The Clathran Menace: Won!

There's no winning "screen shot," so we'll have to settle for a winning paragraph shot.

           

After screwing up my game file during the last session, I started over completely. I tried reloading a backup of my experience with M. J. Turner, but it had been made so many hours prior that I felt I was spending more time trying to reconstitute my task list from that point than I would spend if I just made a new character. As we'll see, I was wrong about that.

    

I chose Jean G. Clerc for the replay. In Star Saga: One, he stole a spaceship from his employer, S. T. Enterprises, and went "Beyond the Boundary" to find enough alien technology to build the Ultimate Spaceship. In Two, his goal is to find the schematics to build a Jump Engine, which allows instantaneous travel to any known pair of coordinates. Cargo drones use them, but no living tissue or A.I. can survive those jumps. He wants to build one that humans can use.

      

 A key early goal.

      

I spent a (retrospectively) laughable amount of time plotting the first couple of dozen turns. I knew I wanted a 5-bay cargo drone as soon as possible, so I chose items from Silverbeard's stash on Outpost that would allow me to purchase one on Franclair. I then listed the planets I wanted to visit, in order, to open up trade possibilities as early as possible. My plan was to hit each planet only long enough to open up the market so the drone could visit later.

   

My plan went to hell in the opening turns, when I learned that the program randomizes the positions of planets for each new game. Having finished the game now, my best guess is that the randomization occurs in two or three batches, so that (for instance) Dahl, Holoth, Hadrak, Worzelle, Margen, and many others are always on one side of the map, in the zone that's safe from the Clathran Survey Line, and planets like Darkwhistle, Morikor, and Golgotha are always on the unsafe side. [Ed. I was confused when the spell checker didn't flag "Golgotha," looked it up, and learned something it's hard to believe I've missed all these years.] Franclair, right in the center, may be fixed; it was at the same location for both games, and it has a key role that I'll talk about in a minute. In any event, all my planning was for naught, and I had to essentially start over. Having already played the game and taken notes on each planet hardly saved any time: Clerc won on Turn 588; Turner would have won on something like Turn 610 if I had been able to finish.

     

The final map, looking a bit different than the one I posted last time. The thick yellow line is the original Clathran Survey Line, and the thick orange line is its maximum progress.

     

Having essentially won twice, the big picture of the game becomes clearer to me. The major steps are:

   

• Acquiring enough personal weapons/defense and ship's weapons/defense to survive encounters on various worlds.

• Joining the Hadrakian resistance (the Battle, Inc.) to acquire their resources, including the Anti-Clathran Evasive Maneuvers.

• Joining the Brotherhood long enough to learn stealth skills.

• Finding the Clathran password (PENUMBRA) on Ghorbon. There may be other places you can find it.

• Crossing the Clathran Survey Line.

• Assisting the resistance on Sirissi, which gives you the plans for a Cloaking Ray.

• Finding the location of the Clathran homeworld, Karnossus, by sneaking into the Clathran bases on either Morikor or Pekep (which in turn requires a Cloaking Ray and stealth skills from the Brotherhood).

• Finishing your personal quest.

• Visiting Karnossus and seeing the Dodecahedron Device.

• Building a bomb and blowing up the Dodecahedron Device. 

             

Making a Cloaking Ray, a key step of the game.

       

A group of players could theoretically play the game faster than one player, as each would be able to accomplish a different part of this list. For instance, only one player needs to learn the secrets of the Brotherhood, then use the skills to sneak through the bases. However, as we discovered last time, all players must at least finish their personal quests and participate in the building of the bomb.

        

Some new experiences and discoveries my second time through:

   

• Clerc's computer suggested almost immediately that he research Jump Engines on Franclair, based on a note in Vanessa Chang's logs.

• I visited Worzelle early and got the planet signed up with the anti-Clathran resistance. Afterwards, I got a radio transmission from the Hadrakians announcing that the Worzellians had joined the cause, but this was before I'd even met a Hadrakian or visited The Battle, Inc.

• In my previous game, I couldn't defeat my opponent in the arena on Sallion until very late in the game. This time, I defeated him right away. I think the game lets you win your first combat in a Hadrakian arena effortlessly and then makes each subsequent combat harder, based on the order that you visit the Hadrakian planets. 

• The market on Cloo changed ownership in the middle of the game, as did the goods the market was willing to trade for super slips. I'm glad this only happened once.

• On Franclair, I made different choices in my interactions with the native Francloons. Sick of their constant pranks, I rigged several lethal and dangerous traps to spring against them in return. This gained me the skill of "Ruthlessness," a special attack ability. I'm not sure I ever saw it invoked.

        

When it's called for, I can be cruel to small, mischievous creatures.

      

• My drone got lost twice. I really hated the game for this unnecessary (if realistic) development. It required me to drop everything and assemble enough trade goods to purchase a new one on Franclair.

• Mardahl was conquered before I could purchase any of the personal weapons. Fortunately, you don't have to acquire everything to win the game. 

• In the Turner game, I had been driven away from Pekep by Clathran ships. This time, I realized that once you have a Cloaking Ray, you can visit the planet. It's a major Clathran base that serves as an alternative to Morikor for learning intelligence (including the location of Karnossus) and a trade source for munitions. There's a Clathran nursery on the planet, and the text has the character think briefly about destroying millions of eggs, "an entire year's worth of murderous aliens," but ultimately decides against it. This would have been a role-playing choice in a proper RPG.

• Outpost was still destroyed on my second visit even though the second visit occurred after I defeated the Clathrans.

• Once you've gone to Karnossus with the bomb, the bomb (which has an A.I. built in) won't let the ship leave.

• I had long figured that you could not die in the game, but I didn't know the specific mechanism that would prevent it. Testing myself with no weapons against hostile ships, I found that if your ship or personal health gets below 15, the game forces you to do nothing for a turn or two until you're back over 25%. No enemy hits you for more than 25%. 

       

The game won't let me do anything except make repairs.

       

Clerc's personal mission was realized when he found a unique action on Franclair to visit the "Wet Repulsion Slab" (a play on "Jet Propulsion Lab"). There, a Professor Nathrasha Whitefur gave Clerc the key insight that he needed to build the Survivable Jump Engine. The recipe required a Dimensional Transducer, 1 unit of crystals, 1 warp core, 1 unit of medicines, 1 primordial soup, and a Flame Jewel. Most of these are standard trade goods. There are a couple of unique planets where you find primordial soup and Flame Jewels, but I knew their rough locations from my previous experiences. The Dimensional Transducer was the hardest to obtain. I finally found one on Sirissi.

    

The subsequent Survivable Jump Engine was useful, but it had one major limitation: "I had to hard-wire in a single destination," Clerc later reported to the Institute for Space Exploration, "so I chose the planet Franclair." Franclair is in the middle of the map, so it was a useful point to be able to jump, saving at least half the journey on some long trips (although the action requires a full turn). In the long run, though, it didn't save me that much time.

      

Assembling the Jump Engine.

    

The Clathran Survey Line started in the same position as in Turner's game, cutting off about a dozen planets in a corner of the map (representing between one-quarter and one-third of the total area). It began advancing around Turn 125 and took its first planet on Turn 129. However, it only advanced about half a dozen trisectors, stopping when it cleanly bisected the map, with 50% of it on the Clathran side. It never threatened the friendly starting planets like Hadrak, Dahl, Worzelle, and Margen. After I won the game, I reloaded a backup from before I had won and waited about 100 turns, but the line never went beyond this halfway point. I don't think it can, because the final passages of the game require the Clathrans to be attacking Hadrak.

(In a third game, I just sat on Outpost for hundreds of turns and did nothing. I got all of the bad news from Earth, starting on Turn 39, but I never got any news about the Clathran Survey Line swallowing worlds, and when I finally went to check its position around Turn 250, it was in its original location. Thus, the progression of the survey line must be related to plot events rather than the number of turns.)

   

I eventually assembled all the necessary items, found Karnossus, built the bomb, and deployed it against the Dodecahedron. A few very long passages narrated the result. Clerc speeds past Clathran cruisers, dodges laser blasts, and drops the explosive device within a kilometer of the Dodecahedron. As the bomb counts down, he races away and jumps into hyperspace as soon as he clears an asteroid belt. The bomb explodes, and the entire Karnossus system vanishes: "Hundreds of planets, thousands of warships, and billions of Clathrans are simply gone."

      

Only one thing to do at Karnossus.

    

As Clerc wonders what just happened, his ship is hit with an explosive Dual Space wave. He finds his ship and mind invaded by an alien presence, causing hallucinations. (One of them is of an old Cherokee chieftain; I don't know if this is important.) "The presence is investigating the destruction of one of its devices. It is not pleased that its work has been destroyed." It speaks to him, making it clear that it is one of the mysterious "Masters" who control the Clathrans. He mocks Clerc and then leaves. It takes Clerc several pages to get a grasp on reality again, learn how to control Dual Space, and bring his mind, body, and ship back together.

   

Clerc finds himself at Hadrak, with the Clathran fleet facing the Hadrakians, Zyrans, and other allies gathered over the course of the game. I think they're all mentioned, meaning that if the player hasn't made all the alliances, there must be alternate paragraphs somewhere (I couldn't find any), or there must be something that blocks the player from getting to this part of the game. Clerc engages the Clathrans with his own ship, helping his allies until the Clathrans decide to focus all their attention on Clerc.

   

The narrative shifts to a passage that mentions the name of Clerc's ship specifically, so other players must get their own versions. Clerc tries to activate the Survivable Jump Engine, but a blast from the Clathrans damages the device and the computer is only able to jump a short distance away. The damage is such that Clerc is unable to enter the protective tank that makes such jumps "survivable," but somehow the Flame Jewel protects him anyway. The battle starts going poorly for the Hadrakians, but the Sirissian fleet shows up just in time and saves the day.

   

The allies destroy the Clathran fleet and capture their capital ship. Clerc joins the party that boards the ship. They find the Clathran commander on the bridge. "You don't even know what you've done," he snarls. "We've all lost. Now the Masters will spare no one." He turns his blaster on himself and commits suicide.

       

In the computer, Clerc finds the (mental) remains of Vanessa Chang's ship's doctor, Richard Dighton, whose knowledge of human biology the Clathrans used to create the Space Plague. Dighton explains most of what we've already figured out about the relationship between the Clathrans and the Masters, the Masters' need for a wide Dual Space Interphase, and the effects of Dual Space on humans. He then adds that the Masters are working on a machine that will suppress humanity's innate talents, just like they did to so many races in this part of the galaxy. Dighton, consumed with guilt over the Space Plague, destroys himself after giving the result of the Clathran Survey to the allies.

    

The Survey data shows all the planets between the Core and this part of space, including the Paracore. Clerc determines to use it to travel to the Core and stop these Masters, setting up Star Saga: Three.

   

The game lets the player continue to explore at this point, visiting any missed planets, acquiring any missed items, and setting himself up to start the third game in as solid a position as possible. The game warns that none of the text will be adjusted to reflect the victory, but that's not entirely true, as a return to the Battle, Inc. on Hadrak offers some new text as the character sees a mural honoring the allies' victory, talks to the Hadrakians about their plans to reconquer the worlds seized by the Clathrans, and prepares to party hard with a mob of Hadrakians.

     

It's a good ending—a bit of a cliffhanger, of course, but it wraps up the present story well. I only wish there had been one or two transmissions from the Nine Worlds indicating that people were coming to their senses and law and order was being restored. 

       

I was originally going to include a "Summary and Rating" in this entry, but I realized it would be too long, and I'm still trying to get some information about the game and the authors. Thus, we'll have the final entry in a week or so. Star Saga fans—especially those who have always wondered about the third game's story—will definitely want to read it.

   

Final Time: 32 hours, but that includes 1.9 full games.