GrrRR! Slight hitch. I think I got way too excited with fiddling in the game files. I'll backpedal a bit, roll back some of the changes, and start fresh. I'll be revving up shortly.
In the meantime, shall I whet your appetite? I believe I shall.
WAAR of the Worlds
Zeebon Morgo stumbled out into the light, blinking against the harshness. The air was stiflingly hot and humid, and the plant life, in a crowning insult, was GREEN!
(OOC: It is well known that Zorthons flush green during the first stages of the mating ritual. Therefore, Zeebon would be highly embarrassed by the color green while out of pheromone range of a)
"MATING HUSK!" Morgo staggered over to the shattered husk. Veenok ran over as well. Morgo looked up in despair. "Are there any left?" Veenok scratched his head.
"A... few." Morgo gulped.
"Forty each? Thirty?" Veenok clicked his baleen.
"Um... one eighteenth each." Morgo groaned. "There are approximately ten thousand undamaged battlespawn..." Veenok did the math in his head. "So, we can expect a multiplication rate of eight or nine percent annually." Morgo shook his head sadly.
"What about the nanofactories?" Veenok shook his head. "The dataprobes?" Veenok shook his head. "The V-factors? Plasmatic inducers? Atmospheric mines? The orbital lasers?" Veenok shook his head. Morgo slumped, his frill slack with despair. "What do we have?" Veenok shrugged.
"Well, we have some macro-scale constructor robots. We should be able to build shelter easily by utilizing native materials and organics. And we have some portable mapping units... life extenders… communication satellites... and luckily, my books! Including The History of Primitive Zorthon Technologies. I imagine we should be able to assemble a steam engine for electrical power." Morgo staggered.
"A... steam engine? You mean, we're going to live like the First Emperor Boomok five thousand years ago?" Veenok nodded sadly.
"Best I can promise, Lord Zeebon. We may be able to use the indigineous lifeforms for slave labor. They appear to have some primitive technologies as well." Morgo’s frill perked.
“And they’re used to this intolerable gravity! They may come in handy indeed. Start enslaving them immediately.” Veenok sagged.
“Unfortunately, there aren’t any here. The mothership’s landing appears to have frightened the survivors off. We’re on a rather small island.” Morgo looked around in stupefaction.
“…You mean… we’re surrounded by water?” Veenok nodded. Morgo threw his k’morg on the ground in frustration. “Why couldn’t you land in a nice desert somewhere? Or in the polar regions?” Veenok clicked his baleen, trembling nervously.
“Lord Zeebon… the landing computer would not fix on the deserts or the polar regions. That means our mapping units won’t either.” Morgo stared.
“You mean the most desirable real estate on the planet is under a quark-probe blackout?” Veenok nodded. “But no communications? No zeta-band radiation?” Veenok nodded again. Morgo walked towards him slowly. “How much… of the planet?”
“Uh… maybe a quarter of the subpolar land. And both polar regions, including ocean.” Morgo set his upper jaw in determination.
“We’ve been beaten here. By who? And why? Defrost the battlespawn immediately! Start making weapons- whatever you can scrounge together!” Morgo surveyed the wreckage of his mothership. “This planet is in the Zorthon spacelanes. It belongs to us, and I will make our claim good!” He picked up a piece of scrap bearing the Zorthon Alliance’s insignia- the menacing death’s head of a battlespawn trooper’s mask. He strode to the top of a hill and planted it in the ground.
“I CLAIM THIS PLANET IN THE NAME OF ZORTH!”
