"an endless sky to fly" MoO1-retro-AAR

[Therlun]

hii together!

i decided to write a moo1 aar.
for those who dont know, aar means "After Action Report".
it is the description of a session of a game (a game with random maps or something similar that is). sounds boring? read on!
some aars (the good ones ) have screenshots, others are only a kind of descriptive strategy guides. there are even little novels, with background history and RPG elements.
every aar writer has a different style, and every aar is a change from the last one.

moo1 is "Master of Orion" (1st part of the series... )
you ask why i do an aar for such an old game? [its from 1992. say it loud 1-9-9-2!]
there are several reasons. most importantly, it is a great game and im a huge fan of it. (although i first played it 1995 or 1996).

i already wrote a moo1 aar (and a mom ["master of magic"] one), both are in german though.
i use many screenshots and limited text, but i have kind of a background story.
and while im pretty proud of my understanding of the english language, my grammar sucks, and my stylistic skills wont be enough to to write an english novel.
you will see what i mean when you read the report. IF you do so....

i did not end the game yet, and it will progress along the writing of the aar.
the screenshots are doubled in size, and a few (mostly the maps) were altered by me.
so lets begin!



by:


i will be playing the Alkari, one of the ten races of the game.
they are superior pilots, and have advantages in ship defense, and propulsion technology.

[Therlun]

Therlun closely watched the map in front of him. It showed the SPace near the Homeworld of the Alkari, Altair.
Fought over for centuries by different tribes, peace had come as you would expect. One tribe prooved to be braver, stronger and more clever then the other ones, and united th Alkari race.
Before that time had come Alkari were not interested in Space. Their world ended with the sky of their Homeworld.
but now, without any enemies on the planet the Avian race changed their look at the universe. There was a galaxy to conquer, and maybe to fight for.....




The small fleet of Scouts took a last look at their Homeworld, which they would see again for years, if ever.
A Colony Ship was ready to start if a planet with breathable atmosphere and aceptable eviroment could be found.


A few years later one of the scouted systems prooved to be colonizable, and the Colony of Daran was founded.


Therlun was satisfied. After a short time the Alkari had made their first real step into space! The comming yeras would see exploration of dozends of systems, and the growth of the Alkari race.
Every of the unexplored systems holds its very own little treasure, although some of them were really "little" like the planet in the "south" that might be colonizable, but was very poor on usable minerals...


The Alkari leader knew progress of a race included progress of technology since the wood age.
The united Alkari race was strong, and its scientists would bring it unimaginable wonders.
The first topic was the handling of old problems. Since beginning of industrialization pollution had been a major factor.
There wouldnt come an easy sollution within the next few years, but the problem could be reduced...
First empirewide aims were set.


Exploration went well too, and soon a 2nd Colony was founded.



The first important breakthrough appeared, and the Alkari race developed technology that would further increase its ability to reach for the stars.


Therlun was busy hunting his meal, when he was disturbed by a secretary.
Important news arrived at Altair. The Alkari were not alone!
Therlun was ... shocked you might say. While he never ignored the chance of other intelligent beeings, KNOWING of them was something different. Alkari Outposts had recieved alien messegas, not yet encoded.
The bad thing was, they came from nearby stars! Therlun was really worried, the Alkari had been into spacefaring for less then 20 decades. If another race had only 100 years advantage over them (a small timeframe in space) there would be no chance of surviving if the aliens proved to be hostile.

The decoding of the signals got priority, and after a short time it was obvious that they came from different sources. Not only different systems but different encoding systems. The most logical assumption was that two individual races had sent them.

Only weeks after this first contact was made, the next step could be done.
The signals were made to be understandable, and included specific details on how to contact their creators.
The Alkari modified their FTL-communication arrays to do what would be a historic mark for generations to come.
Those devices were huge, and had an endless hunger for energy, but they made it possible to speak over interstellar distances in acceptable time. The technology was much to large and energy consuming to be fit into any size of ship though...

Therlun made himself ready to speak with the Aliens. Both sources had been identiefied, and the Alkari were reay to speak with their neighbours.
"Initiate contact!"


That was not very productive. The Klackons as they call themselfs prooved to be quiet agressive. While the were not hostile per se, they left no doubt that they were able to fight. Perhaps such things were neccesary to survive in this galaxy.
The good side was, the Klackon were not much longer traveling space then the Alkari.

The other race wasnt much friendlier...


Like the Klackon and Alkari the Bulrathi had began traveling space less then 40 years ago.
Therlun was somewhat surprised by such a situation. Why should three races directly neighbouring each other develop space travel at the same time?
But this question could not be answered right now...
The face of the local group had changed, the Alkari were not alone anymore.


A few years later things were going well.
The Alkari established theire first interracial trade-route. Trade was difficult over such distances, but it also would be very rewarding, in the long term.


One day an astonishing discovery was made.
A scout noticed a ship patroling a system it surveyed. The ship was HUGE and seemed very advanced. However the situation took a surprising drift as the big ship closed in extremely fast, and attacked the scout.
The crew had just enough time to send their last scanning results, before they got vaporized....

Surprisingly the ship showed no sign of known FTL enginges. Either it had none, or it used a completely different technology to travel space.
The Alkari colonies were set on highest alarm level awaiting an attack. Luckily it never came. Probably the hole Alkari military would not be able to scratch its hull....

The Empire continued to grow, and the Alkari race spread...

Alkari scientists made another big breakthrough. The gatling laser was a weapon that would ensure security and strength of the Alkari race.


A first ship was designed to take use of that technology, and make it working for the Alkari race! The Klackon and Bulrathi had not been overly agressive until now, but things could change....


Another race made its appearence, and introduced themself to the Alkari.
The Silicoids were astrange lifeform, able to live in nearly any enviroment.


The Silicoids had a quiet large empire, and first worries settled in Therluns mind. Only time could tell if the Alkari race would be strong enough to survive and bloom.


>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

thats it, my first chapter.
the screenie with the big ship blasting my scout, and the last map got changed with a paint program.