New map, new bonus ship, new AI, natural resource income, one planet.
We regain freedom on Niunub, which will rename in honor of our national beast "Three-toes", having salvaged an experimental "Lightning Torpedo Frigate" from pre-war plans.
Primary objective: Discover immediate surroundings. Analyze threat, identify priority targets.
02:43
It appears our former military AIs have mutated beyond their initial specs... no wonder they turned on us.
The Minuteman class AI has been designated in red on our strategic map. Initially established to patrol our borders, a botched software upgrade linked it into our security network of Alarm posts with broken IFF, identifying all factions as Foe, not friend. Even worse, there are rumors that a "Last Stand Hunter" option was implemented.
Our strongholds were secured by the Maginot class AI, which unfortunately received Identification Friend or Foe from the Minuteman. We have colored the Maginot holdings in blue. Maginot was the pride of our defensive engineers. Every wormhole was secured with militarized guard posts, orbital mass drivers, and warhead interceptors designed to repel any strikeforce that penetrated our forward defenses.
The wormhole string to the south-east leads to our former headquarters, but unfortunately it was the first place we were driven from. The first system "Young Road" has an armor inhibitor in addition to the usual warhead interceptor and orbital mass driver. It was intended to take out any shielded elements. The second system "Mandrake" tamed the power of a black hole to hold intruders in place while Special Forces responded to the threat. We just barely made it out before the trap sprung shut. The next system after that featured an experimental "Translocator"-class Railgun Command protecting two ion cannons and the ruins of an ancient, cursed golem that the AI fortunately was not plugged into. Our data files for the remaining systems were damaged by an EMP blast during the escape, unfortunately.
Our immediate home sector was no pushover either. The southwestern jump string ended at the system "Arcen", which contained one of our AI's Data Centers, but access to that system was gated through "Adam Smith" and its Planetary Cloaker. Two hops westward was the AIs' superterminal, but I'm afraid the automated security systems might make shutting down the AI way too dangerous. We're fortunate that our immediate home cluster only includes one known Plasma Eye and two forts for security.
The chain off to the northwest is locked off behind a Data Center maintaining another Black Hole Generator, while the pass to the northeast contains a Data Center, Civilian Leader post, and a Zenith Power Generator. Securing that bottleneck is probably going to be my first priority, accounting for any security systems.
06:34
My initial mark one strikeforce is mostly completely. We'll be producing the first run of Lightning Torpedo Frigates soon. It's time to start laying out plans. The system of "Gene Simmons" to my northwest is both lightly defended and rich in natural resources. Best of all, there are no nearby remnants of our former ADT Security net, so we should be able to avoid triggering "Minuteman".
Fortunately, the in-cluster "Minuteman" systems only have local defense Alarm Posts, but that won't necessarily hold true for the secured chains hanging off our Home Territories. I should be able to expand with some care and secure every system with an ingress to our Home Command, with no precautions beyond setting up traps for the incoming guardians. Unfortunately, we do not yet have intel on what guardians the AI has managed to bring online after going to full alert and rogue.
Most unfortunately of all, the "Minuteman" will be just as antagonized by the destruction of an alarm center as a warp gate, and was designed to double as an armed warp gate to launch strikes against any enemy footholds... which now unfortunately includes us. Funneling AI retaliation will be prohibitively expensive, and the sheer abundance of these posts means that preemptive strikes will cost us dearly as well. We must plan to repel guardians at every turn. Our former AI Technicians (now demoted to Janitors) are speculating on the behavior of an Alarm post after the system has switched to full Human ownership. We will have answers soon.
While our AI Techs have been demoted, our material and weapons science division is in full force, though lacking the direction of former command. There is intense discussion of where to spend our eggheads (got advice?).
