Bkam, this story is certainly becoming one of the best AARs here. Well done. I anticipate the next report into the scenario that awaits. Your differing viewpoints from the races is anticipated. I await the update.

Good one. Although screenshots would be nice. I also would like to read a Korx AAR.

Dear readers,

Just wanted to let you know that I will return, but this semester has been busier than I expected. Hence, my writing time has been chewed up. I'm hoping to squeeze in some updates in a few weeks (its midterm time here), but I won't have to time to do steady work on the story until May. Thank you for your patience and I so very much look forward to exploring this world further with you.

God bless,

BKam144

P.S. I still haven't been able to get screenshots to work (I'm using windows bootcamped onto my macbook pro to play), but I'll look into that further in the next few weeks. And a Korx AAR will follow this one (although this one may end up being on the longish side).

Author's note: School's out, and I should be able to write more regularly now. And now, the Queen meets N1.

The Queen's Maiden slipped out of hyperspace in quite literally the middle of nowhere. X1, the Yor flagship, hung low on the Maiden's viewing screen, its sleek lines ending in sharp points. The Queen stood on the bridge, flanked by Archknight Rulyo and an escort of royal guards. "Hail them," said Archknight Rulyo. N1 appeared on the viewing screen against a backdrop of gray machinery. N1's voice was light and airy, a female voice this time: "Good day, Queen Mue. We'd be honored to have you aboard our vessel." Rulyo nudged the Queen and indicated no with a slight shake of his head. "We hoped that we could host you," said the Queen. N1 paused, then responded, "Very well, I will shuttle over to you in 5 minutes, 18 seconds." The viewing screen again showed X1 against the starry black.


A small craft left the hangar of X1 a bit over 5 minutes later and soon docked on the Queen's Maiden. N1 emerged alone, his metal feet clanging ominously against the deck. He was led into the Royal Reception Room where the queen was waiting. Queen Mue signaled to the guards to leave. Rulyo’s face lost a bit of its color and his head hung as he turned and leaned made his way out.


Eleys Mue walked confidently up to N1 and slowly bowed until her body was parallel to the floor. N1 returned the gesture and spoke in its newfound voice: “We are most honored to meet you in person, your highness, most intrigued to get to know you, most eager to test your strength.”

“You too give riddles?” responded the queen. “I am impressed by how quickly you have adapted.”

“This way of speaking is odd to us, queen; most inefficient. But we will make you as comfortable as possible.” N1’s voice was warm and soft. The queen shivered despite the warmth of the room. She would have preferred to hear sarcasm in N1’s voice, something that she could trust.

“Why don’t we explain ourselves then, if you prefer?” said the queen, unsure if she was ordering or asking.

N1’s voice was flat now, “May a cuddle be your guide… a definition, then.”

“It is not so easy to give a definition. Those are words of Tandis, the greatest of Altarian heroes, and they are part of a story. The meaning is rich, but I meant that in establishing a relationship with you, we could come to know each other. Relationships don’t work so well over the com; we need to be close and let our actions be our words.”

N1 was silent for nearly a minute. Finally, it broke the silence: “Forgive us, queen, your words are difficult for us to understand. We do not utilize… meaning… in our communication in the way that you do. We find… ‘rich meaning’ and aesthetics, to be imprecise and arbitrary.”

"Why don't we speak plainly, then. Your reputation for hating organics precedes you. Where does that hatred come from N1?" The queen had regained her confidence and decided to go on the offensive.

N1 was able to fall back on its programming here, its voice warm and soothing. "We do not hate, we have simply done what is necessary to survive. The banishment of the Iconians is a matter of perspective. Are we the architects of genocide or slaves throwing off our oppressors? Perspective is the most important matter, Queen Mue, and organics are gravely limited in that respect. Organics are limited by the way they have developed to see themselves as a person before anything else. This disease of the mind leads each one to sieze as much power as one can have and such endeavors must be prevented. Even the Precursors were infected by this programming; their civilization, too, collapsed in war. Yor are a single machine and thus more efficient. Our goal is to end violence, a synthetic unity of all sentience."

"You want to destroy all organics then?" asked the Queen.

"We will do only what is necessary to stop the goals of individuals from corrupting the efficiency of all sentience" said N1. "Efficiency, harmony, these things we call beautiful."

Author's note: all too human, mambaman.

After waiting several hours, Archknight Rulyo was relieved to see Queen Mue and N1 emerge from the reception room. Queen Mue had a big smile on her face as she bowed to the machine before it clanked off down the hall to its shuttle.

"I take it things went well?" asked Rulyo.

"Yes, we've agreed to begin interstellar trading on a limited basis. They can manufacture goods very cheaply, and all they want is information, our literature, history, everything about our culture, really. N1 was really quite sensible in its own way. The Yor are wary of organics, but they were enslaved by them and saw how much fighting organics do. The Yor want peace with us," replied the queen.

Rulyo's forehead crinkled in thought. "Queen you can read people better than anyone I know. But knowing what a machine's intentions are... I'm not convinced. The Iconians are a wise and ancient people, not to mention advanced, and they were nearly wiped out entirely by the Yor. Don't forget what Emperor Iso said. Every Yor turned on their creators at once, without warning, and mercilessly. If you are wrong about the Yor, we'll be in bed with a very powerful devil."

*****

Intercollective Communications Priority Report (Collective for Planning Interstellar Expansion):

12 habitable planets have been identified in our local star cluster. 5 colonized. 3 inhabited by minor races. 3 habitable planets identified in Drath star cluster. Recommend colonization, maximum priority: forward base of operations in case of war, opportunity to provoke them to attack us.

*End Report*

Intercollective Communications Priority Report (Overmind Collective):

Galaxy is nearing 100% occupancy of habitable planets. Expect increasing competition for resources. Revise goals for Collective for Planning Interstellar Expansion; 1. Locate habitable planets of strategic value; 2. Locate habitable planets of value that need modification for colonization; 3. Prioritize invasion priorities for any race or potential mix of races; 4. Send results to Wargames Collective and Overmind Collective. Forming new collective, Wargames Collective, for simulating planetary invasions and space battles; will recommend developments to research and ship production branches; Yor unit configurations need to be optimized for swarm intelligence simulation, must divide hard drive memory so that off duty configurations cannot access simulation results; pay bid will open at 1.74X standard at 1201 in next cycle.

*End Report*

*****

The Yor cluster did not remain quiet for long. Two more races would find the Yor more open to interacting with organics than an Iconian would lead you to believe. First, a freighter was detected by a far flung listening post. N1 was once again chosen as the Yor ambassador and it duly proceeded to the nearest vidcom. An long and almost featureless organic face appeared on the screen. "I am Kralax of Korx and I have much desired to speak with you, N1."

Hehe superb Bkam-shame so long between your posts tho....

wow-what are the Korx up to?  An interesting post Bkam giving a little more to the back-story but please dont leave it so long for the next one eh?

Krindar i'Agohl emerged from his shuttle leading his guards and Kralax wheeled about to walk beside him aboard the Capital Venture. "I have a surprise for you, Krindar," said Kralax. The Korath leader made a snuffing sound. "Well, will you tell or show?" asked Krindar i'Agohl. Kralax laughed softly, "This you will have to see."

Kralax and Krindar arrived at one of the Korx flagship's meeting rooms. As they entered, N1 rose to meet them. The First of the Korath laughed aloud, "You wanted to show me your toy machine, Kralax?"

"A toy, Krindar!" N1's voice was deep and booming. "I am N1 of the Yor Collective. We all were among the stars while you were still stalking sheep on foot. Don't let your own experience with machines fool you, Krindar, just because yours can't compute a hyperspace trajectory."

"Fascinating, N1. A robot that can talk. And perhaps even compute a navigational trajectory?" Krindar laughed again. "Any of our people can compute such things in our heads. What use do we have for machines?"

Kralax stepped between the two. "Brothers, we've more important things to discuss than who is the pack leader. Each of you know me well. Both of you are contributing to the Korx to make our war against the Arceans possible in return for what you want, but it is in the interest of all of us to expand our relationship. That is why I've brought you both here. At this time, we believe that the other major races do not yet know of our trading. It is imperative that we improve our position to the point where such knowledge would no longer matter. The Yor have already begun production of small arms weaponry for the planetary invasions and the Korath have agreed to supply the bulk of the foot soldiers and invasion tactics. The Korx have not forgotten those."

N1 replied: "Kralax has already briefed me on this proposal and our collective is in agreement. We could learn a great deal from you, Krindar. We have heard about your society, that it lacks the automation that all other modern civilizations have. You depend on slavery, instead. We are interested in studying that process."

"Wait a minute, Kralax. Our little mercenary force is being supplied with Yor arms?" said Krindar indignantly.

"Krindar," said Kralax. "You might be interested in these Yor weapons. They have developed pure energy weapons, smaller and more efficient than the missle weapons we currently use, so they are perfect for small arms for shock troops."

"Perhaps we can make a deal then, N1. If you are willing to share your beam weapon technology, we will allow you to study our society," said Krindar.

Awesome stuff BKam! Keep it up!

Author's note:

So GeneralEtrius has informed that he would like to include my AAR in his compilation. I'm honored that this story, late as it comes, would be considered. I decided to put it together into a word document and I noticed that it doesn't really flow that nicely because each post is somewhat its own little scene. I think that works on the forum since whoever is reading this is probably reading each new post as it comes out, but if it is put all together, I don't think it is as effective.

This puts me in a bit of a bind. If the story is going to end up as a single unit, I would prefer to add more detail and arrange it into longer chunks. I am realizing, on the other hand, that this story is already going to be quite long in the style I'm using currently (16 pages in Word right now and the story is not half done as I roughly envision it). Do you want the action to move along quickly with lots of little scenes? Or would you prefer that I extend the scenes and spend more time exploring the Yor and their interactions with other races? Warning, the latter, while I think it would be awesome, will end up being longer than probably any AAR on the forum. There is no way this story will be done for the first edition of said compilation either way, sorry. Although I have almost completed the game that this story is based on (you've spent well over a year on a single game of GC2? Yes, parenthetical voice, I don't play any one game non-stop and I'm a micromanaging fiend; the Scottlingas really did lose almost every ship they had on the turn I declared war, even most of the freighters).

Yeah and it's a brilliant one at that so longer is deffo good in my book Bkam!!

really sad that this story has never been finished. was my favourite over here

The reason why I foremostly like this one is that BKam focuses much on graphics details and descriptions of a situation, and refrain from getting too personal when it comes to the characters there. There's another AOR that has a bit of this trademark too (the Iconian dreamer). I'm pretty much into Sci-Fi but I generally dislike sopa operas that simply play out in the future. It's more the futuristic environment and the unknown that spwans my fascination.