From the Ashes - The story of mankind

In 2175 the human race was in ecstasy. For over a century now, since 2054 to be exact, most human beings were living under some form of population control. the right to have a child was handed out to only select families. Some couples waited up to ten years for various governements to process their requests only to be denied after an eternity of painful and anxious wait. Our planet was only so big and with only so many ressources. We as a species had to develop mature and concrete steps to make sure our civilization, and our very existence would not be put in jeopardy! Though draconian these measures were vital and by 2097, the year the planet unified its most powerful governments into one overarching entity, deliberately breaking the Prime Natal Law resulted in capital punishment within 7 days of being convicted. All non-deliberate pregnancies were immediately aborted and the man subject to capital punishment. Overcrowded cities were not uncommon to have disease outbreaks, and sometimes the governemtn took far too long to respond and aid the civilians affected. Morale throughout our species was at an all-time low. Surely there have been episodes in the history of mankind where a certain people have been oppressed to the brink of losing all faith in life. Wars had ravaged our planet time and time again and yet we never seemed to quite learn our lesson, but at this point in our history things were different. The lethargy and decay in which the masses of our civilization had fallen into thanks to inadequate and ill-conceived gov't actions led to a progressive massive morale slump the likes of which history had never recorded. And while the people suffered, state media (for all media was state-owned) talked of summit meetings in which our great leaders pledged trillions of dollars to support the growing crisis...They were skilfull at throwing sand in our eyes while the real problems festered underneath.

But all of this was about to change. In 2170 a brilliant and enigmatic man by the name of Dr. William Allison descovered how to properly conduct cold fusion. This incredible discovery led to a vast array of public works and iniatives that quickly brought the standard of living up again. Energy was now affordable! Artists began recording music again, Intercontinental travel became available to everyone, the spark our civilization needed had finally come. The highest epitome of our pride and joy that every human had was revealed 5 years later in 2175 when the same Dr. Allison created what would become known as Hyperdrive.

Hyperdrive was a means of interstellar travel. For centuries humans had looked towards the stars and wondered, impotent to do anything else really. Over time we embarked on various projects to get us ever closer to the stars. During the period known as the cold war the Soviets had managed to build their very own space station in orbit of our planet. Mir was later brought down in the Pacific Ocean as a new space station began construction after the cold war ended. The ISS (International Space Station) served its purpose well into the 21st century eventually upgrading to a relay post between Earth and the moon research facility (known as Grey Rock). As humans continued to progress a small colony was established on Mars and by 2175 there were up to 3000 people living on Mars, most from the military.

When Dr. Allison died on december 5th 2212 a planet wide service was organized. Every country under the banner of the United Earth Federation had a day of mourning. People flocked to the streets to witness a funeral on the giant screens lining the large boulevards of the planet's great capital cities. Though humanity had lost it's greatest mind and scientific achiever since Einstein it would lose all that it had gained at far greater cost.

On decemeber 7th 2212 the independent governement of Russia declared that all people, not jsut those bearing the flag of the UEF, should have full access to cold fusion technology. Furthermore the Russian Ambasador to the UEF made a shocking statement when he accused certain elements in the UNA gov't (Union of North America government) of witholding certain aspects of the technology and not alowing other UEF states full control over the patent laws of the tech. UNA answered back saying such propositions were ludicrous and that the current UEF gov't could attest to that. The Russians countered by stating that all major power strutures within the UEF were held by UNA lobbyists and bureaucrats, and that an impartial jury could never be formed to put the matter ot a close. At the same time Russia secretly transported over 25 nuclear warheads and delivery systems to its closest economic allies in central America, namely Venezuala. When UNA spy satelites caugth the Russians red-handed they responded by saying that the nukes would only be withdrawn if the cold fusions patents were made available to a number of companies worldwide instead of the power-hungry UNA conglomerates. An emergency session of the UEF was immediately called but two days later negotiations were at a standstill. The UNA gov't met and decided that a unilateral plan of action was needed. Strike teams were assembled to go into venezuala and Ecuador to take out and nullify the warheads. They failed.

On decemeber 12th 2212 the first bomb went off (some say in Moscow, while others say in Washington) and all that we had worked for over the past 10 000 years as a species was gone. Flash after Flash of Brigth all-encompassing light shook our planet to its very foundations until, when nuclear winter settled in, we were but a shadow of our former selves.

________________________________

 

Alright so this is my first ever AAR.

I hope you guys like it, once i get the backsotry all settled up i'll give you some info about the game.

366,080 views 176 replies
Reply #1 Top

War between two superpowers,

Hyperdrive invented,

Nuclear winter,

Sounds like a recipie for a morally dubious humanity, and a wicked story!

I'll be watching this...

Reply #2 Top

The concept is interesting, I'll be looking out for this too and eagerly awaiting the next section to this story.

Reply #3 Top

Prologue

 

There are still many who survived the nuclear holocaust of 2212. Other than a few scattered pockets of survivors on Earth there was also a significant population on both Mars and the Gray Rock Facility. In fact, mankind now possesed a high ratio of very skillful and intelligent pool of minds when compared to prior centuries. An intellectual and science driven community now flourished on the moon as all scientific personel was redirected there. Though ten billion people lost their lives and all society crumbled, one very important facet of civilization remained thanks to its instalations in space; The military. This was, however, a different military structure than what Pre-2212 civilization came to know. Possesing the monopoly of violence the military quickly took the shape of a government. The highest ranking officer of the defunct UEF was an obscure colonel by the name of Bradshaw. When news of the nuclear war on Earth reached Mars the entire planet was put on lockdown by him and he immediatly seized control of all functions; civil, military, and scientific, on the planet. In retrospect some say Bradshaw was an opportunist or a cold and calculating man who would tolerate no dissent. I saw him more as a visionary.

When my ship arrived on Mars packed with refugees and whoever we had been able to save in the debris of a small city on the outskirts of Sao Polo, Bradshaw was there to greet me. I remember the firm handshake he gave me and the pat on the back as he explained how vital my search-and-rescue operations were on the planet. He urged me to take my ageing ship back to Earth and continue in the rescue efforts with as many other civilian ships as possible. My old fast-freigth ship was only one of thousands to be affected by the militay and pressed into the largest rescue operation in our history.

As time went by Bradshaw become the benevolent dictator of life on Mars. By then most military and scientific personel had been relocated to Gray Rock to make room for as many civilians as possible. The rebuilding of a civilization was at hand. Bradshaw had a virulent hate for bureaucracy indeed blaming it for the very state we as a people were in at that moment. The many speeches he made to the people not only described this but his actions confirmed it. Bradshaw ignored committees instead appointing his own people to look into problems brought forth by the people stating that "People who form committees are only after a piece of the pie, bureaucracy tries to divide the pie up evenly so that everyone gets a piece, but when there are too many people and the pie can be divided no further..." at this he had paused for what seemed like an eternity as he let everyone slowly come to the realization of what he was saying "... and thus bureaucracy is doomed to failure from its very begginings, as humble as they may be".

People quickly forgot about Bradshaw's military past, and with good reason. Under his rule a new monetary system was founded. People found new ways to make a living on our new planet as commerce began to flourish once again. The Prime Natal law was abolished almost immediately and more refugees from Earth were shipped back to Mars every week. The technology of Hyperdrive was put into use for the first time. Ever since the discovery of the Hyperdrive formula and succesful model tests by Dr. Allison, no other steps had been taken to concretely utilize it as a building tool for our civilization. It had instead become part of the feud between petty nations and had inexorably led to Armageddon. Bradshaw changed this. It only leaked to the public years later, but not two months after the cataclysm bradshaw had instructed the entire Gray Rock facility to begin work on the first Hyperdrive engine to be built upon a vessel capabale of colonizing a planet in a far away system. At first they laughed, but when Bradshaw stripped the lead team manager of his credentials and forced him to two years forced labour on Earth, the laughing stopped.

I found a very decent way to make a living throuhout these tough times. Aboard my steel hulk of a ship graceful only because of its delicate name Persephone, I made many runs to and from Earth to salvage building materials and other essentials for life on Mars. It was forbidden that Cargo runners, as we were called, be making a high profit to the detriment of the people and this was closely monitered  by the military instalations on Gray Rock. I didn't mind. I was a born to roam the stars anyway. When I watched from my ship as Earth burned in nuclear fire I harly flinched. I didn't know anyone down there anyway, and I was more than happy to see that i wouldn't have to be paying rent for that shitty apartment to that dick of a landlord. When people resettled on Mars I was more than happy to be doing cargo runs. It was too cold on Mars anyways. but enough about me...

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Ok so that pretty much wraps up the backstory to my game.
This is not initally the way i was planning to go but when i started the game i saw that Earth was a Nuclear wasteland and hence nothing could be produced lol.
So anyways i hope you guys continue to enjoy this, Thanx for the support general and Maddyman i hope i can live up to the expectation

sidenote: AAR's are a lot more work than it seems lol
cheers

Reply #4 Top

I always did wonder why capital planets seemed so bare for civilizations supposidly thousands of years old on said planets.

Reply #6 Top

A very interesting story. I'll be watching this one more closely. Keep up the good work.

Reply #7 Top

Chapter One: A Rude Awakening

 

*****INTERCOM******
"CRRRKRKR Captain Nolan report to the bridge immediately"

Having been woken up just seconds ago by a sickening thud to the hull exterior, Nolan wasn't startled when the intercom chimed. Lazily he rolled out of his cot that made up a quarter of his "spacious" captain's quarters. He wondered how it must have been a miracle that he hadn't had a mutiny yet considering how old his beloved Persephone was. She required at least 4 hours of maintenance for every 5 of space flight, not to mention that she was no longer fit for atmospheric re-entry. The last time they had done that it had been in the middle of a fierce sand storm on the North-Eastern quadrant of Mars. They had all been exremely lucky to get out of it alive.

As Nolan pulled his pants on he fumbled for the intercom on the wall

"What is it Dee?"

"We just got hist by a piece of shrapnel sir, computer estimates the Asteroid to be 18 kilometers in diameter at the largest spot..."

Nolan cut her off right away

"If the damned computer estimates all that useless junk why the hell didn't it automatically readjust our course to compensate!"

The last few words had nearly been yelled out and Nolan regretted it instantly, his crew were doing the best they could under the circumstances.

"Short circuit on that program sir, it hasn't been running for a couple of weeks now, obviously Keith's been a lazy ass and hasn't fixed it yet."

In prior times Nolan would have reprimanded her first officer for badmouthing one of the crew, but all things considered Nolan counldn't keep a lid on their frustrations forever. Seconds later Nolan was entering the bridge of the Persephone.

"Sitrep!"

"Our engine is down and Im jsut barely keeping her level sir" said Nolan's helmsman. "Im not gonna sugar coat it sir but it looks like we need exterior help." Nolan loked at him square in the face "You know thats not possible Heskey so don't even think of mentioning that sentence to me again. Not with what we have on board." Nolan then turned to his First Officer "Dee do we have any ships in the vicinity that are not keepers of the law?" there was no answer "Dee!"

"Sir... Im sorry I should have noticed this earlier, but the nearest ship... sir the nearest ship is the TS Lionpride" The last word of her sentence was drowned out by a collective amount of swearing emanating from every crewmember at once.

"Do not make any attempt at signaling them Dee we need to fix this piece of garbage and get the hell out of here."

"I agree sir... but if they notice a ship floating without its engines functional, sir they'll make a move on us, if only to salvage the ship."

"That's why we need to repair this bucket o' bolts ASAP! Wake the rest of the crew we have work to do, nobody sleeps until our job here is done. Just hang in there ladies, after this run i promise things will change."

_______________________________________________

Alright so here we're introduced to our main character.
I apologize for turnign this into a thirdperson narrative when my last paragraph of the prior post seemed ot hint at a first-person point-of-view, but this way i believe i will be in a better position to tell the story as i want.

Reply #8 Top

Thanks for the encouragement gentlemen I hope you guys keep enjoying this there will be much more to come as i will be updating rather frequently. Im still not 100% sure of where i want this story ot go and im still churning ideas in my brain. Feel free ot comment on the story as you see fit.

cheers

Reply #9 Top

not bad not origanol at most but nice in all of its own.

Reply #10 Top

Good start Admiral though the shift from 1st to 3rd person was a bit of a surprise-you know that you can completely edit your posts after you've posted them so it would be possible to go back and adjust the 1st couple....

Also you said you would provide some game info-would be good to see what parameters you are playing under

Good start though-I will be watching this one closely :D :thumbsup:

Reply #11 Top

Freeman: i agree with you that perhaps Im nto being completely original. Furthermore i beleive im not dong a good enough job of trying to instill the mood and putting my readers in the mindset I want them to be when reading this. I will be trying harder with my next post.

cheers

 

mambaman: parameters will be in the next post. Just quickly tho is there a way to see what all the parameters are, i kinda just quickly set them before the game and dont rememebr them all off the top of my head. Furthermore I was absolutely positive i had put in as many other AIs as the map would allow but as of where i am in the game it seems there's only one other one and i've managed to explore most of the map. Anyways...

cheers

Reply #12 Top

Most Excellent Admiral..Will be keeping an eye on this one...by the way nice name..if i do say so myself.:andrew:

Reply #13 Top

No keep it going-the story is great so far

The game settings-hmmm not sure where you can get those from once the game has started-possibly in options though I dont think so

As for the AI if you have explored most of the map then it is indeed strange that you've only encountered one so far tho when the game starts your scouts cant see that much so maybe they are there but you need more scouts etc..

good luck with it all mr :thumbsup:

Reply #14 Top

Ok well i can't seem to find out where the parameters all are so im gonna go with what i remember.

Im playing on the next-to biggest map size with as many AIs as i could fit. I think it was 7 making 8 players with me included.

Difficulty setting was the first setting which uses advanced algorithms. Normal i think it is. Stars were scattered and there were common planets with common habitable planets. Anomolies were also common.

 

That's all i can rememebr off the top f my head. If i'm missing any important one that you're curious about just let me know. Update should be posted tommorrow.

cheers

Reply #15 Top

Chapter Two: Rocket Science

 

Sol System

Somewhere in between Jupiter and Mars

What is nothing? How can nothing truly be considered nothing when we simply think of it as the lack of something. Surely the lack of something must be something in itself?? Nolan shook his head to clear his mind and swore under his breath. It's not that he didn't like spacewalks it was jsut that they made him so damn philosophical all the time. Pondering his existence and the existence of all mankind in the largest of things; the Universe. There's so much we don't know about Nolan thought, how many stars are there? Are we alone? what's a black hole? Sure there were theories and most of them sounded about right, but no one really knew the answers and he doubted anyone ever would.

"Nolan damnit turn off the power converter my readings are spiking over here!" Nolan was immediately brought back to the present with a jolt as he realized he had left the power converter for the plasma conduit on but hadn't deemed it necessary to rethread and reconnect the wires. the result was something like taking a 21'st century automobile (what relics they were) putting the engine in neutral and slamming down hard on the gas and not releasing it.

Stupid rookie mistake that left Nolan blubbering his apologies and cursing himself even more. "What's the status on the Lionpride Dee?" Nolan inquired to quickly change topics.

"She's still steadily holding her course bearing 3224 mark 700." Nolan tried to locate where the ship would be but he always found himself lost when there were no spacemarks in the vicinity. A spacemark is exactly like a landmark...but for space. For instance finding your bearings on the obsolete ISS was easy as it held a low orbit over Earth. Doing a spacewalk with nothing to give you your bearings was another matter entirely. He tried looking for Mars and found it right over his shoulder. Mars looked red and tiny in the far distance. Humanity's new home and Nolan couldn't help but think that it didn't seem right. He never doubted that Humans were meant to travel in space and explore fascinating new things and making incredible discoveries along the way, but it wasn't the same without our proper homeworld. Thinking of Earth Nolan tried to find it in relation to Mars but wasn't able to, and before he could put more effort into it he was once again quickly brought back to the present by Dee who was growing increasingly impatient at his slow progress.

1 hour later

Horton, the Persephone's chief engineer and perhaps the only person who knew as much about her as Nolan did, gave Nolan a sombre stare and nodded gravely through his cumbersome spacesuit. "There's no way I can fix this without proper facilities."
Nolan knew this to be true but had wanted to be sure by asking him anyway. They were both in their suits and securely attached to the hull of the ship. The piece of the asteroid had tore right through the starboard exterior hull casing which protected the crucial plasma conduits for the engine. Two of the four pipes were cut clean across and vented plasma had damaged much of the internal circuitry.

"So we're dead in the water." They were on a private suit-to-suit channel so as not to alarm the rest of the crew. "Yes sir I'm afraid we are" came Horton's response.

"So then we go to plan B."

"That would be the wise thing to do"

Once back aboard the remaining crew assembled outside the airlock and eagerly awaited the diagnosis. Nolan's hard look and demeanor gave them the answer they needed. "Heskey" Nolan gave his helsman a stare that told him everything he needed to know. They needed to act quickly to pull this off correctly.

The plan was more or less simple. Nolan and Horton rigged the aft portion of the ship with charges so as to simulate a critical engine core meltdown. The crew would assemble in the bow of the ship and use it as a lifeboat until the Lionpride came to rescue them. At the same moment as the explosion, a very important and valuable piece of cargo was securely fastened inside a shock-proof canister and jury-rigged with a rocket propulsion system. The old Rocket systems were very hard to detect on sensors and once the canister reached its optimal speed and heading it would detach itself automatically. The Lionpride, should it see the canister ejected from the ship, would simply view it as a piece of debris exploding with the rest of the ship.

"Sir that all sounds nice but once we blow the engine we'll only have 45 minutes of life support before the lifeboat runs low on power."

"I know Dee thats why we need to act immediatly so the Lionpride doesn't get further and further away."

An hour later everyone was ready. The Canister, which was about the size of an old office cubicle, was rigged with the rocket and its destination calculated. The Rocket would have to go off at the exact moment, a nano second off and it would miss its taget entirely. As everyone assembled on the birdge Nolan looked at Dee and gave her a nod "Are you sure sir? I mean she's your ship and has been from the very beginning. She's almost a part of you no? You should be the one to pull the plug."

"Thank you Dee I appreciate it...but I can't... for every reason you just mentioned." Dee nodded and put her hand on the switch.

"Starting countdown. 5...4...3"

"Communications ready to signal mayday"

"2"

"Horton switch on voice activation for Rocket go-ahead calibrated to Dee."

"1"

Nolan closed his eyes

"Mark!"

There was a tremendous rumble as the ship lurched forward and bulkheads creaked. Nolan Pressed his eyes shut even more and hoped with every fiber of his being that the security doors would remain locked and closed, or else they were all dead.

"The Rocket is go! the board is green!" Horton's excited voice crackled from the cargo hold.

"Mayday Mayday Mayday. This is the CSH Persephone location 278,981,674. We are critically damaged. Require immediate aid from all ships in our sector. I repeat..."

Nolan looked around as the rest of his crew performed all assigned tasks with exact precision. They were the finest, and Nolan couldn't help but feel a pang of self-loathing. He had let them down, this run was supposed to change things and instead had kept them going down the same path they were on the whole time. Always playing catch-up, never bringing in the credits they deserved. Now Nolan would need a new ship ASAP in order to retrieve the canister. As the Persophone's alarms wailed throughout the lifeboat Nolan swore to himself that he would do everything in his power to get that canister. The new Terran Federation government would be more then interested in what it offered them.

Reply #16 Top

Thank you mambaman for the encouragements. We should be getting into the game story soon.

chancellor: Indeed a great name! worthy of good AARs! i will do my best to uphold the tradition of excellence.

Reply #17 Top

Good read so far.  Do keep up with it.  AARs are quite a bit of work, as you've noticed, but the payoff on this side is tremendous. :)

 

As for game settings, if you start a new game it will remember the settings from the last time you set up, so you can check it that way.  Galaxy set up, race set up, number of opponents and difficulty, the whole deal.

Reply #18 Top

Nice advice Tolmekian (incidentally when are you posting again?)

Great post Admiral-reminding me a bit of Serenity/Firefly  this.....

Reply #19 Top

Ok so i did as tolmekian advised and i now realize why there aren't more races. Looks like I accidentally put the map type to duel so its just me and the other guys mano a mano. Incidentally im thinking of renaming the AAR.

Reply #20 Top

Oh dear :'( re the other races-not sure how long you will want to keep playing with only one other race involved?

Reply #21 Top

It's good, I haven't played in a while and im determined to make sure my first ever AAR doens't end simply because of options issues.

+1 Loading…
Reply #22 Top

Has it ended?

Reply #23 Top

HEllo All!

 

ok so i'd first liek to apologize for the inactivity on my part. This AAR is far from over and the next update will be posted tommorrow WITHOUT FAIL!!!. i know at the start i said i would post frequently and regularly but i underestimated my midterms and the amount of things one has do to do to prepare for them. As well as the amount of stuff you can do during reading week.

so once again i am deeply sorry but stay tuned tommorrow!!

Reply #24 Top

Fantastic :D