Space Empires. On the outskirts of the Ancient Empire (part 2 of 2)

The Olds of the Crisis (blue): Alex Isabelle
The Lattemiele Empire (yellow): Laura Beltrami
The Communists of the Prophecy (red): Andrea Benassi
The Iron Giants (green): Carlo Alberto Magnani

The first part of the game ended with a stalemate between the Olds and the Lattemiele Empire, marked by the tactical retreat of the latter's military vanguard inside the Nebula F-16. While the Intrigons of the Lattemiele Empire also dedicated to some bizarre expansion projects, which would become clearer in a few years, the Olds finished colonizing the planets of their native system, starting to gear up, for the third time, for a deep space exploration.

In the other half of the galaxy things were different. The Communists of the Prophecy had already finished exploring and dominating their system, and were therefore starting to think big. The Iron Giants were following them, undecided about what to do. Like the Olds, they had explored the first deep space, to then mobilize their fleet in other sectors and devote themselves to some matters of internal politics.

Note the void left in deep space
from the activity of the Machine of Judgment.

The fact that the Giants had explored part of space and then moved away from it made the Communists suspicious: what was there in that sector that the Giants had watched from afar, without thinking of approaching it? Having taken a scout and proceeded to launch him into martyrdom for the sake of science, the Communists revealed the truth behind that sector of deep space: it was occupied by a Doomsday Machine!

The huge planet-eating machine, after having destroyed the scout who inadvertently activated it, turned on its sensors, revealing traces of life in other sectors, not far away, of deep space. They were the planets occupied by the remnants of the Ancient Empire. The Machine immediately headed in that direction, proceeding to attack the planet Arrakis, defended by a fierce but unprepared fleet. The latter was destroyed, and with it the entire planet. Not satisfied with this result, the Machine immediately headed two sectors away, where a second planet owned by the Ancient Empire was located: Abydos. The fleet defending the latter turned out to be more equipped than the first: it managed to hit the Machine twice before succumbing. Immediately afterwards, Abydos was also destroyed. A second star sector was reduced to sidereal silence, forever.

The prophecy according to which the Creative Machine would one day come to reclaim the fate of the Ancient Empire, therefore, was once again proving to be correct.

Minefields, asteroid colonies, alien planets, space battles. ALL.
The arrangement of these two planets of the Ancient Empire brought the Machine closer to the new front that divided the Olds and  the Intrigoni. The first had in fact identified some interesting sectors of deep space, closer to the center of the galaxy, from which they had managed to fish out an old alien wreck and some important mineral deposits. The Intrigons, on the other hand, had opened a second trail towards the distant colonies of the Olds, discovering a section dominated by a long chain of asteroids. Here, after some new skirmishes, unexpectedly, the Lattemiele Empire threw out some colonizing ships, which headed towards these asteroid fields, hooking them up and starting the process of transformation into a colony. Here the peculiarity of the Empire of Intrigons was revealed: they were an industrious people, who over the years had developed unprecedented terraforming technologies. Consequently they were able to colonize even asteroids. The Olds immediately equipped themselves by building a new fleet, planning to hit these virgin colonies hidden among the asteroids. It possibly was a race against the Machine: since those asteroids were located in deep space, perhaps the it would have headed in that direction.

At that moment, however, it was too far, even if only slightly, to perceive life on those asteroids. It roamed randomly for a few turns, unable to find other planets of the Ancient Empire, and then started chasing a ship of the Giants, sent to die in order to lure the Machine in the direction of the Communist fleet, which at this point had built up a respectable fleet, and were about to use it to attack the colonies of the Giants. The Doomsday Machine would have served, perhaps, to offer an easy resistance to their advance. There was no impact, though: the fleet maneuvered in such a way to avoid a collision. But the thrill was strong.

The fleet of despair that demolishes colonies.
The planets marked with the yellow dot
are those affected. They were theoretically removed
from the board but he knew how hard it was.

The Iron Giants, plagued by economic problems probably due to the cost of their huge ships, have not been able to put up almost any other resistance. The Communist "Fleet of Despair" broke through, revealing extremely advanced armament, consisting of a dreadnaught, six raiders (ships invisible to radar), several battlecruisers, and other fodder. This socialist fleet targeted the two colonies of Kronos and Castor, the two outermost planets of the empire of the Giants. The construction, in extremis, by the Giants, of a solid fleet that could face this threat was useless: with the opening of the last year of the game, the Communists spent an unthinkable amount of points to be able to act first, after which they beat the giant fleet on time and aimed the reactors towards the planet Eccles, whose colony was immediately demolished.

Since we were playing with rules for a short game, with the destruction of three enemy colonies the Communists demonstrated to the galaxy all the superiority of their war machine: the Giants were dominated and so were the Intrigons, enclosed in a quite disorganized empire, and the Olds, demolished by a crisis determined not so much by bad luck as by the continuous, however ineffective, raids of the Lattemiele Empire. The Ancient Empire has been watching, but judging by how it fared against the Doomsday Machine it is not to be thought that it had the means to counter the reds, who at this point revealed their true identity, discovering the cards (I mean materially: at this point the card with the imperial advantage of this people were discovered).

Socialism as taught in Hammamet.

And what comes out? That these "space Communists" were nothing more than a people of merchants, generating double the wealth than others from their internal trade! And this notorious president of the Soviet was, therefore, nothing more than a hyper-liberal ruler basking in his gold-lacquered rooms!

With this final observation that, in the game of thrones, whoever puts it in the ass of others is always and in any case the one who prints the most paper money, the game is therefore over. Long live the "Communists" of Prophecy, the Doomsday Machine, and all the empires that, even if plagued, have come out of it. There will be opportunities for revenge.

Do you want to read other stories? Click here for the full list.





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