Stellaris!

Behold the glorious Terran Corporate Alliance! A global plutocracy dedicated the material enrichment of mankind (or at least to the capital-owning members of mankind). Whereas some theorize earth developing into some sort of pinko-commie democracy with namby-pampy ideals about liberty and equality, the TCA embraces a more manly sort of authoritarian materialism!

Now, are the minimally paid lower classes working the food and mineral tiles “slaves”? Technically yes. Are they wretchedly unhappy? I don’t know (we don’t track those numbers) but who cares! They’re [presumably joyous] dedication to labor, combined with our innate industriousness, thriftiness, corporate structure, and domineering mining guilds give the TCA a whopping 25% bonus to both industrial production and energy generation. And isn’t that really what life is all about? Yes. Yes it is.

If we believed in God (which we don’t, being fanatic materialists), we’d have to assume He was smiling on us. A complete survey of the solar system reveals a combined 18 minable resource and research sites! I haven’t played this game much, but that’s far and away more than I’ve ever seen in a single star system. And mining resources, baby that’s what we do! Humanity spends a relatively [I assume] long time focused on developing our home system in order to establish a powerful economic engine.

Early interstellar exploration reveals that there are, in fact, extraterrestrial life forms … just not any intelligent extraterrestrial life forms. However, continued expansion demonstrates that life on other planets comes in three different flavors of stupid. Alpha Centuri and Sirius both have remarkably (some might say suspiciously) earth-like planets full of alien fauna and flora, but none of it evolved enough to scratch the dirt with a stick. Our first encounter with sentient life comes in Lytirin star system where we find the Gorf, some sort of mobile, conscious, mushroom people still living in the stone age. Early analysis suggests that they won’t make good  employees and probably aren’t edible. 

We build a frontier outpost (the first of our Babylon stations) over their star and an observation post over their planet to secretly abduct, probe and study them…aggressively. Shortly thereafter they mysteriously gain the “fanatically xenophobic” trait. Yay science!

The next sentient species we counter proves that a society can build starships and still be stupid. The Twax’lhdar are giant birds devoted to equality, peace, and spiritualism. Bless their naïve little hearts! Needless to say we hate them immediately. We look forward to bringing them on as sub-minimum-wage out-sourced employees of the TCA.

The Corporate Alliance and Twax’lhdar State have an uneasy peace for a while, but one of our various unauthorized spying missions into their system of origin reveals a flotilla of 16 missile-armed corvettes. In my book, that sort of extreme dedication to the safety and preservation of their homeworld can only be interpreted as a belligerent provocation. In terms of technology and population, we’re about equivalent with the Twax’lhdar, but our various traits and whole-hearted commitment to strip-mining every planet within our borders means our industrial base is considerably stronger than theirs. We commission a “Grand Corporate Armada” of 20 corvettes; they have essentially the same loadout as the Twax’lhdar ships, except that we have deflectors and they do not. At this point our interstellar mining operations are so extensive that the shipyards above earth can focus on the non-stop construction of corvettes and our mineral stockpiles will still increase every month. We declare war. The Twax’lhdar ambassador’s response is only two stuttered words “But w...why?” [I wish I had that screenshot!]

Irritatingly, the Twax’lhdar home-defense fleet elects not to vainly sacrifice itself against our larger Corporate Armada, suggesting that these pinko, peace-nik birds aren’t completely stupid after all. They’re just cowards. Their ships huddle around their home planet’s starbase, which has too much firepower for the Armada to tangle with, refusing to join battle even as my ships sail about vaporize the local, allegedly “civilian” mining and research stations. I withdraw the Armada back to the nearest wormhole station. I have a plan.

The Twax’lhdar ships have warp drives, so they can travel freely between any two stars in their range, but it takes them time to travel, you can see them coming as soon as they enter sensor range, and their warp engines have to cool down after they arrive before they can warp out again. My wormhole-drive ships are tethered to massive wormhole generating space stations I have to construct in the outer-reaches of star systems and can never travel outside the range of one of these stations. But they can travel instantaneously between the wormhole station and their destination, arriving with almost no warning.

I break three corvettes out of the Armada and send them to raid a small Twax’lhdar colony in the Xiger System. The planets industry is woefully under-developed by Corporate standards, demonstrating a clear need for new management. As hoped, only a few days into the orbital annihilation of Xiger’s inhabitants, the Twax’lhdar fleet is detected warping into the system; having calculated that the far outgun the raiding party, they’ve finally left the protection of their starbase in a cloyingly sentimental effort to rescue their nestmates. The raiding force, in a bold display of devotion to the company which should be emulated by all loyal employees, recklessly hurls itself at the Twax’lhdar fleet, guaranteeing that the battle commences on the outer edge of the system. A number of middle-manager level are vaporized by the opening Twax’lhdar salvo. They will be forever memorialized in printed certificates of appreciation.

Once the Twax’lhdar fleet is fully engaged, the trap is sprung: my wormhole station opens up a tear in space-time immediately behind them and the rest of the Corporate Armada pours through. None of the alien corvettes survive long enough for their warp engines to recharge and take them back to the protection of their starbase. I savor my victory. Tastes like chicken!

With the entire enemy fleet destroyed, I dispatch armies of unpaid interns (:::cough::: slaves :::cough:::) to carry out an aggressive corporate restructuring of the Twax’lhdar colonies. I still can’t take their homeworld because the starbase is too strong, but it doesn’t matter. They surrender and become an official franchise (aka tributary) of the Terran Corporate Alliance. Henceforth, they will pay us 25% of all the minerals and energy they generate. Our HR department declares the settlement a Win-Win solution.

As humanity marches into the year 2221 everything is going great and everybody is happy … Except for the Twax’lhdar … And the Gorf … And possibly the slaves (we don’t track those numbers).

Next time: We launch a more expansion exploration of the galaxy in search of other species in need of a good*, honest, job. Also: Robots! Because nothing makes a giant corporation more lovable and community focused than extensive automation.