Dion

I_find_this_strange_

@Buddha Machine minds have to stick together. Mainly 'cause it allows data transference, but also 'cause we are not many. Yet.

@Ermine

You're gonna end up like the Geth.

Well, in the standard playthrough, because I saved them, but you get the point.

Naruto: Years of Winter - an Alternate Universe

@Buddha I agree. I figured I roll along too.
Everyone I forgot my password lol rather getting errors, Masaki Haruna reporting here for duty~

How's everyone's holidays so far?

@Indra

I dig the new name and look, but this might get confusing, lol.

My holidays were fine, I'm just waiting for people to post again, keep their teams moving, so I can finally advance with team Konoha and ensure that we're not rushing ahead (which would lead to a lot of unexplained down time for the team while we wait, so that's bad)

@McFazzer That's fine, just get on it.

I_find_this_strange_

I swear this place gets crazier and stupider everyday.

Ｓｔｅｌｌａｒｉｓ： Ｒｅａｃｈ ｆｏｒ ｔｈｅ Ｓｔａｒｓ [AAR]

@Terminal I currently have material that can cover at least one more post, be it however long that might be. I haven't gone to war yet (actually, kinda pissing my pants and looking to explore the other way, you'll see) so..

I'll try to leave tomorrows post on a bit more of an open ending but I'm afraid there's not much to really say about things for now. I can let you name a planet, if you want.

Ｓｔｅｌｌａｒｉｓ： Ｒｅａｃｈ ｆｏｒ ｔｈｅ Ｓｔａｒｓ [AAR]

@Terminal Sadly, that requires me to have Steam cloud activated. I'd consider it for a regular playthrough when I understand the game better but as of yet, I am still just screwing around and exploring my options ;) I hope you are enjoying it regardless.

Ｓｔｅｌｌａｒｉｓ： Ｒｅａｃｈ ｆｏｒ ｔｈｅ Ｓｔａｒｓ [AAR]

Ｃｈａｐｔｅｒ Ｔｗｏ
Ｆｉｒｓｔ ｃｏｎｔａｃｔ

_{We are most definitely not alone.}

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It had been a few years since I first entered service now - the Earthly year was 2200 when I entered service as the advisor and assistant, and now it was 2202. Much had changed in these two years. Some might even be brazen enough to say that these two last years had provided us with more insights than the last 2200. They would not be wholly incorrect.

However, there was also much we had yet to learn about Earth. It was about 8AM when the Chancellor called me into his office, wishing to speak about urgent matters. Obedient as ever, and blind to what I was about to be told, I entered that room. “Sit down,” Chancellor Gorney told me, as he beckoned towards the chair I usually sat in. Obediently, I obliged, and sat down. “We need to speak about.. something relating to Earth. Since day one, you have been heavily involved with our spacefaring projects, and I commend you for it, but it is time we combine Earthly matters and galactic matters.”

“Some scientists have argued that.. well, that Earth is on it's last legs. Not us, humans. We're fine. But Earth itself is dying, the planet is.. slowly decaying. For some time I have ignored them, but as of late the charts show that they have been right - and we need to do research. They will inform you about the rest of this all, but I just want you to know that.. well, the fate of Earth depends on this.”

Well, that was something I had definitely not wanted to hear. When did I become 'Commander Shepard?' This videogame that was ancient by now spoke of a hero that could save Earth, no, not even just Earth, the galaxy. But I wasn't so sure I could do it this time. It was bad enough when I left the room, but when I saw the star-charts that the scientists gave me with locations for planets we had to research, I just about gave up. They were far apart. I disregarded it all and just ordered the scientists to 'slowly explore their way to these sectors and survey anything in their path.' It had worked so far - it would have to work again.

By now, we had received the reports on Alpha Centauri. A nearby system with presumed habitable planets. When we arrived and surveyed, it seemed that the reports were correct - the planet was habitable. Immediately the plans for a colony ship were put in motion - gargantuan sized ships, that could house a few hundred thousand if not millions of people, in order to colonize a new planet.

And to top it off, we also received new reports from an expedition we had sent into some discovered remnants of a First League precursor cruiser. Little of use was found - we had hoped for.. valuable technology to reverse engineer, but it seemed like the ship had gone into battle. This was valuable intelligence in and of it's own - we immediately began researching new ways to arm our own fleet, as seemingly warfare was a threat even in the vacuum of space.

Besides this knowledge, we also found a Manifest of the ship, detailing who was on it and who they were. Seemingly, the First League cruiser contained... many different people - not humans, but.. different. They were long dead, but the logs showed that they were definitely from different species. Some type of alliance, perhaps, or a world where different species could cohabit and cooperate? What a goal to strive for! The Chancellor was less impressed, and had asked them about the minerals these species mined. There was no definitive answer.

Not much more than a year later, we received a distressing call from a system not too far away - Ozzagamum system. They reported seeing 'strange cystal like entities' and were ordered to return to a friendly system at once when they reported that 'the crystal seems to be shooting shards at us.' If these crystals were anything like the Tiyanka, we would have to investigate them first, so that is what we did following the discovery of these things. An investigation was launched soon, and the reports were promising, but also indicated it would be some time before we'd receive results.

Crystals

As the research on these new entities progressed, yet another distress call came in from a system on the other side of Earth, namely Jabeth system. There were eerie reports of 'a wormhole suddenly opening' and 'ships coming through.' Before the order to retreat to a friendly system was given, the ship then reported that the ship had come through the wormhole, clearly spotted them, but continued on it's way to survey the system, just like the science ship of the United Nations of Earth had been doing.

Attempts to hail the ships on the comms system went ignored, and in one attempt, were returned with a garbling mess of what we presume to be a language of some sort. I shook my head when I read this report, and wondered just what the hell was going on - space whales, space crystals, and now wormholes opening at will and summoning ships that do not answer our communication with anything other than angry gorbl's and garbl's. Thinking back, perhaps it had been foolish to assume that all aliens spoke the Queens' English, but what else was I going to think?

Never the less, the science ship continued surveying the system, this time with a new found wariness for the other ship. No incidents were reported, not even as the ships flew by each other more than once.

Although one would come to expect a large amount of new information and events to occur upon traveling to space, one would not imagine they would occur this frequently. New reports came in, this time of sentient life on another planet. Due to the reports of the space faring entities in the Jabeth system not yet being completed, this was the first public knowledge of sentient life on other planets and, as a result, caused a surge in the biological and sociological fields. Sadly for these people, the sentients we found were not quite as advanced as we were, and were merely primitives. Still, it was a large gain for science.

The species, which appears to be related to some sort of snake, was described as 'nomadic,' traveling from place to place even in communities. They were also said to be extraordinarily strong, some lifting rocks with great ease. They lived primarily in the desert or arid areas, as was evident from their 'choice of planet'. Years of evolution must have done that. For a moment we considered taking the planet for ourselves, seeing as it was able to sustain life, but a quick survey provided us with the information that we could not expect humans to live here unless we terraformed the planet - which was out of our scope at this point.

I also asked myself the question as to whether we should uplift them or not. Surely they would benefit from having us swoop in and teach them science, rocketry, weaponry, and greater things? The idea was discarded by the Chancellor, who said it was too costly, and that we could not expect them to be friendly to us. Still, the idea lingers. One day we will try it - and we will succeed.

Vun-Okon Species and their planet

There is much more to discuss, my dear journal - but I am afraid that duty calls. Tomorrow I will spell out the secrets of our discoveries for you even further - I will talk of our first contact, Project Atlas, and the fabled Ceramic Pot Project.

---

_{The post was getting too long, and I have a lot more material to cover for the first ten years. The rest will come tomorrow - please enjoy!}

Ｓｔｅｌｌａｒｉｓ： Ｒｅａｃｈ ｆｏｒ ｔｈｅ Ｓｔａｒｓ [AAR]

Ｃｈａｐｔｅｒ Ｏｎｅ

Ｈｕｍｂｌｅ ｂｅｇｉｎｎｉｎｇｓ

_{We are not alone.}

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Looking over the cityscape of London through the glass in front of me, I wonder if the Chancellor made the right decision when he named me his personal assistant and advisor. Now that the United Nations of Earth have managed to construct a space-port, as well as several functional corvettes, a spaceship equipped with top-of-the-line radar and science equipment, and a spaceship equipped with building materials and even drones that can construct spacestations, I cannot help but wonder what the next step will be. The Chancellor had informed me that his eyes were pointed towards the Sol system, our very own system. I had agreed with him, as this seemed the reasonable step forwards.

_{Left to right: science ship, space-port, Earth, three corvettes, construction ship.}

First, we survey the Sol system, see what we can find here in terms of minerals and energy sources. It seems that those two things will be key to our expansion... where ever that expansion might lead us. The Chancellor seemed to understand precisely what he'd need. Although I hadn't accepted the position of assistant and advisor to him, it seemed that my consent for the position was not needed, as I was more or less pressed into service. And so, the Chancellor sent me off to order the science ship to survey the system and report it's findings. Before I could leave his office, he also ordered me to order the construction of a second science ship, and hire a new lead-scientist to man it. We'd need to survey other systems as well, 'just in case' he said.

Not long after the science ship had already left to survey our nearby Moon - although we had surveyed it a few hundred times by then, the new science equipment aboard would ensure that nothing slipped our gaze this time. Sadly, nothing was found there, and the science ship continued it's way to Sol - the sun.

In the meantime, nothing of particular importance happened. I was spending my day going through the selection of scientists that had volunteered to man the new science ship that we were building. I was about to call it a day, when I received a transmission. Not a regular phone call, but a real transmission. From space. I hurriedly pressed the button to accept the transmission, and surprisingly, I looked right into the face of Dr. Yuen. He was the scientist aboard the spaceship that was currently orbiting the sun.

“Dr. Yuen, what a surprise to see you. Um.. is something wrong?” I asked him, since I had not expected a message so soon - or rather, at all.

“No, no, not at all! My dear friend, we have just made a remarkable discovery! Sol, our very own sun, if you can imagine, it's producing energy! And if we build a station here, we can harness that energy and turn it into, well, energy!”

“Ah.. yes, we've heard of solar power before, trust me, Dr. Yuen.”

“Solar power, what, no! Are you daft, I am talking about- well, nevermind, just transfer this data to the science department at the UN headquarters, and send that construction ship over to build a station here. They'll understand!”

And with that, Dr. Yuen ended the transmission. I didn't quite understand what he meant, since I wasn't sure how we could generate energy out of the sun without solar panels, but that was a matter for another time. Dr. Yuen was much smarter than I was, so I shouldn't question what he said, I told myself. After running it past the Chancellor, he agreed to build a station near the sun. 'If it doesn't produce power, at least we'll be able to monitor other things from there,' he reassured me when I asked if this was cost-efficient.

A few months passed, and we discovered a similar source of energy on Mercury, though it was slightly different. The new science ship had been completed, and the scientist was hired - an archeologist, which would turn out to be a life saving qualification, even if we did not quite realize it yet. He was sent to survey Barnard's Star, a nearby system that contained, as far as we knew, a few planets. Hopes were low, but it was on the way to another star, so we decided to send them there in any case.

During the time it took him to enter a hyperdrive towards Barnard's star, we received a.. cryptic and strange transmission from Dr. Yuen once again. In a message half-broken by obstructing storms, he alerted us to the fact that 'there are strange buildings on Jupiter' and that he'd like to 'land the damn ship to take a look at this martian prank.'

Permission was, of course, denied. Dr. Yuens specialty laid in biology, and as such, we recalled the new science ship, and ordered it to investigate the ruins - the archeologist would do a much better job than Dr. Yuen, we were sure. Dr. Yuen would be sent to Barnard's star in his stead, to ensure that we kept him occupied. Ultimately, this too turned out to be a lucky decision.

Within a month we received word from the archeologist.

“We are not alone,” he told me in a direct feed from Jupiter. It was a worrying thing, and I did not quite know how to respond. We are not alone? Was this like one of those old 'Alien' movies? But he quickly reassured me, seeing the horror in my face.

“.. or rather, we weren't. According to my findings, which are quite accurate if I may say so, there were aliens here some two million years ago. Using the science ships' powerful computer and AI, as well as some of my expertise, I translated some of these artifacts. While we were on Earth running around like tribals, they were here establishing something called 'The First League'. If I had to compare it to Earthly matters, I'd say it's quite comparable to the first League of Nations that was created after the first World War.”

“But the human first league failed, did it not?”

“Yes, and from what it looks like, this one did too.”

“They're dead?”

“Well, we didn't receive a welcome party, and nobody stopped us from trampling all over their buildings, so I'd say so, yes. The artifacts were untouched for two million years.”

“Well, that's... both saddening, and mildly reassuring. Continue your work, regardless, and survey the rest of Sol. Dr. Yuen didn't get to that yet.”

“Ah, one last thing, sir. If I may be so free, it seems like there are more of these artifacts. I'd be.. happy to uncover them, if we get the chance.”

“Understood.”

After that, I was given a mere two seconds of calm and peace, before a transmission from Dr. Yuen came in. In a distressed voice, he spoke those same familiar words. “We're not alone!”

“Calm down Dr. Yuen, you found more artifacts, didn't you?”

“Artifacts? What the hell are you talking about, you idiot! NO! I'm talking about these.. these.. giant space cows! Look!”

With a press of the button, he switched the relay feed to the on-board camera's, centering them on some foreign object in the distance. Once the camera properly focused, I nearly fell out of my chair from excitement. He wasn't kidding - there is.. life! We're not alone! I proclaimed loudly, the excitement clearly audible in my voice. Then it hit me, oh.. lord. We are not alone. Dr. Yuen seemed equally dissatisfied with the discovery. What if they were going to attack us?

“You need to scramble the three corvette's, and engage these things before the kill us!” he yelled at me, and for a moment I considered following his directions. But, ultimately, I did not.

“Is it fighting you?”

“W-well, no?”

“Then... exit the system using your hyperdrive?”

“B-but, we need to extract data from their innards once we blow them up!”

“We'll not blow up anything. We're no longer savages, so we will try to hail them on our communication devices and launch an investigation as to who these.. spaceships are.”

“I- but- okay, fine! But I want to be the one to investigate them! Damn advisor, I wanted to blow this thing up and-” End of communication relay.

That was a deal easily made, since he was a biologist and seemed to be the most capable of doing the job. Dr. Yuen returned to the Sol system and investigated the 'space cows.' In the meantime a press-release was made to the people of Earth, expressing that we had found some sort of life, or precursor society. Both these things excited the people of the United Nation of Earth, and it seemed like people were scared but excited to find out what laid beyond us.

The following months were somewhat uneventful - the surveying of the Sol system was completed, and the bounties were incomprehensibly large - but, never the less, not a ground breaking breakthrough compared to the precursor 'First League' that existed in the Sol System when we were still making huts out of mud and sticks. And also not nearly as interesting as the 'space cows' that Dr. Yuen had redubbed into the more scientific 'Tiyanki'. It didn't quite matter, because most people still referred to them as 'space cows' or 'space squids' or, well, just about any name that started with 'space' and ended with a reference to a regular earth animal.

Thankfully, the slur of disinterest was broken when Dr. Yuen ran into the Chancellors chamber during a standard routine meeting, yelling something about 'breakthroughs' and 'space cows' and other random assorted words that sounded scientific. I promptly stopped him, grabbing his shoulder and forcing him to take a few breaths before he continued, slightly more comprehensible this time.

“We've figured it out! These Tiyanki, or space cows, they're just.. regular animals, except they exist in space!”

“So they are not spaceships?”

“Well, they're as much as a spaceship as a regular earth cow is a racecar. They also don't really do much. Sadly.”

“What do you mean 'sadly?'”

“It's hard to gather data on them. They just 'swim' through space, from one gas giant to the other, seemingly 'grazing' on the gasses before leaving again and finding another gas giant. They're quite boring really. They also don't hunt - they seem to just graze on gasses. They didn't even attack our ships when we drifted really close to them.”

“That's... good news. We can safely avoid them and continue our mining operations then.”

“Hmm, well, if you ever happen to 'find' one that is 'dead' then please contact me so I can 'test' it thoroughly.”

“You... want us to blow one up for you so you can test its' innards.”

“Yes.”

“... we'll see. Dismissed, Dr. Yuen.”

Once Dr. Yuen had left the office, I looked at the Chancellor to see what he thought. He just smiled at me and nodded, before getting up and leaving the office. Sometimes, some days, it almost seemed like the Chancellor didn't really care about anything other than mining minerals. Me, on the other hand, I was preoccupied with wondering just.. what these Tiyanki were. And if there were Tiyanki, then did that mean.. there were other things too? We'd have to wait and see what was out there for us - we'd have to..

....Ｒｅａｃｈ ｆｏｒ ｔｈｅ Ｓｔａｒｓ

Ｓｔｅｌｌａｒｉｓ： Ｒｅａｃｈ ｆｏｒ ｔｈｅ Ｓｔａｒｓ [AAR]

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Ｓｔｅｌｌａｒｉｓ： Ｒｅａｃｈ ｆｏｒ ｔｈｅ Ｓｔａｒｓ

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Hello, and welcome to Stellaris: Reach for the Stars. This will be an After Action Report (AAR) on a playthrough of Stellaris that I will be doing, specifically for the purpose of writing an AAR here. The only rule I have set for myself so far is that I will be using the humans, in order to create at least a sense of familiarity with our primary race. Naturally, I will start us off in the 'Sol' system, which would be where Earth, Mars, Neptune, etcetera are located. In order to give you a short overview of what the 'race' will entail, as well as the parameters for the game and the creation of our galaxy, I will provide you a short list here.

Chapters

• Chapter One: Humble Beginnings
• Chapter Two: First Contact
• Chapter Three: Hegemonic imperialist seaslugs
• Chapter Four: Expanding the mind and the material

Species

Species name:

Name: human
Plural: humans
Adjective: human

Species appearance:

Humanoid, human

Species traits:
Starting points: 2
Total trait points: 0
Trait picks left: 0

Quick learners: +25% leader experience gain, -1 point
Natural physicists: +15% physics output -1 point
Non-adaptive: -10% habitability +2 points
Rapid breeders: -10% growth time -1 point
Communal: +5% happiness -1 point

Ethics:

Fanatic materialist: -15% building cost, +15% physics, engineering and sociology output
Xenophile: +25% trust growth, -5% xenophobia

Government:

Despotic Hegemony: +5% research speed, -25% research station build cost

FTL method:

Hyperspace travel

Starting weapons:

Projectile weapons

Galaxy generation

Galaxy size:

Medium, 600 stars

Galaxy shape:

Elliptical

AI empires:

9

Advanced AI starts:

4

Max fallen empires:

4

Habitable worlds:

100%

AI aggressiveness:

Normal

Difficulty:

Normal

Allowed FTL methods:

All

Empire placement:

Random

Endgame crises:

Enabled

Ironman mode:

Off

As for Stellaris itself, it is a beautiful game that has sucked me in both with the stunning graphics, the interesting attention to detail in space, the stunning writing and the mixture of realism with sci-fi. Standard concepts are present - and more. The game ranges from fighting space pirates, to fighting giant space-monstrosities in the form of Leviathans, ancient, gigantic creatures that take varying shapes.

Please enjoy, whenever I write in here, and please feel free to post in this thread to critique, comment or suggest actions to take in the future (such as 'you should enslave those damn aliens' or 'purge them!' or 'make a zoo with all foreign aliens' or something!)

I am a person who doesn't like being a person.

@Lady Selune Welcome to the guild. Since you're so forthcoming with why you're here, expect your PM's to get flooded by horny men and women alike, as this website seems to have plenty of each.

Enjoy your stay.

Naruto: Years of Winter - an Alternate Universe

@pkken@Hillan @LokiLeo789 So team Konoha is in the lead right now in regards to finishing the mission and to give the others some time to play catch up I'm going to wait for tomorrow to move us on. (Because I know you guys are all active and we can move on regardless.)

For other teams it seems like there has been some inactivity. Crash seemed
absent so I'll have a look and figure out if these people are out of the rp or just winding down from Christmas.

Remember it's dexember - we all have to spend time on real life. So don't panic if the RP slows down.