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+--- Thread: Text: The PBM Weapon of Choice in the War of Imagination (/showthread.php?tid=255)
Text: The PBM Weapon of Choice in the War of Imagination - GrimFinger - 08-17-2011
I think that it's a pretty safe bet to say, that out of the several billion human beings that populate the face of our planet, Earth, very few - if any - are apparently doing active searches of the Internet on a recent and recurring basis to find out if StarMaster or Galaxy: Alpha are on the verge of making a comeback.
The fact that fellow PlayByMail.Net site user Barzimeron managed to make his way to this site, after all of the years since Galaxy: Alpha last's turn was run for that play by mail game's player base of old, is pretty much tantamount to the equivalent of a PBM miracle, in my book.
As I sit here sifting through the meager few items from Intergalactic Games' Galaxy: Alpha still in my possession, I find myself wondering what it was about this particular game that caught my eye, back in the old days - enough for me to still look fondly upon it, after all these many years later.
It certainly wasn't the Fleet Module system that the game used.
DEFENSE FLEET COMMAND MODULE CLASS: 1
EMPIRE NUMBER: 894
MODULE TOTAL PC COST: 28800
MODULE TOTAL INTRON CRYSTAL REQUIREMENT: 400
TOTAL NULL CRYSTAL REQUIREMENT:
MODULE SYSTEM DRIVE WARCRAFT
COR - SDY - CRU -
BCU - SX 100 - BAT -
DRE - SDR - BX -
DEV - DES - WX -
DEM - SCR - NEM -
MX 0 OX - BAS -
ANN - DOM - OMG -
Nor was it the similar module-type approach to Ground Force Legions, such as is illustrated below:
GROUND FORCE LEGION CLASS: 1
EMPIRE NUMBER: 894
LEGION PC COST: 110000.
LEGION GROUND UNIT CLASS NAME: BRAIN WARRIOR (BW)
LEGION COMPOSITION: 1000BW(INF) 1000BW(SMR) 1000BW(ARM) 1000BW(AIR) 1000BW(AET) 10SYM2
LEGION OFFENSIVE POWER: 11,400,000
LEGION DEFENSIVE POWER: 5,604,000
LEGION TACTICAL FACTOR: 23
ASSAULT TRANSPORTS (AST) REQUIRED TO TRANSPORT LEGION: 51
No, for me, it was something more than these dry exercises in numerical manipulation and textual barrenness in modular form. Opening the ugly brown colored Galaxy: Alpha rulebook, the one with those three starships flying past a planet, to the inside front cover, reminds me of what it was. For on that particular page, there is an image of a alien hand holding what appears to be some kind of swirling galaxy within it's grip. On each side of this hand are obelisks, of some type, etched with unknown alien runes. Why this image wasn't placed on the front cover of the rulebook is beyond me, for it entices my imagination far more than the image of those starships and planet did.
This alien hand reminded me of an old issue of a Justice League of America comic book that I read many, many years ago.
Most of the game's rulebook did little, if anything, to persuade me to give the game a go. The Introduction probably did, with its reference to an eternal war between Chaos and Order, an endless tale of battles between the forces of Light and Darkness. What was going on here, in this particular PBM game, was a galactic struggle for power. Galactic struggle for power - that has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?
I think that the rulebook's section on Racial Types available to new players of Galaxy: Alpha generated interest in me, way back then, all those many years ago. Builders, Death Globes, Thinkers, and Warriors. I think that the Death Globes intrigued me the most of all, even though I opted to play an empire of Thinkers. The Death Globes reminded me of a cross between the Cylons of Battlestar Galactica and Terminators, aka the Arnold Schwarzenegger type.
The mapping system used in the game made the game seem huge - a playing area of 117,000 star sectors. How much would it cost, in terms of real dollars, for a player to actually explore all of that? Many, many turns of turn fees, that's how much!
Yet, the size of the game's playing area, while it made it easier for a new empire to be hidden amongst the stars, it also made conflict - and consequently, interaction - between players less frequent. To fight them, you first had to find them - or they had to first find you.
The concepts of Civilization Level and Mental Alignment denote technology and degrees of evil or good, respectively, to me. Industrial Index and Military Index were of secondary importance in stimulating my imagination.
The rulebook for Galaxy: Alpha encompasses and covers many different sections within its almost 60 pages. However, it was a mass of text and confusion, for the most part, to the uninitiated like I, myself, back in the day. It is on page # 25 that the rulebook really begins to grab my eye, in this retro-visit back to yesteryear. For it is there, under the section titled GALAXY: ALPHA ALLIANCES that the reader is poked with a sharp stick of imagination. Flipping the page, the narrative of back histories of several different Elder races commences. This epic assault upon my imagination finally concludes on page # 38, as the rulebook reverts back to its former stale penchant for textual dryness and over-infatuation with numbers.
From the Xythrons of the Realm of Darkness to the Malbane of the Shadowflame Imperium to the Genar of the Warriors of the Light Eternal to Omega, the Life Destroyer, it is here that the rulebook for Galaxy: Alpha succeeds - both then and now, for this is the ilk that draws me into the setting, and ignites the fires of imagination that reside somewhere within my soul.
Here, within the confines of these few pages, the reader is immersed into the history of the galaxy - a history full of ancient conflicts and unending wars.
The Chkmulin, the Vor'Koon, the Zholgons - what mighty empires these must have been. Between references to the Dark One, the Hell Gate, and the mysterious Penta-Ring, I am cast backwards into time. The game becomes more real to me, as a result. It's setting comes alive. I want to know more about That Which Walks the Star Winds. I yearn to learn more about the Transdimensional War. I crave to know more about the dark history of the Houses of the Krulang Krang.
The essence of Galaxy: Alpha's allure lay somewhere in the midst of the game's textual adventurism, whether it was in the game setting's back story or exploration-mapping of a huge galactic playing area, one star sector at a time.
The most common Preliminary System Report was one that said: SCAN REPORTS NO ALIEN ARTIFACTS OR RUINS
This report meant another ho-hum turn for each respective fleet that turned up nothing. It was repeated many times over, as the game progressed. It was a stark tribute to the fact that the galaxy has a lot of emptiness encompassed within its reach.
But, when the Preliminary System Report said something other than that, the eyebrow would raise - and the human players of the game would pause and linger. Interest was renewed. More of the galaxy's rich history would unfold, adding new chapters to players' imaginations.
My early experiments with playing the game didn't last. I turned my back on it, and it faded into the mists of time behind me. Like the race in the game's setting known as the Mushin, the game eventually vanished mysteriously from the galaxy what seems eons ago.
To find what scattered few remnants of this game still exist, today, would require either Null Gate technology or a miracle.
Even the Masters of Shadow likely never penetrated all of the galaxy's dark secrets and hidden mysteries. Across the vastness of space, alien runes still blaze about the surface of tetrahedrons, leading the eye off into weird unknown and unknowable dimensions.
I wish that there was a book - a whole series of books, that described in depth the fate of all of the infamous races and events and locations that Galaxy: Alpha planted into the play by mail game's meme that continues to infect me, all these many years later.
Now, throughout the scattered diaspora of the PBM Hivemind, few are they which remain to recount the tales and the legends of Galaxy: Alpha. Barzimeron is one of the last of a dying race - a player of Intergalactic Games' finest - and perhaps only - creation.
Both he and I ruled empires of Chaos. Could it be that Chaos prevailed, after all? Or do we both drift along on cosmic specks of existence - specks that just happened to collide and bring us together here on the PlayByMail.Net website?
Somewhere, the Elder empires are laughing at us, as we stroll down memory lane.
Titanic memories of vast conflicts played out on interstellar and trans-dimensional scales of pure text. Text, you see, was the weapon of choice for game moderators of play by mail games, back in the olden days of yore.
A single picture is worth a thousand words, but a thousand words can tell a tale that no picture ever could. Great and extremely ancient power was the player's to be had - if they could only solve the mysterious puzzles comprised solely of text.
The Internet may well have unraveled Galaxy: Alpha's masterful use of text. Perhaps the game, itself, was sealed off from the Internet crowd of the then-impending future. Sealed within some strange and alien dimension with security advanced enough to make the even vaunted Hell Gate, itself, pale in comparison, perhaps the game continues on. Or, perhaps it is lost to mankind, for all time.