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Author Topic: You are a Wandering Alien (Spiritual successor to 'You are an Ancient Alien')  (Read 1962 times)

Zanzetkuken The Great

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Anyone remember this game?  Since it ran into a hiatus that turned into a full death, I'm going to run a spiritual succession of it, roughly a few dozen years after the Ataqalaas left the galaxy.

Edit: If Deny (creator of the first game) wishes me to close this thread, then I will.



Through various intergalactic treaties and cultural experience, it is determined that the gifting of technology is a forbidden action by any races.  Trade of technology is allowed, but the act of just giving a piece of technology to a less advanced race is a capital offense.  Granted, this mainly applied to the time before the war of the Ataqalaas and their Enemy, falling apart utterly after they had left and the Kalkara's began their domination of the galaxy.  Soon, the situation became that if you were not subservient to the wishes of the Kalkara, then you were destroyed, evidenced by the devastation inflicted upon Earth and the obliteration of the races of the Eerewe system, both of which had proved to be the only races who had defeated them at some point before.  In fact, based upon how efficient the obliteration of the Eerewean races was, it was thought that all races that defied the Kalkarans were obliterated.

In spite of popular belief, your race did survive.  They had become wanderers, perpetually running in the stars, fearing that the Kalkara would put an end to your race utterly.  That is, until they discovered something.  A single Ataqalaa research ship of the same class that the Ataqalaas had used to construct the Eerewean and other genetically engineered races that existed among the stars before the Kalkaran purge.  After some fairly crude interfacing with the advanced technology, the ship was able to be piloted by your kind.  Some were able to extract a single system in the ship's star map that did not belong to the Kalkara, and set a course to it, hoping that there, they could construct something to beat the Kalkara back.

Prompt(s):
What are the wanderers (ie. what do they look like, what is their old name before being called the wanderers, etc.)?
What is the system the wanderers arrive in like (asteroids, number of planets, the geography of the planets (not the inhabitants, though), number of stars, etc.)?
« Last Edit: April 14, 2014, 10:59:46 am by Zanzetkuken The Great »
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escaped lurker

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Re: You are one of the Wandering Aliens
« Reply #1 on: April 13, 2014, 02:00:40 am »

The Wanderers
Their Old Name: Z'hlal
Appearance: A dark purplish, hemicyclical body, sporting no feet and three arms, the later being three-jointed and bearing 4 fingers each. They move by contracting the abdominal muscles which rest upon the ground. The central major eye is about four times the size of the 16 others, which form a crossed shape with the major eye in the middle of it.

The System
Composition: A binary star system, with 5 Planets.

The two stars are of about equal size, and orbit each other in the middle of the system. They chiefly emit light in a green hue.
The first planet - placed at ~50 Lightseconds away from the suns - is void of any atmosphere, and high in temperature. It has no moons.
The second planet - placed at ~320 Lightseconds away - is orbited by 3 moons. It has only a very slight atmosphere, and the side currently opposite to the suns is frozen over.
The third planet - placed at ~430 Lightseconds - has an atmosphere. It is mostly covered in water, with ice at the poles. It is orbited by 7 Moons.
The fourth planet - placed at ~500 Lightseconds - is covered in a very cloudy atmosphere, which shields the ground of much radiation - light included.
The fifth planet - placed at ~870 Lightseconds - is a gas giant. It has 14 moons, the biggest of them double the size of the first planet and having an orbiter of its own.


Know when you got the picture in your head, but it is difficult to bring it into words? I tried with my version of the wanderers, but let's see how they come across to others.  :P

Else, I tried to stay within the possibility of physics with the system. Which is actually some work. Still might be wrong though. Either way, I hope that is what you had in mind, Zan ;3
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Deny

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Re: You are one of the Wandering Aliens
« Reply #2 on: April 13, 2014, 06:46:11 am »

(This looks interesting)
The Wanderers
Their Old Name: Z'hlal
Appearance: A dark purplish, hemicyclical body, sporting no feet and three arms, the later being three-jointed and bearing 4 fingers each. They move by contracting the abdominal muscles which rest upon the ground. The central major eye is about four times the size of the 16 others, which form a crossed shape with the major eye in the middle of it.

The System
Composition: A binary star system, with 5 Planets.

The two stars are of about equal size, and orbit each other in the middle of the system. They chiefly emit light in a green hue.
The first planet - placed at ~50 Lightseconds away from the suns - is void of any atmosphere, and high in temperature. It has no moons.
The second planet - placed at ~320 Lightseconds away - is orbited by 3 moons. It has only a very slight atmosphere, and the side currently opposite to the suns is frozen over.
The third planet - placed at ~430 Lightseconds - has an atmosphere. It is mostly covered in water, with ice at the poles. It is orbited by 7 Moons.
The fourth planet - placed at ~500 Lightseconds - is covered in a very cloudy atmosphere, which shields the ground of much radiation - light included.
The fifth planet - placed at ~870 Lightseconds - is a gas giant. It has 14 moons, the biggest of them double the size of the first planet and having an orbiter of its own.
+1
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Urist Mc Dwarf

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Re: You are one of the Wandering Aliens
« Reply #3 on: April 13, 2014, 08:20:29 am »

Wanderers

Old Name- Shak'a Zul'a Kan'a
Appearnece- Deep green and red roughly spherical body. 4 arms and three legs. 2 of the arms are rather stubby and end in clawed pinchers. The other two are long and flexible with six fingers. The legs are short and sturdy. There are four eyes. 2 are on the fron and the other two are on the back. Each eyed can see ultraviolet and infrared as well as visible light.

System: Not really sure. Above system, but with lots of meteors and astroids?

Zanzetkuken The Great

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Re: You are one of the Wandering Aliens
« Reply #4 on: April 13, 2014, 03:10:52 pm »

Spoiler: The Wanderers (click to show/hide)

Okay then, this looks good.

The System
Composition: A binary star system, with 5 Planets.

The two stars are of about equal size, and orbit each other in the middle of the system. They chiefly emit light in a green hue.
The first planet - placed at ~50 Lightseconds away from the suns - is void of any atmosphere, and high in temperature. It has no moons.
The second planet - placed at ~320 Lightseconds away - is orbited by 3 moons. It has only a very slight atmosphere, and the side currently opposite to the suns is frozen over.
The third planet - placed at ~430 Lightseconds - has an atmosphere. It is mostly covered in water, with ice at the poles. It is orbited by 7 Moons.
The fourth planet - placed at ~500 Lightseconds - is covered in a very cloudy atmosphere, which shields the ground of much radiation - light included.
The fifth planet - placed at ~870 Lightseconds - is a gas giant. It has 14 moons, the biggest of them double the size of the first planet and having an orbiter of its own.

Would you mind if I mess with this?  I want to modify two portions: there are no truly green stars, so I'll shift the two stars to yellow-red part of the spectrum, and I want to add a few asteroids to the system.
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escaped lurker

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Re: You are one of the Wandering Aliens
« Reply #5 on: April 13, 2014, 03:34:54 pm »

Well, for the human eye there are no green stars. Our sun is sending out a lot of green light but since that is in the middle of the spectrum - that we percieve - and thus also sends out a wide range of other hues, which confuses our eyes, we see it as white.

So... I actually do like the idea of green suns. Especially because we don't need to limit ourselves to the human spectrum if we are playing aliens. Bu~t. Do as you wish. ;§


As for the asteroids - I thought it was pretty obvious that those should be around. That and dwarf-planets. So~ sure, add them. And since we are already at it, how about the system not only having an asteroid-belt, but also a dust / gas belt? Though I am unsure if that really would be physicaly viable at this stage of the system...
« Last Edit: April 13, 2014, 03:38:22 pm by escaped lurker »
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Worldmaster27

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Re: You are one of the Wandering Aliens
« Reply #6 on: April 13, 2014, 03:44:47 pm »

This sounds fun, PTW.
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Zanzetkuken The Great

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Re: You are one of the Wandering Aliens
« Reply #7 on: April 13, 2014, 03:52:09 pm »

Well, for the human eye there are no green stars. Our sun is sending out a lot of green light but since that is in the middle of the spectrum - that we percieve - and thus also sends out a wide range of other hues, which confuses our eyes, we see it as white.

So... I actually do like the idea of green suns. Especially because we don't need to limit ourselves to the human spectrum if we are playing aliens. Bu~t. Do as you wish. ;§

Eh, true.  I'm going to get to work on making the star map I'm going to post at the top of the turn.
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Zanzetkuken The Great

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Re: You are one of the Wandering Aliens
« Reply #8 on: April 13, 2014, 08:28:09 pm »

You awaken from your slumber in one of the repurposed areas of the Ataqalaan Research Ship, the Ilgraif, and head towards the bridge of the ship, passing a quite a few of your kind on the way.  It is good that this ship was found, not only because of its ability to be used in the creation of a race to fight the Kalkarans, but also so that another bout of culling of excess population was avoided.  There is only so much space on your ships, requiring occasional culls to remove the population, selected from the most prevalent traits to keep genetic variation as high as it could be.  Though, you muse, the genetic manipulation technology on this research vessel could be used to artificially return some of the genetic variation to when Z'hlal first set out from their homeworld, and in the Shak'a Zul'a Kan'a when they joined the fleet when the Z'hlal wound up passing through their system before it was destroyed by the Kalkarans, which is when the title Z'hlal stopped being used, being supplanted with 'Wanderers' for a neutral descriptor for the two races.

You arrive at the bridge, and go to your position as the ship decelerates out of hyperspace near, to the elation of you and your fellow Wanderers, a Ataqalaan installation.  A short while after the research ship docks, the seventy ships of the wanderers, which composed the entirety of the fleet before the Ilgraif was discovered, arrived.  Fifteen of these ships proceeded to be put either into the other docking stations of the installation or connected to the docked ships, none being linked to the Ilgraif, for the foreseeable future to serve as additional modules to the installation.

The installation itself housed many samples, recently gathered, possibly in preparation for the Ilgraif's arrival, of the most 'unique' life forms that lived on the various planets in the system.  Among these were imposing, two headed wolves with heavy fur and a giant beings adapted to burrowing through ice in a manner similar to worms through dirt, though able to break its worm shaped carapace open to reveal a quadrupedal creature for above ground movement from the second planet, feather winged serpents and psionic fish of the third planet, and six eyed spade-headed humanoid insects that possessed a minor hive mind that allowed minor individuality of its components while still keeping them mostly subservient to their queens and, amazingly, creatures that had similar body structure to the Ataqallaa, though sexually dimorphic and coated in thick dark green and black scales.

A map of the system was discovered on-board as well, with the control of several satellites, oriented in a massive sphere, around the system that allowed an accelerated progression of time to occur within their boundaries to allow the experiment to be sped up.  Worlds increased in size for ease of viewing.



Knowing that the intense competition among the races had led the Humans and Eerewean races to become the most effective in fights against the Kalkara, before they had been inevitably destroyed by the far more resourced empire of the Kalkara, it was decided that there would need to be an inbuilt inclination towards conflict within the created races, there being decided to being at least 3, one for each planet, but more being able to be made than that, but not so far that they would not seek to utilize diplomacy, which had made the battle-hardened races of Eerewe and Sol to being able to unite into the combined front that, with their experience in battle, proved to be the bane of the Kalkara.

Prompt: Genetically engineer one of the races to be used in this game.  Note: the six mentioned are not the only ones, so you can make up a few to use, but describe what else you use and remember that, for the most part (read: unless they are fitting for the world enough), those six mentioned are the most unique.  Also note that you need to keep a list of what you are building your race out of.  Don't forget to give your race, and the team that made the race (which players can join to suggest actions to the race associated with it (Note: once you join a team, you cannot leave it)), names.

One final thing: I would like for there to be a Co-gm, since I have enough games I am running right now that require a great deal of thought put into them, so I would prefer some help with this.  I extend the offer to Deny first, awaiting his response before I make the offer open to all, since this is his universe I am running the game in.

Edit: If you want to know how I got all the rocky planets, I used this tool I found online.  It even allows for the creation of various projections as well as spheres.
« Last Edit: April 13, 2014, 08:47:53 pm by Zanzetkuken The Great »
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Deny

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Re: You are one of the Wandering Aliens
« Reply #9 on: April 14, 2014, 08:56:31 am »

I'd be glad to co-gm this Zanzetkuken
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Zanzetkuken The Great

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I'd be glad to co-gm this Zanzetkuken

Alright then, that's taken care of.  Now for a few races to be made...
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Armok

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I think... we should use *ourselves* as a base. Found a colony socially subservient to the orbitals, which we genetically experiment on and try to integrate traits form the other races, but that still communicate and have all our technology and so on. Later, races based entirely of the found animals could be integrated and subservient form the beginning, forming a single multi-species civilization.
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Zanzetkuken The Great

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...Anyone else going to provide something besides just sending down a colony of our own race?
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escaped lurker

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Re: You are a Wandering Alien ( Confused Players Edition )
« Reply #13 on: April 22, 2014, 12:25:22 pm »

Actually, an example of how this ought to work might be a good idea. I admit to being unsure about what we can do and what not, or what our possibilities are. The Changes we propose - are they to be only physical, or psycological as well? Even maybe habitatiual, social or rather - pretty much everything? How much of the "basic structure" of the race we choose is to be determined by us?

Either way, I think below should be within reasons. If it is still lacking, it will be prone to editing though. ;3



Creature: Psionic Fish of the Third Planet
Name: Chitrif
Appearance: Living in the Abyssopelagial at around 5000m depth, the Chitrif are used to high pressure. With the only lightsources being of bioluminous origin, their eyes are atrophied, whereas their bodies are see-through. The dorsal fin runs alongside most of their back, with another pair of them used for directional movement and a caudal fin for propellation.


« Last Edit: April 29, 2014, 09:10:26 am by escaped lurker »
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Zanzetkuken The Great

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Actually, an example of how this ought to work might be a good idea. I admit to being unsure about what we can do and what not, or what our possibilities are. The Changes we propose - are they to be only physical, or psycological as well? Even maybe habitatiual, social or rather - pretty much everything? How much of the "basic structure" of the race we choose is to be determined by us?

Initially physical and after the first turn they are active in the game, actions that direct the race and affect their culture become options as well.
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It's Zanzetkuken The Great. He's a goddamn wizard-dragon. He will make it so, and it will forever be.
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<DozebomLolumzalis> you filthy god-damn ninja wizard dragon