so the Chernogradost-Golgotha Popular Directorate has been giving their troops vodka in their rations?

No, they haven't. It was looted from blended military/civilian storage.

Indeed.

The problem isn't that they are drinking on the job, the problem is they looted it from the storage. This means not only that the troops themselves have a discipline issue, but also that security on the storage itself is lax or even corrupt.

Remember, Sundays and Mondays are my game days with my brother, I don't touch my computer much on those days.

May I post what would constitute the fluff, then work in the actual actions as time/thought permits?

As long as it is easy to understand there shouldn't be a problem. I can't properly integrate actions of a character into the role but I can merge culture and dialogue easily.

" [Around time of Design Submission] Hmm, the rail engines sound interesting, but don't we need to build some sort of infrastructure for them, beforehand? I was thinking that the Moonmen [This is the start of my Wordplay Regime] would be useful for taxiing [sic], and general couriering... they just need a smoothed road. Anyways, as far as being a military implement, they were used like portable concrete road blocks, and their choice of freight. "
> Disseminate Moonmen into the General Populace for Transport/Cargo.

She soon starts on her congratulatory write up about the situation whilst leaning against the central hub's console, and listening for further commentary or community voicings; it reads:

> Poll Fourthnet, and the Central Hub for responses, and general news.

> Start Construction of Superior Water Pumping, it will have to accommodate Several Thousand More Colonists.
> Start Production of Mining Machinery. It will be needed for the Sustenance of the Second Wealth, Industry.
> Start Construction of 5,000 More Housing Units.

Well, I was working on the roll and then I hit the character cap, so I'm waiting on HK to help me out with that.

In the meantime, here is a map of Earth.



Please mark the parts of the map that are part of your nation. This *really* helps when it comes to rolling since it allows me to culturally relevant names for vehicles and people as well as other things like food stuffs and the like.

Honestly, if Kebbit/whomever takes all of Russia, and Ex-Soviets States, there isn't much Central Asia and Mongolia to go around.

That is something to work with, actually.

If you guys put stripes across the area that is contested, both of you can have it while also adding some historical tension to the game. Just put the contested area in your colour as stripes in that case.

Good news everybody! Well, good and bad.

Since I've hit the 60000 character limit for the previous roll and I love to type vast pieces of text, I'm going to be splitting the roll into two segments of three nations each.

This means that each nation gets 20000 characters for their roll which is good! It also means that there might be some thread ballooning. The lower half of the previous roll will thus go here. I've made this a separate post so that people can see that there is a new post in the thread.

Anyway, chunk of roll.

ThraxoCorp - Tomaster
[5]The CEO, after making up his decision, sends for the leaders of both groups. The woman from before and the leading member of Rock-B-Gone arrive for his decision. He turns to the RbG representative and after a few seconds of silence speaks. "While I appreciate your design, we may need to save the lasers on the ship for a more military orientated role. If you could come back to me with a combat design, I might consider that. For now, we're going to go with Titan Manufacturing's design." The woman grins and then speaks. "Thank you. I'll get in touch with the work teams to start making the preparations. I promise, you won't regret this decision." She then turns and walks out the door and heads off to the part of the colony Titan Manufacturing have set up shop in. Meanwhile, the "head" of Rock-B-Gone turns to face the director and discuss the potential for a military application. "Well, in their present state the laser weapons onboard the colony ship are already formidable weapons, but they weren't intended as a front line combat weapon, more something to blow up small chunks of rock or anything threatening the assembly of the craft itself. They fall short against anything with decent armour... Hmmm. The main problem is a general lack of experience with laser weaponry. The laser defenses on the colony ship are just upscaled versions of the ones from Earth. The main obstacle is power supply, there's only so much punch you can get out of a given power supply and that is what has kept laser weapons from supplanting regular ballistic weaponry. Maybe, just maybe, if you let us have a sort of testing range for us to work on one of the assemblies, we might be able to refine the design. Like the rest of the colony ship, the lasers were rushed in both design, manufacturing and fitting. After all, a lot of inventions have been born out of sheds, who knows, maybe practical laser weaponry is the next one?"

Elsewhere, a group of seasoned engineers give a cheer. They make a run to the colony ship and grab fifteen multipurpose machines which they first use to strip twenty five plates of metal off the colony ship frame, mostly hull plating from the belly of the colony ship. Then, as quickly as they arrived, they make off with their prize back to the Titan Manufacturing neighbourhood where, in the streets and in the houses, they work together on all the different parts of a Hephaestus II Mining vehicle. As a week passes, a few large machines start to take shape under a tent attached to the side of one of the houses. While at first, nothing more than heavy steel frames sitting above two sets of tracks, they quickly start taking shape according to the schematics taped to the wall. The engineers arrive day and night to work on the vehicles, the hardest engineering challenge of the project being the motors needed to power the vehicle; the original Hephaestus II on Earth had a custom built motor, but the ones that the multi-purpose machines have is much smaller. Work continues on the other parts of the vehicle, but the engine bays sit empty while the engineers work on ideas.

The first idea to come up is to try and fabricate a new engine. Machining wise, it'd be possible, but they'd need to create a large electrical motor from parts that they simply don't have available. The second thought is to create an internal combustion engine, proposed by one of the older engineers who checked the cargo manifest showing that the colony ship, like all it's cousins, in fact had two hundred units of petrol stored in the "consumer" goods section of their cargo holds. There were *quite* a few different items in those things and he definitely thinks searching the cargo hold for unlisted, misplaced or mislabeled items would be a good idea.

In the end, by a vote, welding together several of the motors from the multipurpose machines into a sort of motor-battery, a crude solution, is what passes for the first vehicle to get at least one up and running before the end of the month so that the CEO has some results. But a more permanent solution must be found, whether that's fabricating new electrical or petrol engines. Running the motors in that sort of battery is a disgrace the engineers agree to both the motors, the Hephaestus, Titan Manufacturing and to the very word "Engineering" itself. They take no pride in their work as they dismantle the multipurpose machines and rip their hearts out, their electrical drive systems, then weld them together into an abomination of a motor. After being lowered into the engine bay, connected to a daisy-chained battery group and connected into the vehicle's propulsion system, they prepare to start the engine. A young, twenty six-ish engineer climbs into the half assembled cabin and inserts the engine start key then hits the power switch. The battery bank is fine, yet the engine won't start.

The old engineer climbs atop the engine compartment and looks down at the motor assembly. He shouts, "I don't have time for this!" and kicks the motor assembly with a steel toe capped boot. The motor grinds for a second against the casing then whines as it comes to life. The young engineer spins the vehicle around on the spot and the motor groans but gets the job done. The rest of the month is spent getting all the H2MVs as functional as they can be without engines. Meanwhile, the working one is driven in front of the colony ship, touched up here and there and covered with a curtain ready for the grand unveiling.

The CEO and much of the colony gather to see what the engineers had been working on all this time. The leader of Titan Manufacturing, Miss Ophelia Waterman, stands in front of the curtain. Just to the left of the curtain is a pile of the ore mined earlier. "It's as ready as it'll ever be. For the record, I think the motor will blow. Atleast I'm not driving this thing..." Miss Waterman steps behind the curtain very briefly. "Shut up or I'll make you drive it!" "I'll be good." The engineers then get out from under the curtain, stand in front of the vehicle with Ophelia as she gives a speech. "Back on Earth, before Destiny impacted, in the area of industrial machinery there were only a few big corporate names. The biggest, ThraxoCorp. The second was Titan Manufacturing! Back from the dead like Lazarus, both companies have survived the end of civilization! Each and every one of us owes a massive debt to ThraxoCorp for being so generous to bring us with them on their colony ship, companies that on Earth were the fiercest of rivals! And not only did they bring Titan Manufacturing, they brought others, too! White Star Industrial, Poseidon Maritime, Artemis Defense and many, many more were brought along on the ship. And here we are, on this new world, a world of untapped resources, a world of limitless potential! The CEO asked our company to build the nation, yes, the *nation* a mining vehicle and we answered his call. Even a thousand of these machines would not pay off our debt and as the saying goes, "Capitalists stick together in tough times, they remember who their friends are." And so, with great pleasure, I give you the Hephaestus II Mining Vehicle!""I'm impressed, even I didn't think you were that good of a bull♥♥♥♥ spreader. Companies sticking together? Pffft. Either way, fingers crossed."

She steps forward and pulls the cover off the machine, revealing the machine for all to see. The ThraxoCorp badge is shown clearly on the side of the vehicle and on the driver hatch. Large and wide tracks under the vehicle support it's heavy weight. "Show these good people what the Hephaestus can do!"

A puff of white smoke comes out the back of the engine bay along with what the human imagine might consider to be the scream of an electric car. "Well, we had a good run. I'm off to go kill myself."

After a few seconds, however, the engine comes to life or rather, undeath. Occasional bursts of white smoke erupt from the back of the vehicle, but the vehicle lumbers on throughout all of the demonstrations, even through a number of close calls where the motor fell silent for a few moments, most notably during the crane test. Other than that, the vehicle performed perfectly. While only one is ready, the other four only need engines and they'd be good to go.

[9] While Titan Manufacturing work on the H2MV, the CEO sends out another design request. This time for an improved multipurpose machine. Titan Manufacturing is too busy working on the H2MV and Rock-B-Gone is currently doing the numbers on laser weaponry, so three new groups step forward. White Star Industrial, a well established manufacturing company back on Earth, Explorer Motors, a large motoring company with a number of big name brands under their flag and last but not least, The Rothenberg Group, a super corporation from Earth that designed and manufactured the nuclear reactors for the colony ships. The Rothenberg Group are the first ones to make a presentation thanks to the group's stature. White Star Industrial will be second and Explorer Motors third.

Mr. Rothenberg himself arrives to give the presentation. While past his prime and ready for his son to take over the family business, he can still give a presentation on his own. Carrying a paper file of schematics "Hallo, I am Mr. Rothenberg, CEO of the Rothenberg Group that carries my name. Like the rest of the colonists, we saw your message for a new industrial machine. I am sure you are familiar with the power of German engineering and the prestige of the Rothenberg Group, they need little introduction. But you may not be so familiar with the machines we've made, yes?"

He opens the folder and puts four photographs on the table, one for four different variants. On the back of the photographs are technical specifications and schematics.

"As you can see, we abandoned multipurpose machines in the early twenty first century and instead focused on specializing our designs. The first machine is an agricultural vehicle, the second an all purpose industrial machine and the third is for mining. The fourth is a military engineering vehicle, designed for the construction of field fortifications."

Looking at the back of the photographs, the information seems to give the impression that, while the vehicles can only do their job, they do it twice as well as a regular multipurpose machine. The designs are simpler than the ones for the multipurpose machines too with less areas to break down under strain. But the real interest is the Kampftechnik Fahrzeug III, abbreviated as the KTF-3. It is capable of bridging rivers, sweeping minefields, salvaging armoured vehicles and more. A large dozer blade on the front allows it to easily clear most barricades. Looking from the armour specifications, while not designed for close range combat, it's armour would easily shrug off small arms fire while providing some protection against anti-vehicular munitions.

As for cost, the multipurpose machines can be converted on a one to one ratio for the price of one unit of metal for fifty conversions. Metal has come to be the currently accepted currency among the colonists thanks to it's many uses but it is hoped to be replaced by a dedicated currency as soon as possible.

For the KTF-3, however, three units of metal are needed in addition to three multipurpose machines if not being built straight off an assembly line. One unit of metal as payment for ten KTF-3s. While it can't be converted into a tank, the vehicle is armoured like one and equipped to salvage one. But a similar problem to the Hephaestus II may present itself as the design schematic calls for a V12 engine, something not exactly commonly available right now.

After Mr. Rothenberg leaves, the next executives come in, these from White Star Industrial. As they step into the office it becomes quite clear these aren't executives, they are engineers, a younger one with a blueprint under his arm seems to be the one in charge. "Go on, start the demonstration already." "Alright, alright. Here we go... Hello, we are the engineering team from White Star Industrial, you probably remember us from the competition to get the vehicle contracts for the colony ships? Anyway, we noticed the posting for the new industrial machine design and we immediately got to work drawing something up. We designed this vehicle over an afternoon, it'll probably go through a few revisions before it's finalized.

He puts the blueprint on the table and rolls it out. A large wheeled vehicular base is on the drawing, with notes about the suspension, structural composition, battery location and the like...But strangely enough, no machine tool package. "There's a very good reason that there isn't a tool package preinstalled, we came up with the idea to, instead of building the tool sets directly into the vehicle we would instead create a vehicular framework that then has the tools installed onto it! This lets us work most on making the base of the vehicle as robust as possible, then work on the tool package. We've got a few concepts going around for two different tool packages. One is a field package designed to carry all round industrial tools for both farming and mining leading to an increase of fifty percent in productivity! Not just that, but the wheeled nature of the vehicle means the vehicle is equipped with several redundancies - each wheel is powered separately by an electric motor. The second tool package is a industrial package equipped with a large number of tools. The idea is that the finished vehicle will be able to move around a manufacturing floor or stay still and work on a single object. In addition, we think that with some armour plating, we could make a military version, maybe with a machine gun!"

"Or as a mobile land mine." "Or yes, as a mobile land mine, flame turret, mortar and more."

They then leave after a short chat with the CEO about specifications, cost and more.

The vehicle frames would cost two multipurpose machines each and two units of metal. A third unit of metal can be added to provide armour plating, turning the vehicle into a sort of automated drone. As yet, the project is unnamed but the engineers seem open to suggestions regarding it's name if the project is approved. The vehicles are remotely controlled from a distance, allowing the vehicle to delve into hazardous areas without risk to a crewmember. On a factory floor the vehicle is capable of moving out of the factory or staying still and working on an object. If the factory was, for instance, being bombed this would allow the machines to head to a bomb shelter, protecting them from damage.

Finally, the team from Explorer Motors arrives. Unlike the other two teams who came in purely with documents, this team brings in a box, slightly larger than a dog but by the look of it much more heavy thanks to it's need to be carried by two fully grown men. Setting it down on the CEO's table, one of the engineers turns to the CEO and makes a brief statement.

"We're Explorer Motors, long history of vehicular excellence yadayada. Instead of me giving a speech as to why you should choose us over the competition, I will allow our work to demonstrate why you should choose us."

He then pulls a plug on the side of the crate and the whole box falls apart, it's sides falling away. A large block of metal with two groups of three cylinders both set at an angle at the top of the block, with the Explorer Motors badge on the side of the body. It only takes a second for the CEO to realize what's infront of him. Surely they couldn't have built an internal combustion engine in a day?

"We've been working on getting one of these baby's running on this planet ever since we arrived. The dust in the air plays hell with the engines but we solved that problem a few days ago by using a bunch of air filters to stop the gunk getting into the engine. Now, these things *work* infact, you'll be able to see for yourself. "

He motions to one of his colleagues who steps forward with a bottle of gasoline and pours it into a improvised gas tank, then pulls a cord. The engine sputters for a second, then starts. Without any control to manage the flow of fuel into the engine it runs at a leisurely pace. The engine fires away gently on the table surface for fifteen minutes before they stop the flow of fuel.

"Now, our filtration methods will work on, I promise you, *anything* that takes an air input. Jet engines, factory machines, you name it. Not only that, but we make these things on an industrial scale. I tell you, we can make two hundred of those beauties for around five units of metal. From scratch, no dismantling of the existing machines. And if you want we can make bigger engines, V8s, V12s, V16s, all the way up to V32s. This little V6 here has two hundred plus horsepower! If we put one of these in a multipurpose machine, all it's tools will go twice as fast."

One of his accomplices gives documentation regarding the V6s. Two of them will consume in a month one unit of petrol. While surveys haven't been done yet to find any fossil fuels, it may be a good time to check the local environment for any oil or coal or anything usable in the engines. Biofuels would also do the job, too. They are cheap to produce, the main resource cost is the operation of a large number of them. Everyone on the colony ship remembers the consequences of excessive petroleum use on Earth, both good and bad.

[4] After all the meetings, the CEO addresses the ATV that found the fruits and wreckage. "Yes, excellent. Submit both the ore and fruit to the scientists for analysis." "The ore? I guess you mean the wreckage? I'll take a piece of it and grab as much fruit as I can." The ATV driver opens the vehicle hatch and takes a walk outside with a few scientific instruments, most notably a geiger counter to check the wreckage for radiation. Taking a walk around the impact site with the counter, she quickly finds out that, thankfully, the device isn't radioactive, allowing them time to work in the area. Deciding to grab some fruit first, she goes around the site, plucking the alien fruits and putting them into a rough sack while the crew of her ATV does the same. The fruits are strange looking, covered in what appear to be small spikes on the surface just like a Durian. After filling several bags with the fruit, they start to go over to the wreckage.

Most of it appears to be destroyed, either by re-entry or due to the battle in orbit. The wreck is a large cube like block of metal, just a bit larger than the ATV itself, ruling out the possibility of loading it onboard the ATV entirely. On closer inspection, however, several handles stick out of the surface of the block on one side, with indented circles around the gripped area. One of the ATV crew members walks up to the block and grabs a handle, then turns it sideways and pulls.

A large cylinder is plucked from the metal surface. The body of the cylinder past the head is mostly featureless, but there are several cable like ports in the sides. They take a second cylinder and put them both into separate metal cases before putting them in the driver cabin of the ATV. They can keep an eye on them and keep them safe from being crushed by bags of alien fruits there. While they drive back to the colony, the remaining prefabricated houses are deployed inside the perimeter created by the ThraxoCorp Wall. With the space exploited properly, most of the colony essential structures like power plants, hospitals, schools and manufacturing facilities should fit inside the Wall comfortably. However, the rock the colony ship landed on is unsuitable for agriculture, the soil outside the crater however is usable. As one of the colonists points out, however, this means that the colonists could, in theory, be starved out inside the the Wall just like a medieval siege. Therefore, it's recommended for sufficient food storage be set up inside the crater to create a reserve of food in the event that access to the outside is lost.

The returning ATV is met with some praise by the colonists. Many are curious as to what caused them to return so quickly, the other ATVs are still out scouting for usable terrain features. With haste, the bags of fruit and the cylinders are taken to the colony ship into an empty part of the ship that the scientists have set up as a makeshift lab. While barely worthy of the word laboratory, it'll have to do for now. Small projects should be possible there, as long as they aren't too complex. There they decide to work on the fruits first before they start to decay, that at least is something they don't have to worry about with the cylinders.

Dissecting a few of the fruits shows that the inside of the fruit is divided into five partitions each containing the edible flesh of the plant, with the faint lines of the borders between the partitions shown on the surface of the fruit. Before being cleared as edible, however, chemical analysis shows something important.

It contains deadly levels of a toxin, similar in structure to one found on Earth in rare types of bean and on an individual fruit there is enough to kill ten healthy adults. Needless to say, they aren't cleared for consumption just yet. A variant of the fruit with knobs instead of spikes, however, also contains the toxin but in substantially lower quantities. Experiments with various cooking methods show that the knobbed variant can be cooked which will reduce the toxicity to edible levels. But even still they can't be consumed in large quantities as they'll eventually start to cause damage to the human spinal cord. With the fruit analyzed, attention is instead turned to the strange cylinders.

In comparison to the fruit, the cylinder is a true mystery. It's fairly heavy for an object of it's size. The black casing, after having a sample taken reveals the casing to be petrochemical based plastics, nothing that humanity hasn't dealt with before. But it's what is inside that makes the scientists curious. Looking at the second cylinder, which is clearly damaged. Much of it's plastic casing has been melted away by what must've been an electrical fire. Carefully cutting away the damaged plastic shell, the scientists finally get to see the inside of one of the cylinders.

Eleven processors are stacked on top of one another, separated by a heat sink. The first processor appears to be different than the other ten and the scientists believe it may be a sort of task manager to coordinate the other ten processors. One of the scientists decides to visit the CEO in his office and tell him what they've learnt in person. "Sir, our science team has been analyzing the alien cylinders. The one was severely damaged to the point of what we'd believe to be inoperability so we dismantled it to learn more about the construction of these cylinders. They appear to be computers of some kind. The casing of the cylinder is comprised of plastic, nothing we haven't seen before there. But it's the inside of the cylinder that is very interesting. There are eleven layers of the cylinder, each layer containing what appears to be a processor on each layer. The first layer is different from all the others and we believe it to be a sort of foreman for the other ten processors."

"My team, however, don't have the tools to analyze the processors up close and the damaged cylinder is exactly that, damaged. We are unlikely to learn much from the damaged cylinder, it's too far gone. However, my team did manage to salvage some intact parts from it, including two highly promising components. The first is a heatsink, it can dissipate heat much faster than anything we've got available. Some of the scientists think they were created to allow the cylinders to be clocked to an unimaginable speed and then overclocked even more so at a time of need, which leads some of the scientists to think that the damaged cylinder suffered a heatsink failure, probably in the midst of the battle. The second part is..."

He pauses in mid-sentence before continuing.

"It's revolutionary. It's a capacitor capable of storing vast amounts of energy in such a tiny space," He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a strange looking piece of electronics, around the size of a peanut. Red stripes stretch around it's surface and at both ends of the device are two small ports. "If this was invented on Earth, the inventor would've received a Nobel prize. This little thing...it's remarkable. The energy shortages on Earth could've been solved by it. This energy cell can contain enormous amounts of power. This one is infact, still got some charge. We estimate it contains the power of a battery bank at a small data centre. We don't have a clue how to reverse engineer one, not yet anyway, but with your permission we'll get to work on these little miracles as soon as possible. We've been sharing some information with the guys at Rock-B-Gone, they are very interested inde-" He then has a major coughing fit before leaving the room.

[DM note : Please report any anomalous numbers here, been a while since I worked on the roll. ]

Colony Statistics
Population & Consumable Resources
4000 colonists.
Housing : Enough housing for 10000 colonists.
Food : 16,000 - 4000 = 12,000 + 1000 = 13,000
Water : 48,000 - 2000 = 46,000.
Consumer goods : 5000 units of consumer goods. Consumption paused.
Industrial Resources
175 units of metal.
1000 units of ore.
85 multirole industrial machines.
Power generation : 100 units of unused power per turn.
996 - 2 = 994 units of heavy metals.
Military Assets
Enough equipment to equip a hundred soldiers.
1000 units of ammunition.
100 A+ rated harsh environment suits.
Research and Production



Kyran Allegiance - Halo117
[7][3] [DM NOTE : Rolled these two together for storytelling again, but bringing the convoy home and informing the population of the attack are both minor actions, keep that in mind. If you are ever unsure if something is a minor or major action just say and I'll help as best as I can.] The triumphant ATVs, soldiers and the survivors form together, taking all the remaining supplies from the improvised fort and start the long journey home. Out of the two thousand departing people, one thousand and seven hundred were missing or dead. Out of the one hundred units of ammunition brought with them, ten units are still full. A long journey back to the landing site later, the ammunition is added back to the colony supplies, along with their weapons. While the colonists are happy that their colonists are back, the amount of casualties taken in a battle with indigenous life on the planet has shaken the colony to the core - many people are scared and others think that the top priority should be the creation of a dedicated military so the attackers can be found and eradicated at the heart. Looking out at the returning convoy, the command grabs the radio and speaks to his people. "Men and women of the Kyran Allegiance, our expedition has been rescued and is safe, but we are now under the threat against an enemy strong in force and numbers. We will show the enemy that they will not wear down the people of the Kyran Allegiance. We will show them no fear, no mercy, no weakness. Let this war be fought in our terms and our rules."

It helps the people to know that their commander is willing to see that those alien beasts get their just desserts for attacking the colonists unprovoked but the colony flips on it's head overnight as morale is devastated by the news and general Chinese whispers as the information about the aliens changes from person to person. The few people to keep a level head are the survivors of the original two thousand strong expedition, the lucky three hundred. The commander, in order to lift the spirits of the colonists to a reasonable level and to also protect the colony, has the three hundred survivors assembled into a fighting unit, mostly to protect the colony but also to act as a sort of colonial police. The 1st Infantry Division - The Lucky 300 is assembled together and equipped with an assault rifle for every member. A makeshift infantry patch is created and is sewn onto the uniform of every soldier.



DM Note : Took me an hour and a half to make that thing. God I am bad at art.

The troops are fairly experienced thanks to their fights against the alien menace. Not on the same level as trained soldiers from Earth, but better than just giving a conscript a rifle and putting them towards the enemy. Near the end of the month, the tiny division, one tenth as an Earth division, is ready. The commander sits back in his seat when the sensors on the ship start going crazy, both the geological and motion sensors.

Continued in emergency section.

[4]With the return of the troops who have now been organized into an infantry division, the colonists are ordered to establish defensive positions near the colony ship in the event of another attack. However, the general panicked state of the colonists has seriously crippled the progress with base defense in addition to the lack of suitable fortification materials. The colonists do manage to dig out a number of trenches in the dead zones of the colony ship's defense lasers. These trenches are excavated straight out of the ground, with the dirt put into sandbags layered at the top of the trench to create a decent defense position. Back up communication cables are laid to the colony ship, as well as electric cables to power lighting.

A young woman, Kayla Morrison, the commander of the Lucky 300, sits in one of the trenches along the troops. It's night time and the electric lighting of the trench is keeping the trench at a comfortable, if a bit dark, lighting level. She sits down at an electric kettle, next to a few soldiers who are playing a card game. One of the troops, a young man, leans back against the earth wall of the trench and starts talking. "Bloody hell, what did we do to end up sitting in trenches." Kayla turns to the young trooper. He can't be much older than twenty years old and Kayla herself isn't older than thirty. "It's not our fault, those alien ♥♥♥♥ attacked us. You saw for yourself what those *things* can do, so we're on guard duty. Better than going off on another of the commander's scouting ops either way." "I hear that. Y'know, I always thought we'd end up on a nice planet with big trees, grass and all that. Instead, all we've got is...this." He sets his cards down in the dirt and scoops up a handful of soil. "I mean, just look out there, it just goes on for miles and miles." One of his colleagues playing cards grabs the kettle and starts pouring drinks for the group. "You want one too, boss?" "Sure, we're gonna be here till the next shift takes over. That's a good...eight hours or so."

The man grabs a cup and pours Kayla a drink. Keeping coffee warm out here is hard, so new drinks have to be made regularly. Old electric kettles do the job admirably. Even though the coffee on the colony ship has been processed to hell and back and then stored for several years, it's still coffee and that's better than drinking water day in and day out. As she grabs the cup, she notices the drink shake even when she hasn't touched it. And again. The shake getting stronger and then accompanied by a noise in the distance. "You boys hear that." "Yeah. Hold on, let me take a look." As he climbs to the top of the trench, his name tag is clearly shown. Bob Catchum. He pulls his binoculars up and takes a long look at the horizon. A wave of movement is out there and it's closing in. He dives back down into the trench, grabs his rifle and starts to make ready for a fight. "The ♥♥♥♥ are coming. Lots of them, I'm guessing a thousand, maybe more." Kayla puts her cup aside and heads to the radio to call it in.

EMERGENCY SECTION
The commander receives a top priority radio message, straight to his office. He turns on the speakers and the message comes through. "We've got contact, sir! Looks like a whole army of the bastards. Closing in fast, I'd say we've got ten to fifteen minutes before they are ontop of us." He acknowledges the call and orders her to ready all her troops for battle. Then he turns from the radio and heads to a console near the front of the command centre.

A glass case sits on top of the console. He lifts the case, flicks the cover for the switch and pushes the button. The lights switch to a yellow hue throughout the ship and a loud alarm starts to play over the communications system. In addition, a prerecorded message starts to play over the intercoms on repeat. "Attention all personnel : Code Yellow. All hands brace for hostile contacts. Damage control teams assemble and standby. All combat personnel to your stations. This is not a drill. Yellow Alert."

Throughout the vessel that was beginning to fall to sleep at the night, people quickly start to get dressed and scramble to the armories. Panic takes hold, slowing people down but the entire Lucky 300 manage to power through the panicked colonists and reach the armory, in addition to a number of other colonists. James Ross enters the keypad code to the armory and people pour in. "Alright, folks, you heard the alarm! Grab *everything* and get to the elevator. Those bastards won't stop till they kill every last one of us! I'm heading to the cargo bay with the rest of the ATV crews. Good hunting!"

He sprints down the corridors and down the stairs to the cargo bay, past colonists scrambling to get to designated combat shelters, past people breaking down in the halls and past crates of equipment being moved ready for battle. The cargo bay is packed to the brim with troops using the elevator to disembark. James forms up with his ATV, dives in and gets a gunner as the vehicle is disembarked from the belly of the colony ship.

Elsewhere, soldiers ready themselves for the coming battle. The colony ship's point defense lasers should make quick work of the attacking troops, but the ship has blind spots in it's weapon coverage thanks to the landing gear. The trenches are in those blind spots to cover them and the troops inside the trenches know that. They'll be on their own with ATV support, nothing more.

In Kayla's trench, the troops are ready. She grabs the radio for a quick broadcast before everything goes to hell. "Alright you apes, we're underattack by those insect ♥♥♥♥ from last time. Our orders are clear - we do not let them past our lines. If they get past us, they can get to the colony ship and our loved ones. Every one of us here has fought these things before, every one of us has lost friends or family to them. We all know what they can do, and we all know they can be killed. I won't lie to you, the odds are grim, but trust in yourselves, and in your team mates and we will come out of this alive! The others are counting on us and we can't afford to let them down. Lock and load, here they come!"

The commander flicks the switch next to the one for yellow alert. The lights turn red and the alarm becomes higher in pitch, a loud wail calling all to attention.

"Attention all personnel : Alert Red. Enemy contact imminent. Weapon systems online. Shelters sealing in five minutes. This is not a drill."

The lights on the side of the colony ship are rotated to allow a clear vision of the incoming alien menace. These ones are...different. Bigger and they have an arm covered in spikes with a red dotted black carapaces. Across the trench line, weapons fire opens up and the first row of the alien attackers are felled under a massive burst of gunfire, punching through layers of plate and flesh as if they were not even there. Dozens of alien beasts are felled long before they get close.

Then the colony ship opens fire.

A veritable light show of red laser fire dances across the hard earth, burning so hot for an instant that in some places the soil turns to glass. The flashes of red laser flash boil the alien beasts and the smell of burning flesh soon fills the air as the alien dead start to litter the colony ship's kill zones. And yet, the aliens advance. Bob Catchum grabs a grenade from a crate. "Eat this you ♥♥♥♥ oversized bugs!" He hurls it across the lip of the trench into the alien horde and it detonates, scattering ichor and alien flesh across the now soaked soil. One of the aliens in the lead, before being filled with gunfire, hurls it's arm forward and the spikes on it's surface fly from it's arm like bullets. They streak through the air and one almosts strikes true, instead grazing the side of his head. "Holy ♥♥♥♥ that was close! I'm hit but I'm alright. Commander, you should report that they've got ranged weapons." Hearing no reply, Bob turns to his side.

Kayla's bloody body lies on the floor of the trench, covered in darts, the ground a deep crimson from her blood. "♥♥♥♥!" He dives over to her body, and checks for a pulse. She's still alive, but barely. He grabs the radio. "I need a medic over here, the commander is hurt bad! Requesting support!" "Copy that. ATV group enroute. We've got one of the vehicles with a medical team onboard, don't worry. ETA is twenty seconds."

James switched the gear up one and slammed the accelerator. His ATV group followed his lead. "Alright boys, you know the drill. Rip 'em up and clear space for the medical team."

With his ATV in the lead of the charge, they pull to a stop just behind the trench, guns blazing. The aliens are smashed back, again and again until they back off long enough for the medical team to disembark. They jump into the trench, grab Kayla and take her into the back of the improvised ambulance before returning to the colony ship where she is loaded onboard and taken to the medbay. The spikes have effectively riddled her with nasty holes and it'll require surgery, so she is out of the fight for the time being.

The commander takes a look outwards from the bridge. A thin line of Kyran troops holding back a horde of alien ships from reaching thousands of frozen people, fighting at night with the battle illuminated by lanterns and laser fire. In the future, it'll make an exceptional story to be put into the history books. Then, all of a sudden, a loud bang is heard and the colony ship shakes. A radio transmission comes in.

"Sorry commander, we've blown the cooling assembly to one of the lasers. There are too many of them out there, we're not getting a damn chance to let the weapon cool. We'll have it up and running again in no time, don't worry!"

An hour into the fight, one of the trenches is swarmed by alien troops. But the Kyran soldiers inside persevere, fixing bayonets and engaging in melee combat. While the aliens are much faster and stronger in melee than a human, a good blade works wonders. And if that fails, point blank firing of a weapon will seal the deal.

Elsewhere, Bob Catchum too has to fix a bayonet to the end of his rifle. While the aliens taking loss after loss, they get a centimeter closer to the trench with each one of their dead, as the others will use the corpses of the fallen as cover as they advance forward. The trench had ran out of grenades an hour ago and that damn James said he'd have fresh supplies delivered by ATV twenty minutes ago, but every time they pull up to dump supplies the aliens bombard the area with spikes so they can't get the supplies offloaded safely.

The aliens make a bull rush for his trench and he yells down the line. "Don't worry boys, the cavalry is coming! We just need to hold em off for a minute, tops!" The aliens start falling into the trench like rain, and soon enough Bob is fighting one of them in melee. A large, red warrior with black stripes and what must be scars on it's surface from fighting. Fortunately, it must've used it's spikes earlier, giving him one less thing to worry about. It was fast, and it's scythe like blades deadly. Bob dove backwards, grabbing his side arm and landed just behind where the card table once sat. With several taps of the trigger, the knees and hands of the alien were severed. He came up to it's shattered body and lifted the gun to it's face. "Goodnight."

The force of the bullet at point blank range completely annihilated it's head, green and purple flesh splattering up the wall of the trench. He turned round, the ATVs had arrived and forced them back from the trench, along with a batch of reserves from one of the less active trenches. However, a large number of his men, men that only a few hours ago he'd been playing cards with and drinking together, were dead. The young soldier from earlier that Kayla had a chat with was dead. His head had been cleaved in half down to his chin and decapitated.

After several hours of vicious, non-stop fighting either at range or melee, the Kyran troops emerge victorious. The sun rises on a new day and the alien forces are obliterated when the troops push forward. The ground is littered with bullet casings, shrapnel from explosives and the dead or dying. Human determination (and firepower) won the day, with hundreds, nay, thousands, of alien bodies scattered throughout the area. Many are unrecognisable thanks to the laser fire from the colony ship flash boiling flesh. During the morning, the ship condition is lowered back to yellow as the troops sweep the area, finishing off any aliens still left. By the afternoon, condition is once again at green with the area confirmed clear of alien hostiles.

DM NOTE : Have I done these right? It's been so long I've lost track of where I was with these stats. I've tweaked the obvious things like population and the like but the rest. Original stats are below for your comparison. Tell me if I've done it wrong and I'll fix it.

Colony Statistics
Population & Consumable Resources
5300 colonists.
Housing : 5000 people are currently homeless
Food : 13,000 - 5300 = 8000
Water : 36,000 - 14000 = 25,400.
Consumer goods : 5000 units of consumer goods. Consumption paused.
Industrial Resources
85 multirole industrial machines.
Power generation : 100 units of unused power per turn.
996 - 2 = 994 units of heavy metals.
Military Assets
Enough equipment to equip a hundred soldiers.
970 units of ammunition.
100 A+ rated harsh environment suits.
Research and Production

Colony Stats :
5000 colonists.
Housing : 5000 people are currently homeless.
Food : Colonists are eating the food from the colony ship. 20,000 - 7000 = 13,000.
Water : Colonists are using the water from the colony ship. 50,000 - 14000 = 36000.
Power : 100 units, none consumed. Two units of heavy metals have been depleted.
Production :


Minds of the World Combined - Unwoundpath
[9]
[8]
[7]

Colony Stats :
3000 colonists.
Housing : 3000 people are currently homeless.
Food : Colonists are eating the food from the colony ship. 20,000 - 3000 = 17,000.
Water : Colonists are using the water from the colony ship. 50,000 - 6000 = 44000.
Power : 100 units, none consumed. Two units of heavy metals have been depleted.
Resources : 1000 units of metal.
Production :
Morale : 75% : Good.
Base morale : 50%
Morale modifiers :
A new world, with plenty of new things to study! + 10%
Native life?!? + 10%
Can we go for a swim? + 5%

the world according to Cherno.png

Right, Tomaster is done, Halo is almost done. Just figured I'd post in the thread so people knew.

May we all cry a collective tear of mourning.