Now I am just doing this for the fun of it. I liked star control and star control 2. I was not thrilled by star control 3 it had a lot of issues I didn’t like. That being said I have decided to come up with a possible starting point for star control 4 or Ur-quan masters 2. In either case here goes.

I start the story at the end of star control 2. The Sa-Mantra has been destroyed and the alliance is victorious. However the war is far from over. The Ur-Quan now realize that the alliance is a real threat if it could make more of the precursor ships. Which we do but they are not as good as the original and take large amounts of resources. As a result they turn their full attention to the alliance. The green Ur-Quan demand their thrulls attack full force no holding back. While the grey Ur-Quan wade in with their ships killing anything between them and the rebuilt precursor ship. The Zoq-Fot-Pik are forced to evacuate their home world as now they have become a direct target with both Ur-Quan actively searching for them. They are also far enough away that protecting them and the others in the alliance proves very difficult especially with the loss of access to quasi space.

The Syreen officially support the alliance but request to keep their support a secret. They do not want to lose their people on their new home world or the world itself. Despite setting up a nasty surprise for any Ur-Quan that decide to visit. They know that they could not possibly win a battle against hundreds of dreadnaughts.

The Orz and the Chmmr prove to be the key to keeping the alliance alive. They are the only groups that have the fire power to match the Ur-Quan and beat them. The Supox and Utwig help greatly but simply don’t have the resources and are so far away. That the alliance has difficulty getting to them. Because of the massive Ur-Quan forces in the way.

The Ilwrath are more then eager to go to war with the new alliance. Thanks to the trick the Umgah pulled on them however it’s easy to use that to cause them to attack the wrong targets. Still their battles with the Chmmr and the alliance are brutal.

The Yehat and the Pkunk make peace. However not all Yehat agree with having a Pkunk queen. There are more then a few that disagree but are forced into silence.

The Shofixti returned to their home planet. They requested aid from the alliance and the Yehat. The problem is the surface of the planet was seared clean of almost all life. Only creatures that lived in the deepest tunnels or the deepest oceans survived and then only barely. That was when the big surprise came ships, Shofixti ships dozens of them. The Shofixti high council had grown angry with a group of Shofixti that wanted peace and not war. So they had loaded them onto ships and sent them out into the stars. The Shofixti high council had said they would either learn to fight or die in the depths of space. It turned out they had survived and actually thrived. But when they had seen the Shofixti sun as it seemed to go super nova they grew worried and decided to make the long trip back. It had taken them nearly ten years in hyper space. They agreed to stay and help rebuild.

The green and grey Ur-Quan begin to gather their forces for a massive assault. They have one goal to either destroy our rebuilt precursor ship or capture it. This build up of forces takes nearly twenty years. All the while still fighting one another. They do not know any other way.

The slave shield around earth and several other planets are dropped thanks to the Chmmr. The earth almost covered in one giant city holds nearly ten billion humans there had been close to twelve. Life under the slave shield had been brutal and in some cases short. Earth once freed quickly tries to recover. Thousands of humans are brought to the space station to fill thousands of positions. Over ten thousand are sent to the moon to turn it into a fully working base. The earth government wants to turn Mars into another colony. However the Chmmr suggest modifying Mars so it is better suited to humans. The result is hundreds of asteroids are taken and carefully added to Mars. In less then five years Mars becomes stabilized and at just one tenth less in gravity then earth. It turns into a perfect place for humans. However the Chmmr insist that humans wait another ten years before beginning to settle on Mars. The result of this wait is Mars’s atmosphere becomes a lot like earths. So much so that humans can walk around without the need for space suits. Once that happens humans swarm from earth to Mars by the millions.

In the mean time humans are transferred from earth to the planet Zeeman. There they build another space station actually several to help build ships. Unfortunately most of the precursor equipment on the planet was destroyed by the nukes. The scientists had detonated the charges when the Ur-Quan had sent down it’s troops to recover the technology.

We call these troops the Quans. They are the only things allowed on any Ur-Quan ship. The Ur-Quans created them by combining organic and computer technology. They serve only the Uq-Quan without question or resistance. As far as we know they are little more then complex drones. Drones that kill.

Still a few pieces of the precursor technology are recovered and put to work building the new space station and defenses around the system. While back at Sol mining ships are created as fast as can be to increase harvesting and improve construction of alliance fighting ships. Millions of people from earth grab these positions. Many are tasked with doing jobs they know little about. But all realize that if we don’t work together non of us will survive.

The Ur-Quan fighting groups begin to make their move towards the alliance held planets. The Thrulls have found it tough going trying to fight us. Our rebuilt precursor ship proves more then a match for any of them. The green Ur-Quan ignore the shield covered planet of the Syreen. Heading instead for the Orz held area of space. The alliance rallies it’s forces there and after several vicious battles. The green Ur-Quan come to the conclusion it cannot capture or destroy the rebuilt precursor ship so long as it has a place to get repairs and upgrades. The green Ur-Quan head towards Vux space demanding they turn over their entire fleet to the green Ur-Quan. The Vux have little choice and follow orders.

While this is happening the grey Ur-Quan also move towards alliance space where they first run into the Druuge. The Druuge try to bargain with them only to be brutally attacked. They are forced to fight for their very existence. The Druuge give it their best shot and do a lot of damage but it is no where near enough. To add to their problems the carefully set up slave systems begin to fail. The slaves / workers quickly realize this and turn on the Druuge. The Druuge quickly realize they can’t win this especially since they are now fighting a battle on two fronts. The Druuge flee to their home planet to make a last stand. The grey Ur-Quan follow them and spend nearly three years trying to wipe them out. By the end the Druuge home planet is reduced to ashes. The remaining Druuge turn and flee into deep space. The grey Ur-Quan do not follow they need to settle things with their relatives the green Ur-Quan and the alliance.

Standing between them are the Mycon who are only now recovering from their defeat at the hands of the Syreen. The green Ur-Quan demand the Mycon add their fleet to theirs or suffer the consequences. The Mycon reluctantly agree and join up not realizing that the grey Ur-Quan are headed right for their territory. The grey Ur-Quan move through Mycon territory destroying everything in their path. The Mycon fleet is suddenly caught between the green and grey Ur-Quan. The result is they fight to the death but it is not enough and their fleet is decimated.

The green Ur-Quan demand the Yehat live up to their end of the slave agreement. They refuse and launch an attack against the Ur-Quan. The Vux are sent to deal with them. The Vux run into the combined fleet of Yehat and Pkunk and are pushed back. It is only when the Ur-Quan themselves get involved that the battle begins to change direction.

The green Ur-Quan break off the attack on the Orz held planets and order the fleet to head to Sol. The place where the rebuilt precursor ship is being repaired the fleet moves through Vux space and past Zeeman. The stars energy is strong enough to hide the planet there and the fleet of ships being built there. The green Ur-Quan and their thrulls are met by a large alliance fleet at Raynet including two dozen new precursor like ships. The battle is brutal and the alliance is pushed back again and again. The new precursor ships are in and out of combat almost constantly but being so close to Sol can easily get any repairs it needs. Still the cost is heavy and almost three quarters of the new precursor ships are destroyed.

This slows the advance of the green Ur-Quan fleet. Behind it the grey Ur-Quan fleet enters Vux space. Which by now has few defenders. The grey Ur-Quan decimate Vux space destroying anything in their path including the Vux’s home world. Then the grey Ur-Quan catch up to the green Ur-Quan fleet. The green Ur-Quan led fleet is forced to stop it’s advance and turn on the following grey Ur-Quan. The two massive fleets meet. But it is clear that the green Ur-Quan have the advantage now because of the thrulls. The battle lasts for nearly six months before the grey Ur-Quan are forced to retreat or be utterly destroyed.

The alliance takes this time to rebuild it’s fleets and rearm. Setting up blockades and anything else they can to stop the advance. While at the same time launching attacks on the green Ur-Quan fleet to help reduce it’s numbers in the hopes that this will be enough.

Then suddenly the green Ur-Quan fleet is once again moving forward. At Canopus the alliance launches everything they have at the green Ur-Quan fleet. No prisoners are taken by either side. No quarter is given or taken. The green Ur-Quan order their thrulls to once again launch everything they have at the alliance. The thrulls do as ordered but are quickly cut to pieces. Then the Ur-Quan attack slamming through their own thrulls killing thousands. They slam through the alliance lines and push for Sol. Before they get there they are met by the remaining precursor ships and a second fleet. Hundreds of ships on both sides are destroyed. Two hundred green Ur-Quan dreadnaughts slam through the second fleet only to find themselves face to face with the pilons. Huge stationary weapons platforms which can take down a Ur-Quan dreadnaught with a single shot. These platforms are supported by another hundred alliance ships. One after another of the dreadnaughts is destroyed but still they come. One of them slams into one of the pilons and both are destroyed. A second then a third pilon are destroyed.

That was when the fleet from Zeeman showed up. They slammed into the rear of the green Ur-Quan fleet catching it completely off guard. Destroying over a hundred ships before they could even react. That was when the green Ur-Quan realized they had been tricked and it was all one big trap. They were caught in a crossfire and were going to take incredible losses regardless of what they did. They ordered the thralls to cover their retreat. The thrulls however were being destroyed so fast that they could offer little resistance.

Back in the Sol solar system three Ur-Quan dreadnaughts managed to break through. One of which was destroyed by the space station floating around mars. The last two charged towards earth and unleashed their weapons. One Ur-Quan dreadnaught exploded soon there after as a bunch or Orz assault troops wiped out the crew and left. The last Ur-Quan dreadnaught fired three shots at the space station. The first shot hit the space station but was taken by the shield. The second shot hit the space station but continued on to hit earth. The third missed the station completely and hit the earth. Then the Ur-Quan dreadnaught exploded as one of the alliance’s precursor ships weapons found their mark. The victory was the alliances but the cost was high.

It took another month of fighting to deal with the remaining thralls in the area. The Ilwrath refused to get the hint till they were discovered and blown to bits. The alliance did not celebrate it’s victory instead it pushed forward after the Ur-Quan and the thralls destroying any that were caught. The damage to the space station at earth had damaged the precursor technology beyond repair. Building any more of the new precursor ships was no longer possible. They could only be repaired until that did not work any more.

The Vux were chased back to their space where they found what remained of their civilization. The destruction was all but complete. They surrendered when they found their home world’s surface almost reduced to ash. At this point there were only about three billion Vux left where at one point there had been close to nine hundred billion. They were gathered up and ended up being placed on their home world under a slave shield. But only after their planet had been largely restored.

Then the alliance turned it’s attention to the Ilwrath. They refused to surrender saying to do so would anger their gods. The alliance sent two groups to try and talk with the Ilwrath both were publicly tortured for several days then executed. Even trying to trick them into surrendering didn’t work. Seeing this one general said “if they love their gods so much let them pray to them from the other side of death”. The vote was overwhelmingly in favor or dealing with the Ilwrath once and for all. A very large alliance fleet was sent to deal with the Ilwrath. The orders were simple destroy anything and everything. The alliance wanted to send a message loud and clear. The alliance fleet headed for the Ilwrath home world. They destroyed anything they came across. The Ilwrath claimed that their gods would save them. They were wrong so very wrong. The Ilwrath seeing this launched everything they had left at the alliance. It didn’t matter they were out gunned and out numbered. The alliance then swept through the rest of Ilwrath space destroying anything they found. Ships, mining plants, religious shrines and colonies by the score. Many of the alliance members had lost everything to the Ur-Quan and their thralls and this was payback with interest. By the time the alliance fleet left Ilwrath space there was little left behind. The problem was the alliance was not sure and could never be if any Ilwrath were left.

While that was going on the other alliance fleets kept pushing back the Ur-Quan. They managed to push them back past Aldabaren and Lentilis. Then pushing them out of the sector completely. They then pulled back and set up patrols between the various alliance groups. As for the Mycon their worlds like the Vux had been decimated. They agreed to be slave shielded on the worlds where their deep ones had landed. But only after their small rebuilt fleet was all but destroyed. The Syreen wanted them all dead but were overruled but not by much. That and destroying a planet would be difficult for the alliance to do.

While the alliance was pushing the Ur-Quan out of the sector. The Umgah retreated to their home systems and waited for the alliance. The alliance agreed to meet with them and joked that this was all so funny. They agreed to join the alliance as long as we could provide protection from the Ur-Quan. We said we would think about it. What the Umgah didn’t know was that we broadcast the whole meeting to Ur-Quan space. The green Ur-Quan were not amused as the Umgah had done less then their best to help them. The Ur-Quan decided to pay a visit to the Umgah. No sooner had the alliance left then the Ur-Quan showed up. The ur-Quan decided to give the Umgah a lesson they would never forget. What the green Ur-Quan didn’t realize was that the Umgah had been holding back a lot more then anybody had known. They had considered it a joke on the Ur-Quan. The problem was that the joke was now over and the real fighting had to start.

The Umgah called for assistance but the alliance was in no shape to give it. We could barely hold the line with what we had. It would take decades to recover if not longer the Umgah were on their own. The alliance only had three precursor ships left one of which was barely working. That was when the Umgah let the cat out of the bag so to speak. They had turned several moons into hollow bases for their ships. Millions of them. These they now launched at the green Ur-Quan who as far as we were concerned still had way to many ships and thrulls. In fact they were being reinforced by ships coming from out of the sector. The battles lasted for more then three years. We tried to help as much as possible but the Umgah would attack us as eagerly as the Ur-Quan. So we left them alone. The Umgah lost and the green Ur-Quan slave shielded them before retreating out of the sector. The grey Ur-Quan left in the opposite direction. We hoped never to see either group again.

The Zoq-Fot-Pic returned to their home world to find it almost untouched. The few that had stayed behind were very glad to have the rest back. We removed the slave shield from the Syreen new home world and they joined the celebration. It had been almost thirty six years since the slave shield had been removed from earth. Yet only now were we able to celebrate. With this celebration the captain of the original precursor ship retired with honors. There were only two of the new precursor ships left.

The next thirty eight years saw peace come to the alliance. However there were a few attacks on the borders by the Ur-Quan both types. The Ilwrath continued to be a nuisance. The alliance sending several fleets to deal with them. Then suddenly it all changed. It just happened one day. Hyper space became unstable. Non of our ships could enter it. Everybody in the earth solar system began to panic was this an attack was it the Ur-Quan with a new weapon. Nobody was sure and we were all scared. How long could this last we had no idea. Days turned to weeks which turned into months then years.

None of the scientists had a clue not even the Chmmr ones. This was simply beyond any of them. How could anybody or anything simply stop hyperspace from working. Slowly panic turned to getting prepared. We no longer had access to supplies from outside the solar system. This was a major problem as some elements were simply not available in large amounts here. Ingenuity won the day as we began to find new uses for what we had. Mars had become a sort of melting and meeting spot for all alliance races.

Then suddenly ten years after the loss of hyper space a Chmmr ship showed up. How it got here we had no idea. The Chmmr had found a solution to the problem what they called a Grvelzol drive. Well that was the best translation anyway. It used gravity to move a ship from one solar system to another rather then hyper space. The best explanation we received was that it created a temporary link between any two objects that had a lot of gravity. It then used a lasso to tag onto that link and ride it from point ‘A’ to point ‘B’. The speed was roughly equal to hyperspace but the stresses were totally different. Only a reinforced Chmmr ship could use the drive or the precursor ships. One of the two remaining was now permanently stationed in the Sol solar system. It had been dumb luck that the ship had returned to Sol for repairs just before hyperspace had collapsed. The one problem was that stopping between solar systems was impossible unless you wanted to be stranded there.

The Chmmr had in fact determined where the signal was coming from that was messing up hyperspace. The problem was it was a very long ways away. Roughly ten to twenty years in hyperspace. The only ship that could do the mission was the precursor ship. Without much thought all agreed we had little choice. Without hyperspace we were trapped. The precursor ship was fitted with the new drive which cost us an insane amount of resources. The good news was that the drive was powerful enough that it could bring along an entire fleet of ships. With that crews were selected and ships prepared. The crews were the best of the best. Then suddenly they were gone.

This left behind only one Chmmr ship with the special drive. That ship could only go from one solar system to the next. Going further then that proved difficult. That didn’t even include the time required to reset the drive for the next jump as we called it. The Chmmr ship then headed out to check on the rest of the alliance races and gather resources to build more ships and drives. It vanished and we would not see it again for over five years. We tried to duplicate the drive but it was simply beyond our understanding and we lacked the right equipment. So we began to work on other methods to get from one solar system to the next. But it was clear we couldn’t simply just head out.

Three ships had been dumped out of hyper space not that far from Sol. Yet the closest ship had taken nearly a year to get here. When normally it would have taken less then a day. It was a heavily loaded freighter and the supplies had come in really handy. The other two ships had been a military cruiser and tour cruise liner space ship. The touring cruise liner had been set for a two month trip from Earth to Zeeman and back. Instead they had been forced to endure almost four years on the ship. The people on board had started to get desperate. We could only guess as to what was happening with the thousands of other ships out there. Some stranded between solar systems where it could take them centuries to get to some place they could unload or get supplies. We feared many of those people would simply die after running out of supplies. But there was nothing we could do.

The Chmmr continued to build their new ships with the special drive. But it was incredibly slow going. By the time forty years had passed only about one hundred of the drives and ships had been built. We tried to put one of the drives in a human cruiser. Luckily nobody was on board when we activated the drive as the gravity forces turned it into nothing but scrap metal only the drive survived intact. This caused our scientists and space ship builders to completely rethink the design of the earth cruiser. It was about time to, as the earth cruiser had fared badly against many of our enemies especially the Ilwrath. We had never managed to get a working version of the Ilwrath cloaking device they all destroyed themselves the instant any non Ilwrath came close enough to analyze it.

The good news was that we had access to all the other alliance ships. They like our earth cruisers were trapped here. Could we add shock troops like the Orz or defense drones like the Chmmr we had no idea but it was a good time to try. After all those ships had been put into storage on floating platforms all around the system. There were over fifteen hundred of them. Well that’s what we were told. Most of which were earth cruisers. The pilons surrounding the system were shut down to conserve power and resources when it was clear we didn’t have to worry about any surprise attacks. One decade led to the next with no change. We figured that the fleet we had sent off had failed. So we concentrated on doing what we could.

One of those things was to try a develop our own different faster then light drive systems. A few scientists said that was impossible. The alliance command didn’t make this a request but an order. Those that stood in the way soon found themselves doing other jobs. I think one particular scientist that made a lot of fuss ended up being sent out to mine asteroids.

The reason for the fuss was simple. The hyper driver worked and it worked well. But they didn’t work any longer and nobody could find a way around it. In a nut shell the hyper drive created a field around a space ship. This field once complete allowed the ship to move into hyper space. At first we had thought that someone or something was creating a hyper space gravity wave. Which was one of the weaknesses of hyper space. A second unit that had to be with every hyper space drive was a gravity sensor system. Without this a ship could come out of hyper space just about anywhere. In fact that was how humanity had lost a few ships. They ended up inside asteroids or planets or suns. The gravity sensor system was the only reliable system for avoiding that. But it also had it’s flaws. Once artificial gravity devices had been created, pirates had discovered that by putting a artificial gravity device in the front of their ship and extending the field onto a ship in front of it. That this would cause the hyper drive to get confused and drop out of hyper space. Allowing the pirates to sack the ship. The problem was that up until recently it was almost impossible to determine what that other ship was that was near you. Which is why the pirates had made the mistake of pulling out a military cruiser. Their careers ended shortly there after.

Here was the thing though. The whatever it was that was stopping ships from entering hyper space didn’t even allow the field around a ship to be completed which left the researchers completely confused. Even the Chmmr could not tell us how that was possible.

The result was that many scientists and researchers started from scratch. Some even went and looked at old movies to get ideas. The research was slow, but by the time sixty five years had gone by since we had lost hyper space travel. A whole slew of new types of drives were under development.

Eighty six years after we had lost hyper space travel seven brand new experimental ships with experimental drives were all set to undergo their first real test. It was a simple trip but one that everybody hopped would turn things around for all of us. Even the Chmmr were impressed with the designs. The only question now was would they work. With that the seven ships left Sol space took up position and then vanished off our sensors. The trip was simple Sol to Vela and back again. At Vela they would run a full set of tests on the systems them come back total trip time with three months for the tests six months total. It was not as fast as hyper space but as the Chmmr said “this was a very interesting start”. The possibility of upgrading these new systems and their limits were unknown. They might very well surpass the speed ships could make in hyper space. We were all hoping for the best.

Two months later something odd happened. The alarms on the alliance space stations around earth and mars began to go berserk. The space station commanders thought it was a drill and demanded it be turned off. But the systems refused to obey. That was when the earth commander decided to actually check out what the computer was saying. A quick check and the computer said that several ships had been detected heading towards Sol in hyper space. But that was impossible nobody could go in or out of hyper space. Yet the computer was saying just that. The scanners said the blips whatever they were. Were moving fast and would come out of hyper space in fifteen minutes. The commander groaned and had said he would kill the person responsible for this hoax. Then fifteen minutes later the ships arrived and the commander realized it was no hoax and everybody was in big trouble.

Out of hyper space came twenty five Ilwrath ships. They moved towards the pilons carefully. Nothing happened after all the pilons had been powered down and it would take at least three days to power them up. At that range the scanners on the pilons gave everybody a good look at the Ilwrath ships. There was twenty five of them all armed and ready for combat. When the pilon failed to attack the Ilwrath ships turned their weapons on it. It took them an hour but the pilon was destroyed. They moved to the next and repeated the process and went to a third. Alliance command went into panic mode. They were not prepared for this. Everything except for the ground defense systems had been put into deep sleep mode. The commanders of both space stations quickly began to activate defenses and start the charging of the weapons. The problem was maintenance crews had disconnected many of the systems and suddenly what should have taken less then an hour could take days.

The Ilwrath partially destroyed the third pilon then must have figured that was enough. They then headed to one of the floating storage platforms where a large number of ships were being held. The maintenance crews there could do little to stop the Ilwrath from simply destroying one ship after another. The Ilwrath quickly realized this and the majority left the area and headed towards earth and mars. About eight hours had passed and the space stations were barely functioning. The space stations managed to get their shields up just in time but had no weapons. The Ilwrath attacked but the shields were much to powerful for them to destroy. So they turned on the planets themselves. Five headed for earth’s surface and five headed for mars’s surface.

The people in the space stations could only sit and watch as the Ilwrath not even bothering to cloak decided to do some bombing runs. The Ilwrath bombs were insidious and evil. They came in three parts. The head with a armor piercing shell. It didn’t do a lot of damage just softened up the target for what would come after. The second part was either filled with poison gas or acid to cause more pain and chaos. The third part was the worst. It was a ball of what we called death diggers. These were snake like robots which were designed to enter a living body and slowly kill the person or animal. Once complete it would move onto the next till it ran out of power or was destroyed. As for trying to remove them from a persons body it was almost always fatal as the robot would self destruct. Killing the host and likely anybody nearby.

The Ilwrath however were in for a nasty surprise as the ground defenses kicked into full gear. By the time the Ilwrath realized they were in trouble it was to late for them. Hundreds of rockets and beam weapons shot upwards tearing the Ilwrath ships to pieces. Still they managed to drop dozens of bombs. On earth three of the Ilwrath ships came crashing to the ground killing who knows how many. On mars four of the five Ilwrath ships didn’t make it.

The Ilwrath clearly realizing that was a bad idea turned their attention to the storage platforms near the planets. The commanders had been scrambling every shuttle they could over to the secured ships. Slowly but surly the ships began to come alive. An earth cruiser began to head out and just made it out of it’s holding bay before it was attacked. The crew never had a chance and the ship was destroyed. The captain of an Orz ship realized they would never make it out, the Ilwrath were simply to close. So he launched his entire crew in assault suits. The Ilwrath were not prepared for this and the Orz quickly boarded two Ilwrath ships and wiped out both crews. Another earth cruiser didn’t even bother leaving it’s dock as it fired off a nuke at one of the Ilwrath ships hitting it. A second earth cruiser did the same and a third followed destroying the Ilwrath ship.

The Ilwrath clearly realizing they were now in trouble cloaked themselves. That was when the space station realized it could still see the Ilwrath ships. They looked like ghosts but could be seen. The space station tried to tell the ships this but they still only had the old sensors. They could not see a thing. The space station crew ordered the ships to turn over their weapons control to them. Seconds later twenty five earth ships fired their nuke’s. The Ilwrath were caught completely off guard and most of them were destroyed. The remainder realized they were in trouble and headed for the edge of Sol space. What they didn’t know was that the pilons were now fully active again if only just. The Ilwrath had wasted three days messing around. Five Ilwrath ships headed for the opening where they had destroyed the pilons. What they didn’t realize was that the remaining pilons had moved to seal the gap. They were not there yet but were close enough that two of them opened fire. Two of the Ilwrath ships were simply turned to dust while two others were badly damaged before they went into hyper space.

On earth and mars the cleanup began millions had died both from the bombs and the ships crashing. It would take months if not years to recover completely. It would take nearly two months before the last death digger was found and destroyed. The alliance quickly put together a crew and sent them off to warn Vela of the attack. It was one of the few ships that had not been damaged. In truth there had been over three thousand space ships in storage around Sol. Now only about seven hundred or so remained undamaged.

Three months later the test ships return to Sol. Instead of returning to a hero’s welcome they are greeted by two dozen armed ships and the pilons targeting them. When they are told what happened they are shocked. However the final test of the seven ships is a complete success. Only one of the ships is picked up on the hyper space sensors. That was when I received the letter well summons actually. The alliance had been forced to draft people into the military during the war which technically was still on going. It had just taken an eighty six year long vacation sort of. The Ilwrath had made it perfectly clear that as far as they were concerned the war was not even close to over.
        
Anyway I was summoned to the commanders office on the space station. I had no idea what I was doing there. The receptionist simply waved me in saying he was waiting for me. The room was typical military clean and well organized. The commander said “come forward please, I don’t bite”.

I walked up and stood there in front of his desk. I could see piles of papers on his desk. Even after all these centuries we were still using paper. Especially for certain things. Computers can get hacked, figures and stuff changed but a piece of paper is generally solid. One of the piles on his desk clearly said “in condolence I am sorry to have to tell you that so and so died in the line of duty serving the alliance”. It sent a shiver up and down my spine.

The commander said “congratulations on your promotion captain”.

I replied “thank you sir but I am not sure I deserve it. I mean I am just a shuttle pilot in the private sector”.

The commander replied “you helped fight when the Ilwrath attacked didn’t you?”

I replied “um sort of I just helped get one of the cruisers up and running. They did all the shooting”.

The commander said “that’s fine just the sort of person we need. However to tell you the truth we are short on experienced captains and crew. In fact we lost more then ninety eight percent of them when hyper space came crashing down. Now we are scrambling to put together a decent fleet to fight off the Ilwrath should they come back. But that won’t be your job.

Your job is going to be to do several things. First and foremost your going to be checking in with our allies. We have no idea what has happened to them. According to the Chmmr most of them are alive but like us struggling to recover. We need to rebuild the alliance as fast as possible and the only way to do that is as a unified group.

Your next goal is to harvest minerals and resources any and all kinds. We have been mining the solar system like crazy and it’s becoming more and more difficult to find what we need. Part of your job is to look for our old mining facilities see if anybody is alive and what condition they are in and who’s controlling them. If you can make a deal with them fine but be careful. If things go sideways you have to remember your on your own.

Lastly and probably the grimmest part of your job will be to locate our ships. These are the ones that dropped out of hyper space who knows where. Everything from freighters to battle cruisers. What you will find on board I cannot tell you. Most of these ships were never designed to keep people alive for extended periods without regular maintenance. Do you have any questions?”

I asked “um so which ship will be mine”.

The commander said “you will receive one of the earth cruisers. Yes I know their old and out of date. However it’s going to take at the very least a year to begin construction on the new ships. This also depends on how fast you bring back resources. My one suggestion. If you run into any Ilwrath ships run do not fight. These old ships were never that great at dealing with them in the first place. Now any more questions?”

I simply shook my head. What in the world was I getting into.

The commander then grabbed a piece of paper and handed it to me. He then said “give that to my receptionist and good luck captain”.

I left not knowing what I was getting into.

Suggestions for next star control / Ur-Quan masters

have three shuttles (or one able to be modified to suit.)
A scouting shuttle fast and agile but low armor and shields no weapons.

A combat shuttle for moving troops around and dealing with issues on a planet. This shuttle is not that fast but packs quite a wallop and can take a beating. Ungradable ?

A transport shuttle / mining shuttle. This shuttle is designed for picking up resources and delivering them. Designed to be a work horse and tough as nails but no combat abilities. Picks up drones as well.

Mining drones. These are launched once the ship has scanned a planet or asteroid and the captain has decided what resources to gather. The resources come in three levels. Surface or near the surface. Below the surface to about ten meters deep. The third level is eleven meters and deeper. The deeper a resource is, the longer it will take the drone to get to it. If the planet it hostile the drone could be destroyed long before getting to the resource. Mining drones are made automatically as needed from the resources gathered.

Earth cruiser has limited capacity for resources some of which will be used to fabricate nukes as they are used up. Earth cruiser will have very limited upgrades available.

Once a certain amount of resources are gathered by the player. A month later game time they will be asked what kind of ship they want. This ship will have many possible upgrades. The new ships will have both a hyper drive and one of the new drives.

Hyper space was damaged as a result of what happened. Now there are places where it simply does not work trapping ships in these locations. Only the new drives work in these locations. Enemies and allies will do anything to get yours. Leaving you stranded there.

Plot possibilities

The Mycon thought to have been completely locked down are out and stronger then ever. It is discovered that the only way to truly kill the Mycon is to destroy the planets where the deep children have taken root. A tall order for even the alliance. Has the race that created the Mycon shown up yet. If so what will this race be like? What will they do?

Alternate Mycon discover the Supox and decide to try and merge with a few of them. Their both plant based. What would be the result. The Supox would likely resist this.

The Druuge are gone. In their place is a group of independent planets. Each planet has it’s own laws and such but against the approaching Mycon they are powerless alone. The alliance must convince them to work together and become something more.

The Spathi are back well sort of. The Spathi kicked a bunch of trouble makes out of the shield. They have begun to rebuild the Spathi empire however their a little confused as to how to do that and need help. Will they be allies or enemies is up to the alliance and the player

The Umgah have broken out of their slave shield and recovered one of their stashes of weapons and ships. Their jokes have gone from nasty to just plain vicious or have they. They have turned sour and just want revenge on the universe or have they.

Once hyper space collapsed a bunch of Yehat who don’t like the idea of a Pkunk queen elect their own queen. She declares the Pkunk queen is a false queen and begins to make a fleet of ships designed to retake the Yehat empire. When hyper space returns she launches this fleet at the rest of the Yehat catching them off guard. The Yehat queen declares any who stand against her as rebels. How powerful is her fleet. Will the alliance step in to help the Pkunk queen? How nasty is this civil war?

While the two Yehat / Pkunk queens fleets fight a new force begins to attack from a southern quadrant. Who are they why are they here.

The Ilwrath that attacked, were they part of much larger group or just random. When had they learned that hyper space worked.

The Thraddash confused and unable to understand what was going on began to blame one another. The resulting civil war on each planet reduced most of them to almost nothing. However from the ashes a new leader is born. One that sees things very differently. This leader takes only those willing to follow them and leads them to a hidden planet. Once hyper space is restored. There they begin to build a culture totally different from what was before.

The Utwig and Supox empires collapse but the Supox make the best of it and recover quickly. The Utwig recover after hyper space access returns but are disappointed that they didn’t know that this mess was coming.  

Are the Ur-Quan coming back are they now friend or foe?

The Orz vanished when hyper space crashed leaving only small groups of them behind. What will the remainder do?

The Taalo have returned with a warning that a new evil has arrived. Is it an old evil or new evil. Are the Taalo here to help or simply here to give a warning.

The Ilwrath discover some ancient technology that brings their gods to life. Actually two Ilwrath who have been zapped into a machine and transformed in giant robotic walking flying versions of the gods.

Other suggestions.

3D space map. Nice idea but hard to navigate like the 2D space map from SC2.

3D fighting not a fan it caused more headaches. Will need to be tested thoroughly if put in.

2D fighting: I liked it because it was simple. However it also was not very realistic. Add fighting around asteroid belts. Add different sizes of planets and gravities with and without moons and asteroid belts.

MMO possibility yes. This would allow multiple people to get together and pool resources or do larger space battles. However it could also unbalance things. Also suggest limiting players to human don’t allow them to play other races. Most people can’t and or won’t play a race like it’s designed to. Example Spathi how many people want to play a whimpering race that is easily pushed around. Mycon nobody else can understand you and your not liked much by anybody. Shofixti  they are a rabid race that carries a bomb on their ships and are willing to use it. Would you be willing to sacrifice your ship and all the work you put into it?

Have a living person guide the alien races. But make sure they stay true to the races nature. Basically one person per race.

Example: an Ilwrath group finds a new planet they want to colonize. There’s a group of aliens living there. They ritually sacrifice them all then take over the planet.

Example: the Yehat discover another primitive race and decide to uplift them.

Fleet battles:
the thought is good but fighting fleet versus fleet is generally boring. You basically know how the battle is going to turn out even before it’s fought. That is unless both fleets are exactly identical. At that point it comes down to tactics which also usually determine a battle before it’s even been started. Think location location location. However if a person were allowed to take part in a fleet battle with their single ship it would make it a lot more personal and interesting. A player character would be a lot less interested in fighting if they knew they would and could lose their ship and have to start over. But at the same time a player character might do something totally unexpected. Which could doom or help their side.

An example of this is Space being 3 dimensions means you could easily drift into the enemy and not realize it till you were getting pounded. If you’re a battle cruiser that would be ok. But if you were an escort. Well that could be the end of you.

The thing behind my suggested story is it could be used for people wanting to control battle fleets and individual ships. You start off as a captain of a single cruiser. You gather resources do exploring ( something I loved in SC2) and work on your alliance status. Then you can either go up in the ranks in the alliance become commander or stay as a ships captain and do single missions or join a fleet. If you don’t like following orders you could even leave the military and become independent. The issue with that is the military will give you a lot of support while on your own you won’t get much. You might even have to become a pirate or bounty hunter to get by. Something the military frown on.

A word on resources.

Yes some resources are worth more then others. It’s true. However supply and demand should play a role in the game. If someone finds a planet made of gold and decides to sell it all. At first they might become very rich but they would also flood the market. This could make gold almost worthless. Where as iron could be the opposite. Since it’s such a common mineral nobody goes after it so demand grows till someone realizes it may be worth more then any other element.

One thing I would like to see is the use of all minerals in as many items as possible. You can’t build a ships engine with just radioactive materials or platinum and gold. You need lead and iron and copper and many more. Maybe have the players discover a new formula for armor but it’s missing pieces and they need to experiment to see which elements works together best.
 
Hope you enjoyed my suggestions.

Now I just wanted to add a short story continuation.

Captain of a earth cruiser I had thought it would be different. I thought I would be getting this nice neat clean ship. Instead I ended up with a hundred year old bucket of bolts or was it older I didn’t know. It was one of the many ships that had fought in the war and returned when it had needed repairs. In this case major repairs. I had read that by the end of the war with the Ur-Quan and their thrulls we had been producing over a hundred cruisers a year. Which was a good thing because only one in ten made it back to port. It took five earth cruisers to destroy one Ur-Quan dreadnaught and that was if they got lucky. I was glad I had been born after that.

Anyway it was time for me to try it again. I pressed my chairs recording device. I then said “captains log”. I was still not used to doing this but it had been drilled into me. The recording device answered with a bunch of squaks and static then went dead. I looked down at my chair then looked over at my head engineer.

She cringed and said “sorry captain still a few bugs in the system”.

I groaned. It was yet another item in a long list that seemed to be endless. That was when my communications slash scanning officer said “um captain I think I found something. I think this time it might actually be something”.

I cringed and took a deep breath. So far he had done a terrible job. We were supposed to test the hyper drive by going in and out of hyper space five times. We had already done it three times. Once to actually test the drive. The next two times had been when he had discovered something. The first was a gas cloud that had looked like an Ilwrath ship on his scanner. Talk about causing a panic. We had almost instantly dropped out of hyper space. The next time he had found this amazing asteroid that was supposed to be the size of a sun. this was within minutes of getting back into hyper space. I had just stepped away from command for barely a minute when he yelled for the pilot to drop out of hyper space. The pilot panicked and hit the emergency hyper space drop command. We came out of hyper space so fast it was like hitting a speed bump and I ended up on my butt with the drink all over the place.

I got myself off the floor and headed through the door someone was going to pay for that big time. I barely managed to get into command when the lights went out and gravity vanished. It only lasted for ten seconds before backup power came online. But it was more then enough to scare me. When power came back I landed in a heap on the floor. I got up and demanded to know what had just happened. My scanner officer almost yelled “I found an asteroid the size of a sun heading towards Sol we need to destroy it”.

I looked at him and walked over to him. I adjusted the controls and found out he had the system set at one thousand times magnification. I was about to lay into him when engineering called. It had turned out that their little stunt had stressed the hyper drive to it’s limit. I had looked at the hyper drive and it had seemed like it should have been replaced. The engineers had said it was fine. That was till the engineer I had been assigned took a look at it. He had formally complained but it had landed on deaf ears. Now over the com he sent a message. He said “who the beep did that you beeping morons”. This went on for almost fifteen seconds. At that point I stepped in and also demanded to know what had happened. It didn’t take long to figure out what had happened. It also didn’t take long to realize we were not going anywhere. So I sent my pilot and the scanner officer to go get that asteroid and pray it was enough to repair all the damage. The asteroid ended up fitting inside a small shuttle and was worth virtually nothing. Which resulted in me sending an sos back to command for spare parts.

This resulted in us being stuck in space for more then two weeks as new parts were brought. This had made command mad enough that they sent out one of the second in command people. He took my pilot and my scanner officer and had a four hour long chat with both of them. I think words like execution and dereliction of duty came up. He also had some nasty words for some of the engineers that had given the ship the all clear when she clearly was not. The result had been the complete replacement of our hyper drive systems as well as a few others. This didn’t even include the month we had already spent back in the Sol solar system getting the ship ready in the first place.

Then my engineer had finally given the ok to head out. He was happy and I had spend time in parts of the ship I had never known existed. Then we headed back into hyper space. This time the transition was barely noticeable. What a difference compared to the other trips. Which brings us up to the current situation. Including our mission which was simply to go from the Sol solar system to the Vela solar system. The military called in a milk run whatever that was.

So I said “ok bring it up on the main screen”.

He fumbled with the controls with nothing happening. I got up walked over and hit three spots on his console. The image appeared on the main screen. I then went and sat back down in the captains chair. It turned out you could actually do almost everything from the captains chair. Fact is I had actually tried it. However it was insanely stressful. I used my controls to have the ship focus it’s scanners on that area of normal space. It didn’t take long to realize that yes indeed that was no asteroid or floating garbage. It was a ship and huge at that. However it gave no emergency signal or much of anything. In fact it was dumb luck that it had been spotted at all.

I quickly checked our fuel we still had plenty. They had brought out a ship just to refuel us. Which was nice seeing as we had spent so much time in the middle of nowhere. I said “ok lets check this out. Pilot take us in and try to get close to it. I think that ship is running pretty fast”.

The pilot replied “yes captain”.

Half an hour later we were close to a position which would easily get us within spotting distance of the ship. That was when the pilot did something I didn’t expect and I guess tried to put us directly in front of the ship. By the time I realized what was going on it was already to late. She had already begun to drop us out of hyper space. Dropping out of hyper space is like jumping off a cliff into water. Once your on your way there’s no turning back. That’s when every alarm on the ship came alive. The computer began saying “collision alert, collision alert, brace for impact”. That’s when the pilot froze and I realized it was already to late. The only thing that could save us was the ships auto avoidance system. The computer began to count down the distance five thousand meters. One thousand meters. Five hundred meters. Two hundred meters. Impact in three, two, one. Through the seat in my chair I felt a vibration then nothing. After about thirty seconds the alarms turned off. The computer system finally said “we have cleared the other ship”.

I was going to have a serious talk with my pilot. However she was just sitting there shaking like a leaf. Instead I said “damage report?”

The engineer snapped to attention and began going over the readouts. She replied “looks like we are ok captain. Just a few armor plates scraped off. We should have that fixed in no time. Repair drones have already been activated”.

I asked “how long for repairs?”

The engineer said “about an hour but we should be able to move as normal while they do the repairs”.

I said “fine. Medical to the bridge”. The pilot had just passed out or fainted. This had clearly been to much for her.

A minute later a new person took over the pilots spot as the other one was carried to med bay. I hoped she was alright but right now I had other concerns. Namely that huge freighter that was moving away from us. I said “ok people lets see if we can get to that ship or we will all have some more explaining to do. That I would rather not”.

The pilot said “plotting intercept course. We have a solution but that ship is moving way to fast for us. We will only get one pass”.

I replied “fine as soon as we get close get a good scan on that ship and prepare to launch our fastest shuttle. Their going to try and board that ship. Lets get this done people”.

With that commands were given and things were prepared. Now I realized why the alliance had not liked relying on human cruisers. They were great at turning but otherwise slow as molasses. This space freighter was making us look like fools. The shuttle was launched just as we passed under the space freighter. It put on max thrust and just barely managed to catch up to the freighter and match it’s speed. They quickly and easily found a docking station. The ship was covered with them. My chief of engineering was on the shuttle. He was the only one that had experience with something like this. They docked and sent the signal that they would now be out of transmission range. Our earth cruiser was now just sitting there trying it’s best to follow the freighter. Which meant it was getting further and further away with each passing second. The only way to catch the freighter now was to head into hyper space and come down in front of it again. Something I really didn’t want to do as we could lose the ship and those I had just sent across.

The scan had picked up no life signs and poisons in the air on board the freighter. Then three hours after the shuttle had docked with the freighter it turned off it’s main engines and activated stopping thrusters. They had done it. This allowed us to catch up and after a few scans we realized that the freighter’s transmitter had been destroyed. It couldn’t even send an sos even if the people in the ship wanted to. Our scanners picked up my crew members near what looked like the ships command center. I ordered a second shuttle to launch and dock there so they could communicate with us. When that was complete we learned to full story.

The freighter had been headed for Sol when it had been dropped out of hyper space. The freighters crew all one thousand two hundred of them were either dead or missing. Seems some had decided to take the quick way out instead of a slow death by starvation or lack of air. They had opened an air lock to space. I only learned what else happened when our cruiser docked with the freighter.

The systems on board had never been meant to be used for decades. The trip between Sol and Vela normally only took one month at most in hyper space. The people on board had grown desperate and done some really nasty things to one another. The captain had locked down the control center by opening an air lock and letting all the air out into space. I saw more then a few corpses and it made my stomach turn. I really wanted to throw up but realized it was a really bad idea in my space suit. One could actually drown that way.

The engineer fabricated about fifty air filter units and we used those to replace the ones on a part of the freighter. Now came the question of what to do. The engineer suggested we remove what corpses we could to a single room and then close the airlock for the control center for the ship. It worked but was some pretty nasty work. I was thankful the corpses were between seventy five and eighty years old. There was not that much left of them.

Once that was done and the filter systems restored as best we could make them. The head engineer asked “so what now?”

I answered “we bring this ship back to Sol if we can. Any problems with that engineer?”

He replied “none this ship is in great working condition. Minus the lack of air and food and water”.

I then said “can we tow this ship with the earth cruiser?”

He replied “sure no problem. It’s actually designed for that once the communication tower is restored which is being worked on as we speak. The problem is we need two pilots one for the earth cruiser and one for the freighter”.  

That was when the pilot who had fainted spoke up she would do it. It was clear she wanted to prove herself and I agreed. The plan was easy the reality would likely different.

I took over pilot control of the earth cruiser as I had the most experience. I then had the tractor beam activated and linked up with the space freighter. This was also when we linked up hyper drives and controls. Then with a quick count down we were in hyper space and headed back to the Sol solar system.

Several days later we made contact with command and told them what was happening. They didn’t believe us for a second. They thought we were back because we had broken the ship yet again. Then they picked up the freighter and went into panic mode. It took several hours to convince them that we were actually towing the freighter that it was not some sort of war ship.

Then came the hard part leaving hyper space. Which had a lot of issues on it’s own. If we simply dropped out the freighter would likely turn our cruiser into so much scrap metal. It’s mass would mean it would keep going forward long after our cruiser had stopped. As a result we broke the link and the freighter slowed down as much as it could in hyper space without actually leaving it. All the while we pushed the speed on the cruiser to it’s limit. Then when we were about three hours apart the cruiser dropped out of hyper space near Sol. Right away I ordered my cruiser to turn and move out of the area as fast as possible. It was a good thing I had. When the freighter showed up it acted exactly as expected and had we been there we would be little more then a space road bump. Sol command had sent out six space tugs that were designed to help move freighters around. They took one look at this monster freighter and panicked.

That was when we found out that controlling the huge freighter from it’s command center was incredibly easy. My pilot flew the freighter right past the pilons. Which were dwarfed by this monster freighter and brought the freighter right to the position Sol command had requested. Sol command was both shocked and over joyed to get their hands on this freighter. It turned out only three hundred of this size had ever been built. They could supply a fleet of ships with almost anything they needed. This one was filled with just what they needed to bring the current fleet up to full power with ease.

After a week in port and command congratulating us and especially my pilot and the person handling the scanner. We were once again ordered to head to Vela but preferably with no stop overs. We were told we were now first on the list to get a new ship. When they became available.
As we got ready for hyper space I said “pilot it’s all yours. Oh and as far as scanning stuff keep your eyes open. We might get lucky a second time. There were supposed to be three of those ships heading to and from Vela”. With that everybody smiled and made the jump to hyper space.

Sorry for the long post enjoy

Andreas Meyer