The Sun - High signal activity, consistent with E class civilization.
Tau Ceti (bottom of starmap) - Weak signals, consistent with a Ca class civilization
Alpha Centauri (Top left of the Sun) - Extremely strong signals consistent with
Epsilon Eridani (Right of T Ceti) - Weak radio signals, anomalous infra-red signature
Barnard's Star (Top right of the Sun) - Moderate radio consistent with a D class civilization
Procyon - No radio signals, occasional flare activity from Procyon B
Sirius - A single, repetitive signal with weak intensity, magnitude similar to a Ca class civ.
((Note that italicized words in your character sheets can be hovered over for additional info))
Alexandreus would focus the flow of mana around him to fly to Tau Ceti.
Off to Tau Ceti!
*Funky warp sounds*
Well, Tau-Ceti IV is the only temperate world in the system, and it is a mini-neptune with a dense atmosphere and a global ocean underneath a very thick blanket of gas. You do wonder where the signals first came from, as you don't seem to be receiving them anymore. There are two desert worlds and one hadean world, all three lifeless and within Tau Ceti IV's orbit. Additionally, there is one Neptune-sized ice giant just outside Tau Ceti IV's orbit with a single moon. Said moon sports cryovolcanoes, so Dust might be found.
You have a number of ways to travel inside the solar system (no interstellar gas means no easy travel). You can:
>Consume Mana itself as propellant. Costs a Mana potion to leave a planet and a Mana potion to land, as well as time to collect solar energy.
>Slingshot yourself into the system and use a planet's atmosphere to brake. (only works on planets with atmospheres).
Once on the planet you don't need to consume a Mana potion to enter orbit, as you can use the air for efficient propulsion. Aerobraking lets you skip another Mana potion, so travelling between planets with atmospheres requires only time.
>Find some other propellant (like water vapor) and use that. Costs no Mana, but still requires time to collect energy. Gaseous propellants work best, non-gaseous require a roll if you're in action, for example running away from enemies. Solid propellants incur a -1.
>Find a fuel (like Uranium) and a propellant. Costs no Mana whatsoever.
Your Inventory:Chromatic Staff (
Unique spells that are multicast cost 25% less affinity that turn.)
Lesser Mana Potion (x19) (Consume to negate 1 point of negative affinity in a stat for one turn)
Greater Mana Potion (x4) (Consume to negate 10 points of negative affinity in a stat for one turn)
Antimatter Catalyst (x5)
Conditions:
Perfectly Healthy
Stats:
---Basic---
Creation: 1
Reduction: 1
Alteration: 1
Redirection: 1
---Advanced---
---Misc---
As he winds down from a day of hard work, he wonders. How long has it been since he home. It wasn't really home any longer, not after all the time that had passed. Everything would be different. But no matter how long he was gone, there was always a longing to return.
Let's go to earth and see how things are going in France.
You make your way to Sol. And things have changed a lot, it seems. Humanity has finally achieved interplanetary transit, but it seems to have squandered its vast industrial potential. You see no colonized Mars or anything like that, judging from radio. There is a colonized Moon, however, and you can pick up traces of radio communications from the outer planets. Probably asteroid mining. Still, the solar system seems just as empty and mysterious it had always been to you since you first took to wandering the shores of Titan.
You'll have to move closer to peek at Earth's continents. If you do so you might run the risk of detection. It may be a better idea to investigate the radio signals from the outer system and see if you can hitch a ride on one of the asteroid mining vessels so that a flying witch doctor doesn't catch the news.
You have a number of ways to travel inside the solar system (no interstellar gas means no easy travel). You can:
>Consume Mana itself as propellant. Costs a Mana potion to leave a planet and a Mana potion to land, as well as time to collect solar energy.
>Slingshot yourself into the system and use a planet's atmosphere to brake. (only works on planets with atmospheres).
Once on the planet you don't need to consume a Mana potion to enter orbit, as you can use the air for efficient propulsion. Aerobraking lets you skip another Mana potion, so travelling between planets with atmospheres requires only time.
>Find some other propellant (like water vapor) and use that. Costs no Mana, but still requires time to collect energy. Gaseous propellants work best, non-gaseous require a roll if you're in action, for example running away from enemies. Solid propellants incur a -1.
>Find a fuel (like Uranium) and a propellant. Costs no Mana whatsoever.
Your Inventory:Travel Kit (
A bunch of items that you can channel through. The glasses grant you DiseaseVision)
Lesser Mana Potion (x25) (Consume to negate 1 point of negative affinity in a stat for one turn)
Greater Mana Potion (x3) (Consume to negate 10 points of negative affinity in a stat for one turn)
Seeking Dust (x5)
Conditions:
Perfectly Healthy
Stats:
---Basic---
Creation: 0
Reduction: 1
Alteration: 1
Redirection: 1
---Advanced---
Deconstruction: 1
---Misc---
Medical: 1
No action detected for Urist... since this is causally disconnected from the rest of the game, I will auto here.
Your Inventory:Pressure Suit (
A suit decorated with a silk shawl, made of many metals.)
Lesser Mana Potion (x23) (Consume to negate 1 point of negative affinity in a stat for one turn)
Greater Mana Potion (x3) (Consume to negate 10 points of negative affinity in a stat for one turn)
Morphic Dust (x5)
Conditions:
Perfectly Healthy
Stats:
---Basic---
Creation: 1
Reduction: 0
Alteration: 1
Redirection: 1
---Advanced---
Transformation: 1
Augmentation: 1
---Misc---
before I return I want to establish a support structure for myself. I head to a young system with no civilization-radio-traffic that hopefully isn't too far from Sol.
once there I work on establishing an orbital network of nodes that will collect energy and mana for me, to be sent to me when I call for it with the correct signal.
((I intend to do this 3x, and will have them pool their collections at a in-system location later on, so that I can access it as needed without the light-speed delay.))
Proxima Centauri is technically part of the Alpha Centauri system, but with an orbital period of over 500,000 years it's far enough away that the civ at Alpha Centauri probably won't notice you. You do get close enough to make a few observations though--Alpha Centauri is devoid of planets, while Beta Centauri has a single rocky world in close orbit. You deduce that the signals come from the rocky world, as the signals disappear when the planet passes behind Beta Centauri.
Proxima Centauri on the other hand is much more rich. It has two small Mars-sized carbon planets, both with thick carbon dioxide atmospheres and seas of tar, in addition to high surface temperatures. Additionally, there is a thick debris disk outside the orbits of the two planets, kept from coalescing by gravitational perturbations from the two inner planets. The disk may contain Mana buried inside icy asteroids, but is unlikely to contain much Dust outside the cores of asteroids. These asteroids are far from their relatively dim sun, and so solar energy isn't plentiful out here.
You have a number of ways to travel inside the solar system (no interstellar gas means no easy travel). You can:
>Consume Mana itself as propellant. Costs a Mana potion to leave a planet and a Mana potion to land, as well as time to collect solar energy.
>Slingshot yourself into the system and use a planet's atmosphere to brake. (only works on planets with atmospheres).
Once on the planet you don't need to consume a Mana potion to enter orbit, as you can use the air for efficient propulsion. Aerobraking lets you skip another Mana potion, so travelling between planets with atmospheres requires only time.
>Find some other propellant (like water vapor) and use that. Costs no Mana, but still requires time to collect energy. Gaseous propellants work best, non-gaseous require a roll if you're in action, for example running away from enemies. Solid propellants incur a -1.
>Find a fuel (like Uranium) and a propellant. Costs no Mana whatsoever.
Your Inventory:Dimensional Cape (Contains a non-Euclidean pocket. Does not negate the mass of whatever you are carrying, though.)
Dragon Chains (x5, highly durable self-levitating chains with a dragon's head as the final link)
Oblivion Blade (A programmable shapeshifting weapon made of memorymetal. Morphs based on how it's swung.)
Meta Potion (x10) (A pressurized rod of metastable helium stabilized inside a Critical Resonance Matrix.
Handle with care.)
Lesser Mana Potion (x13) (Consume to negate 1 point of negative affinity in a stat for one turn)
Greater Mana Potion (x3) (Consume to negate 10 points of negative affinity in a stat for one turn)
Barrier Dust (x5)
Conditions:
Perfectly Healthy
Stats:
---Basic---
Creation: 1
Reduction: 0
Alteration: 0
Redirection: 3
---Advanced---
---Misc---
Propel myself towards Sirius.
You are rather close to Sirius, so it does not take you long to get there. As you travel, you take a cursory look at the system and whatever measurements you can make. Sirius A is a white-hot subgiant with a high luminosity for its mass, and so it will probably start swelling soon, on an astrophysical timescale of course. You could take a trip across the galaxy and it might still be burning, however, so that's nothing to bank on should the destruction of a star system ever be of concern to you.
Sirius B is a white dwarf about a third the mass of your home star. It probably destabilized whatever planets existed before its red giant phase when it died, although it was sure to be a spectacular show. The star is about 13 AU from its parent, so it was unlikely it would have allowed any planets to form in the first place.
Nonetheless, there is a signal. You're sure it's not from the stars themselves, unless this is some as-of-yet undiscovered phenomenon. The periodic nature of the signal could be due to rotation, so perhaps a body spinning once every twenty-four hours.
*Funky warp sounds*
As you get closer you start to resolve the location of the signal. It appears about 19 AU out from the barycenter of the binary pair, so definitely not a planetary orbit. Planets couldn't exist that close without being destabilized. You detect no bright infra-red sources or radial velocity variations around either of the host stars, so any planets in the system would have to be very cold and very far away, effectively ruling out the possibility that this signal was sent by a traditional civ.
The radio message continues to repeat once every twenty-four hours. It lasts only a couple of minutes, consisting of several short bursts with varying durations between bursts.
The actual space around Sirius is heavily devoid of stuff. There may be a stray comet here and there, but Sirius B did a good job of clearing the neighborhood of asteroids and planets. You spot some "planetary gore" in Sirius B's atmosphere--spectral lines of elements abundant on silicate worlds.
You have a number of ways to travel inside the solar system (no interstellar gas means no easy travel). You can:
>Consume Mana itself as propellant. Costs a Mana potion to leave a planet and a Mana potion to land, as well as time to collect solar energy.
>Slingshot yourself into the system and use a planet's atmosphere to brake. (only works on planets with atmospheres).
Once on the planet you don't need to consume a Mana potion to enter orbit, as you can use the air for efficient propulsion. Aerobraking lets you skip another Mana potion, so travelling between planets with atmospheres requires only time.
>Find some other propellant (like water vapor) and use that. Costs no Mana, but still requires time to collect energy. Gaseous propellants work best, non-gaseous require a roll if you're in action, for example running away from enemies. Solid propellants incur a -1.
>Find a fuel (like Uranium) and a propellant. Costs no Mana whatsoever.
Your Inventory:Masks (
A set of masks used to express yourself. You can modify sound waves and visual stimulus coming through.)
Lesser Mana Potion (x27) (Consume to negate 1 point of negative affinity in a stat for one turn)
Greater Mana Potion (x3) (Consume to negate 10 points of negative affinity in a stat for one turn)
Antimatter Catalyst (x10)
Conditions:
Perfectly Healthy
Stats:
---Basic---
Creation: 2
Reduction: 0
Alteration: 0
Redirection: 0
---Advanced---
Animation: 1
Construction: 2
Destruction: 1
---Misc---
Author
Topic: Roll to be a Celestial Space Wizard - Turn 30, page 23 (Read 34091 times)