Its been 3 months since The Nebula has been released or 1 year in game. In that time most players have gained fame and infamy and have left their starting stations hoping to find their adventure, this made for a lot of chaos in space so a common term used today is the Age of Chaos. For me, I've only gone as far as the next planets off after my starter location in the Kelha solar system.
Strangely enough a lot of the people in the liberation territory has been coming to this system. I heard from NPC that the prospect of taking this planet is considered a huge achievement because of the difficulty of taking it.
Why so hard when i started playing with them at the same time? Easy, in the past year i created a company on Kelha II that focuses on Drone and Droid development. As of now I am considered the player with the most military and financial power. My military strength has gone up after my people developed several combat type drone and droids, properly name Security Drones and Droids. There are two types of each, a light armored units and heavily armored units.
Light armored droids are just a bit bulkier than a human in a power suit and is three times as physically strong as a human in a suit. They are armed with some new weapons as well. The new weapons and tech they had that battle droids didn't were things such as scanners in their eyes to check identity (think robocop), the scans work by the fact that everyone that comes down must register at the 8th satellite dock where they gain a small tracker placed on their ships which allow them to pass the shields and to be tracked while on the planet. They have regular laser pistols which are normally used as taser since it is always set to suppress instead of kill.
(http://images.goodsmile.info/cgm/images/product/20141001/4650/30755/large/e3d0f9cbf4b357c3ea3111520663a7c3.jpg)
The other weapon is the pulse rifle. This weapon uses low caliber rounds fired a immensely fast speeds and is designed to smash into its targets at med to long range and transfer all the speed in an impact. It is a burst action weapon that first three shots at once and can cause serious internal damage like busting organs and breaking bones.
Now the second type of Security droid is much larger. It a bulky droid that has a human like torso but the legs are designed as tank tracks for speed in difficult conditions and locations. It is equipped with a scanner like the light unit and several different weapons. One is a laser mini gun which is to overwhelm opponents and is equipped where the left has is. In the spot for the right arm is a plasma missile launcher which is only used in situations of air raids. They also have magnet in the tracks which allows them to be used as substitutes for escorts with transports because they can be compared to a laser turret, with them on a freighter they can arm a ship that would normally never see guns on it.
(sry no pic for any other)
Now for the drones, the light unit drones works along side the light unit droids and has a much more advanced scanner that is used to search and scan the body of anyone for illegal or dangerous substances or unregistered substances. The scanner can also scan through walls which can be used to scout out any base or hideout. The are armed with a ship grade laser for combat and because of advances on upgraded software they can perform high level evasion maneuvers and formation attacks in auto mode with only a command.
Large units can be compared to a fighter ship. They are about 2/3 the size of a stealth model fighter and have much higher powered laser guns as well as a number of plasma missiles. Thanks to my connection with the liberation merchant i got a contract with the liberation faction itself to produce large units for space combat.
Thanks to these advances, our military power great enough to fend off attacks that ranged from 200-400 fighters and Dingy attacking simultaneously in different locations.
Now past the military improvements the planet itself has undergone radical changes. First is the planet was heated up but not with just a single volcanic eruption, we needed to cause 2 other eruptions to get a thick enough atmosphere that could cause the heat on the planet to raise around 30-40 °C. This allowed for water to melt as well as evaporate at a fast rate enough to condense and make rain. At first the rain was really sparse and we could only see it from space but after the 4th month it all changed. After that month, a huge storm spread over a huge part of the planet for nearly a week. We were forced to have the shields block all the water to prevent flooding. Even then the area around the base had totally flooded from the massive amount of water but thankfully after 2 days it all headed downwards.
Once the storm passed we called the satellites and asked for a visual of the planet. What was once a orange desert planet was now covered in almost greenish water. From space what remained of land left 8 large continents all still bare of vegetation. After an estimate it was said that the planet was 65% covered in water. Conner told me when terraforming the range you should aim for when causing the so called flooding on a desert planet would be between 60-80 of water covering the planet. He also explained that the greenish color was thanks to the immense quantities of minerals that had been washed into the water and taken down.
After receiving samples of the sea water it was also shown the have very basic amoeba life forms already in there. when i asked how he said it was because of the lighting constantly hitting the water, if electricity hits mineral rich water the minerals will start to form into DNA and if its lucky it will get caught inside lipids that also form in the water and form a cell. All that really mattered now was to begin building the planet. He made a call to the station and ordered a shipment of plankton from a nearby planet. after that he started to make the mutation agent.
During all this, we noticed that not many golems were appearing now. Only after a week with no rain did the dirt dry up enough for them to appear. They were very aggressive after the rainstorm and attacked fiercely and even entered the safe zone forcing us to unleash the, at the time, newly developed heavy battle droids. along side them my crew also helped take them down.
A week later a freighter arrived with the plankton cargo. They were in large 1 ton tanks of filled with water. All the water with plankton were dumped into special container with a sealed floor that would open when the order was given. Inside was already a large amount of mutation agent and it was already mixing. The several droids pulling the containers soon left towards the shore of the nearest oceans.
The flight with Dome drones, upgraded model of shield drone which originally had an 8 meter diameter shield, Dome drones have a 15 meter diameter shield which is almost twice as strong as the original. Upon reaching the shores, we manually controlled the drones and got them to hover around 15 meters over the shores. As we started to open the hatches to drop the water the alarm rang which meant there was a threat nearby. Going to the view of the drone that spotted we saw golems through the small flyers towards us upward. They were directly above us and having already released the water in the tanks.
The water swept all of them down and into the water and looking at them we didn't really care since the water dissolves them. The golems just looked since they couldn't do anything from below. we finished dropping the cargo into the water and finally left not even giving a second glance at the golems.
Month 6 after game release
In the past two months the aquatic fauna and flora has blossomed in unprecedented degrees. The coral colonies began appearing after the first month and tiny fish were beginning to appear and were visible to the naked eye if you scooped up water. The growth of the ecosystem was going normal but after the first month something strange happened. Golem attacks had become increasingly more sparse. I got worried and ordered numerous pilots to search the continent to see if any appear go low and to attract them.
The search didn't yield any results not a single attack which made us wonder what was going on. We searched everywhere in the continent except near the water since they evade it.
After not finding nothing i just gave it a shot and ordered for the drones to scout the shores. To every last one of our amazement we found them there. But what we found could only make our jaws hit the floor. The normal human golem was over 2 meters tall and somewhat disfigured but very powerful and aggressive. What was in front of us looked like a completely new kind of golem and not only that they were making some kind of tribe near the coast. From long range scans we estimated their size to range from 160 cm to 190 cm, like every golem they were made of stone but these were totally different than before. Before the rocks looked poorly put together and though it gave the image of a humanoid it gave the feeling of a monster. These new golems were very human shaped and were all proportionate at least for their body type. They were very bulky in size and could lift large boulders easily showing their strength which makes the old ones pale in comparison. What was interesting was their skin, before the skin was just a single plain rock with nothing really but these looked like they were crafted out of finely placed rocks which were just the right shape to match with its neighbor.
(yep just like this thing
http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110622061953/marveldatabase/images/a/ab/1238854-the_heroic_age_iamannewavengers_05.jpg)
From their looks to their actions the weirdest thing was what they were doing in the water. They easily strolled in the water and suddenly grab what looks like a rock or fish and starts eating away at them. Finally having curiosity reach its max i moved a scanner drone close to the water and started scanning until i discovered what i wanted. The image that appeared in the holo projector was a large fish. The scanner say its a flyer fish but its body is totally different. Just like the human golems these developed a rocky skin that protected it from the water. As the scans continued i couldn't help face palming.
Conner: ...when did they start getting like this?!
Noah: when we dumped the mutation agent it caught a group of the flying fish golems and drowned them, a few must have adapted fast enough to survive.
Conner: how they are rock with a metal core in them!
Noah: were they ever checked for genetic material.
Conner: ...no.
Noah: i think there are still some old bodies in the storage, check the cores and the bodies find it if you can.
As i gave the orders an improved scan appeared of the fish. The composition of the fish was equal to that of a giant golem and there was even a core at the same size which was a small golf ball sized core. If the fish are developing something like this the human golems must have something comparable to B or C rank in materials in their bodies. I shudder to think of the giant golems or even the worms.
As i was thinking a sudden rumble and crashing sound appeared a bit away. From the ground a gigantic golem similar to the human golems appeared, but there was differences. While the human golems showed signs that they had mellowed out and turned more pacific these looked bloodthirsty and this thing was 5 times bigger. As it looked down towards the tribe of golems and gave out a defining yell. The largest of the human golems dropped what they were doing and started to run towards the giant. The smaller golems ran for cover while a group of 10 large golems start a coordinated attack.
The giant seeing this tried to disrupt the primitive formation but it didn't work after he threw a punch at the ground. A golem nearby jumped on his hand while two other grabbed the hand and held it down while the other climbed the arm. While this was happening two other golems were punching the ground causing large cracks to appear and sticking their hands under ground they pulled out large boulders and with a simple spin to get speed they tossed them at the giant.
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With two holding them down and two throwing rocks at it the rest took the chance to climb aboard and began punching it everywhere.
Ernest: i'm not hallucinating right there is a battle between two groups of golems right.
Noah: i don't think we can continue referring them as a single species anymore. I think the mutation agent caused the fish to mutate and as a chain reaction with high minerals in the fish the human golems began eating them and evolved and became smarter and i guess that followed in line with the giant eating the small ones as well.
Adam: we have caused some crazy shit to happen to this planet.
Noah: don't tell me about it, i really don't want to think of what the worms might become.
we continue watching as the small golems thrash the giant until it finally had enough and was able to pull its hand from the two holding his and throw them away. By now cracks were all over its body as the dense rocky skin was breaking off. It started to grab and throw the golems on its back but the fall though painful looking the golems still got back up. A few went to help the rock throwers and together they started to pull a huge rock towards the area in 5. The rest kept it busy until one of the rock throwers gave a loud yell and they dispersed just as the rock was thrown. It was about the size of the giant itself and in the base everyone shuddered to think of the power behind those arms to lift such a thing in a G2 planet.
The giant was still distracted by the small golems when the rock smashed into it head on and toppled it on its back. On queue the entire tribe sprang forth and grabbed the arms and legs of the giant and held them fixed to the ground.
Noah: this is starting to look like one of those movies were the humans rope a giant and kill it.
The others start laughing as they watched. Amazingly it had turned into a kind of movie since a large amount of people were watching it.
???: i wonder what they will do now?
Gunner: hahaha i hope they break the arms and legs, damn this is better than the movies. HAHAHA!!!
As if hearing Gunners desire a large human golem walked forward. He was the biggest in the tribe so it was probably the leader. It walked slowly past the giants head making sure it saw him which caused the giant to roar in rage but that didn't help it escape the grasp of the tribe.
The leader walked over to the right arm and with a few grumbles a few golems opened a space which revealed the area just above the elbow of the giant. The leader ran a bit towards it before delivering a heavy punch which broke the arm clean off.
Behind me i could hear half a dozen laughs and a lot of cheers. Seems the crew likes the new human golems.
Noah: "Maybe they will continue evolving and become a usable starting race.
As I watch I could only grin because the previous hive mind that existed was broken with the evolution.
As we watch the continue smashing each limb until only the head and torso are left. The giant had lost quite a bit of strength and could barely grumble now. He walked just before the head while looking down on the giant. He looked at it and with a step back he sent a heavy punch right on the peak of the head breaking it completely finishing the giant.
As the event finished everyone filled out with a smile on their faces. It seems a hate for the walking rocks have been installed into most of the people here. With everyone gone only me, Gunner and Ernest were left.
Gunner: hehe I like how they became.
Noah: they are really strong but whats really surprising is how smart they became. The formation also looked interesting to see since they are just getting smarter to be able to do so much is amazing.
Ernest: What do we do about them then?
Noah: lets find out.
I order a single scanner drone to approach the tribe and do a complete scan of the new golem including an extensive scan of the core.
When the drone approached all the golems looked towards it but not with aggression but curiosity. They simply tilted their heads trying to figure out what the drone was while it scanned. The leader though was a bit cautious and carefully approached to drone and began poking it. The scene could only be described as a caveman meeting the future.
Soon enough the scan of the leader was done. The structure of these golems are really dense. Its packed much more densely with minerals of different types and it even has a few inner organs that are probably used for digestion which are a bit more advanced than the primitive ones found in old golems.
The core on the other was MUCH more complex. First it was the size of a human heart and in the same spot but the real interesting part was the molecular structure.
As I was looking at the core scans Conner entered and saw the scan as well.
Conner: I guess you figured out yourself look here.
He pulled up a scan and showed me a much less complex genetic strand.
Conner: this is a scan of the core from and old golem.
Noah: so the core holds the genetic code...there is no X or Y chromosome?
Conner: they don't breed like us. I would venture a guess that the continued eating of those ore fish or a giant will eventually produce a new core which is dropped into the dirt where a new golem is born.
Noah: but that doesn't explain the changes in the giants as well.
Ernest: they might have eaten a few of them of them and got a certain amount of evolution but they still seem tied to the main hive of golems.
Noah: i think these new guys need a different name then it is only fitting if they are enemies of the golems.
Ernest: i know a name, its from when i was a kid from an old super hero comic book i watched there were creature that looked like them right now. They were called Kronan.
Noah: the really old marvel heroes alien race rock monsters.
Ernest: yep, you know them?
Noah: my dad showed me when i was little.
Because of evolution a new species of Golem has been born and discovered. You have chosen to name them as Kronan and will be known as such. Your actions in the future will determine where you will have a friendly or aggressive relationship with this race.
Should you help them grow by accelerating their evolution and teaching them about your technology and history you can grew friendly with them.
Noah: "well that is convenient they seem to have a hive mind of their own but thanks to their higher intelligence they don't follow instinct like the other ones." guys pass this to everyone as an order from me. Not a single Kronan is to be attacked they are a non aggressive creature that can one day become an addition to our forces and as you can see they are powerful, much more so than normal golems because they work together.
Gunner and Ernest salute and run off to pass the message while Conner just takes another glance at the monitor and leaves.
9 months in game after game release
In the last few months its been hectic. First we finished digging the shipyard which is big enough to make a freighter and still have space to spare. The problem was the cave in while finishing the digging part. Julius, the foreman that commanded the miner and digger drones was caught in the cave in and though we saved him he lost an arm and both legs which were crushed.
I felt reasonable since i was the one who ordered the construction so i had the techs work on robotic appendages. Having had the limbs amputated we needed to make them so he wouldn't need to ever take it off so we came to the conclusion of a power suit that had fully automated parts that were controlled by his brain waves and nerves system. It would move just as he wants it to as if it was his original arm.
The suit was completed in month 8 and after getting used to the suit he ran back to work and even finished digging and reinforcing the chamber the water turbines were going to be built. Which is saying something since the ground around there had gotten moist after the water melted and the floor. Once he finished that he was still full of energy and suggested a defense idea which would prove valuable and it was something no one thought of.
in the safe zone around both Site Beta, the base, and Alpha, farm, he began digging wide 10 meter diameter holes 10 meters deep. The idea was to place turrets all around the sites for air and ground fire. Half would be anti air turrets the rest laser turrets made to attack both ground and air attackers. This bolstered our defenses and made the takeover of the planet even harder.
On the ninth month a new shipment of water tanks arrived. This one was loaded with algae and such which would be spread in deep sea but we made prepared a separate container for the Kronan we were hoping for greater development from them, enough for us to talk with them. We have watched them and found that only a single tribe exists which is the one we found.
When that came to light i could only feel surprise after gaining a mission.
[window]
Mission: Kronan protection.
You have discovered that the newest species of Golem the Kronan only have a single tribe with only 40 individuals. Because of their passive nature they and small food sources they can't grow fast enough. You must provide safety and create better food sources to help them grow and begin new tribes.
Difficulty C
Completion requirements: 5 tribes with over 200 Kronan each(complete 0/5)
Reward: familiarity of the Kronan, further evolution, growth in population.
Failure: the tribe dies.
[/]window
Noah: "This isn't good i can already see war coming, this mission is C rank so it affects region or planet so i think it will be me and them vs the hive better get to work them."
1 year in game after release
Present day now, the last three months were intense. We made sure to leave heavy drone units ready for any attack after all the containers were dropped including the mutation agent near the tribe. They grew again to around 190 to 210 cm but also grew smarter and enough to learn our language which was done after we sent a group willing to go. They seemed curious about us and with a few weeks of dedicated teaching they could somewhat speak with humans now though i still think it could still be considered like teaching a dog a new trick its not sentience yet.
During the time we were there it was constant attacks by the old golems. But it no longer endangered the Kronas. They were stronger and faster even though their bodies grew larger and most importantly much smarter. They used their hive mind to coordinate attacks and do the most damage without taking much damage. We had also taught them many strategies which they sucked up like a sponge and learned quickly because it was passed through all their minds so teaching one is like teaching them all.
What was curious is what they did with the remains of the dead golems. The giants body was always dismembered and hollowed out which was eaten later and the rest was partially buried and used as housing especially the torso. The cores and such from the golems were thrown in the water and as explained by one of the Kronan it will be reborn as a fish which means given time the cores will rebuild the golems.
The number of Kronan also began increasing a lot after the last drop because the algae and plankton began to take the form of coral which provided them with a lot of food and after teaching them, they gained the concept of farming. Though its underwater but thanks to their dense rock hide skin it doesn't affect them like golems who still dissolve in water. The population rose quickly to over 200 in the last three months because of the greater amount of food so I was really happy that they were growing soon a group would go and make a new colony with my crew helping them survive.