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The Prancing Pony (Fellowship of the Ring Empire Thread)
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On Ice
“Mr Lamb?” said the black-clad MilPol. “Your number’s come up. You’ve been drafted.”
“Who? Me?” said Lamb. “But I’m a simple nano-plumber! I don’t know anything about being a soldier!”
“What’s to know?” said the policeman. “You get a gun, it points itself at the enemy, it fires, you try not to get killed. Anyone can do it. Come on, bring your cryo-pod and let’s get moving.”
“It’s not fair!”
“We didn’t ask for this war with the Yor. They came after us. It’s everyone’s duty to protect humanity…”
“Why did I do it? Why? Why did I register to vote and pay taxes?”
Every taxpayer had his or her own personal emergency cryogenic chamber. These pods could link together to form large structures, in this case the bulk of a Combat Transport. The transport’s command module could encase ten cubic kilometres of matter in a force-field shell (enough for five billion cryo-pods), and pull the whole massive structure into warp. It had reassuringly powerful weaponry, but lacked the manoeuvrability to make it a practical offensive vessel. It was already an impressive sight, even with just a couple of billion pods in tow. There were colony ships that could pull a load twenty times as big, he knew, but they didn’t have the shielding to get down to the surface of an enemy planet intact.
The pod lid closed over his head. “At least I’ll have a chance to make some of those Yor pay for what they’ve done...” he thought, as the quick-freeze gases enveloped him.
The pod lid opened again. He looked out. “Is something wrong?” he said. At once, he realised he was somewhere else, an alien planet with a stylish purple sun.
A grizzled veteran stood over him. “Here’s your gun. Get up,” she said.
“Wow. We’re here already? It felt like no time at all...”
“Yeah, yeah. Heard it all before. We’ve got to get out there and kick some Torian ass.”
“Torian? Don’t you mean Yor?”
“Yor? The Yor were wiped out to the last droid three years ago. Your transport arrived too late to help. You guys have been floating in space ever since, waiting for a war to fight in.”
Lamb looked at the gun in his hand. It had two settings: ‘Kill’ and ‘Overkill’. “Why are we fighting the Torians?” he said.
The veteran looked a little taken aback. “There has to be a reason?” she said.
All across the planet the battle raged, a battle one hundred and thirty times bigger and bloodier than World War Two.
They crouched in a deep trench, carved by the explosion of an overheated pistol. Streams of anti-plasma flickered over their heads.
“You know what would be useful here?” said Lamb. “An army of robotic mini-soldiers.”
“You gotta be kidding,” said the veteran. “Those things cost a fortune.” She pointed her gun over the lip of the dugout without looking. It fired, bringing down an enemy hover-tank.
Lamb covered his head until the explosion had died down, then said, “I have to live through this! There’s a girl waiting for me back home!”
The veteran consulted a readout on her visor. “No,” she said. “Looks like she was shipped off to fight the Drengin a couple of years back. Was promoted all the way to Lieutenant before she got her head ripped off.”
“Damn,” said Lamb. “I wish I’d...”
At that moment, an artillery shell dropped into their trench and erupted into a spray of supersonic micro-shrapnel which killed them both.
Lamb’s gun extended little legs, and scuttled back to the depot where the spare soldiers were kept.
Back on Earth, the president of the Federation of Various Planets took a sip from his glass of vintage port. “How did we do?” he said.
The general saluted. “Got them down to eighteen billion defenders. About what we expected.”
“Jolly good. Send in the next transport.”
end of part one
          
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Cool story Matthew 
I'm sure it's those sort of "executive decisions" that got you your nice pure good smiley 
   
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Great story, Matthew.
| In many RTS games, you can pause, examine the situation, and then give your troops orders in an organised fashion |
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I was actually referring to multiplayer. Sorry for the confusion.
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| I was actually referring to multiplayer |
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Fair enough. There is a strong twitch element there. I used to play Age of Empires 2 over a LAN against a guy who could never beat me. No matter what strategy he used, he never really got the hang of ordering his catapults about in the heat of combat.
Can anyone tell me how to use tabs in my stories? Or italics?
[Message Edited]
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I don't think anyone was denying that real-time strategy involves strategy. It was just that unless you have the basic manual dexterity to click on a moving target, you're not going to get to use your strategy. Actually, in the case I referred to, his real problem turned out to be that he overestimated the intelligence of his units - he thought if he told a unit to go somewhere, and it got attacked on the way, it would fight back instead of continuing on its way.
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That was at the Diplomat's Senate Halls, but it hasn't been updated in a while. Here's the  Link
  
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| I want to see what the FotR did compared to other empires |
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I prefer not to see that. It's much more reassuring to think of us as part of the massively victorious RDG alliance, rather than to compare our empire score to the Diplomats and Guardians.
And now, the second in my hard-hitting documentary series, 'Lamb to the Slaughter', investigating the lives and deaths of those plucky conscripts, without whom war itself would be virtually impossible. Tonight, we examine the important theological question: Do GalCiv soldiers have souls?
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After Life
_ “Mr Lamb?” said a figure in a white robe which glowed too brightly for him to make out any details.
_ He was in a blank, featureless environment. “Where am I?” he said.
_ “I love it when they say that. You’re number’s come up. You’ve been resurrected.”
_ “Who are you?”
_ “We are the transcendi. The ones who came before. Once, long ago, we were like you. Now, we’re much better than you. Once, I was known as Alison, but that was an aeon since, in a forgotten galaxy. Now, I prefer Alice.”
_ “Hi, Alice. Why aren’t I dead?”
_ “Since the dawn of mankind, my people have been studying your kind from The Outside. We have been scanning your brains and DNA and stuff. Now, thanks to our transcendently sophisticated technology, we can bring you back to life with all your memories intact. Pretty neat, eh?”
_ “I’ll say! So now you can use your powers to create an eternal paradise for everyone!”
_ “Why would we want to do that?”
_ "Because... Umm... So what are you going to do with me?"
_ "We’re going to sell your personality to a higher-plane gaming corporation. Your job will be to walk up and down a street as a background character, for atmospheric purposes."
_ "Can’t you just get an artificial intelligence to do that?"
_ "Nah, A.I.s are always going on strike or suing us for inhuman rights violations."
_ "Don't we get any rights?"
_ "You’re officially dead. Anything we give you is a bonus. If you don’t like the new life we’ve given you, you have the right to leave it but that’s all. So, take it or leave it?"
_ "I'll take it."
_ "Good. Now, I don't have all day, so do you want to be a pimp, an ice cream vendor, or a monk?"
_ "Do I get to change my mind later if I don't like it?"
_ "Nope. You’re stuck with it forever. Make up your mind. You have five seconds."
_ "Pimp, please."
_ "Knew you’d say that. OK, I’m going to email you across the universe to them now. It’ll take eight hundred years, but it will feel like an instant.”
_ “Yeah, yeah. But what do I actually do whent I get there?”
_ “You know, pimp stuff. Whatever comes naturally. It’s an emergent gameplay thing. Bye!”
_ An instant later, he found himself in a street. It looked primitive; perhaps a recreation of twentieth century earth? He cast his mind back to the history lessons he endured as a child. It was supposed to have been a dangerous time, although his own time had proven pretty rough too. Somewhere, a siren was wailing. He cast his eyes about for Luftwaffe bombers, KGB assassins or swing music bands, but saw only shops and people. Not far away was an street vendor, arguing with an ice-cream-cone-wielding monk in a yellow robe. On the back of the robe was a printed message: “Go Tantric now - Ask me how!”
_ “Excuse me,” said Lamb, approaching the pair. “What sort of game is this?”
_ Their response was unexpected. Both dived to the side, screaming. He had little time to wonder about this, as he was immediately sent flying into the air by a speeding yellow sports car. He bounced off the nearest wall, and landed in an agonised heap. A police car ran over his fingers and drove off in hot pursuit.
_ “Since you ask,” said the monk, “It’s primarily a driving game.”
[Message Edited]
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There's some more for your collection Matthew! Nice one.
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Oh, come on. That was a six smiley story at most. You're cheapening the currency.
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Er...OK, 
That should balance it out!
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How dare you me! This cries out for blood vengeance!
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Argh! My first ever Altarian Prophecy game, a 60K military conquest, and it won't let me submit! I thought that was only supposed to happen for alliance victories or something! 
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That seemed to be the general consensus. I've stuck with 1.49J and had no problems.
Was it a standard random map game, with none of the custom rules selected?
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JRS Sherbertia arrives...
    
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right back at you
) I went back to playing 1.2 until they get it sorted out. 
