WELCOME, RECRUIT!

The Qualian Empire has entrusted you with a great responsibility! Strive to be the best, purchase upgrades for your ship and…

A huge, semitransparent sheet appeared before my eyes, telling me how wonderful and carefree life for players in the empire was; however, I instantly waved it away. I hadn’t the slightest interest in working for the Qualians and the word “purchase” made me instantly lose any and all interest in the text. The main thing for me at the moment was to play through the tutorial and then flee back to reality—where my educational resources awaited me.

The starting point for new players in Galactogon was not particularly astounding—a landing platform with a spaceship, from which the new recruits emerged. Who we were and how we appeared in this world wasn’t important. A player stepping out onto the training planet of any empire became any ordinary recruit without any specific allegiance. At least that’s what the helpful notification bobbing before my eyes told me. Kind of dumb, that…About two hundred yards ahead of me stood a large building in the direction of which, along sun-soaked pavement, trudged a stream of new recruits. Hardly had I gotten a good look at this building when a window popped up titled “Allocation Center.”

And this window provided me with my first few tips about the game:

First—that each in-game item has its own properties. For example, the allocation center had a Durability number expressed as a percentage. There was probably some setting to show the absolute value in units, but for now this would do for me. And, it should be said that Durability was not the most interesting property of the building. More than anything else, I was happy to see among the properties the line: “Building class: N/A.” From this first window ran a line to point number two:

Objects in the game have their own levels, which meant that, logically, players did too. To make sure, I opened my character menu and…Oh boy. This was just getting better and better…What stood out most was the utter lack of stats and slots for clothes. In fact, the menu had nothing at all in it besides a brief description of the character’s history (dating from my emergence from the spaceship) and a separate tab for inventory. That’s all! Aside from that, this little panel, which to a Runlustian was the end-all-be-all, contained nothing at all! Though that’s not true—there was also a 3-D projection of the character, which I could rotate from side to side and even use to correct my default posture—as well as a line which read 0.0 GC. Unless I was mistaken, this was an image of myself and a counter for how many Galactogon Credits I had.

Third—an object’s or item’s properties will automatically pop up when you look at the object long enough. This was a bad thing. Looking closely at the players marching dutifully to the allocation center, I managed to confirm my hunch—extended attention indeed showed me the stats of nine recruits, utterly obscuring my field of view. What was worse was that none of the players’ stats told me anything useful—just their names and occupations. And yet, this one panel took up a vast amount of space. Opening my notebook, I made a note to myself to look in the game settings for a way to turn off the properties pop-ups. When I needed them, I would open the properties panel myself.

Fourth—when in the somatic interface…

“What’s the holdup?” someone yelled behind me and—rudely interrupting my contemplation of life, the universe and everything—landed a vicious kick to the small of my back, sending me flying several yards forward…

Damage taken: 5%. Health remaining: 95%.

Fourth—unlike Runlustia, the player is allowed to do damage to another player using nothing but their own body. And again, in this case, the damage is reflected in percentages…Somewhere, there’s got to be a setting for this as well. But that isn’t the main thing. The main thing is that I managed to stay on my feet, keeping my balance. This gave rise to a new tip:

Fifth—absent any character stats, the player’s in-game capabilities are replaced with his capabilities in real life. So if I can do 200 pull-ups IRL, then that’s how many pull-ups I can do in Galactogon…Or…If I know a martial art IRL, then I can use it just as well in the game…Let’s see how the developers have implemented this feature. Who wants to be my first victim?

The victim turned out to be a 6’5” bozo looking down at me from his great height. He had quite a body on him—I could see his six-pack through his shirt…Hmm…

Sixth—players wear clothes and clothes are effectively items, so they have their own specific properties like all items. Considering that there weren’t any slots to be seen, it followed the player could put on as much clothes as he could carry..? I need to make sure to figure that one out…

Recruit’s Jersey. Durability: 20. Item class: F-1. Use: 0. Penetration Resistance: 0.1. Slashing Resistance: 0.2. Radiation Resistance: 0. Fire Resistance…

Seventh—items have their own levels which, logically, can also be increased. I was especially happy to see the long list of resistance stats that the jersey had. And yet there seemed to be no buffs to Dexterity, Strength, Intellect, etc. Only…

Damage taken: 25%. Health remaining: 70%.

Eighth (there are a lot of numbers in this game!)—sensation is turned on in Galactogon. It’s not very strong and feels like a light touch but it’s there. That’s nothing to be happy about though! I shuddered, recalling the time and effort sunk into implementing this feature in Runlustia—the developers had resisted until the bitter end.

“Halt immediately!” one of the security guards shouted and—stripping me of the opportunity to respond to the bozo’s blow with one of my own to his jaw—the bozo was suddenly lifted a dozen or so feet into the air by what seemed like a tractor beam. “Recruit! For assaulting another recruit you have been deemed unfit for service as Ship Commander!”

There was a flash and the big dude vanished. Oh boy!

Ninth—under no circumstances fight anyone during training. Although, wait! Why is it that I have the option to fight at all, if I’m not supposed to? Opening the settings menu, I found the replay tab and watched as, in a window right in front of me, a video of the past few minutes showed me emerging from the spaceship, stepping aside and standing quietly on my own, not bothering anyone. And here came that big bozo. Unlike all the other players, he made a beeline for me, yelled and kicked me. And here was I, preserving my balance, followed by another kick that forced me down to one knee. Then the big dude flew up and vanished and that was it—the video ended. So then, he had gone for me on purpose? Why?

Literally a minute later I received an answer to this question. I watched as another player emerged, took a deep breath and stopped in place as if thinking about where he’d go next.

“What’s the holdup?” The familiar bozo dude appeared once more from the ship and sent the tarrying player flying. Several moments later, this bozo (or his clone or whatever) was again sent to Kingdom Come by the guard, with no mention of his name. So this was simply a script in the game?! A way to set any players loitering at the entrance onto the one true path? Not bad. Something tells me that Galactogon will be a fun game…

Sign out.

“Master, I have not yet processed all of the information you requested. The job is 15% complete. Estimated time until completion is three hours.” No sooner had the cocoon’s lid moved aside, than Stan (as I sometimes referred to my smart home system) began reporting the work he had done over the past ten minutes. As the betting Masters had requested, I entered the game and set up my character without any further information. Now, however, I wouldn’t be taking another step forward without first having learned all there was to know about Galactogon.

“Send requests to the top Qualian guilds or clans that are in the game, asking for any proprietary information they may have about leveling a ship captain without putting in real money. Offer them, let’s say, fifty thousand dollars. I want to know everything—hidden missions, non-standard run-throughs and sequences and how to get them.”

I couldn’t invest real money into the game—the limitations of my agreement with the bettors weighed on me more than a winepress on a grape. The slightest, documented purchase of an in-game item in real life would count as grounds for disqualification. Information, however, had not been included in the list of prohibited aids. And that’s exactly what I intended on using.

“Requests sent,” Stan instantly replied. “What are your orders?”

“None. Like I told you, I’m not around until tomorrow,” I repeated and sat down in my armchair. (It may not be as dramatic as the ones in the presidential palace, but it’s mine and I love it.) “Let me see what you have at the moment—and keep updating the information every thirty minutes. It’s time I did some reading…”

What can I say? Before creating this game, Galactogon’s developers must have been under the influence of some controlled substances. For, never before in my gaming life have I encountered such wonders…

First of all, avatars in Galactogon really do not have any levels or experience points. The game designers decided that the player should not experience any discomfort upon transitioning into the game from reality. This was a famous dilemma, for in a game you could easily have a Strength of several million and could wipe out all the monsters in your path with one breath, while in the other place (real life, that is) all you had was a decently-fit body, and even that was only due to the capsule. This was especially painful for those players who spent the maximum-possible session in-game—two weeks without any connection to reality. Oh how you suffered when you had to adapt back to reality…I knew this firsthand.

The designers did not entirely give up the leveling mechanic, however. They simply transferred it to items and objects…

All the usable items in Galactogon have their own level, even your ordinary eating utensils. Each item type has its own form of leveling, which basically involves using the item constantly and successfully. For example, each time a spoon is used to successfully place food in your mouth, its experience level rises by a certain percentage. Once it reaches 100%, a new level is awarded and the XP counter is reset. The leveling is non-linear. Every new level requires more experience than the last, though the exact algorithm for this increment is kept secret. There is also, of course, an easier way to level up—through the in-game store. But that’s not an option available to me, as I don’t have the Galactogon Credits to buy upgrades and I’m not allowed to invest real money to do so.

Once an item reaches level 100, it either changes class or receives the “Legendary” attribute. The classes begin with “F,” like the jersey on my character, and go up to “A.” Only Legendary items, which are effectively at level 101 or higher, are better than A-class items.

Each item may have expansion slots—from none at all for F-class items to 23 for Legendary class items. You can place other items into these slots, but there are certain limitations. You cannot combine two items that have three or more levels between them. For example, you can’t equip a class-E ship with a Legendary ship cannon. But you can equip it in a ship of class-B. It’s very important to understand these nuances when operating or using any item or ship.

Getting back to our spoon, one curious thing is that almost all of them are Legendary items. According to the forums, the first thing players do is get a Legendary spoon, thereby earning the “Legend Owner” achievement. This Legendary spoon isn’t of much use—you can’t use it to shoot down a ship or mine a bunch of Raq (one of the most valuable in-game materials). However, any food eaten with this spoon will taste unforgettable: As you eat with it, nano-sensors determine your taste preferences, making even ordinary gruel taste amazing. The only requirement for this is that you play using the somatic interface.

Since I’m on the topic of nourishment, I should mention that food is not a pivotal resource in the game—with one slight condition. A player does not have to eat for the first six hours of his game session. Over the next six hours, however, the hungry player begins to feel discomfort, and after another six hours, there’s a strong buzzing and the player “dies,” heading to the respawn point. So, eating in the game is not a bad idea. Or, you could simply log-out of the game for a minute every six hours, since doing so resets the hunger counter.

The respawn point is also an interesting topic. The player cannot die until he has left the Training Sector. The allocation center, where each player must go upon first appearing in the game, is one of the facilities in this Sector. As soon as training ends—and training lasts at least one game month (that is, the player must spend one month in the game undergoing training)—the player is allocated: He gets to choose a homeworld on which he will continue playing his character. If the character is destroyed, some sort of Planetary Spirit or something (I haven’t understood exactly what this is yet) will offer to resurrect the player for free. If the player agrees, he will get all his items back upon resurrection, but the items will have lost one class-worth of experience. It’s worth noting, however, that this applies only to items on the player: Everything in the ship’s cargo holds, for example, will remain drifting at the site of the ship’s destruction.

If you refuse to be resurrected by your Planetary Spirit, you get the option of choosing any planet in the empire to respawn on, but for a fee. In this case, all your items and equipment remain where you died and your character respawns with nothing but the money he had at the time of death (which, presumably, was stored in some bank account somewhere all along).

As for the items dropped upon death, your enemy (or anyone else who comes along) can take these or destroy them. The only limitation is how much their ship can carry in her holds. Players who specialize in piracy plan their ship’s future development very carefully—especially when it comes to cargo capacity. Pirates always need to make sure that they have enough space for their loot. According to the rules, a spaceship can be stolen, captured (in which case the defeated player is resurrected without anything) or destroyed. If she is destroyed, the ship’s wreckage remains floating at the site of her destruction and another player may use it as material for repairs or may salvage it into a universal repair kit. This is why the first thing that fledgling ship-owners do is buy themselves a self-destruct device: It’s better for your ship to be one class weaker, but still be your ship, than have to start all over again in an F-class tub.

Imperial Rapport…Leveling (which, it turned out, didn’t exist for characters)…There was a lot of information, but I wasn’t about to enter the game until I finished going through it all. My job was to find out everything about the game instead of running headlong into the fray hoping that everything would simply work out. I never did like players like that…

“Master, you have an incoming video-call from the leader of the Black Lightning guild. According to current rankings, this is the fourth-ranked Qualian guild. Would you like to accept the call?”

“Come on, throw it up on the screen.”

“Hello!” a bearded face appeared on the screen. “Are you the one looking for information about Galagon?”

“Galactogon.”

“Could be Pygmalion for all I care. What’s your character name?”

“Surgeon.”

“Hmm,” the leader of the Black Lightning frowned, looking somewhere off-camera. “There are about fifteen hundred Surgeons out there…Which one are you?”

“Fifteen hundred?” I asked surprised. “How’d you find that out?”

As I already figured out, a character name in Galactogon wasn’t unique, so it was impossible to identify any player for certain. Mail as a category didn’t even exist: If you wanted to communicate with other players, you had to acquire a communicator. And when I tried to look up how many Surgeons were running around just like I was, the system politely instructed me to consult the help menu—which told me that the number of players online was not subject to disclosure.

“Doesn’t matter. What planet are you on? Our guide changes from planet to planet. And forgive me, I’m not about to give you all our guides for fifty thou.”

“I haven’t been assigned a homeworld yet,” I replied honestly, since concealing this fact would have been pointless. After a little thought, I added, “I’ve started a new character. I haven’t even entered the allocation center yet. Like I said in the email, I need information about leveling up without putting in real money.”

“You started a new one? Why delete the old one? Why didn’t you just go through retraining and become a commander without wasting an extra month?”

“It didn’t work out with my old one,” I shrugged my shoulders vaguely, happy that I hadn’t actually lied about anything. Let the bearded guild leader think that I already had some experience with the game and simply wanted to prove something to someone. At least then he wouldn’t try to sell me any nonsense…Then again, he could still offer me something worthless and watch my reaction to see if I was just a fish that needed to be reeled in for all its money. You could sell anything to a newbie like that—from the “secret” number of the various ships in the game, to the location of a “simply unbelievable” planet brimming with Raq (which was like gold) or Elos (the game’s universal energy resource).

“Whatever—your problem, your headache. If you want to relive training, that’s your god-given right. In that case, for the sum you mentioned, I have a guide detailing non-standard events and how to find them in the Qualian Training Sector. What do you say?”

“For fifty thousand? You having a laugh?” I raised an eyebrow in surprise. “That’s way too little to be worth fifty thousand.”

“You asked for it,” the beard instantly grew defensive. “You seem like a shrewd guy, so think about it: Why would I be offering you anything if I didn’t know anything?”

“No, that’s no good for me. I’m offering fifty thousand for information that’s unique. The Training Sector isn’t so big that I need to pay such a crazy amount of money for it. Like I told you, I’m interested in leveling a ship’s captain. Do you have anything like that or not?”

“You know, Surgeon,” the guild leader said after a little thought, “I could just as easily refuse. We sell guides quite frequently so customers aren’t exactly hard to come by. But it’s a funny coincidence. Just today, a highly respected player, who also decided to restart from scratch for whatever reason, contacted every clan in the game, including mine. He is offering to pay us one hundred thousand dollars if we keep our leveling guides secret for three months. What’s more is that he wants us to let him know if a player comes looking for that kind of thing—and furnish him with that player’s contact info. I’m guessing you sent your requests not just to us, but to all the other Qualian guilds as well—so you may be sure that Sergei Smolyanov is already well aware of your vidphone number and email. That bit of info is free by the way. If he weren’t such a jerk—and from an enemy empire besides—I would absolutely be on board with his whole secrecy thing. A hundred thousand dollars is a very big sum, after all…Luckily for you, Serge smashed up my fleet last year, so…I’m not about to give you anything for free and I’d agree that the starting sector isn’t quite the place to look for hidden goodies. Heck, I’d even say that there aren’t goodies there at all—so the best I can do is give you our own in-house guide for how to level up your ship from F-class to C-class as quickly as possible. My goons use it all the time. Anything higher than C-class, you’ll have to do yourself. What do you say?”

“The starting sector plus ship leveling?” I clarified, understanding perfectly well that this was better than nothing. The forums were bursting with a plethora of guides for leveling up, but the more I read, the less I believed that I would find anything acceptable. Even never having played Galactogon, I understood that they were a waste of time.

“Yup. And as a bonus, I won’t be telling anyone that I sold anything to anyone. Especially what that second anyone may look like in real life. My friendly advice to you is, if you talk to other guild leaders, use an image scrambler.”

“Give me your account info.” I had had enough time to make up my mind. I can’t say that I was much swayed by the beard’s words, but when there are a billion pounds on the line…Well, that’s a reason to give it a shot.

“Already sent. As soon as I get the money, I’ll send you the guide you wanted. I’ve already got it ready. And—good luck to you! Who knows—maybe our paths will cross. Let me know as soon as you get a D-class ship. I’ll send you an invite to my guild. No entrance exams or anything.”

“Why such largess?” I asked surprised. As I had already managed to find out, guilds in Galactogon meant everything—home, family, money, resources, etc. The guild leaders and their officers were very careful when welcoming newcomers to their banners, seeking to weed out leeches and those who liked to dig around in others’ coffers. A player gave quite a bit to his guild, but the guild itself did plenty for him in return too.

“Anyone who manages to get a ship to D-class without investing a single coin, even with the help of our guide, is already worth a closer look,” smirked the beard. “When you get the Workaholic Achievement—that’s the one that’ll show you’ve made it—I’ll be happy to see you among my ranks. Until then, excuse me but I have to run… End call.”

“Stan—panic mode,” I uttered the code phrase that forced my smart home into emergency overdrive. Panic mode entailed the deletion of any online information that could lead someone back to my physical self. My name, my address, my description…I used to laugh about stuff like that, but then one day as I was coming home, I was rudely ambushed by a gang of imbeciles whom I had crossed in Runlustia. It seemed that they hadn’t liked the leading role I had played in a raid on their castle. I paid for that with fractured arms, legs, ribs and—as a result—having to relocate to a new apartment. That was when I set up the panic mode command. Better safe than sorry. If the beard was right, a billion pounds was a large enough sum of money to justify a visit to a competitor in real life. A visit during which you would make sure that your competitor wouldn’t want (or be able) to sign into the game for the next several years.

Two hours later, I had refused two incoming video calls—truthfully pointing out that I was taking a bath. Like I had figured after my conversation with the leader of the Black Lightning, the representatives calling from the top two Qualian guilds quickly lost an interest in talking to me without having the opportunity to see (or record) what I looked like. Constantly citing internal guild regulations, they kept asking me when would be a better time to call me back and whether we could maybe simply meet in real life and talk about my proposal like grown adults. They even offered to buy me dinner! Well, no wonder—for a hundred thousand dollars, I’d buy myself dinner too. Having received the information I needed from the Black Lightning, I ordered Stan to delete my vidphone number and mail account. Maybe I was being too careful, but it was better than getting bitten a second time.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

When I finally delved into the beard’s leveling guide, I couldn’t help but crack a smile over having quit the game right away, before entering the allocation center. For, precisely in this lay the pivotal move that would give me a special reputation among the Training Sector’s instructors—and not a very good reputation at that.

“What’s the holdup?” yelled the local motivational speaker and kicked the air where my body had just been. Except of course I was already gone…The scenario hinged on being able to control your body and wanting to beat the bully, earning thereby a trip to jail even before you got into allocation. Fighting earned the player a bad reputation, allowing him to access an underground tournament that was held every few weeks. The specifics of the tournament (there were actually three tournaments altogether) varied each time. One would involve dueling, another item gathering and the third mining. Even if the player lost, he would still get pretty good money for someone just starting out. In my situation, this was a blessing from on high. According to the game manual, the only way to get money in the training sector was by investing real money.

Well…If I have to brawl a little, why not? Brawling can be fun…

“Feisty one, eh?” the bozo exclaimed and, scurrying faster than I expected, went for me with his giant arms akimbo. The ship behind me prevented any retreat and a jump to the side would land me in the embrace of the onrushing rhino. So I decided to do the one thing that the NPC’s barebones AI would not anticipate—stepping back, I kicked off the ship’s fuselage and launched myself into the bozo. Let’s see who gets whom…

What’s there to say about Galactogon’s physics engine? It’s almost perfect. What happens when a six-foot monster with a full head of steam meets an ordinary body? Jumping forward, I assumed that I’d at least stop him in his tracks. However, he didn’t even seem to realize that I was trying to hit him and simply tossed me a dozen or so feet aside—right onto the pavement.

“What’s this?” came the smug laugh. “Tough as a rock, but light as a feather, eh?”

The ground shook as the giant bozo vaulted from the gangway down to me. Strange, I wondered, where are the security guards? According to the guide, they should have already appeared to break us up and arrested me for fighting.

“Who dares mock Drill?”

Well, well, it turned out that this Frankenstein’s monster had a name! Though, I couldn’t figure out exactly when I had managed to mock him, but we could put that down to an oversight in the AI’s scripting.

“Enjoy your stay in the medbay!” rhymed Drill, impressively managing to sound a little sinister. Raising his foot, he stomped it on the very place where my head had just been. Had he struck it, I would’ve lost a critical amount of health—maybe even been forced into resurrection. So I did something that the beard’s guide never mentioned—I responded.

Rolling out of the way of the bozo’s boot (stuffed to its seams with his trunk of a leg), I aimed a sweep at his supporting leg. It felt like I had kicked a pole buried deep in the ground. My health fell again. I whimpered something about how I couldn’t care less about someone as insignificant as him—but my counterstrike had had its intended effect. Bellowing savagely the bozo began to keel over.

Ignoring the pain in my leg, I continued my roll, springing to my feet through inertia and then jumping—my intention being to land on Drill. Pointing my elbow in front of me and aiming it at his head, I managed to hear the welcome phrase “Halt immediately!” just as…

You have earned the “Murderer Rank I” Achievement. All weapons require 1% less experience to reach their next level.

Your Rapport with the Qualian Empire has decreased. Current Rapport: -1.

“Surgeon!” I found myself lifted into the air and confronted by a security guard. Where were these guys all this time? “You are under arrest for the murder of another recruit. Your punishment is three weeks in jail! Next time you’ll think twice before attacking our recruits!”

Now what did the tutorial say about how it’s impossible to kill other players in the Training Sector? Well, well, well, this is interesting. If I’ve already met my main goal of getting into jail, why not have a little more fun? Hasn’t anyone ever tested this stuff before?

The guard was a member of the wonderful Qualian race—who are distinguished by their gray colored skin, the third eye in their foreheads, the suction cups on their fingertips and their serpentine hair. He was so seductively close to me that it seemed a graver crime not to attack him. Since I was already a criminal, why not go on and break the law a little more?

I was being held up in the air by means of a B-class pacifier wielded by the guard right beside me. This oddly-named rubber club emitted a bluish ray in my direction, forming some kind of force field which kept me suspended as if I weighed nothing at all. It did not, however, impair my ability to move—for example, my arms…

I felt a jerk and began to float toward the allocation center. The guard manipulating my body pulled its poor suffering mass even closer to him, wishing to turn me around so that he could just push me ahead of him. The two other guards had already turned away, deeming the incident to be resolved. I attacked silently. I don’t know if Qualians have any weak points, but in Runlustia I got used to the fact that any NPC or local (as non-player characters are called in Galactogon) doesn’t feel so hot when you karate chop him in the throat. Considering the attentive implementation of this game’s physics, I had good reason to believe that guards here would be similarly affected…

Once again, the physics engine didn’t let me down. The strike to the throat turned out a doozy. The guard didn’t even utter a groan but simply collapsed to the ground.

Critical hit!

You have earned the “Enemy of the Empire Rank I” Achievement. You have destroyed a subject of the Qualian Empire. All Qualian items require 10% more experience to reach next level.

Your Rapport with the Qualian Empire has decreased. Current Rapport: -2.

What can I say? The physics engine in this game is quite impressive. Even a security guard with a class-B item died from a simple blow to the throat. It follows that you can’t get very far in this game without a full set of armor—or, in my case, without a personal ship. By the way, the guide I bought seemed to mention that it’s impossible to have anything worse than -1 Rapport with the Empire, and yet I…Well, either way, my cell awaits me…

“Halt!” yelled one of the guards, alerted by the sound of me landing on the ground. As soon as the Qualian met his demise, the beam holding me vanished, releasing me. The fall wasn’t a large one, but the sound it made was loud enough. To make matters worse, I landed right on the dead guard.

Search corpse?

The shout, the notification and my fall (which twisted my arm a little) had all happened so quickly that I didn’t think about the consequences when I clicked the “Yes” button. If you’re going to be a marauder then go about it properly.

Acquired item: Pacifier. Item class: B-12. Weight: 2. Use: Lifts opponent of weight up to 2,000 lbs.

Acquired item: Qualian Guard Breastplate. Weight: 4. Durability: 100. Item class: C-44. Piercing Resistance: 33.2. Slashing Resistance: 33.2. Radiation Resistance: 0. Fire Resistance…

Acquired item: Qualian Guard Trousers. Weight: 3. Durability: 100. Item class: C-12…

Acquired credits: 23 GC.

Your Rapport with the Qualian Empire has decreased. Current Rapport: -3.

Another Rapport malus for marauding…This is fun…Clicking the “Yes” button three times, equipping the clothes and the weapon, I grabbed onto the body and instantly flew up into the air with it: The guards had recovered from their initial shock and used their pacifiers to levitate me…Alright then, I’ve got nothing to lose now. According to our agreement with the betting Masters, I could restart from zero three times, deleting my character and making a new one. There were of course limitations: The new character started from scratch, lost all his equipment and money and reappeared in the same place where he started with the same exact occupation he had initially selected. So since I wasn’t really risking anything at the moment, besides maybe time, I turned on the pacifier and pointed it at the guard. Two can play the “lift your enemy in the air” game.

Your Rapport with the Qualian Empire has decreased. Current Rapport: -7.

You have earned the “Enemy of the Empire Rank II” Achievement. You have destroyed a subject of the Qualian Empire. All Qualian items require 20% more experience to reach next level.

It was evident that the AI couldn’t much cope with human players. Having lifted me into the air, these two exemplars of the local fauna for some reason decided that they had triumphed and turned to go back to their allocation center. How naïve of them! Using my pacifier, I lifted the two guards just as effectively thirty feet into the air, after which I turned off the weapon. Two lifts—two bodies, enabling me to get some boots, gloves, two more pacifiers and a bit of cash. I guess the locals weren’t made for flying…While I was at it, I found out how long it took for a corpse to vanish: precisely one minute following death. By the time I finished robbing my latest victim, the first one had already disappeared.

I wonder—should I restart a new character or stay and find out what my punishment will be? It’d be useful to know, after all!

“Don’t move,” a menacing scream interrupted my contemplation of “to be or not to be,” so I decided to be a little more and turned my attention to this new Qualian approaching me. “Drop the pacifier!”

I was now facing a giant metal machine which, the description informed me, was a B-class Infantry Combat Mech. My pacifier’s beam slipped harmlessly along its armor, after which my prize weapon beeped pitifully and disintegrated right in my hands. A notification popped up, helpfully informing me that the pacifier had been destroyed by the mech’s active defense. Well, I was definitely done for now…

“Remove your armor!” came the next command. Ignoring it was pointless. Even if I refused, this monster probably had some kind of special device that destroyed its opponent’s armor without even having to touch him. All I’d get is another Rapport malus and nothing more.

“Now, march!” This third order was welcome. No one had remembered the 67 credits that I had had the pleasure of pocketing. Likewise, no one had checked my inventory, which contained the other two pacifiers. It had been too difficult to put the breastplate, boots and trousers in my inventory because all the items in Galactogon had three dimensions in addition to their weight. As a result I had only taken the pacifiers. One was already broken, but the other two were still on me…

“Surgeon, in the name of the Qualian Empire, I find you guilty of the destruction of a recruit and three Training Sector guards. I therefore sentence you to twenty days of solitary confinement!”

A brief trial took place as soon as I entered the allocation center. I was lifted into the air again to the surprise of several law-abiding players, who kept on popping up in the game, and literally a minute later found myself in a dark, windowless cell. The moist, stone walls and dripping water were already getting to me, so I instantly opened the main menu. Thanks everyone! I am indeed a bad person and have had enough fun in your lovely game for the moment.

Sign out!

“Stan, put me in touch with my bearded friend,” I said, getting comfy in my armchair. Getting out of the capsule, I did my daily exercises, washed up and even had a little tea before deciding that it was time to have a chat with the leader of the Black Lightning. Of course from a legal standpoint our deal had been fair—he offered me a product and I had bought it—but from an ethical perspective, I believe he owed me one. So, I’d squeeze him for some more information for the money I had already paid him…After all, it’s never good form to defraud a paladin, even if he’s already a retired paladin.

The voicemail of the Black Lightning glibly informed me that the great leader was currently unavailable on account of being occupied with taking over the Universe and I was therefore welcome to tell him everything I thought after the beep—without of course any guarantee that the great leader would have any desire to listen to what the machine had recorded. That’s what his voicemail literally said: “Can’t promise that you’ll be heard, but you can try.” Suave guy, that one…

The countdown on my sentence in solitary began as soon as I logged back into Galactogon. (It’s impossible to delete your character from outside of the game.) The same dark moist walls and the water dripping from the ceiling—nothing resembling the advanced game in which players rocket about the vast reaches of space. I felt like I had found myself behind the walls of one of Runlustia’s castles for yet another infraction. Not wishing to prolong my pleasure, I opened the main menu and clicked the “Delete Character” button. I had time to grin at the subsequent window asking me to confirm the deletion and provide a reason when suddenly…

“Ta-ta-ta, taa-taa-taa, ta-ta-ta…”

I froze inside. By that point I had already managed to describe my reason for deleting the character (“because refrigerator”), read two warnings about how all my items would be lost, agreed to these, battered my way through a cordon of confirmations and reached the “Delete” button and…

“Ta-ta-ta, taa-taa-taa, ta-ta-ta…”

The international SOS signal…An SOS signal in a computer game…A signal that could mean only one thing—either some player was goofing off in some nearby cell or…Instantly closing all the interface windows and returning to the game, I bated my breath waiting for the third signal. Considering that this is a game, then…

“Ta-ta-ta, taa-taa-taa, ta-ta-ta…”

The authorities in Runlustia were very fond of snapping up players for various infractions and throwing them into prison—besides being a punishment, this was an excellent opportunity to level up certain skills and stats. Some of the more gutsy players used prison to get several missions which, once completed, would open previously hidden opportunities—for example, membership offers from the shadowy powers in the game. However, Runlustia had one very unpleasant mechanic—a cell’s walls completely silenced a player’s voice. Even if you could see a person through your grate, you couldn’t talk to him—the game’s magic prohibited direct communication. This led everyone to remember Q-codes and Morse code. To Runlustia’s game magic, knock remained but a knock…

I knew very few Q-codes—only the most important ones. However, I knew where they were listed, structured and sorted by frequency of use. Switching out of the somatic interface to Third Person mode and thereby leaving the game (and noticing along the way that my solitary incarceration countdown paused), I ordered Stan to bring up the table of codes on my HUD. Let’s have a chat, shall we? It’s too bad I couldn’t link Stan directly into the game—he could’ve communicated with the stranger much more efficiently than me.

I discounted the possibility that this was a human player immediately—you just couldn’t create a tone like that with a shoe or a fist. Something hard and metallic was required, like, for example, this pacifier! The court had not conducted a full investigation of my belongings and sent me simply and directly to solitary. Equipping my pacifier, I began to knock on the part of the wall where the SOS was coming through loudest:

“Taa-taa-ta-taa ta-ta-ta ta-taa-ta-ta”

This was the Q-code “QSL,” which in natural language meant: “I am acknowledging receipt.” I had just let my unknown companion know that he had been heard and understood. The question now was whether he’d understand me—that is, whether the developers programmed a knowledge of Q-codes into the locals.

“Ta-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-taaaa-ta-ttaaaaaaa…”

All of a sudden, such a torrent of knocks began coming through that I simply didn’t know what to do—any unprepared person would have had immense trouble understanding anything in this cacophony.

“QRS (Send more slowly),” I knocked out another ubiquitous Q-code, admitting in the process that I wasn’t much of a radio operator.

“W A R N…P R E C I A N S…D A N G E R”

It turns out that it’s pretty hard to decipher Morse code by ear. My unknown companion wasn’t using codes, preferring plain text and pausing between the words.

“QSP (I will relay to) P R E C I A N S,” I replied and then inquired, “W H O M…A N D…W H A T?”

I had never had to pound out such a long message before. Though, I hadn’t done much shorter ones either. I wonder how people managed to communicate in Morse code in years gone by? Besides being incredibly inconvenient, the slightest mistake could flip the entire meaning of the message upside down.

“R R G O R D…S A Y…K R I E G…D O N E”

“QSL (I acknowledge receipt) K R I E G…D O N E”

“RRGORD…RRGOrd…RRgord…rrgord…rrg…”

The knocking grew quieter and quieter and finally fell silent. Either my companion had fallen asleep or, more likely, had left this world. Every game plot has the same trope: If you passed on the message, you may die with peace of mind. I on the other hand, needed to do some serious thinking…

And so!

First—in Galactogon, there is no such thing as a “mission.” That is, the concept exists but not in the form that players of other games are used to: with a journal that contains a record of everything you need to do and how, and with a map of the locality and waypoints upon it designating any critters you haven’t yet killed. There are no alerts, records or hints. Sometimes you won’t even realize that you stumbled onto a unique mission at all. The locals simply ask you about this or that, after which they evaluate how you fulfilled their request—whether you did good or not—and thereby determine whether they’ll maintain a relationship with you or not. In that sense, Galactogon is quite like the real world—the more influential the local asking you to do something, the greater the probability that not fulfilling his request will lead to negative consequences. It’s very difficult to know when a request becomes an assignment, especially for a newbie who’s used to neat mission descriptions popping up in front of his eyes.

Then again, there are exceptions. According to the forums, the Emperor may issue a call to action to all his subjects, asking them to perform some task he needs done. In the Qualian Empire, such a call has been issued six times over the six years of the game’s existence, so when it comes, everyone drops whatever they’re doing and runs to help the Emperor. Even perfunctory participation in the event, without performing any key functions, is rewarded with a huge bonus to Rapport.

But this was obviously not one of those instances. Someone, most likely a local, had turned to me in the dungeons of the Training Sector with a request to let another Empire know that some kind of KRIEG or something had been completed. Moreover, I had to relay this message to some guy named Rrgord. Relations between these two empires were not strained—just the opposite: Officially, the Precians were allied with the Qualians, which made encountering one of them in prison all the more strange. Another notable thing about Galactogon’s missions was that they had to be completed in-game. Even if, in real life, I asked some player familiar with Rrgord to pass on the message to this local—nothing would happen. Rrgord would simply not hear the messenger, even if he yelled it right into his ear and posted signs all around him. This was just another limitation in the game…And again, this was all under the assumption that this was a mission and not some ordinary request…Life in Galactogon sure was complicated.

I memorized the correct sequence to the question “Where are you?” and switched back into the somatic interface where I continued my train of thought.

Let’s assume this is a mission. Getting to the planet in question isn’t too hard, especially with a ship. The main thing is not to get pulverized by the planetary defenses—about ten class-A orbital stations and one Legendary-class Grand Arbiter. A Grand Arbiter is the apex of battle power in Galactogon. These ships are off limits to players, and each Empire only has about one thousand of them. They are used to combat piracy in the systems under imperial control. Not a single Grand Arbiter has ever been destroyed during the game’s history. Many players have tried, organizing and launching raids targeted specifically at these ships. As such, more than ten thousand ships have challenged one Grand Arbiter before, and only a meager hundred managed to escape the meat grinder that the locals arranged for them.

But now I’ve gone and gotten distracted again…If this is indeed a mission, then I’ve received it in a very unconventional place. I doubt that players frequently find their way to these solitary cells. According to the guide the beard sent me, I was supposed to be thrown into a general holding cell where I was to approach some guard with a special insignia on his sleeve. But now…Switching again to Third Person mode, I told Stan to scan all Qualian forums for information about the prison in the training sector. I needed to know whether someone has been here or not…

My mysterious neighbor was no longer responding to the interrogative “Where are you?” which I went on tapping out at minute-long intervals. Having foisted on me the responsibility of passing on the danger warning, it seemed that he really had turned up his toes (or whatever it is that Precians have). Speaking of which, there was no guarantee that he was a Precian at all—he could just as easily have been a Qualian or some a citizen of some other Empire…But here I was thinking about utterly pointless things again…What I needed to figure out at the moment was whether I was ready to wait 20 days in this solitary cell, indefinitely putting off my search for the billion, or risk it and give into my great desire to fulfill this mission I’d stumbled across. If this Rrgord was a person of any note, then he could probably help my search quite a bit…Maybe he could even tell me where the planet I needed was.

It’s decided then!

Switching out once more, I told Stan to yank me out of Galactogon only in the event of an emergency. Then, reentering the somatic interface again, I lay down right there on the floor and went to sleep. Twenty days of utter calm and solitude was not a bad price to pay for a chance to escape the utter bottom of the game’s social pyramid…Well, that or find myself in even deeper difficulties…

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