The Clathran Menace: Winning Friends and Influencing People

The developers never changed the game title in the setup program.

        

Our holiday break was a good time to get Irene together for another session of Star Saga: Two. Here's how the game progressed.

     

Corin Stoneseeker (Irene) begins on the planet Worzelle, where a war has been waging among factions of the four-armed species for thousands of years. In visits to different parts of the planet, Corin learns that the war had basically driven the Worzellians back to the Stone Age, but that all changed when Vanessa Chang crash landed on the planet after she was shot down by pirates. Her crew held the pirates at bay long enough to fix their ship, blast off, and surprise the pirates in orbit. The Worzellians were so impressed by Chang's technologies and tactics that they created the Safe Zone, a place where the war couldn't touch, for research, study, and the raising of children.

       

Irene's options on Worzelle.

      

Corin visits the Strategists, an organization inhabiting the Safe Zone, which observes and catalogues the War. They balk at the idea of ever ending it. They insist the War is necessary to toughen them up so they'll be ready to face The Enemy—almost certainly the Clathrans.

   

She visits the hospital, where her health is restored to 100%. It was probably already at 100% anyway, but I don't believe the first Star Saga had any individual health status, so that's something new. She also learns about their Advanced Healing Unit and gets a recipe to build one. She'll be able to do it as soon as she has 1 Primordial Soup, 1 Probability Membrane, 1 Fiber, 1 Synthetic Genius, and 1 Tools. The game gives a code to use when she's ready—a good example of a situation when manually entering an action code is necessary, as the game has no idea where she'll be when she finally assembles the items.

      

The instructions for building an Advanced Healing Unit.

      

She also learns that she can buy a Super Space Suit for 1 Warp Core and a Phase Sword for 1 Crystals, 1 Munitions, and 1 Phase Steel. She lacks all of these items, but she's determined to get the Phase Steel before I do.

   

As the game instructed when we started playing, we pretend that Corin has radioed all of this information to M. J. Turner so that he can build the Advanced Healing Unit if he gets the items first, and so he'll know what to expect if he visits Worzelle.

Turner, meanwhile, is on the planet Holoth, where he has recently obtained citizenship by fighting in the arena. The planet is home to two species: the Hadrakians, a tiger/gorilla hybrid not native to the world; and the Holots, a native batlike creature. He makes a big step towards his personal quest to collect intelligence about the Clathrans by visiting the Hadrakian Battle, Inc., a governmental agency in charge of preparing for the inevitable war against the Clathrans. At their offices, he has to decide whether to share his information about the enemy in exchange for theirs, and he does.

       

A somewhat-rare roleplaying choice.

      

The Hadrakians tell Turner about the Clathran Survey Line, something hinted in earlier entries. In an effort to find new species, including humans, the Clathrans have launched an enormous fleet of battleships: "Their industrial capacity to build ships and soldiers is practically beyond belief." This fleet is moving "core to fringe," conquering worlds along the way. Most of the conquered worlds simply continue to exist under Clathran occupation, but for some reason, they're eager to utterly wipe out humanity—something to do with their belief that humans "have no limitations."

     

Looking at the map, I'm not entirely sure what the term "core to fringe" means, but the Hadrakians expect their colonies to fall in a particular order: Adafa, Psorius, Franclair, and Hadrak. So if I can figure out where one of the other colonies is, I can establish the direction. I wonder if the game really is on any kind of time limit (as with Star Control II); I guess we'll find out.

   

A grizzled old Hadrakian tells me my ship's defenses are pathetic and helps me install a Boson Beam. "When you have a few more ship improvements," he says, "Come back to the Battle, Inc. offices and ask for a real mission." The shipyards offer a few options for improvement, including a Ship Shield Generator, Explosion Studs (?), and a Spatial Inverter (??). I'm able to buy the latter for 1 Fiber and 1 Medicine. I note the items necessary for the other improvements and, of course, radio the information to Corin.

        

Something I can afford!

      

I visit a shrine where the Hadrakians pray to their many gods—so many that even the priestess has lost track. She says that occasionally the gods deliver "revelations" to those who pray. These revelations have come more frequently lately. She is skeptical that I'll receive one, being an alien, but I try. A voice belonging to the Goddess of Abundant Scenery says that humans and Hadrakians will have to work together to defeat the Clathrans, and my first stop should be the Academy of Military Arts on Worzelle.

   

Finally, I visit the Holots to learn about their cultures. They believe they once had a more technologically-advanced civilization but are now content to just fly around and exchange crystals from the high mountains for music and art supplies. One of them offers to teach Turner to fly, not believing in any physical limitations: "Flying is a state of mind." I give it a try, and against all odds, it works. My character now has "Flying" as an ability. As in the first game, the acquisition of abilities is the primary means of "character development."

        

Do not try this in real life.

     

When Irene finds out about this, she wants to now visit Holoth. Part of me thinks that's a waste of time, but on the other hand, I also have a reason to swap places with her based on my "revelation." So we spend the next few turns flying to the planets already explored by the other player and receiving the same benefits. On her way to Holoth, Corin is blasted by an alien probe beam from a long distance away. She is also hailed by a random alien who would like to battle her but recognizes her inferior weaponry. He suggests that she visit the planet Dahl. Turner makes contact with a strange red alien who suggests personal combat apparatus can be purchased on Dosia.

     

After a few more turns, Corin has "Flying" and Turner has "Tactics." I guess if I'd been playing solo, Turner would have spent a long time searching for Worzelle, so playing with a companion had the benefits it was meant to have.

      

Corin triumphs in the Hadrakian arena the same way Turner did.

      

Turner has one interaction on Worzelle that is different from Corin's. When Corin explored the Safe Zone, she met the Strategists. Turner instead finds an enormous space ship under construction and gets an option to ask about it. He does, and he learns that the Worzellians are constructing a fleet to fight the Clathrans. Turner proposes an alliance, and the Worzellians agree that if I can get enough other planets on board to pose a real threat, they'll contribute their fleet. Both Irene and I get a message in our subsequent turns that we receive a radio broadcast saying that the Worzellian and Hadrakian fleets will be joining forces against the Clathrans. But who brokered this—Corin or Turner? It's one of the oddities that come from playing a game where both players essentially accomplish the same things separately, and the game isn't quite sophisticated enough to account for it. For instance, when Corin visits the shrine on Holoth, she gets the same skeptical priestess saying that the gods probably won't talk to an alien, despite another human having recently received a revelation in that very shrine. This isn't really a complaint—it would have been a lot to expect the game to do otherwise in 1989—but it does add to the reasons that the game has never felt fundamentally multiplayer for me.

         

It's finally time for us to leave and visit new planets. The way I've oriented the map, we started on the "east" side at Outpost, and I originally went "west" to Holoth while Corin went "south" to Worzelle; we've since swapped. We agree that Irene will start moving "north" and basically explore the galaxy counter-clockwise while I do the opposite. There was some discussion in the last entry as to whether the quotes are necessary. The map actually has titles on both the top and bottom so you can orient it either way, so regardless of whether there really is such a thing as "galactic north" and so forth, the orientation of the map is arbitrary.

       

Moving through the galaxy.

     

Turner blasts off from Worzelle, swings around a hyperspace barrier, and enters a system called Unaria. The main planet is a busy spaceport, but Turner gets distracted by a strange moon that seems to have a hole going through it. As he investigates, he gets caught in some kind of battle between fleets of opposing ships, and a shot from an energy ray blinds him. He receives a telepathic message that he has "angered the gods." The voice continues: "You shall be split in two, and your evil half exiled to the other side of the galaxy. Eliminate the evil. That is your challenge now." When the dust clears, the computer reports that while the planet we now orbit looks a lot like Unaria, we are now completely on the other side of the galaxy, orbiting Dosia.

         

I wasn't here long enough to plant a flag.

      

Turner lands on Dosia and finds a race of "despondent, shapeless, yellow" aliens who are apparently at constant war with the Unarians on the other side of the galaxy, a species that the Dosians loathe for being too happy. The Dosians are so terminally depressed that when Turner tells one of them a joke, her subsequent attempt to laugh nearly kills her. Attending a "war lecture," Turner learns that the Dosians and Unarians used to be one race, but they somehow "invoked the wrath of the gods" and were split into two, each believing that the other had inherited the worst aspects of their personality.

 

The event also split the planet in two, and somehow sent one to the other side of the galaxy, but the worlds remained connected via a Stargate. Unarians and Dosians control access to the gate from their respective ends of the galaxy, charging other races to use it. They're willing to sell me a Stargate Key so that I can use it at my leisure, but I don't have the right trade items. I take off and try flying through the gate without permission (I feel this is in character for the hotshot pilot), an act that gets me put in stasis for two weeks as punishment. When the stasis is lifted, however, I am back on the other side of the galaxy at Unaria.

       

B) was a bad choice.

       

Irene/Corin is meanwhile having her own bizarre adventures. She discovers the planet Margen, a mostly-lifeless rock with a single city under a protected dome. She is surprised to find the city occupied by humans. "This must be the farthest-flung of all the lost colony worlds," she reasons. They turn out to be a strange religious/philosophical sect, everyone called "Brother" regardless of sex. They warn of a dire threat to the human race but will only elaborate if Corin joins the order. Irene chooses to do so. This kicks off a series of very long passages in which Corin is put through a number of philosophical exercises (none requiring input from the player) and ends up with two nebulous abilities, "Kothan" and "Darthan."

          

Corin and some of her abilities.

         

The dire threat is, of course, the Clathrans. The Brotherhood tells Corin that to face this threat, she will need to learn the Path of Intuition, and that her training will continue on the planet Dahl, where she will need to give a code phrase ("I do not know the answer") to enter the temple. In the planet's library, Corin learns about Dual Space, the strange dimension that seems to provide energy for abilities that appear magical, like levitation or telekinesis. Different parts of the universe make it easier or harder to access Dual Space, something the Brotherhood calls the Dual Space Interphase. Brother Dikestra gives Corin an Interphase Variometer, which measures the presence of Dual Space on a scale of 0 to 100; this value shows up in the "Status" window from now on. Finally, Irene gets a code to use to talk to Brother Gries about Dual Space when she's on Dahl.

         

I feel like there's an Arrested Development reference to be made here.

      

Corin blasts off from Margen and lands on the nearby planet of Bloo, a small, overcast world populated by squat, hairy, ugly humanoids engaged in bizarre activities, including pointlessly destroying buildings and engaging in violent wargames at which they seem curiously inept. When they notice her, they grab weapons and charge, calling her "Detestable Inferior Alien Scum." This leads to the following humorous conversation:

• Corin: "I am not!"
• Bluvian: "Oh, you're not? My mistake, then." (They lower their blasters.) "You haven't come to destroy our way of life?"
• Corin: "I haven't."
• Bluvian: "The Clathrans tell us that you will, but I guess that'll be later. You are a human, aren't you."
• Corin (shocked): "Yes."
• Bluvian: "Well, let us know when you want to start destroying our way of life, so that we can wipe you out like the detestable inferior alien scum that you are, maybe. Meanwhile, would you like some lunch?"

    

This all turns out to be the work of the Clathrans, who arrived several centuries ago, enslaved the barely-civilized Bluvians, and seeded the planet with robots to help build the population into soldiers. "The more violent and destructive we are, the better they make things for us," one of them explains. "Every time we wreck a building, they build a nicer one. The more we fight each other, the more food we get."

    

Corin finds the Bluvians curiously pliable, ready to believe anything she says. One of the Bluvians teaches her a secret trick to paralyze opponents in hand-to-hand combat just because she asks, and another takes her to visit the factory where the robots are made despite initial hesitation: "The Clathrans told us never to reveal the factory location to strangers."; "But I'm not a stranger. I am your friend."; "Oh. Well, that's different then. Come, I'll take you."

       

That should come in handy.

        

She attends a "civic lecture" that turns out to be a propaganda speech about how the Clathrans will one day reclaim the galaxy at the behest of their Masters and how the Bluvians will be heroes in this war. She meets a government official named Crugh who expresses doubt that the Clathrans will succeed in conquering the galaxy because they lack "Thmorg," a supposed knowledge that both Bluvians and humans have, although he is unable to define it to Corin's satisfaction ("Thmorg is the understanding that you are superior because you have Thmorg?"). It's played as a joke, but I wonder if there isn't something more there that explains why the Clathrans hate humanity.

    

The planet sells cargo drones, an interface shortcut that basically allows the player to trade with any planet without actually visiting the planet. I didn't use them in the first game, but I can see where they'd be handy here. Unfortunately, she doesn't have the requisite trade goods 

      

I like to throw in the occasional reminder that this game involves a lot of reading.

      

Irene and I wrapped up this session at this point. As with the first game, I'm enjoying the quality of the writing and the imaginative characteristics—both physical and cultural—that the authors imagined for each race and planet. (At the same time, I have to take heavy doses of mental immunosuppressants to get my brain not to reject most science fiction with aliens as irredeemably goofy.) I'm honestly curious about the mystery of the Clathrans, who their "Masters" are, and why they regard humanity as such a threat. Irene says she feels the same way. At the same time, it's a tough game to play. It doesn't seem worth doing in chunks smaller than a few hours, and sometimes it's hard to find that kind of time for both of us, even during a holiday break. We also have a lot of other computer games, board games, books, puzzles, and television shows vying for our attention.

     

(On the subject of television shows, by the way, I decided to give Ted Lasso a try the other day, and I'm annoyed now that no one told me how good it was. More important, I understand a decent portion of the dialogue thanks to my experience with Soccer Star [1989] a couple of years ago.)

        

I reiterate that—and I know that this contrasts with many other player's experiences—the multiplayer aspect of the game doesn't do a lot for me. Having to hear about Corin's experiences in addition to my own just adds time to an already-long game. Irene and I both expressed that we wish we could play the game asynchronously and maybe just catch up with each other at the end of the week. This is technically possible using the game's ability to suspend a player for a session, but I wonder if that will cause problems with the game's time-based events, assuming that the Clathran Survey Line really is moving across the galaxy.

    

Thus, I don't know what the future will be for Star Saga: Two. I suppose I'll give it a couple of weeks, and if Irene isn't interested in another session during that time, I'll just continue with Turner on my own. I do want to find out how it ends.

   

Time so far: 7 hours