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Press Release: Galaxy Alpha Post-Herald (GAPH)
The Consortium government press secretaries announced today a "populist transitional governing body" has assumed control of all public functions, following a one week news blackout.
Honorable Maxitor von Datum, of the new ruling clan "Datatribe" held a press conference in the Grand Array on the grounds of the old church on PL Ancient Temple. "The First Order has been dissolved. The Second Order has now running the Consortium for the transitional period, which will continue indefinitely."
Members of the First Order were unavailable for comment.
"I will stress that this was not a coup d'etat. Rather it was a realization that a new clan could lead the Consortium more effectively, under the new order of informatic rampancy."
No questions were taken.
End Press Release
Yes folks, another noob has taken a position in FH:Galaxy Alpha! I was given a drop-out position, and plan to submit orders for Turn 3 by tomorrow. I was delighted to read that FH is all about role-playing, not just number crunching. So I looked at my species:
Species name: Consortium
Government name: First Order
Government type: Hierarchal Xenocracy
I decided a coup had taken place. We are now the Second Order, and have aligned the Consortium along the lines of an information-driven meta culture. Our goal is total information awareness. We plan to scan every system in the game, hold audience with every player, and buy and sell information at every opportunity. We will specialize in settling non-standard planet types. And finally we will set up transit standards and an interspecies wormhole transit commerce protocol to ensure the safety of interstellar trade.
I have read about half the rules so far, and will try to post what I can here without giving away too much about my position. First goal - one of the planets in my home system is just barely within my abilities to colonize, and I will set up a mining colony asap. This will be a practice run for settling other tough planets in the turns to come.
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Turn 3 - orders verified and sent in to our trusty moderator...
The Second Order has quickly settled in to establish control over the sprout of an interstellar empire. First order of business? Name our first target, of course! We have identified a planet within our home system as being just within our capacity to colonize. It is now called "DataMine". We may end up putting all our offshore hosting facilities there, inside all those caves we're about to scoop out of the precious minerals currently trapped beneath it's hostile crust. Everyone's gotta start somewhere...
Second order of business was to construct two more scouts. Not only do we need more ships to cover the 90-some stars in this cluster, but there is a slight chance that some members of our Interstellar Heroes Scout Brigade will end up being martyred in a hyper jump misfire or other intergalactic incident. So we set up a few more mandatory reporting stations to recruit more lucky pioneers.
Finally, we determined that we need vastly improved manufacturing technology if we are to build transports large enough to ship sustainable colonies. So our scientists are busy working aggressively to bring us up to code. We have beta teams working to shore up a few supporting technologies, such as Gravitics and, er, well, purely defensive military capabilities. Just in case we run into space amoebas or something.
We sent our first scout to the nearest system, and eagerly await the first reports from the frontier!
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Hmmm. A Xenocracy is government by foreigners, so you need to explain where you came from.
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The Second Order of the Consortium answers to no one. But in your case we'll make an exception. We are a species that craves the unusual, the unique, and the bizarre. We seek out strange new worlds - not to assimilate them, but to learn from them. We are xenophiliacs. Love us.
(At least that was *my* interpretation of Xenocracy...)
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So you're xenophilliacs - doesn't that mean you'll have to be put on the attorney general's sect defender list?
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(03-27-2011, 08:24 PM)JonO Wrote: So you're xenophilliacs - doesn't that mean you'll have to be put on the attorney general's sect defender list?
That's sect *offender* list, to you. Unless your species is into that sort of thing. 
Turn 4 has arrived!
G.A.P.H. live report from Ancient Temple space control.
"Ladies and gentlemen, Space Command - Royal Airbase Magenta (SCRAM) has just announced that they have re-established contact with the Space Pioneers scout ship Alpha. No word yet on casualties, but it appears that hyper jump calculations were off by an order of magnitude. The ship and her thousand-man crew re-entered Einsteinian space a full parsec off target.
"According to fleet policy, the ship has more than enough fuel and provisions to last in deep space for many years, but a misfired hyper jump can endanger FTL-capable ships in many ways. A full inspection and refit will likely be necessary when Scout 1 returns to dock.
"Of course, that's not going to happen anytime soon. The ship is slated to try another jump to it's target, the Aberdeen system, as soon as possible.
"The Naval Astrogator's Research College had already begun accelerating it's program on basic gravitics science, but Scout 1 launched from our home system before this research was done. Now the latest computational models have been packaged and transmitted to Scout 1 by SCRAM, which should bring the odds of another mis-jump down significantly.
"Still no word on what planets or other resources might exist in orbit around Aberdeen Prime.
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The scout mis-jump was a set-back, but should only end up costing one turn, which will not really matter in the long run since our production capacity is still so pitifully small compared to our needs. Even if we arrived at the next star to find a veritable eden, we are not in a position to take advantage of it.
As a hedge, we laid the hulls for two new scout ships. Three roving beacons ought to be enough for the next ten turns or so.
On the research front, things went remarkably better as we advanced in all six areas of technology! Our aggressive push on Manufacturing technology proceeded as expected -- we are probably two turns out from being able to produce TR-8 class transports. We also brought Gravitics and Military up to moderately respectable levels with relatively small investments. And we picked up a random tic in Mining, Biology, and Life Support, which was rather welcome news indeed. Obviously the ascension of the Second Order has sparked the collective minds of Consortium industry to rise to the task of galactic informational awareness.
We still have a solid reserve (from the economically stagnant years of the First Order), but we're inclined to keep that liquid for the time being. We might need to goose our planetary defenses at some point, or put some extra muscle into building that TR-8, when the time comes.
The order-writing process was fairly easy, especially with the defaults provided in the stud order set appended to the turn results. I know it will get a lot more complicated later in the game, but for right now it just takes a few minutes to encode your turn. (And an hour or so to write posts about it!)
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orders for Turn 5 sent out...
The Second Order of the Consortium has doubled down on its investment in the strategic manufacturing sector. If these new technologies blossom in the way it is hoped, it may soon be possible to build the most enormous space transports ever seen in this star cluster -- big enough to hold tens of thousands of colonists and all the equipment necessary to begin the orderly development of DataMine, 3rd planet in our home system.
Scout 1 is re-attempting to reach its target. Now that we have some minimal level of competency at basic astrogation, perhaps they will actually get there.
Scout 2 and Scout 3 are leapfrogging ahead to the next 2 nearest stars. If all goes well, we should have some system data scanned in by next turn. INFORMATION! We hunger...
In addition to the major push in manufacturing technologies, our scientists are putting some further investment in mining/extraction techniques. Our manufacturing output has outstripped available raw materials on our home planet, so we hope to reduce that gap and improve systemic efficiency. We also put a fair amount into the basic biological sciences. At this stage, advancement is cheap, and we want to position ourselves to exploit random progress by the commercial sector in this area, should it occur. This should take our understanding of the life sciences at least up to the level of our (purely defensive) military engineering establishment.
Finally, we named all the planets in our home system. DataMine is only the first planet on our list. Eventually we hope to have a colony of some kind on each planet. Baby steps.
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(03-29-2011, 08:36 PM)ixnay Wrote: orders for Turn 5 sent out...
The Second Order of the Consortium has doubled down on its investment in the strategic manufacturing sector. If these new technologies blossom in the way it is hoped, it may soon be possible to build the most enormous space transports ever seen in this star cluster -- big enough to hold tens of thousands of colonists and all the equipment necessary to begin the orderly development of DataMine, 3rd planet in our home system.
Scout 1 is re-attempting to reach its target. Now that we have some minimal level of competency at basic astrogation, perhaps they will actually get there.
Scout 2 and Scout 3 are leapfrogging ahead to the next 2 nearest stars. If all goes well, we should have some system data scanned in by next turn. INFORMATION! We hunger...
In addition to the major push in manufacturing technologies, our scientists are putting some further investment in mining/extraction techniques. Our manufacturing output has outstripped available raw materials on our home planet, so we hope to reduce that gap and improve systemic efficiency. We also put a fair amount into the basic biological sciences. At this stage, advancement is cheap, and we want to position ourselves to exploit random progress by the commercial sector in this area, should it occur. This should take our understanding of the life sciences at least up to the level of our (purely defensive) military engineering establishment.
Finally, we named all the planets in our home system. DataMine is only the first planet on our list. Eventually we hope to have a colony of some kind on each planet. Baby steps.
How long do you have to wait?
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Tomorrow 
FH Galaxy Alpha turns are on Sundays and Wednesdays.
Love the logs btw ixnay. I'm sad that as the GM I can't play in the game my self. Reading your's and Grimfinger's entries give me a little taste of the in game experience.
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GAPH press coverage of the recovery of Scout 1
Families of the Space Pioneers of Scout ship Alpha were elated today, when news came of their arrival at the target system. All systems are operational, all crew are present and accounted for, and a detailed scan of the planetary system has revealed 5 planets, including one that is even more hospitable to Consortium life than our own DataMine! It is believed that the 20 cases of champagne tucked aboard Scout 1 will not make it back to the home system, when the ship is due for refit.
Meanwhile, families of the pioneers of Scout Beta have been even happier. The ship arrived in system as per jump plan. Second Order officials credit aggressive research into gravitics propulsion and astrogation systems with the success. This jump was even further than Alpha's, and netted two further news items.
First, that system has 2 planets, which will be quite a treasure trove for our Xenocratic scientists as we try to unlock their secrets and learn how to colonize them.
Second, WE HAVE ENCOUNTERED ALIEN INTELLIGENT LIFE FORMS in that very system! They are flying a TR-1 class scout, basically similar to our designs. Efforts to hail them on common frequencies have not yet been successful, but our Xenobiologists are busy working on possible inter-species communication protocols. The system itself appears to be uninhabited, and given the small size of this ship, we are left to conclude that theirs is a scout ship with a mission similar to ours. Outreach!
Scout Gamma has not yet reported back. Jump signatures indicated a misfire, which was unlikely but not impossible. We ask for your prayers for the Space Pioneer volunteers and their families.
End press
Well, it's been a monumental turn for the Second Order! New life forms! Two systems successfully scanned, at last! Massive investment in research yields results!
Manufacturing technology has reached it's target level of sophistication! Engineers are already scrambling to put this knowledge into practice as we lay the hull for a TR-8 class behemoth. It will take at least 2 turns to fully build and equip it for its first colonial run. During that time we will have precious little funding for research, so our industry on the home world continues to be out of balance -- our Mining sector has not kept up with the breathtaking pace of manufacturing improvements! But we can't let minor inefficiencies distract us from this race for the first colony!
Biology advanced at a brisk pace, but it came at a cost. We have engaged in heavy deficit spending this cycle, to the point where our fluid economic reserves have nearly run dry. There is precious little left in our rainy day fund. Let's hope we complete these first few projects quickly so we can replenish that fund and guard against future need.
We will, of course, reach out to the alien species in sector 12. Who knows, that entity may even be reading this very transmission! We might have to start being more discreet in our press releases.
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