multiperson mp story - Deciding the future of Humanity

So one of the more interesting things I used to do in Civ V was play mp games where each person would write a story about the ongoing game as it was ongoing. Stories would be posted on forums as game went on. Was fun and gave a different look to the game as universe was expanded on by who ever was writing the story. Been wanting to do that with Beyond Earth and finally found some people to do it with. Hopefully will be fun to play and fun for others to read. Not sure what the official policy here is but would like to make a separate thread for comments to keep the flow of the story here better. If that is not ok mod please let me know and I can delete the other thread once it is made. Let the Story begin!

Suzanne Fielding looked out onto her new world. From this perspective you could almost be forgiven for thinking the planet the ship was in orbit around was earth. "It is not though" Suzanne thought to herself as she looked out the window. "It can become many things but never Earth". Smiling she thought back to some of the stories that had been written about her as she rose through the ranks of the American Reclamation Corporation. "Is one corporation not enough for her". If only the knew she thought. One country was not enough for her. More. More power, more wealth, more responsibility. Now an entire planets worth of wealth and power and an entire people no an entire species worth of responsibility. There were other seedings of course even some on this planet with other sponsers but, they would soon be of no consequence. Susan was familiar with most of the leaders of them and each was bringing some of the old mistakes of thought from old earth. No if the species was going to survive it was up to her people. Smiling she turned around to look at her people. Each was going about their business professionally, even the artists who she didn't expect to be professional were quickly getting ready to go into the descent pods. I guess even as an artist if you choose to go to another planet you would be somewhat scientific or business like in perspective. Good. That was part of the problem in humanities past. Too much dead weight and too much expected by said dead weight. The last thing needed if humanity was going to survive on this new world was people who couldn't help the colony survive. If only the scientific team had been able to find a way through the magnetic interference so they could map out the new planet beneath them before landing. At least though none of the other sponsers whose ships had begun to appear on the radar soon after she awoke from cyrosleep would have been able to either. If her scientists who were the best in the world couldn't do it, then no one could. Still she supposed she should go and look at what information they did have so she could choose a place for the first city to be founded and check on the Former they brought with them. Massively expensive had it been and some had counseled bringing other items some going so far as to bring a fully outfited soldier. She held no allusions that soldiers wouldn't someday be necessary. War was a constant on Earth, expecting it to be any different in space was naive. But, choosing not to bring a soldier did give her an opening to discuss not repeating Earth's mistakes, and if those listening wanted to think of War as one of those mistakes - will it wasn't up to her to correct their perceptions. With a last look outside the window she went off to see to her many duties.

Richard paused in moving items to the descent pod to look at Suzanne. "I really should be working" he thought "but they did bring me at least somewhat for my artistic talent and certainly a leaders first look at her new home should be captured in paint. Upon waking from Cyrosleep most of the colonists had been disoriented and sick to their stomach. Not Suzanne it seemed. Though she had, supposedly, woken up the same time as everyone else she had seemed immediately to be her old self. After giving others a few minutes to get adjusted and gape at the new planet through the viewports she had gently, then not so gently (or so some said), started people getting ready for landing. Only after everything seemed to be running smoothly did she take time herself to look out at the colonists new home. As Richard watched she exuded the same strength and assurance he had seen in paintings of Washington or Henry the fifth. How much of the character that could be glimpsed through these paintings was artist affectation and how much was real could of course never be answered but looking at Suzanne Richard could at least believe that less was affectation than many had assumed. Her dark skin gave off no hint of unsureness and her long sleep had seemed not to put even a hair out of place. Likely she had of course programmed the computer to wake her up earlier so she could make herself presentable and get over her own space sickness before anyone else woke up. Not too surprising and though many had likely figured it out no one had mentioned it. Given her race and sex especially she had likely always had to be too steps ahead of all her business partners/allies/competitors. As a colony leader seeming more God than human would be similarly useful and important. "Likely why she brought us along really I suppose" Richard thought to himself "art has long been used to burnish the power of those in power anyway. And here when the survival of the species may very well depend on their actions, any inspiration is likely a good thing". Richard's ruminations were interrupted by Susanne turning from the window and he quickly turned to get back to moving cargo.

Angering a God is never a good idea after all.

Journal – Day of Seeding – Launch T-Minus 2 hours

Legends say that when Mahatma Ghandi was asked about Western Civilization he responded with ‘what a wonderful idea that would have been Chai Walla’ Although historical documentations from before The Great Mistakes have proven uncertain at times, it is well known that the Asiatic people have always been the most respectful and reliable documentarians of history. On the eve of our Glorious Ascent beyond this Earth whose spine was shattered by the ambitious but disrespectful fractured city states and mega-corporations, I find that we have to lay the blame for The Great Mistakes where it is due.

I speak of course of the so-called American Reclamation Corporation which has dominated our global markets with its fascist policies concealed behind a veneer of green energy initiatives and overtly white knight solutions to global crises which have only led to an increase in their precious bottom line. Consider that the poor people of Al-Falah have had so much of their resource wealth plundered by Susan Fielding that they can no longer afford the extreme cost of their own seedship . With great ironic hubris nothing has been offered in return for their construction aid by ARC save for the token allowance of a small enclave of Al-Falah nationals who have been permitted berth upon their shiny and over extravagant ARC seedship as nothing more than another ARC publicity stunt to make them seem more humanitarian on the nightly newsnets.

In the dawn of the New Golden Age of Man, I Daoming Sucha swear before my ancestors that our new home will not fall prey to the economic machinations of ARC. The Pan Asian Cooperative is united behind me and each of us must work hard to create a golden paradise of enlightenment. Hopefully through our display of wisdom, Susan Fielding will come to understand that you cannot learn wisdom if your egomania leaves you with no clue as to what respect is in a civilized universe.

We have named this planet Oasis instead of the Old Earth designation Tau Ceti. The alien desert in which we have found ourselves has proved daunting and we have already lost many colonists to local storms which apparently blow in via storms from the southeast fungal bloom region we have designated as The Mushroom Kingdom. The sea life on this world is very aggressive and we have been forced into a defensive military posture after an incursion which resulted in the death of dozens of our colonists by a creature designated by our scientists as a Ripper. Apparently these creatures have a sense of fmaily as its mate came to our shore for vengeance shortly after our triumph. He too was defeated by our limited automatic defense batteries.

Our explorers have come across some wreckage from other failed seeding projects. So far two notable finds have energized our research and development teams. The first was a nearly intact fusion reactor which we were able to install at Copperhead base which had been suffering from brownouts due to energy rationing recently. The second was an incredible find…an intact industrial 3D printer from the wreckage of a seedship itself! This will greatly boost our production capacity as it is almost a Wonder in itself.

Our long range oceanic scouts have discovered that the alien life may be proto-sentient. As we were excavating an ancient alien skeleton one of the alien creatures approached the skeleton with clear reverence for its ancient ancestor. It appeared to recognize the reverent respect we had for its ancestor and it has attached itself to one of our scouting teams. Further research is being conducted to determine if this is a possible sign of full sentience but in my consideration that is a ludicrous theory at such an early stage of investigation.

On this brave new world we have met Elodie of Franco Iberia to our west. An intellectual neighbor should prove fruitful when it comes time to deploy espionage agents. Although operating near her territory was not recommended according to our council members I pushed ahead to aggressively salvage the wreckage of some sort of alien submersible. My scientific instincts proved correct as we covertly recovered alien technology which has been integrated to our air filtration systems.

Alarmingly, a new species of alien has been kidnapping our children. I hypothesize that they are studying us just as we are studying them, but children are too precious a resource to sacrifice in a diplomatic scientific exchange. I have ordered our scientists to direct their re4serach to promising force field technology which may prevent further alien abductions while not showing disrespect to what may have been simply curious aliens. Of minor note we have also found a jettisoned ARC cryopod which we have brought back to Copperhead in the hopes of reverse engineering their technology which has typically been superior to our own systems.

Landing went almost too smoothly. Everyone was in the proper place and before long the remains of the landing pod were turned into the settlement of New Washington. If anyone noticed the irony of humanities first city on an Alien world being named after the capitol of a country that refused to allow its national anthem to be used at the launching of humanities first starship they were to tactful, or perhaps, to scared to mention it.

Richard found the new world fascinating. Much of the ground was covered with an odd fungus almost as if the planet was covered by a living carpet. Unlike the green of earth plants here were generally purple or orange. “It’s so different but so beautiful” Richard remarked to one of his friends as the end of humanities first week on an alien planet came to a close. The next day reports of the colossal fungus came in.

“I need to talk to my explorer” Susanne thought as she gazed at the fungus “There is no room for political correctness when describing things. Yes the ballad of Mario was a crazy anticapitalistic screed, plumbers saving princesses by jumping over dragons and making there fire fall back on and kill themselves” Susanne thought as she shook her head “such communistic, power to the sub average person drivel. This however looks exactly like something from the mushroom kingdom he supposedly lived in. What would drive the growth of such a strange organism?” This question of course was better left to the scientists.

Richard was amazed. Never in any of the dreams of humans he had seen had any such thing been imagined. Like a giant tree but one that absorbed everything in the land around it leaving it almost barren, made not of something hard like wood but a soft almost fungi like substance but harder and more colorful than any fungus. Towering over the landscape almost as tall as earth skyscrapers. Like a Godlike ornamentation it towered over the landscape. When the Al-Fala contingent asked to found a city called promise under its “leaves” he asked to come along. Though they were suspicious of one outside of their culture they allowed him to settle in their city. Quickly Richard began to try to capture the fungi in paint.

Susanne sighed as she read Al Falah’s city request. Of course she would grant it, freedom of movement was perhaps the most scared freedom but it was sad that they so quickly wanted to separate from them. She remembered the Pan Asian Cooperatives speech. Even when you try to do something good, as if it was her fault Al Falah decided to trade away their resources for nothing. The market decides what things are worth and the world is full of winners and losers. Competition is a natural state. Shrugging she allowed the request and turned to other things. Some had been slightly perturbed at the choice to spend so much of their precious early resources on exploring the planet but when an impossibility drive that had fallen of their ship was found a large alien skeleton and ruins of what looked like an ancient and definitely non human city were found resistance ceased. Interestingly the discovery of the progenitor ruins led to a dramatic increase in interest in earth culture. A purity faction the almost worshipped all things human developed. It seems that when faced with the truly alien humanities first response was to turn inward and worship themselves. Quietly as not to anger the new devotees Susanne sent out further explorers in search of other ruins of this ancient race.

Arshia Kishk - Al Falah - planetfall

Planetfall!

We land on a giant mound of sand and rock next to what our texts say is called a “river”. It's a long stream of water! And we're next to a giant pool of water – it's much bigger than all of the ships in our fleet combined! This much water after spending my life on a daily water limit.

I can smell salt from my new office; I hear a rhythmic pulsing of waves of water attacking the shore. It's like the hum of the Golden Shah, but different – slower. I'll have to get used to that when I'm trying to sleep.

Right across the river from us is a wide stretch of land, covered in mushrooms and fruit trees. The first thing that we did once we landed was lay a few ladders across the river and walk across. The fruit was delicious! Once we are done unpacking, I'll send several families over there to grow and harvest them.

In our scan of the planet, we detected metal wreckage to the north of where we landed our capital. I'm sending an exploration team to the wreckage to see if there's anything salvageable.

Update: It turns out drinking that much water was a bad idea.


Right after they left, we discovered our first signs of animal life! A giant, rubbery thing with flippers swam up to the beach, causing a small panic. We're calling it a sea dragon after the creature on Old Earth. I'm privately naming that creature Draco, after the dragon from the Harry Potter book.



We found a giant fungus on this planet a few days southeast of Ard. It's bigger than our city! Once we get done exploring the wreckage, I'll see if I can have a science team check it out.

I finally got used to days and nights. It feels weird having everyone wake up at the same time, work the same shift, then go to sleep at the same time. Onboard the ships, we would space out the schedule so multiple people could share beds, as well as have constant monitoring of the ships.

I'm still not used to weather or temperatures varying. Yesterday, the star was completely covered by clouds, so it was less warm than usual.


The exploration team found survivors in the wreckage! They're coming back to Ard and joining us. We just added a small settlement southeast of our capital near more fruit, and they would be perfect for getting that settlement off the ground.

The cultural relics that we unpacked are ready for display. There's some disputes about how we want to display them. After some thought, I want to open them for everyone to view. These represent our history, as many of them were made by our great-grandparents. Closing them off for preservation is taking away from our heritage.



We had reports of a scientist doing some miasma experiments. A mob calling themselves a "militia" seems to have formed in response. They broke into his house, dragged him out, and trashed his house. The experiment equipment is gone, as are the notes.

I freed the scientist with a warning to not do so again. I'm going to have to build up the army and squash the militia. Order and safety can not come from an angry mob.



The second exploration team found some chemistry texts from Old Earth and a Senor Caffeine in pristine condition. Unfortunately, we don't have any cartridges for the Senor Caffeine. We're going to preserve it for now. If we have time later, we'll look at doing something with it.

On a personal note, it looks like Draco has a baby! Video from Explorer team two indicates there's a nest in the ocean.



The plantation across the river is fully built and operational. Everyone here is happy about the ample supply of fresh fruit! The next thing that we'll need to improve is some copper a little bit further across the river.

Explorer team one finished looking through a wrecked settlement. There are still more survivors that are joining us. How many others made it to this planet from Old Earth?



The clinic in Ard is fully furnished. We moved the labs from the Golden Shah into it, and everyone working there is happy to have more space. Now that they're happy, I've started recruiting soldiers to crack down on the militia.

Explorer team two found a Crystal Shrimp Pupa in a huge alien skeleton. Studying it might tell us something interesting about the aliens on this planet. They've packaged it, and it's heading back to Ard.

While they were packing up, some sort of giant lizard approached. It was friendly, and explorer team two named it Yoshi.