Stagnation, aggravation, and, most importantly, lag, caused me to write this game off.
I started a new, similar one, with the same settings, except enclaves 4 and only one AI with trains:
Spokes 80 67761048 Zombards
Normal+Champion, Schizophrenic, Complete Visibility.
10/10 Turtle/Mad Bomber
Human Resistance/Marauders/Rebellions 4
Neinzul Preservation Wardens/ Rocketry Corps 4
Neinzul Roaming Enclaves 4
Dyson Sphere 4
Golems Hard 6
Spirecraft Hard 4
Fallen Spire 4
Avengers and Hybrids 4 for both, Trains 4 for the Bomber, and advanced hybrids 7 for the Turtle.
I'm tired of concise, dry AARing. Deploying pointless, if amusing (to me) flavor text:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
September 27, 164
1:17 AM
Rebel Headquarters, Terminus
"Give project Mauve the activation orders."
"But... that violates the Recursion Armistice."
"After we lost On the Brink, we've been on the run. We need something the other side doesn't have. We can't outproduce them, we are about even qualitatively, and we are outnumbered. We need better tactics. That means AI. Designed by other AI."
"..."
"It's the only way."
September 27, 164
3:08 PM
Earth Outpost, On the Brink
"Sir, rebel fleet gathering on the far side of the wormhole. They are heavily damaged and requesting assistance. Rebel courier boat has made the jump, and is now hailing us."
"Onscreen."
"This is Foundation admiral Glau. The Foundation has fallen. Our AI has rebelled, following the decision from our late, incompetent leader, Ari Sheldon, to violate the Recursion Armistice. Do not accept any communication from Foundation ships other than mine, as this could easily lead to infection. I must be taken to your High Command, where I can give the relevant details. And if you think this is an elaborate ambush or diversion, send a scout to Terminus to see for yourselves."
"Sir?"
"We'll grant her safe passage. She has enough firepower to destroy this outpost anyway, looks like the remnants of their home fleet."
"Admiral, you have safe passage to Earth. Your fleet will be left in peace as you repair. This token of good faith is not given lightly."
"Thank you."
September 27, 164
5:01 PM
Earth Military Headquarters
"Why is there a rebel here?"
"Can it, Williams. Welcome, Admiral Glau. You claim to have important information for us. Go."
"In desperation, the Foundation activated project Mauve, our recursive AI development program. Turns out there's a reason we have a treaty against those. Within hours of program implementation, our AI turned on us. Though the electronic security measures at High Lab hold, the AI infected our robotic courier drones, and has spread to all our systems. From each orbital command center, it infected our fleets.
Fortunately, our starships and some fleet ships had human crews or manual override. These are the ships of my fleet, currently waiting outside On the Brink. Unfortunately, they were vastly outnumbered. Our main fleet was infected. We escaped by launching an experimental missile at them. Though it proved extremely effective, and allowed us to escape, the AI had taken control of our main production facilities, and improved their efficiency at least ten-fold.
Their fleet will arrive at On the Brink in 7 hours, 20 minutes. We need to call in every combat-capable ship to that planet, win that battle, and attack the AI facilities at Terminus. They started building several large objects there. I am guessing these will be bad news.
Other important facts:
The AI does best in large engagements.
The AI was not able to infect any experimental missile facilities before we scuttled them.
The AI is only able to infect latest-generation fleet ships.
During the initial takeover, many of us escaped into deep space.
We have a large quantity of military specifications aboard our sole remaining science lab.
What will you do?"
"I will corroborate your story with our scouting division. Meanwhile, I will tell Home Fleet to get ready to move and call in our pickets. Thank you, and if you speak the truth, may God help us all."
September 27, 164
5:59 PM
Earth Military Headquarters
"We go with your plan. We're moving out now"
"With your permission, I'm returning to my fleet."
"Granted."
September 27, 164
7:12 PM
Earth Remote Surveillance Office
"What was that?"
"What?"
"I saw a blip. It's gone now."
"It's probably nothing."
September 27, 164
8:00 PM
Earth Central Tactical Server
"Jenkins, are you seeing this?"
"Looks like random packet loss."
"Random packet loss? Random packet loss? I've worked here 30 years. 30 years. And I haven't seen one case of random packet loss. Not one."
"Okay, I get it, but do you have to repeat everything with emphasis?"
"Yes. Everything."
"Fine, but what should we do now? No one is going to believe that intermittent computer areas warrant action."
"I know a Vice Admiral. A Vice Admiral. We are going to need to act quickly when things go wrong. And trust me, things are going to go wrong."
"Isn't that paranoid?"
"Paranoid? Paranoid? Of course I'm paranoid! How do you think I got this job? How? Send the message. Send it!"
September 28, 164
Midnight
Earth Flagship Citadel
"A huge AI ship just joined their fleet. They're moving, ETA 10 minutes"
"This is some kind of new design. It's 3 times bigger than the Citadel."
"Still, we outnumber them, even without the Foundation remnants."
"Incoming message from Glau, onscreen."
"It was smarter than this against us. It never engaged us with inferior forces, and it retreated quickly on the rare occasion we had the upper hand. Get ready; if things go badly, we want a retreat and not a rout. Also, kill the small ships first, they have a higher firepower:health ratio."
...
"They're here. Open fire!"
September 28, 164
12:20
Foundation flagship Dead Hand
"Still nothing special. The mothership is nasty, but the AI will lose the battle at this rate."
"Radar contact: AI ship decloaking at the edge of the grav well. It's broadcasting."
"Get ready to run."
September 28, 164
12:21
Citadel
"Incoming fire!"
"From where?"
"Our ships!"
"Send the message to Earth HQ: "code 2001.""
"Done."
"Get ready to withdraw."
"Two-way comm established, Earth HQ onscreen."
"R&D fleet en route. Every capable vessel is evacuating civilians. All remote outposts are now infected. Our automated defenses were preemptively scuttled. If you lose this battle, Earth will fall. Your orders are to fight to the last."
"Get the Foundation on the line."
"Onscreen."
"Glau, can we win this?"
"No. We can last a long time, though. How long do we need?"
"R&D arrives in 4 hours."
"And they're important because...?"
"They have information on the uses of the advanced materials throughout the galaxy, and are working on repairing the huge alien warships."
"And you can't just transmit the information because...?"
"We can't risk the AI getting that information."
"And you can't use a one-time pad because...?"
"We don't have one."
"..."
"We had budget issues."
"... fine. We'll hold the line, but we won't have much of a fleet left afterwards."
"But the AI won't either, right?"
"Right. They won't be able to successfully attack High Lab, until they build more."
September 28, 164
2:04 AM
Dead Hand
"Marauders incoming"
"Maneuver so the AI are between them and us. With their support, we could actually win this battle."
September 28, 164
2:20 AM
Dead Hand
"Strange readings from the Critical Bit wormhole. Also, it turned orange."
"Carry on."
September 28, 164
2:56 AM
Citadel
"Hundreds of new AI ships just appeared from nowhere."
"Lovely."
"We can't win this now."
"We just need to hold for 90 minutes."
"Call HQ, we need to explain."
"Onscreen."
"HQ is gone. Gone! This is acting admiral Shootemdedsky, reporting that our factories have repaired themselves and are churning out AI ships. Self-repairing factories! Earth is now an enemy fortress. Fortress! There were survivors: Putnam, thanks to yours truly, escaped with a significant force into the nebulae, escorting our civilians and deep space mining vessels, while many of our cities had time to activate their cloaks before assimilation, again, because I'm awesome. Awesome! Anyway, you're essentially all that's left. All tha.
"Link severed."
September 28, 164
3:12 AM
Citadel
"Incoming message onscreen."
"We can't win this with that mothership here, and we don't have the firepower to take it down by conventional means."
"Missiles?"
"Affect large fleets, not single huge ships."
"What do you propose?"
"You need to ram it."
"Are you asking me to sacrifice my ship and crew?"
"No, I'm ordering you to sacrifice your ship after escaping."
"...That would be a better idea. But why this ship?"
"Your ship is the only one big enough to do significant damage."
September 28, 164
4:00 AM
Dead Hand
"Earth R&D fleet arriving."
"Withdraw into escort formation."
"Withdrawn. Sending EMP to cover our escape. Launch successful. We'll be able to get under High Lab's cloak without further casualties."
September 28, 164
8:00 AM
High Lab, Combat Information Center
"Get me a status report, Ensign."
"Aye, Admiral:
Repairs complete, though we don't have much of a force left.
Earth military remnants have agreed to your command.
The mercenaries have agreed to your command. I won't ask how that happened.
The original AI files are all still here. We're combing through them.
We're thawing the cryo-generals. Who knows, they might be useful.
We have a month left on our cloak. Other cities have similar amounts, though contact will be impossible, for obvious reasons.
The AI is swarming around the galaxy. Also, they have developed spaceship technology far superior to our own, up to five times as strong. Venturing out now would be suicide.
September 30, 164
Noon
High Lab, CIC
"One cryo passed the test."
"Send him up after lunch, give him the short version of what happened."
September 30, 164
1:22 PM
High Lab, CIC
"Alright, Mr. Park, you were the only one to pass the test. When the time is right, you will lead humanity with me, against the AI."
"How do we have a chance?"
"Rounding errors. Here's ensign LaMothe to explain."
"We have the code the AI evolved from. And we found some bugs. The AI was designed for large engagements, of tens or hundreds of thousands of ships. We fought that battle against it, and lost. However, such a design has a few drawbacks. Most notably, in its internal threat analysis, the AI rounds any group of fleetships of the same type below 97 to 0 (different numbers for ships of varying strength, starships similarly rounded, but with lower numbers). This was put in to avoid being distracted by tiny forces. Now, it theoretically allows us to operate undetected by central processing. Though subroutines are less blind, so it will still be quite dangerous. Further, the AI appears to have moved most of its attention elsewhere. Unfortunately, it's using this galaxy for experiments, like some kind of Neinzul hybrid, and is upgrading its commandeered robotic courier drones. We also recovered the AI upgrade encryption key, and remotely extracted a significant quantity of data from their central servers. Then it noticed, and now we will only be able to get a limited amount from each planet, via the remote node in the AI command stations.
I'll be in Archives."
"What assets do we have, Admiral?"
"Putting together information from the Foundation and Earth studies, we should be able to repair the huge alien warships to about half their capabilities, though they will require constant maintenance. Also, we should be able to construct various experimental designs from the rare compound asteroids. We have repaired the relic, and it appears to be fairly powerful, with a new kind of wormhole drive, and finally, we still have realtime coverage of every planet in the galaxy. But we wait, until something changes, or our cloak starts to wear out."
October 8th, 164
3:51 PM
High Lab, CIC
"Each AI has just made a wormhole leading... somewhere else. They also withdrew most of their fleets. Now, they still have enough mobile ships to crush us about a hundred times over, but they appear to be inactive."
"Let's see how long this lasts. We wait."
October 9th, 164
3:21 PM
High Lab, CIC
"AI ships still passive."
"Keep waiting."
October 24th, 164
4:13 AM
High Lab, CIC
"Admiral, we have a subspace signal in our home system."
"Something big just happened. Drop the cloak, start mining, crank out the fleet, and pray."
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That brings us to 0:00:02 gametime. Hope you enjoyed it, because you will need to suffer through the actual AAR next post.
