surface of other planets was even slower. This wasn't because my machines were building things slowly, oh no, but rather that my expansion fleets only included so many fabbers in them, which meant that it would take some time to begin large scale expansion. Granted, that time difference was more a case of minutes going to hours, which was still leagues beyond what anyone else would be able to do, especially in this universe, but time mattered.
Since my build times were dependent on how many fabbers I had in the area, the logical solution was to build a transport that could hold more fabbers. The problem with that was that those fabbers were easy targets, as they were exposed while in transit from one planet to the next, since Planetary Annihilation transports (or, for that matter, any transport from a game made by the developers of Total Annihilation) didn't store their units inside the transport, with the notable exception of Supreme Commander Two. Fortunately, I had just come across the technology to build a larger scale transport, one that could hold way more than twelve units in it. I quickly pulled up the list of parts I had available from my tech stealing from the Terrans and their allies and got to work designing.
Approximately ten minutes later, the first Pilgrim Class Colonization ship exited one of my orbital factories and was beginning to be stocked with units. The addition of the coloization module to my arsenal, along with the invasion module, meant I could now store much larger forces for invasions, reven considering what I could deploy as is. I mean, in-game, a colonization module could store 500 units of people, which translated to roughly half a million people. Needless to say, I really didn't need to worry about the size of my expansion forces anymore.
XXXXXXXXXXXX
It'd take a few minutes to finish building the forces that I'd put onboard the Pilgrim, which included several sub-commanders, so I decided to take a moment and return my attention back to my hub world. So far, nothing big was happening - Rory and his adoptive siblings were busy playing hide and seek (which was going to take some time, given that Rory was it and the others were using their psychic powers to tell each other where he was), the new arrivals from the Beyond Earth were settling in nicely, though some of those with Puritanical leadings were still filled with unease regarding their new surroundings, and the genetic heroes were busy doing their own things. In other words, things were mostly normal at the moment.
Oh, and Tylos had decided to come over and see me.
"Greetings Great One, how may I help you?"
"Hello, Tylos. I apologize, but I need no assistance at the moment."
"I see. How goes your journey to retrieve your full powers?"
"Good so far. It has taken me across many worlds, and shown me many wonders."
"I would be surprised if it did not," responded my reptavian companion. To my surprise, he sounded somewhat sad when he said that.
"That would be rather surprising. Now my journey has taken me to a universe home to living machines, and a race of ancients whose own conflicts have caused no small amount of grief for those that would succeed them."
"That is......quite amazing," was my companion's reply. Once again, he sounded sad.
Okay, let's address this before things get out of hand.
"Tylos, are you unhappy?"
"W-what do you mean?"
"Your tone of voice betrays that you are experiencing discomfort, specifically either sadness or melancholia, and I would like to know why. Please, do not argue with me - I just want to help you."
"....I'm sorry, it's just....I want to do more to help you."
".....what?"
"It's just that, ever since you arrived, while you have treated us well, you have mostly ignored us to focus on your mission. I understand your reasons for doing so, but, well, we've waited a long time for your arrival, and we want to help you. Even if it is in the most miniscule of ways, we all want to provide you assistance on your journey. I may be the only one to say as much, but I am not the only one."
I pondered what Tylos had said for a couple of seconds. Now that I thought about it, for all of the care I had offered to my creations, I had essentially just moved a few of them to my hubworld and called it a day. My creations, who were my children in spirit, if not in fact, were beings I had neglected since I had left their home universe. If I continued to neglect them, well, I probably wouldn't be any better than most ROBs. I'd definitely be worse than Melissa, given how cordial she had been with her creations. Maybe I should let them assist more in helping me with my plans for the multiverse.
"I see. Well, I guess I'll have to change that."
"Thank you, Great One.................."
Now Tylos was fidgeting around, clearly uneasy.
"Anything else?"
"I suppose there is one more thing I have to say."
"Then say it."
"Well, in your journeys, you have expanded the realm you control to include territories across creation, correct?"
"Yes, I have."
"Then may we be able to see those territories for ourselves? Perhaps carve out a home in these new frontiers?"
"....Are you saying some of my followers want to live on the worlds I have claimed as mine?"
"Precisely. We wish to see how far your power goes, to see the distant stars that are within your reach. We hear so much of what you have achieved, and now we want to see it with our own eyes."
.........Could I deny them that? I mean, they had stood beside me since the first day I had met them. Technology that made life better was a good reward for this, but space was still going to be an issue. Plus, living people were more approachable than machines. For the most part, anyway.
"......I believe that can be arranged. Round up anyone who wishes to seek a new home in one of the universes I have visited. I want to know who wants to go and settle these frontiers before I begin marking planets for colonization."
"Of course, my lord."
XXXXXXXXX
So, I guess that was the day I decided to stop just travelling across creation, fighting guys, stealing their tech, nudging the good guys toward making themselves into stronger civilizations, and then leaving. From here on out, I would be taking up the tools to build something that would stand the test of time. An empire to span creation.
True, this wasn't the day I branded my forces as a state, as far as others were concerned. That would be a few weeks later, after taking some time to see if I could keep my colonists from getting screwed over by my own issues. This WAS the day, though, that laid the foundation for all of that. So I guess this could be described as the day the Infernum Federation was truly born.
So, onwards to colonization!
XXXXXXXXXXXX
Once my initial fleets arrived at their target star systems, I immediately set them to work turning those systems into Forward Operating Bases. Orbital fabbers began building orbital factories and defenses, with a few assisting my ground fabbers in building surface infrastructure - factories, umbrellas, metal extractors, resource generators, power plants, storage, and so on. As the number of systems I controlled steadily went up from one to a dozen in roughly a matter of minutes, I noticed one problem I was suffering - while my ability to expand to other star systems was understandably slow, my expansion across the surface of other planets was even slower. This wasn't because my machines were building things slowly, oh no, but rather that my expansion fleets only included so many fabbers in them, which meant that it would take some time to begin large scale expansion. Granted, that time difference was more a case of minutes going to hours, which was still leagues beyond what anyone else would be able to do, especially in this universe, but time mattered.
Since my build times were dependent on how many fabbers I had in the area, the logical solution was to build a transport that could hold more fabbers. The problem with that was that those fabbers were easy targets, as they were exposed while in transit from one planet to the next, since Planetary Annihilation transports (or, for that matter, any transport from a game made by the developers of Total Annihilation) didn't store their units inside the transport, with the notable exception of Supreme Commander Two. Fortunately, I had just come across the technology to build a larger scale transport, one that could hold way more than twelve units in it. I quickly pulled up the list of parts I had available from my tech stealing from the Terrans and their allies and got to work designing.
Approximately ten minutes later, the first Pilgrim Class Colonization ship exited one of my orbital factories and was beginning to be stocked with units. The addition of the coloization module to my arsenal, along with the invasion module, meant I could now store much larger forces for invasions, reven considering what I could deploy as is. I mean, in-game, a colonization module could store 500 units of people, which translated to roughly half a million people. Needless to say, I really didn't need to worry about the size of my expansion forces anymore.
XXXXXXXXXXXX
It'd take a few minutes to finish building the forces that I'd put onboard the Pilgrim, which included several sub-commanders, so I decided to take a moment and return my attention back to my hub world. So far, nothing big was happening - Rory and his adoptive siblings were busy playing hide and seek (which was going to take some time, given that Rory was it and the others were using their psychic powers to tell each other where he was), the new arrivals from the Beyond Earth were settling in nicely, though some of those with Puritanical leadings were still filled with unease regarding their new surroundings, and the genetic heroes were busy doing their own things. In other words, things were mostly normal at the moment.
Oh, and Tylos had decided to come over and see me.
"Greetings Great One, how may I help you?"
"Hello, Tylos. I apologize, but I need no assistance at the moment."
"I see. How goes your journey to retrieve your full powers?"
"Good so far. It has taken me across many worlds, and shown me many wonders."
"I would be surprised if it did not," responded my reptavian companion. To my surprise, he sounded somewhat sad when he said that.
"That would be rather surprising. Now my journey has taken me to a universe home to living machines, and a race of ancients whose own conflicts have caused no small amount of grief for those that would succeed them."
"That is......quite amazing," was my companion's reply. Once again, he sounded sad.
Okay, let's address this before things get out of hand.
"Tylos, are you unhappy?"
"W-what do you mean?"
"Your tone of voice betrays that you are experiencing discomfort, specifically either sadness or melancholia, and I would like to know why. Please, do not argue with me - I just want to help you."
"....I'm sorry, it's just....I want to do more to help you."
".....what?"
"It's just that, ever since you arrived, while you have treated us well, you have mostly ignored us to focus on your mission. I understand your reasons for doing so, but, well, we've waited a long time for your arrival, and we want to help you. Even if it is in the most miniscule of ways, we all want to provide you assistance on your journey. I may be the only one to say as much, but I am not the only one."
I pondered what Tylos had said for a couple of seconds. Now that I thought about it, for all of the care I had offered to my creations, I had essentially just moved a few of them to my hubworld and called it a day. My creations, who were my children in spirit, if not in fact, were beings I had neglected since I had left their home universe. If I continued to neglect them, well, I probably wouldn't be any better than most ROBs. I'd definitely be worse than Melissa, given how cordial she had been with her creations. Maybe I should let them assist more in helping me with my plans for the multiverse.
"I see. Well, I guess I'll have to change that."
"Thank you, Great One.................."
Now Tylos was fidgeting around, clearly uneasy.
"Anything else?"
"I suppose there is one more thing I have to say."
"Then say it."
"Well, in your journeys, you have expanded the realm you control to include territories across creation, correct?"
"Yes, I have."
"Then may we be able to see those territories for ourselves? Perhaps carve out a home in these new frontiers?"
"....Are you saying some of my followers want to live on the worlds I have claimed as mine?"
"Precisely. We wish to see how far your power goes, to see the distant stars that are within your reach. We hear so much of what you have achieved, and now we want to see it with our own eyes."
.........Could I deny them that? I mean, they had stood beside me since the first day I had met them. Technology that made life better was a good reward for this, but space was still going to be an issue. Plus, living people were more approachable than machines. For the most part, anyway.
"......I believe that can be arranged. Round up anyone who wishes to seek a new home in one of the universes I have visited. I want to know who wants to go and settle these frontiers before I begin marking planets for colonization."
"Of course, my lord."
XXXXXXXXX
So, I guess that was the day I decided to stop just travelling across creation, fighting guys, stealing their tech, nudging the good guys toward making themselves into stronger civilizations, and then leaving. From here on out, I would be taking up the tools to build something that would stand the test of time. An empire to span creation.
True, this wasn't the day I branded my forces as a state, as far as others were concerned. That would be a few weeks later, after taking some time to see if I could keep my colonists from getting screwed over by my own issues. This WAS the day, though, that laid the foundation for all of that. So I guess this could be described as the day the Infernum Federation was truly born.
Ryven Razgriz
I need a Gun and I'll let you know 'What's up?'.
- Location
- South East Asia
Hey why not use GalCiv 3's ship editor/maker thing? Last I tried those looked better than 2s.
- Location
- Arizona
- Pronouns
- Him/His
Haven't had time to playGal Civ 3, been too busy playing warframe and finishing up school work. Will start trying to mess around with Gal Civ III on Wednesday.
White Lantern
A really overpowered Mary Sue self insert
- Location
- Sector 2184
On what are you playing warframe
- Location
- Arizona
- Pronouns
- Him/His
PC. I've been playing since 2014....actually, I need to check to see when I started playing it.
Also, Warframe is more or less set in stone as the arc after this one, but I want to see how The Sacrifice quest (and with it, Umbra Warframes) pan out before I start working on it, so I might put this story on hiatus if I finish the Gal Civ arc before the Sacrifice is released. Trust me in this though: the Warframe arc will mix things up quite a bit.
White Lantern
A really overpowered Mary Sue self insert
- Location
- Sector 2184
I play it on Xbox have my own clan but everyone left what your favorite warframe then?
- Location
- Arizona
- Pronouns
- Him/His
I'm partial to my first Warframe, Excalibur. I'm still using it even though I now have a small stable of Warframes, though mostly for using Exalted Blade and Radial Blind, as opposed to damage inducing skills, since those lose effectiveness after a certain level.
White Lantern
A really overpowered Mary Sue self insert
- Location
- Sector 2184
Gotta love the exalted blade for me it's either Excalibur or oberon
- Location
- Arizona
- Pronouns
- Him/His
Funny, those were my first two warframes. I was playing the game back when Vay-Hek dropped Oberon parts, and I wanted to have a utility frame in addition to a damage dealer.
Enough about that for now, though, I have more chapters to work on.
104. First Steps and a Chance Encounter
- Location
- Arizona
- Pronouns
- Him/His
In a distant universe, a reptilian being took its first steps on an alien world. The ground crunches beneath its feet, soft yet firm. Around it gathered other beings, some like it, others far different. Some resembled birds, others insects, while some were simply impossible to describe. All were united, though, by the desire to see where their master's journey took them.
Above them were skies tinted purple, while as far as the eye could see was a covering of yellow-green moss. Strange herbivores grazed the plains, one of whom laid motionless on the ground, its body torn open by strange carnivores, themselves crosses between mammals and reptiles. Above flew creatures that seemed half bird, half insect, a trio of which were already circling above the carcass of the fallen herbivore, all hoping to scavenge what they could when the predators had had fill.
In the distance, a small city stood against the horizon, surround by a light forest, the only break in the endless plains, excluding a few ponds here and there. This was to be the new arrivals' home. There, they would work to help their master expand his domain, forge alliances, and crush his foes. All of that, however, depended on them lasting here first - though their master could provide for them, they would need to prove themselves self sufficient before they could truly begin to assist him.
A tense moment followed, as the beings seemed unsure what to do. Some stared at the city, others at the gateway that had brought them to this new world, thinking of the holes they had left behind. Perhaps this had been a bad idea, and they should return to what they recognized. If they did that, though, then they would have failed their master, and they did not want to do that.
Finally, though, someone acted. A young reptilian female, the daughter of the first one off the ship, took a step toward the new city. Then she took another, and another, and another. Soon she was walking at a decent place toward her new home, accompanied by a giant furry lizard, her pet. After a moment of apprehension, her sire joined her, followed by the rest of the colonists. No one turned to head back to the ship, for various reasons - some now felt more at ease knowing they would not be the one to take the first step on this new frontier, others refused to be upstaged by a child, and some were just glad to know they weren't alone on this venture. Whatever their reasons, the beings walked onward, heading toward their new lives.
XXXXXXXXXX
I smiled as I watched my creations move into their new homes. This was my first group of colonists, the brave souls who had volunteered to go out into a universe they knew nothing about so that they could partake in something greater than themselves. They had given up a sense of familiarity that, for some, they had only just managed to regain, as it had been less than a year since they had migrated to my hub-universe. I'll admit, I felt bad asking them to do this, even if it was voluntary. They were being asked to give up all that they had known, for something that might not work out in the end. In a way, I felt envious of them, my own creations, for at least they had a choice I never did.
Eventually, though, I forced myself to turn my attention away from my new colony and back to my forces expanding across the galaxy. My new colony ship had been delayed in its original objective, so that it could facilitate the transport of my colonists, but now that it was free, it sped off to the nearest system I hadn't yet taken and rapidly began making it mine. Hundreds of thousands of fabbers began constructing buildings, achieve what would normally take me hours in under five minutes. Soon, these worlds were building more of Pligrims, as well as the forces to stock them.
As they did so, I began drafting up a new system to classify my territories. Any area star system under my control would be put into one of three categories: secure, conquered, and contested. Contested territories were border areas where I would devote my forces to defend and use as buffers to guard my realm. Conquered territories were safely behind my lines, but close enough to the front to still be useful as production sites, where my forces could be assembled without fear of being destroyed. These areas would act as factory hubs to make new armies for me, to reinforce contested areas until I could eliminate resistance to my goals. Finally, secure territories were exactly what they sounded like - safe and sound, and far from the front. These areas would act as resource production centers, and would also be the areas I allowed my followers to colonize.
Once I had finished diving up my territory into the three groups mentioned, I smiled and prepared to take a rest, only to find myself staring at an alert. It seemed my pilgrim, in the process of heading toward another system, had come across a pair of ships drifting through the endless void. Their designs matched those of the Iconians and of the Yor, but neither were combat vessels - in fact, both were colony ships. Examination of the nearby area revealed that the two vessels were on opposite sides of a minefield, along with the wrecks of many other types of ships. Both vessels had fried their engines attempting to navigate the minefield, and would likely perish if no one decided to help them. The massive amount of debris surrounding the mines only confirmed this foreboding fact.
I could save them, but which one was the question. They Iconians hated the Yo, and not without good reason - the Yor (under orders from their masters and creators, the Dread Lords) has attempted to genocide the Iconians and forced them to abandon their homeworld. Additionally, the Yor seemed to despise organic life, which obviously didn't earn them any endearment from us fleshy types. Still, I could just leave them to die, could I? If I saved the Yor, though, the Iconians might consider ramming themselves into one of the mines, because I really doubted they would accept help from people who helped their mortal enemies. Trying to save both of them wasn't necessarily the smart thing to do.
Just because it wasn't smart, though, didn't mean it wasn't right, and whether or not I was doing the smart thing, I refused to abandon either ship to death.
Cautiously, I moved my Pilgrim toward the Iconians ship while its escorts (a trio of omegas) approaches the Yor vessel). I planned to allow them Iconians to board the colony ship because a. They need to breath and b. I'd hastily used the fabbers aboard the pilgrim to set up some teleporters to get some organic things onboard, mainly wolf-beetles and some convincing robotic replicas of humans, so that the Iconians wouldn't realize these ships were drones. The Yor were machines and would probably think more highly of me if they knew I was mechanical in nature.
It didn't take long for my forces to get the rescue underway. Unfortunately, it didn't take long for things to go wrong, either. Halfway through getting the crews of each ship aboard mine, I noticed five ships dropping out of hyperspace. All of them were registered as belonging to the Dominion of Korx. And all of them were locking into my forces and charging their weapons.
Well, crap.
XXXXXXXX
AN: Read and Review. This is Flameal15k, signing off!
Above them were skies tinted purple, while as far as the eye could see was a covering of yellow-green moss. Strange herbivores grazed the plains, one of whom laid motionless on the ground, its body torn open by strange carnivores, themselves crosses between mammals and reptiles. Above flew creatures that seemed half bird, half insect, a trio of which were already circling above the carcass of the fallen herbivore, all hoping to scavenge what they could when the predators had had fill.
In the distance, a small city stood against the horizon, surround by a light forest, the only break in the endless plains, excluding a few ponds here and there. This was to be the new arrivals' home. There, they would work to help their master expand his domain, forge alliances, and crush his foes. All of that, however, depended on them lasting here first - though their master could provide for them, they would need to prove themselves self sufficient before they could truly begin to assist him.
A tense moment followed, as the beings seemed unsure what to do. Some stared at the city, others at the gateway that had brought them to this new world, thinking of the holes they had left behind. Perhaps this had been a bad idea, and they should return to what they recognized. If they did that, though, then they would have failed their master, and they did not want to do that.
Finally, though, someone acted. A young reptilian female, the daughter of the first one off the ship, took a step toward the new city. Then she took another, and another, and another. Soon she was walking at a decent place toward her new home, accompanied by a giant furry lizard, her pet. After a moment of apprehension, her sire joined her, followed by the rest of the colonists. No one turned to head back to the ship, for various reasons - some now felt more at ease knowing they would not be the one to take the first step on this new frontier, others refused to be upstaged by a child, and some were just glad to know they weren't alone on this venture. Whatever their reasons, the beings walked onward, heading toward their new lives.
XXXXXXXXXX
I smiled as I watched my creations move into their new homes. This was my first group of colonists, the brave souls who had volunteered to go out into a universe they knew nothing about so that they could partake in something greater than themselves. They had given up a sense of familiarity that, for some, they had only just managed to regain, as it had been less than a year since they had migrated to my hub-universe. I'll admit, I felt bad asking them to do this, even if it was voluntary. They were being asked to give up all that they had known, for something that might not work out in the end. In a way, I felt envious of them, my own creations, for at least they had a choice I never did.
Eventually, though, I forced myself to turn my attention away from my new colony and back to my forces expanding across the galaxy. My new colony ship had been delayed in its original objective, so that it could facilitate the transport of my colonists, but now that it was free, it sped off to the nearest system I hadn't yet taken and rapidly began making it mine. Hundreds of thousands of fabbers began constructing buildings, achieve what would normally take me hours in under five minutes. Soon, these worlds were building more of Pligrims, as well as the forces to stock them.
As they did so, I began drafting up a new system to classify my territories. Any area star system under my control would be put into one of three categories: secure, conquered, and contested. Contested territories were border areas where I would devote my forces to defend and use as buffers to guard my realm. Conquered territories were safely behind my lines, but close enough to the front to still be useful as production sites, where my forces could be assembled without fear of being destroyed. These areas would act as factory hubs to make new armies for me, to reinforce contested areas until I could eliminate resistance to my goals. Finally, secure territories were exactly what they sounded like - safe and sound, and far from the front. These areas would act as resource production centers, and would also be the areas I allowed my followers to colonize.
Once I had finished diving up my territory into the three groups mentioned, I smiled and prepared to take a rest, only to find myself staring at an alert. It seemed my pilgrim, in the process of heading toward another system, had come across a pair of ships drifting through the endless void. Their designs matched those of the Iconians and of the Yor, but neither were combat vessels - in fact, both were colony ships. Examination of the nearby area revealed that the two vessels were on opposite sides of a minefield, along with the wrecks of many other types of ships. Both vessels had fried their engines attempting to navigate the minefield, and would likely perish if no one decided to help them. The massive amount of debris surrounding the mines only confirmed this foreboding fact.
I could save them, but which one was the question. They Iconians hated the Yo, and not without good reason - the Yor (under orders from their masters and creators, the Dread Lords) has attempted to genocide the Iconians and forced them to abandon their homeworld. Additionally, the Yor seemed to despise organic life, which obviously didn't earn them any endearment from us fleshy types. Still, I could just leave them to die, could I? If I saved the Yor, though, the Iconians might consider ramming themselves into one of the mines, because I really doubted they would accept help from people who helped their mortal enemies. Trying to save both of them wasn't necessarily the smart thing to do.
Just because it wasn't smart, though, didn't mean it wasn't right, and whether or not I was doing the smart thing, I refused to abandon either ship to death.
Cautiously, I moved my Pilgrim toward the Iconians ship while its escorts (a trio of omegas) approaches the Yor vessel). I planned to allow them Iconians to board the colony ship because a. They need to breath and b. I'd hastily used the fabbers aboard the pilgrim to set up some teleporters to get some organic things onboard, mainly wolf-beetles and some convincing robotic replicas of humans, so that the Iconians wouldn't realize these ships were drones. The Yor were machines and would probably think more highly of me if they knew I was mechanical in nature.
It didn't take long for my forces to get the rescue underway. Unfortunately, it didn't take long for things to go wrong, either. Halfway through getting the crews of each ship aboard mine, I noticed five ships dropping out of hyperspace. All of them were registered as belonging to the Dominion of Korx. And all of them were locking into my forces and charging their weapons.
Well, crap.
XXXXXXXX
AN: Read and Review. This is Flameal15k, signing off!
105. A Boring Fight, More Work to Do, and some Interesting Discoveries
- Location
- Arizona
- Pronouns
- Him/His
Okay, the arrival of the Korx was rather annoying, but nothing I couldn't handle. In fact, they barely got off a few shots at me before I took out two of their five ships, which caused the rest to promptly scatter. A few more shots took out two of the survivors, while the third one ended up hitting one of the mines. How amusing.
Well, that was anti-climatic. Also, no survivors among the Korx, so there's that.
Well then, back to rescuing the ships.
XXXXXXXXXXXX
While it wasn't easy, I was eventually able to get the Iconians into my Pilgrim, allowing me to move them toward the safety of my home systems. From there, I'd let them stock up on supplies, then send them back home. As for the Yor, who I'd managed to coax into entering my omegas, I would treat them to the same hospitality, but I would make it clear I would prefer to be left alone. I also decided to let them know that I was an AI, since that might calm them down. I also made it clear that if they told any other race this fact, no matter the reason, there will be a reckoning. Hopefully, the Yor would heed my advice. Considering that they weren't mustache twirling, card-carrying villains, I was willing to give them the chance.
Speaking of which, back to the mine field.
I'd brought in my ship from Spore to examine the remains of the ships I'd destroyed, on the off chance I'd find something valuable inside the wrecks - maybe information on why they attacked? The Korx didn't normally do things unless they could make a profit, if the lore was anything to go by. On the other hand, they were considered just as bad as the Drengin.....
Oh, look, a surviving computer. Hooray!
Let's see - crew intel, weapon schematics, sensor info.....mine deactivation signal? What?
......salvage cost?
Oh, you have got to be kidding me. I knew the Korx were immoral, but wow. See, they didn't just know about the minefield, they were the ones who made it. Through a heavily traveled part of space, I might add.
Why?
So that they could sell any wrecks they found on the black market. They also apparently sold the dead bodies of the ships' crews to places that would break them down to make, well, all kinds of stuff. Except food, oddly enough. I guess that making alien versions of long pork pies was just too disgusting for them. Well, that or nobody really thought that it would be a good idea to sell that kind of food. Either way, that was a relief.
Not that it made me think any higher of the Korx. Not by a long shot.
In fact, the Korx were now number three on my list of targets to deal with in this universe, right behind the Drengin, who, in turn, were suprassed by the Dread Lords. Which currently constituted all of the completely and unambiguously evil races in the Gal Civ universe that were active at the moment. Who would've thought?
'Sarcasm detected'
Oh. Apparently my support AI can detect sarcasm. Impressive.
Now, what to do to deal with the Korx?
.....well, taking them down wouldn't be easy - they had planned their corrupt business practices so that they could call in favors from just about every other empire in this galaxy to pull them out of the fire, so I'd need to find a way to get rid of those favors before I decided to lay them low. Alright, time to start planning.
......Speaking of which, I really needed to check some of the alerts that I'd gotten. They were starting to pile up. Also, why didn't I react to these alerts until long after I'd received them? I mean, that wasn't a good habit for a commander to have.
Maybe I should check my core programming. First, though, examine the alerts.
..........Why did one of my ships keep two siblings on it for some time after the final battle on Earth against those weird aliens and not tell me?
XXXXXXXX
[ESTABLISHING COMMUNICATION LINK...COMPLETE]
CMDR_FLAME: Hydra-01, report in.
HYDRA_01: Yes, commander?
C: Why did you keep two humans aboard yourself for three weeks following the battle of Mega Primus? All rescued civilians were to be returned home after one week had passed.
H: I apologize - their home was destroyed in the battle and they would have had nowhere to go.
C: And the large amount of resources you asked move to your chassis?
H: Better attempts to accommodate them until they could be returned.
C:.....Fair enough, but from now on, do not disobey my orders. If this happens again, I will be examining your coding for errors.
H: Understood.
C: Farewell.
[CONNECTION TERMINATED]
XXXXXXXXXX
I sighed as the connection to the aircraft carrier faded. While we had been conversing, I had briefly linked up directly to its systems and memories - nothing really special in there, barring a few minor oddities around the data that had been logged just prior to my exit from the Civilization Universe. Those data fragments had seemed....disjoint, and had slight glitches, almost like someone had doctored them. I needed to check if the portal interfered with the memory of the hydra line of carriers - I knew it didn't affect normal commander tech, but its affect on Chiron-tech, as I had decided to call it, was still unknown.
No time to ponder that now, though. Time to start looking through my code for any errors that might explain why I don't acknowledge alerts until long after I received them (at least in some cases).
The results I found were......rather interesting.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
AN: Took long enough to get this one out. Sorry for any issues with quality.
So, read and review! This is Flameal15k, signing off!
Well, that was anti-climatic. Also, no survivors among the Korx, so there's that.
Well then, back to rescuing the ships.
XXXXXXXXXXXX
While it wasn't easy, I was eventually able to get the Iconians into my Pilgrim, allowing me to move them toward the safety of my home systems. From there, I'd let them stock up on supplies, then send them back home. As for the Yor, who I'd managed to coax into entering my omegas, I would treat them to the same hospitality, but I would make it clear I would prefer to be left alone. I also decided to let them know that I was an AI, since that might calm them down. I also made it clear that if they told any other race this fact, no matter the reason, there will be a reckoning. Hopefully, the Yor would heed my advice. Considering that they weren't mustache twirling, card-carrying villains, I was willing to give them the chance.
Speaking of which, back to the mine field.
I'd brought in my ship from Spore to examine the remains of the ships I'd destroyed, on the off chance I'd find something valuable inside the wrecks - maybe information on why they attacked? The Korx didn't normally do things unless they could make a profit, if the lore was anything to go by. On the other hand, they were considered just as bad as the Drengin.....
Oh, look, a surviving computer. Hooray!
Let's see - crew intel, weapon schematics, sensor info.....mine deactivation signal? What?
......salvage cost?
Oh, you have got to be kidding me. I knew the Korx were immoral, but wow. See, they didn't just know about the minefield, they were the ones who made it. Through a heavily traveled part of space, I might add.
Why?
So that they could sell any wrecks they found on the black market. They also apparently sold the dead bodies of the ships' crews to places that would break them down to make, well, all kinds of stuff. Except food, oddly enough. I guess that making alien versions of long pork pies was just too disgusting for them. Well, that or nobody really thought that it would be a good idea to sell that kind of food. Either way, that was a relief.
Not that it made me think any higher of the Korx. Not by a long shot.
In fact, the Korx were now number three on my list of targets to deal with in this universe, right behind the Drengin, who, in turn, were suprassed by the Dread Lords. Which currently constituted all of the completely and unambiguously evil races in the Gal Civ universe that were active at the moment. Who would've thought?
'Sarcasm detected'
Oh. Apparently my support AI can detect sarcasm. Impressive.
Now, what to do to deal with the Korx?
.....well, taking them down wouldn't be easy - they had planned their corrupt business practices so that they could call in favors from just about every other empire in this galaxy to pull them out of the fire, so I'd need to find a way to get rid of those favors before I decided to lay them low. Alright, time to start planning.
......Speaking of which, I really needed to check some of the alerts that I'd gotten. They were starting to pile up. Also, why didn't I react to these alerts until long after I'd received them? I mean, that wasn't a good habit for a commander to have.
Maybe I should check my core programming. First, though, examine the alerts.
..........Why did one of my ships keep two siblings on it for some time after the final battle on Earth against those weird aliens and not tell me?
XXXXXXXX
[ESTABLISHING COMMUNICATION LINK...COMPLETE]
CMDR_FLAME: Hydra-01, report in.
HYDRA_01: Yes, commander?
C: Why did you keep two humans aboard yourself for three weeks following the battle of Mega Primus? All rescued civilians were to be returned home after one week had passed.
H: I apologize - their home was destroyed in the battle and they would have had nowhere to go.
C: And the large amount of resources you asked move to your chassis?
H: Better attempts to accommodate them until they could be returned.
C:.....Fair enough, but from now on, do not disobey my orders. If this happens again, I will be examining your coding for errors.
H: Understood.
C: Farewell.
[CONNECTION TERMINATED]
XXXXXXXXXX
I sighed as the connection to the aircraft carrier faded. While we had been conversing, I had briefly linked up directly to its systems and memories - nothing really special in there, barring a few minor oddities around the data that had been logged just prior to my exit from the Civilization Universe. Those data fragments had seemed....disjoint, and had slight glitches, almost like someone had doctored them. I needed to check if the portal interfered with the memory of the hydra line of carriers - I knew it didn't affect normal commander tech, but its affect on Chiron-tech, as I had decided to call it, was still unknown.
No time to ponder that now, though. Time to start looking through my code for any errors that might explain why I don't acknowledge alerts until long after I received them (at least in some cases).
The results I found were......rather interesting.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
AN: Took long enough to get this one out. Sorry for any issues with quality.
So, read and review! This is Flameal15k, signing off!