YESSSSSSSSS! I solved the puzzle! I am the Sudoku Master!!! All I needed was a little hint from Refiraxis, and I suddenly realized there was already a 7 in the top row!!! Ha! And it only took me a century and a fifth! Someone challenge me to a puzzle contest! Just try it! I dare you! No takers? I thought not! Ha! Now, what's been going on in the empire? We'd better have Zhardan by now, that's all I can say!
What the ... NO ZHARDAN!?!? I had a Lander already in the queue for it all the way back in ... wait a minute ... oops, there it is; I just had to scroll up past the top of the screen. And Meklon and Paranar seem to be doing great ... gosh that seems like a lot of factories; Refrofit must have kind of gone overboard, and ... um ... what are these other ten worlds doing here? And I don't remember Kakata being rich in neutronium; I'd have prioritized getting it a lot more than I did. And ... wait, Paranar is fertile?! ... uh ... I'm pretty sure I would have noticed something like that; it was our second world. Hang on, guys; I need to spend a little while getting up to date. I'm sure the empire can carry on in the meantime without me.
2441: Okay! All set! I think! We're the biggest empire in the universe, and we're at war with everybody! Makes perfect sense to me! So, the thing to do is to stand up our new colonies while we defend them with fleets, then absorb the Alkari since they seem to be really weak for some reason - I wonder what happened to their homeworld; I didn't have time for all the reports, and I had to kind of skim - and ... (Red alert sirens sound throughout the Capital Building) Aaaaaaaaeeiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeee!!! What? WHAT?! ... You know, they sound these things all over the capital, and it's never anything important. Who's in charge of the sound system here, anyway? I think they only turn them on because it annoys me.
Okay, so some kind of Alkari fleet retreated from our Navy - we have a ship called the Navy? - at ... Altair? What are we doing at Altair? Also ... uh ... there were a lot of big ships in that fleet. I wonder why they retreated. Does this mean we're winning? (Red alert sirens sound once more) WHA... No! No way! You can't scare me! It'll just be more retreating birds. Now TURN OFF THOSE SIRENS!!!
(Quiet, peaceful bell chimes)
Better. Now, what boring fleet is going to retreat from us this time? Humph. Just as I suspected: More Pelican fighters are at Herculis, and we outnumber them more than seven to one. Those Consuls had better not be unarmed diplomatic ships, but as long as ... wait, why is the planet firing on them? Herculis is an Alkari world? What are we doing at an Alkari world?
Oh, I see. We're blowing up all its ships and bases, is what we're doing. Still, someone might have told me. And we lost three whole fighters! Okay, so now we ... what? Do I want to do what, now?
Yeah, okay, I guess as long as we're there, we can colonize Altair - I mean, the birds obviously aren't using it anymore - and sure, we'll bomb those two worlds ... wait, did that say Sol? No, way; I must have been seeing things. And Herculis is one of those disgusting barren worlds; why did we bother going there? I guess it doesn't matter though, since we just wiped out its colony. I do notice there were some Human transports about to arrive though. Too bad for them they don't have anyplace to land anymore. Okay, so now ... now ... now ..... we ........
Um, Refpect ForceTran? Could you move our fleets around and stuff? I think I might be a little out of my depth here. Thanks! Wait, you're sending ships to Sol? Are you sure that's wise? I mean, that's the Human home star, and all these alien ships are coming to Incedius, and ... er ... well ... okay, I guess if you're sure....
I hope he did that right. As for me, I'll work on standing up our immature colonies!
2442: Hmmm. One of our immature colonies is Kholdan. Why does that name sound so familiar?
(Respectful chime sounds.)
Eh? What is it this time? Oh, we're retreating from the Humans at Laan. Something weird about that planet th... (Chime) Now what? Uh ... the Psilons are attacking our cloud jungle again. With ... three colony ships? Isn't that a lot? They're armed, and they're big! All we have is about 17 little Consuls and Surgeons and things! This is crazy! Except, I seem to recall those Consuls did okay at Herculis, and ... uh ... we lose one fighter and kill them all. Is this normal? I mean, it's almost as if someone planned it this way! Couldn't have been Refpect though; he just sent our Navy and most of our Consuls to Sol, and what use could that possibly be?
... Oh. Bye-bye, Sol. Um, those Consuls are pretty good, huh? I get the sneaking suspicion that we are winning.
Okay, I think I see what happens next. The Navy goes to Altair again, almost all the Consuls go to Incedius, and I don't care what anyone says, I'm building more of them at Kakata and having them sent down there; those Consuls are pretty neat! And a little overkill never hurt anybody.
2443: (A couple of Chimes later) Uh-oh. Maybe I should have kept more Consuls back at Sol. Now there's a Psilon colony ship. This calls for some fancy flying! Good thing we have fancy pilots! We fly circles around the enemy, and destroy it with no losses! How do you like that? I love my Consuls! What great ships! They even ... (Chime) ... (Chime) ... (Chime) ... Uh-huh. Are you chiming noises all done now? You'd better be. None of those battles look very exciting, and Refrens and one of Refspand's top advisors (Our colonial minister himself is still in the hosipital, I'm afraid) each have some great news for me!
All right! We've got a new battle computer and a new colony! Wait, Mark Six?! Isn't that kind of advanced? Uh ... I'd better have a look at those spy reports Refcon keeps trying to give me. It's possible we might not need to spend so much time consolidating our gains right now. I tell Refrens to start work on a Battle Computer Mark III so we have more options for ship designs later on. The new ECM he proposed just didn't sound very exciting. Oh, yeah, and the new colony happens to be at the third planet in the Sol system. The Humans called it Dirt or Ground or something, but we're just calling the whole system Sol and leaving it at that.
Okay, we need more defenses in the east, so it's a good thing I built those extra Consuls. I rearrange the ones we have, and build some more, to make sure we can take care of all the enemy fleets. Also, I want you to see something really great while it's still around to see. I mean, it'll still be true, but it won't be quite as perfect after today.
There's our fleet as it stands right now! Talk about cooperation! You can see Refcreational's Tourorists, Refpect's Navy, the Refiraxis Circus design, two fleets of Surgeons that Refairs put together, and Refriendto's lovely Consuls all coexisting at the same time! I have to show you now though because we've got new engines, and we're all out of Circuses, and practically all out of the Tourorists, so I'm building some new designs: The Lander 5.0 will be our new colony ship, but right now, Kakata and Aurora are ready to start building bombers! I can't figure out a good way to fit an Anti-Matter Bomb on anything, but luckily our enemies are all incredibly dumb, and don't have any shielding to speak of, so I'm just making a new nuclear bomber until we can improve our construction techniques. The bombers are called Nukem 5.0s because of the new slogan Refriendto came up with for our foreign policy: "When all else fails, just nuke 'em!"
2444: All right, what's going on this year? I feel like there was something important. (Chime) You know, the chime is starting to get annoying too. Somebody fix that. Now, what's going on? Aha! Humans at Stalaz! They've got a Dreadnought and a Colony Ship, and they kill our Surgeon and one of our Counsels! Luckily, we have 49 more and blow both enemy ships to pieces. (Sleigh bells jingle throughout the capital building) Ummmm ... no. No sleigh bells. Try again. Also, a huge Human Dreadnought retreating from our Navy isn't that exciting. Everything retreats from our Navy. (Great tolling bells of apocalyptic doom resound through all the corridors of the capital) Grrrr! That is not what I had in mind! (The tolling continues) By Neuromancer! Someone do something about those stupid bells! What are they even tolling about anyway?
Oh, wow! For once, I'm glad I was informed! That's a pretty big death spore fleet the Psilons sent down! Of course, we do have a lot of Consuls there ... and we are destroying the enemy with virtually no losses on our side ... and they're not getting anywhere near the planet! I love my Consuls. So ... will someone please stop those stupid bells!?
Thank you. Now. Lander production begins at Kakata, and I get to start moving our ships!
2445: Whoa! Cool! My Consuls even look good! You should've seen 'em fanning out to the west at warp 5! (Trombone solo jazzes up the corridors of...) STOP IT, STOP IT, STOP IT!!! Refiraxis, can you do something with this? Please? Thanks. Okay, looks like our Consuls are going to be tested. A dozen doesn't seem like enough to kill a colony ship and a Sky Master. This is a colony interdicter mission, so we're going after the colship first.
Got it! We lost almost our whole little fleet, but we killed the colony ship! Mission accomplished, and the survivors retreat! Also, you know, there's something kind of sad about transports getting wrecked (at Sol now and at Altair a couple years back) on the way back to their own homeworld, but it's not as sad as an entire species using planetology junk like bioweapons. Besides, those are our worlds now! You know what I think, though? We're being really mean to these aliens, and they don't hate us enough anymore. We're taking over the whole galaxy, and we're killing them as they return to what they thought were their own homeworlds, and they're still just uneasy and wary and stuff like that. Let's see if I can do anything to fix that in the next few years.
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Next: "Fixing" It
