Agents Of Empire/Turns/15/Colony Worlds

Turn 15

< Turn 14 | Turn 16 >

House Actions

• Shipping:
  • The Space Whale hangs out on Arroyo rather than trying to run the blockade this turn.
  • Dark and the Duct Tape Special fly up the battleship to delay it to give time for the remaining evacuees.
  • Rick and the Reiglight Revenge fly to Arroyo.
  • The Vefnan cargo ship takes 4 units of Frozen Gas, the Foreign Legion and a sample wormhole battery to Elvis.
• Fighting:
  • The reprogrammed Gwyne chemical drones set up to have a friendly greeting to any landing troops, transmitting intel information on a secure frequency all the while. The Prime Irregulars help with the remaining evacuees near the eco lab and set up a defensive position.
  • Jude manually manages the orbital interference system to let the Vefnan cargo ship through without Gwyne catching on that systems are being conned.
  • The Green Berets and the Elvis Flytraps set themselves up on an obvious (but fake) landing pad and surprise-attack the troops when they land, with the goal of taking over at least one ship forcing the cargo ship under the swamp, so they need to spend Turn 16 fishing it out before they can proceed permanently sinking some of the Gwyne troops with their ship and damaging the others (leaving Gwyne with an injured rank-3 and an injured rank-2, while sacrificing both of our units). This would use up the ambush potential of the papier-mache decoys Jude set up in Turn 14.
  • The Yowlin' Yoshis and Fightin' Fighters defend the Seveyard (with cover, of course). Thunderchild also hangs out over the Cavernous Region, strafing any ground units who try to attack the Seve Ballesteros Memorial Shipyard.
  • The Foreign Legion recovers from their injuries aboard the Mighty Mammoth.
• Exploration:
  • Raphael Helsing and his Reef Riders continue their exploration of Region 3 of Boumfadour (making it 3/6 toward Explored-II).
  • The Lewison Clarks and Bram continue their exploration of the Cavernous Region, with the aid of the StarLight Survey Squad and KANE (making it to Explored-II and 2/18 of the way to Explored-III).
• Industry:
  • Bonanza Region: Produces 6 units of Hyperidot.
  • Island Region: Produces nothing (because they are fully evacuated).
  • Ocean Region: Produces nothing (because they are fully evacuated).
  • Bloos Wade Region: Produces 1 unit of Unsorted Crystals (with homesteader help) and 3 units of Food.
  • Alshu Cup Region: Produces 3 units of Unsorted Crystals.
  • Vefna's Primary Region: Recovers from the Gwyne occupation.
  • Hau Ndogg Region:
    • The Riju Tri-Lateral Industrial Complex processes 1 unit of Unsorted Crystals, 1 unit of Frozen Gas and 1 unit of Metals into 1 unit of Dalekanium (a rank-3 refined good).
    • The Riju Tri-Lateral Industrial Complex processes 2 units of Unsorted Crystals and 4 units of Hyperidot into 2 units of Frost Jewels (a rank-2 refined good) (similar in function to Flame Jewels, but colder and more blue).
• Research:
  • The Farlight Institute of Crystal Biotechnology continues researching.
  • The Hau Ndogg Community College astro-polo stadium (and secret underground advanced physics laboratory) begins researching the batteries found on Vefna.
  • The Boumfadour Institute for Ecology and Planetary Development continues researching in their new digs.
  • The Boumfadour Institute for History and Archaeology researches the sub-city-thing they are in.
• Building:
  • The Cavernous Region is upgraded to Factory-II (shipyard). One charge of the terraforming device is used to reduce the cost from 25Mc to 15Mc.
  • The Seve Ballesteros Memorial Shipyard uses 1 unit of Warp Manifolds and 1 unit of Large Energy Weapons to construct two rank-2 military space units: Pteranodon and Velociraptor.
  • Elvis uses 1 unit of Squidduplicators to construct a Pre-Fabricated Squiddio-lectric Sub-Space Transmission Tower (a rank-1 useful device worth 4Mc).
• Landing:
  • The Mighty Mammoth arrives at Elvis, taking advantage of Jude's assistance to safely land and dispense all of its Frozen Gas.
  • The Reiglight Revenge (led by Rick) arrives at Arroyo. It has no intention of trying to land or even of confronting the Gwyne ships in Turn 15: its entire purpose of coming here was to arrive in time for the Fighting phase of Turn 16 (under the assumption that we weren't allowed to fight until the Fighting phase).
  • The final evacuees arrive at the sub, which submerges.
  • The Scout and the Cargo Ship from Gwyne land on Boumfadour.
• Trading:
  • Elvis' Hau Ndogg Region consumes 1/4 units of Kooie Krysp. The Bloos Wade Region and Alshu Cup Region each consume 1 unit of Food.
  • Boumfadour's Island Region and Ocean Region each go hungry, but there's no one there anyway.
  • Arroyo's Bonanza Region and Cavernous Region each consume 1/4 unit of Kookie Krysp.
  • Vefna's Primary Region consumes 1/5 unit of Rations.
• Politics:

Character Actions

Colony

• Dark: Has an Adventure involving pitting his class-1 fighter against a class-3 battleship.
• Jude: Probably something to do with helping the Space Whale land and/or defending the planet against Gwyne?
• Rick: Rick spends most of the trip to Arroyo raiding the ship's medical pantry, arguing with the DocBot, and sleeping off his injuries in his bunk.
• Kyil: Recovers on Vefna; is grudgingly given props by his parents; plays with his brother Puul.

Imperial Core

• Reig & Tesher: Team up to investigate where the delivered space babies ended up. (Result: Iavo)
• Seve:
• Silentus:
• (NPC) Basinbloke: For a change of pace, Basinbloke tries to figure what was the deal with the space baby.

Results

Invasion is at hand!

On Elvis, the cruiser, scout, and cargo ship drop out of orbit, while the battleship remains to control space. The cargo ship lands and disgorges five troops (two rank-3 units, a rank-2 unit, and two rank-1 units), right into an ambush by the Green Berets and the Elvis Flytraps, who heroically give their leafy lives to send the cargo ship to the bottom of the swamp. The two rank-1 units, as stupid robots, go down with the ship, while the others fight their way out of the ship into poisonous frondage. The result is two surviving units, both injured, a rank-3 and a rank-2. Post-ambush, the remaining troops discover they've landed in the wrong place, suckers -- they've been fooled by Jude's mock-up buildings. They would move to the right region, but decide to rest up for a turn. The cruiser and scout don't land, but instead fly overhead, looking for enemy (or friendly, depending on your perspective) troops. Since no troops are actually on the ground in any regions of importance, production, building, and research continue as planned. The Farlight Institute finishes its research, coming up with a technique for ground units to evade the attacks of flying units (this being apparently only tangentially related to their main research focus, but the technique itself is derived from growth patterns used by some species of crystal-producing vines to avoid insectoid predators).

On Boumfadour, Dark performs a heroic sneak attack on the orbiting battleship, which reduces it to rank-2 for the foreseeable future. The scout (which has returned) drops out out orbit but doesn't land, while the cargo ship lands in the Island Region, disgorging five troops (two rank-3 units, a rank-2 unit, and two rank-1 units, all equipped for aquatic transport). Since all the regions are evacuated, and the one research station which isn't is full of refugees, no production or research occurs. The refugees have no food and thus begin to go hungry, but since they aren't doing any work, nobody cares at the moment. Raphael Helsing and his Reef Riders care nothing for mere food when the prospect of exploration beckons and there are no troops actually in their vicinity, and they explore more of the Whirlpool Region.

On Arroyo, the battleship remains in orbit, and the cruiser and scouts drop out of orbit. The scouts land and drop off a rank-3 unit each. Since the defenders are all in the Cavernous Region, Gwyne's forces seize control of the Bonanza Region and stop production there (on the bright side, this means the region no longer eats from the colony's food stores). The Cavernous Region is unoccupied as of yet so work continues, as the colonists hastily explore further (raising it to rank-2, and in the process discovering some veins of hyperidot which would be useful if this were a mining region, a treasure-trove containing 4 mega-credits in ancient-but-still-negotiable currency, and some kind of lesson about haste being the opposite of waste as the Lewison Clarks increase in rank yet again), rapidly upgrade the shipyard to rank-2, and then frantically construct two fighter ships in that same shipyard.

On Vefna, the colonists-turned-prisoners-turned-colonists clean up and recover from the occupation.

On Hrobaj, who knows what happens, but it is probably weird.

Somewhere in there, the Mighty Mammoth arrives at Elvis -- Jude manages the interference systems to let it land safely and the Foreign Legion hops out. Rick pilots the Revenge to Arroyo, but stays out of sight and out of range.

Dark has an adventure. Jude has his hands full managing the interference. Kyil has a series of bruises. Rick has a sandwich. A waiting-in-orbit sandwich.

Empire-side people do something which we'll come back to shortly.