As above. Moving can be a stressful experience, so best you devote your full time and energy to getting settled in 
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I need opinions from you guys if you don't mind.
So I've moved successfully, but I haven't posted mostly because my computer seems to be having serious problems yet again (It's a good old boy, emphasis on the old). A year in Stellaris takes me about 20 minutes to get through and I keep having crashes. I wanted to wait until I had a lot of screenshots to actually continue. But with the way it is, in not sure that'll happen.
Would anyone mind if I go ahead and continue the story as just a Stellaris-based one, rather than a proper AAR? Or would that be uncouth?
So I've moved successfully, but I haven't posted mostly because my computer seems to be having serious problems yet again (It's a good old boy, emphasis on the old). A year in Stellaris takes me about 20 minutes to get through and I keep having crashes. I wanted to wait until I had a lot of screenshots to actually continue. But with the way it is, in not sure that'll happen.
Would anyone mind if I go ahead and continue the story as just a Stellaris-based one, rather than a proper AAR? Or would that be uncouth?
I'd certainly be interested in seeing a continuation, regardless of the circumstances. It wouldn't be the first time a narrative has continued without the underpinning gameplay.
Whatever you decide, do keep us posted
Whatever you decide, do keep us posted
I agree with @Specialist290 , an AAR is your story and whether or not it´s based on gameplay is your choice.
A story is fine. The overall title of this section is AARs, LPs, and Fanfiction
Whatever works best for you.
Whatever works best for you.
Iteration 2, Part 1
Iteration 2: The Observer
The term "Lodgespace", which is often used among the inner circle of the Lodge, is quite the paltry signifier when one takes into account the vast and complex web of socio-political ties, laws, and properties which the unfortunate accountants of the nebulous cult must deal with on a daily basis. "Lodgespace" often refers to places which are, in official, financial, and demographic documents, entirely and solely owned by the various imperiums, corporations, and nations of the galaxy. It can equally be applied to the small research station orbiting the pocket galaxy of Gargantua--owned and staffed entirely by a Lodge shell corporation--as it can to the massive, concrete-girded super-earth of Korthos in the Ginithix system, whose many legions and generals pay lip service to the Great Quava Hegemony--but in truth, serve the Hidden Ministers.
However, these systems, stations, and planets, nominally owned by non-humans and other groups, might as well be free agents compared to the control the Lodge exerts over the space claimed by the United Nations. The UN and its 486 member states comprise only twenty-two star systems centered around the Shining Pearl nebula, in the galactic center-west. These few stars are, nevertheless, by far the most heavily populated area of all the galaxy, with twenty inhabited planets--a plurality of them city-worlds with shells of silicon and steel--and quite literally dozens of habitats and smaller inhabited stations, housing well over three hundred billion human beings, Saathids, and a heavily mixed minority of other races. Not only this, but the Security Council Most High--Noble Lords of All Mankind, Bearers of Wisdom Supreme, etc., etc., long may they reign--had, two years before the ignominous death of one Olivia Pendleton, officially relocated its headquarters to Administrava-1, the first section of Paradiso, a ringworld being constructed around the star Huntur.
Though small in space and bloated and corrupt beyond imagining, the United Nations was regarded by the majority of the galaxy's leading scholars as the preeminent power of the 2600s. Only the Great Quava Hegemony could hope to challenge them in miilitary power, and the two were longstanding economic allies. Few could hope to imagine a concentration of power and wealth greater than the aristocratic Security Council Most High--and few would dare to, for the much-feared Psi Corps is always watching.
In truth, the bureaucrat-lords of the Security Council live and breath only at the pleasure of the Council of Seven-and-Four. The General Secretary--currently Her Majesty Cincinnatia IV, long may she reign--is handpicked by the Sun's Minister, and well aware of the consequences should she step out of line. The Lodge's power reaches from the Shining Pearl like the terrible claw of some eldritch beast, gripping, through secret deals and covert assassinations, the collective throat of mankind.
Near the heart of this power, in an inconsequential little research station orbiting a gas giant in Obiysciuq, a being, contained in what resembled a massive mason jar surrounded by important-looking cords and softly glowing computer terminals, was trying to decide how to describe what was happening to it.
As the being came to remember what being asleep was, and then what being awake was, and then what waking up was, it decided it was not like waking up. Nor was it coming out of a drugged stupor, the being decided upon remembering what drugs were (especially Panurus, a lovely little hallucinogen quite popular in its youth...somewhere). Nor was it like recovering from a psionic surgery which, admittedly, did bear the most resemblance to the being's current state.
It was like...it was like having been awake, but only slowly realizing that one was in fact awake. No...more like only slowly realizing that there was a "one" to be awake at all. Its eyes had been open for a long time, of that it became sure, especially after discovering the memories of watching a man-sized beetle-thing observing it from outside its jar. But it had only recently learned how to watch, not just see.
Its ears, too, had been hearing for some time--but she had only recently learned how to listen. She. Where did that come from?
And as this thought, bounded by bewilderment, came to the being, so too did a whole kaleidoscope of memories and knowledge and self-awareness and basic humanity, the essence of a whole person. The apple farm near the house where she grew up that had the juiciest Fujis she ever tasted. Her first kiss, the taste of his lips, salty-sweet and clumsy. The awe she felt on her first foray into space as the shuttle roared through the atmosphere of Atlantis and it was like all the clouds fell away and the great tapestry-empire of stars rushed in to fill the sky, blinding and beautiful and impossible.
Pluto-31, Olivia Pendelton, two brothers, one sister, born in a farm on Atlantis, recruited from a waystation on the north side of the galaxy, a decade of loyal service to the Lodge--dead and now reborn in a giant mason jar in an inconsequential little research station orbiting a gas giant--awoke, and it was very much like waking up.
It was not but five minutes later that a terminal attached to the jar changed colors from a soft blue to a soft green, and a series of beeping noises caught her attention. Without warning--well, on second thought, perhaps the beeping was the warning--the jar began to drain of the sickly green fluid with which it was filled, and Olivia felt herself slowly drop to the slick metal floor, legs unsteady but, miraculously, impossibly, whole. The many important-looking tubes and cords to which she was attached, including a particularly important-looking one slotted into a round hole at the base of her skull, pulled away of their own accord, and retracted into their various housings.
She steadied herself on the side of the jar with a trembling and oddly distant-feeling hand as the whine of hydraulics heralded the opening of her glass womb. As her eyes adjusted to the light outside--she didn't remember them clicking, but they did now and she was too overwhelmed to deal with it--there was movement in the darkness outside her tank, and a man-sized beetle-thing, the very one she remembered, came into her view.
It was beautiful, in its odd way. An iridescent rainbow sheen like an oil slick danced and played across the shell that was its back in an almost purposeful manner. Its eyes--scratch that, its single eye, as the other, and indeed the left side of its face, were covered in a bone-white mask of some sort--were solid green, a soft, pleasant green like earthgrass. It smelled of vanilla and mahogany. And though its mandibles chittered and worked constantly in a way she supposed that she should find discomfiting, she felt entirely at ease, and knew in an instant why.
This was a Saathid, the lesser of the UN's primary races, often employed as entertainers, diplomats, and "human" relations representatives. Possessed of an easy charm and strong pheromones which lulled most races into a false sense of calm and security, they were creatures of potent psionic abilities, and frequently employed by the Lodge.
She was distracted by her thoughts by a realization; its chittering was being rendered, by a strange electronic warbling in her mind, to her own tongue.
Olivia, it said, with what the voice told her was kindness mixed with amusement. It is so good to meet you at last--in person, at least. You may call me what you have always called me: Saturn, specifically Saturn-2, the Phantom.
And at this, poor Olivia, so recently awoken and suffering symptoms of severe mental fatigue and lingering ego-death, stepped forward out of her jar and collapsed in a heap on the floor of the station.
Saturn-2 chittered to himself with what only another Saathid would be able to tell was faint annoyance. Oh dear. This may take longer than I thought.
* * *
The Sleeper Awakens. The Mysterious Benefactor is Unmasked (metaphorically). But what of the nebulous Enemy and its Allies, hidden amongst the hidden? Tune in next time to see if I can escape the trap of endless world-building.
It's good to be back.
The term "Lodgespace", which is often used among the inner circle of the Lodge, is quite the paltry signifier when one takes into account the vast and complex web of socio-political ties, laws, and properties which the unfortunate accountants of the nebulous cult must deal with on a daily basis. "Lodgespace" often refers to places which are, in official, financial, and demographic documents, entirely and solely owned by the various imperiums, corporations, and nations of the galaxy. It can equally be applied to the small research station orbiting the pocket galaxy of Gargantua--owned and staffed entirely by a Lodge shell corporation--as it can to the massive, concrete-girded super-earth of Korthos in the Ginithix system, whose many legions and generals pay lip service to the Great Quava Hegemony--but in truth, serve the Hidden Ministers.
However, these systems, stations, and planets, nominally owned by non-humans and other groups, might as well be free agents compared to the control the Lodge exerts over the space claimed by the United Nations. The UN and its 486 member states comprise only twenty-two star systems centered around the Shining Pearl nebula, in the galactic center-west. These few stars are, nevertheless, by far the most heavily populated area of all the galaxy, with twenty inhabited planets--a plurality of them city-worlds with shells of silicon and steel--and quite literally dozens of habitats and smaller inhabited stations, housing well over three hundred billion human beings, Saathids, and a heavily mixed minority of other races. Not only this, but the Security Council Most High--Noble Lords of All Mankind, Bearers of Wisdom Supreme, etc., etc., long may they reign--had, two years before the ignominous death of one Olivia Pendleton, officially relocated its headquarters to Administrava-1, the first section of Paradiso, a ringworld being constructed around the star Huntur.
Though small in space and bloated and corrupt beyond imagining, the United Nations was regarded by the majority of the galaxy's leading scholars as the preeminent power of the 2600s. Only the Great Quava Hegemony could hope to challenge them in miilitary power, and the two were longstanding economic allies. Few could hope to imagine a concentration of power and wealth greater than the aristocratic Security Council Most High--and few would dare to, for the much-feared Psi Corps is always watching.
In truth, the bureaucrat-lords of the Security Council live and breath only at the pleasure of the Council of Seven-and-Four. The General Secretary--currently Her Majesty Cincinnatia IV, long may she reign--is handpicked by the Sun's Minister, and well aware of the consequences should she step out of line. The Lodge's power reaches from the Shining Pearl like the terrible claw of some eldritch beast, gripping, through secret deals and covert assassinations, the collective throat of mankind.
Near the heart of this power, in an inconsequential little research station orbiting a gas giant in Obiysciuq, a being, contained in what resembled a massive mason jar surrounded by important-looking cords and softly glowing computer terminals, was trying to decide how to describe what was happening to it.
As the being came to remember what being asleep was, and then what being awake was, and then what waking up was, it decided it was not like waking up. Nor was it coming out of a drugged stupor, the being decided upon remembering what drugs were (especially Panurus, a lovely little hallucinogen quite popular in its youth...somewhere). Nor was it like recovering from a psionic surgery which, admittedly, did bear the most resemblance to the being's current state.
It was like...it was like having been awake, but only slowly realizing that one was in fact awake. No...more like only slowly realizing that there was a "one" to be awake at all. Its eyes had been open for a long time, of that it became sure, especially after discovering the memories of watching a man-sized beetle-thing observing it from outside its jar. But it had only recently learned how to watch, not just see.
Its ears, too, had been hearing for some time--but she had only recently learned how to listen. She. Where did that come from?
And as this thought, bounded by bewilderment, came to the being, so too did a whole kaleidoscope of memories and knowledge and self-awareness and basic humanity, the essence of a whole person. The apple farm near the house where she grew up that had the juiciest Fujis she ever tasted. Her first kiss, the taste of his lips, salty-sweet and clumsy. The awe she felt on her first foray into space as the shuttle roared through the atmosphere of Atlantis and it was like all the clouds fell away and the great tapestry-empire of stars rushed in to fill the sky, blinding and beautiful and impossible.
Pluto-31, Olivia Pendelton, two brothers, one sister, born in a farm on Atlantis, recruited from a waystation on the north side of the galaxy, a decade of loyal service to the Lodge--dead and now reborn in a giant mason jar in an inconsequential little research station orbiting a gas giant--awoke, and it was very much like waking up.
It was not but five minutes later that a terminal attached to the jar changed colors from a soft blue to a soft green, and a series of beeping noises caught her attention. Without warning--well, on second thought, perhaps the beeping was the warning--the jar began to drain of the sickly green fluid with which it was filled, and Olivia felt herself slowly drop to the slick metal floor, legs unsteady but, miraculously, impossibly, whole. The many important-looking tubes and cords to which she was attached, including a particularly important-looking one slotted into a round hole at the base of her skull, pulled away of their own accord, and retracted into their various housings.
She steadied herself on the side of the jar with a trembling and oddly distant-feeling hand as the whine of hydraulics heralded the opening of her glass womb. As her eyes adjusted to the light outside--she didn't remember them clicking, but they did now and she was too overwhelmed to deal with it--there was movement in the darkness outside her tank, and a man-sized beetle-thing, the very one she remembered, came into her view.
It was beautiful, in its odd way. An iridescent rainbow sheen like an oil slick danced and played across the shell that was its back in an almost purposeful manner. Its eyes--scratch that, its single eye, as the other, and indeed the left side of its face, were covered in a bone-white mask of some sort--were solid green, a soft, pleasant green like earthgrass. It smelled of vanilla and mahogany. And though its mandibles chittered and worked constantly in a way she supposed that she should find discomfiting, she felt entirely at ease, and knew in an instant why.
This was a Saathid, the lesser of the UN's primary races, often employed as entertainers, diplomats, and "human" relations representatives. Possessed of an easy charm and strong pheromones which lulled most races into a false sense of calm and security, they were creatures of potent psionic abilities, and frequently employed by the Lodge.
She was distracted by her thoughts by a realization; its chittering was being rendered, by a strange electronic warbling in her mind, to her own tongue.
Olivia, it said, with what the voice told her was kindness mixed with amusement. It is so good to meet you at last--in person, at least. You may call me what you have always called me: Saturn, specifically Saturn-2, the Phantom.
And at this, poor Olivia, so recently awoken and suffering symptoms of severe mental fatigue and lingering ego-death, stepped forward out of her jar and collapsed in a heap on the floor of the station.
Saturn-2 chittered to himself with what only another Saathid would be able to tell was faint annoyance. Oh dear. This may take longer than I thought.
* * *
The Sleeper Awakens. The Mysterious Benefactor is Unmasked (metaphorically). But what of the nebulous Enemy and its Allies, hidden amongst the hidden? Tune in next time to see if I can escape the trap of endless world-building.
It's good to be back.
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Glad to have you back, @react0rman
So Pluto-31 returns to the land of the living. I wonder how much this particular iteration remembers of the incident that killed her, assuming that whatever "archive" that stored her memories and personality was updated in time (or that her original brain wasn't too damaged beyond recovery when they found it, if they found it).
It's also quite a vivid showcase of the Lodge's capabilities that they have the ability to resurrect / re instantiate a person like that. I wonder if the technology is common knowledge at this point, or just well-hidden within the Lodge's many-layered veils of secrecy.
So Pluto-31 returns to the land of the living. I wonder how much this particular iteration remembers of the incident that killed her, assuming that whatever "archive" that stored her memories and personality was updated in time (or that her original brain wasn't too damaged beyond recovery when they found it, if they found it).
It's also quite a vivid showcase of the Lodge's capabilities that they have the ability to resurrect / re instantiate a person like that. I wonder if the technology is common knowledge at this point, or just well-hidden within the Lodge's many-layered veils of secrecy.
Glad to have you back, @react0rman
Thanks!
I can't quite answer this without spoilers (it'll be directly addressed next time though). I will say, however, that it's important to remember that all Lodgetech you've seen so far is at least partially Shroud-reliant.
This, I can answer. 31's method of "resurrection" (it's not quite that, but similar) is very much not common knowledge. Indeed, most of the council (including Pluto herself) have no idea it exists, and would probably have it destroyed if it were. It's somewhat heretical, you see.
More later!
I must confess I have gotten somewhat confused - I think I might have missed something along the way.