Good day, ladies and gentlemen. I make my debut on this fantastic forum for democratic discussion with the announcement of a new scenario that is to be released, soon.

It's title, I think I will call it Empire's Heart. Anyway, it wouldn't be a scenario without a story so here it is. (It is in a completely different universe from the Ares one.)

...
The Coranus Confederacy traces it's beginnings to one of the most incredible wars of all time. Called the Reprisal War by some, it proved the resilience of the Coranusian people beyond all merit. But then it was not called the Coranus Conderacy.
Then, it was called the Union of Worlds.

The Union of Worlds is chiefly remembered as being the only worthy opponent of the United Sol Confederacy during mankind's second expansionist era.

When Cassendra ceded from the Confederacy in 2544, it was on the principle of distance. One of the first of humanity's settled worlds, it was growing dissatisfied with the unrestrained hand the USC was using to display it's dominance.

From bureaucratic rulers, to infernal decline came a spate of secessions and demands for independance. Worlds were now contentemptuous of Mother Earth.

But the USC struck back. and for the first time, humanity fought a galactic war.

It's generals predicted the conflict would take 8 weeks. Instead, it took 41 years. And at it's end, Earth's proud fleets and colonies lay in ruins.

But the USC was victorious.

However, the losses in manpower and resources was something it could never replace, and on March 2nd, 2600, insurrection created a new democracy in the form of the Sol Federation.

The fleeing remnants of the Union fled to Coranus, and began with unreal determination to start again.

Over five hundred years later, their descendants made a bid for galactic power.

It was to prove a fatal mistake.
...

I have edited it and that is the prologue for level 1. Don't let the slim structure fool you - in the method of Ares, where the story is unfolded over time so shall this story be unfolded...

The scenario itself features 8 leves, or perhaps more. I have not yet seriously begun to dig into the levels. With the unstable but excellent studiopro 2.0 I have been able to create alot of new ships, including one race which I have no use for (if anyone needs a dark blue race just ask me!) The quality of the graphics is atleast as good as Nathan Lamont's, but I will let you judge in the upcoming preview I am about to release on the download board.

3 new races are present, the Sol Federation, with it's newly reformed democratic peace-fervour, the Argeisian Empire, a giant swath of planets form the galaxies core governed by a decadent puppet-emperor, and the Coranus Confederacy, an inhuman bunch of... mean people.

There are also other races such as the defeated remnants of the Hethran Republic and the Star Domains, as well as independant 'rebel' ships, but receive no full race structure.

Each fleet is customised to that 'races' ideals, for instance Coranusian fleets are pristine metal white and have a sinister appearance e.t.c. There are some new ship classes as well, 150 - bombers, frigates - 300, gunships have now become cruisers of - 400 and so forth. (Note this is subject to change.)

You must be getting tired of reading this so I'll finish this task. If you have any suggestion, comments, recommendations, revisions, ideas, inspirations, I would more than like to see them.

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Anchovies be damned, Sire! We need boxes, else where will our pizzas rest their mighty crusts?

(This message has been edited by Captain Calculas (edited 09-24-2000).)

Just to let you know, there are seven HUGE upcoming plugs. I know mine will have at least thirty missions no matter which branch in the storyline you take. You might want to up that 8 into at least twenty. The rest sounds good, though.

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"I can ail what cures you."

Yeah, that sounds great. But as Mag said, up the mission count.

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I have a plan so ingenius even an idiot could have devised it. On my command, we will line up our ships and fly straight into the enemy death-cannons clogging them with wreckage.

Stop Exploding you cowards!

24 is now the revised level number. Isn't hard to make those individual ship images for the briefings? What about that blue race I don't need? Seriously, it's got some pretty nice ships in it. (the carrier has 6 degree turning and to fit it onto the screen you need 2048 instead of 8192 sizes). I'll email it to anyone who wants the race provided that you include my name in the credits for it.

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Zip drives be damned Sire! We need CD's else where will our sugar pots rest their mighty sand dunes?

Sounds nice. I'm still gonna blow you all out with StarLance though.

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Give a man a match and he'll be warm for an hour... Set him on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
-Polaris Confederate Recruitmant Theme
StarLance

Y'know, I look at some EV plugs, and I look at the Ares plugs... and I notice that the ares plugs have larger backstories, better plot development, more versatility, more drama...

Cool.

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Ne Cede Malis Sed Contra Audientor Ito

Sounds interesting, as do all these plug-ins. The only question is- which will actually make it to release?

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Sundered Angel ,
The One and Only

Ares Webboard Moderator, and all-around Nice Guy

I'm sorry, but I have some bad news. My computer must have contracted an interminable hatred of it's user. Me. And so it is seeking to annoy me in any way it can. First of all by corrupting most of my files. I've had to load everything onto zip disks and send the computer down to the local store. The scenario will be delayed. Unfortunately I can't release the preview early on this other computer, because the original Ares scenario factory data uses a different set of 'physics.' For instance my ships now follow the second law of thermodynamics which means that 'energy cannot gather more energy'. For instance a PK beam does 30 damage. Now keep in mind that it took 8 energy to fire. Fine, their not relative, except it takes 30 energy to charge shields to repel what it only took 8 energy to fire. I suppose this can be explained by strange units of measurement, instead however my ships have drastically reduced hitpoints overall, (by about 70%) so they don't generate more energy than they use and (oh dear I'm ranting aren't I) and therefore a frigate has about 240 hitpoints, and the standard laser has a damage of about 4-8. Ahh.. never mind, I think it will be very easy to convert it after all. But I just want to point out this inconsistency which no one seems to have realised. If a new Ares update comes out, I want it to follow the second law of thermodynamics for my own peace of mind. And I'm sure that if you're anything like me and realise this huge discrepancy you will instantly lobby for this new cultural and spiritual movement... (intermittent mumbling).

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On hearing that Captain Calculas' computer was stuffed, the Agents of the Naarad were so pleased that they decided to launch an attack against the Zirzacht. Who naturally sought to stop them. When the two fleets collided, the Zirzacht easily won. But Duthul Governors allied with the Naarad arrived soon. Although this was likewise destroyed, an asteroid crashed into the Zirzacht flagship. When the ship was about to explode the captain asked his officer whether 'something was wrong.' in rapid binary. This statement travelled through time and caused a war between England and Spain, and the ship 's computer which recorded it wrote a play about it titled, 'Hamlet' which sold rather well...

Oh darn

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Give a man a match and he'll be warm for an hour... Set him on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
-Polaris Confederate Recruitmant Theme
StarLance

Gentlemen And Fellows Of The Royal College Of Charlie's.

Never fear. Captain Calculas has made a breakthrough in patience and has in fact managed to create a new plugin that has been finished no less than 30 minutes ago. I have absolutely no patience with Hera, I mean Hera has no patience with me. And I had to get this scenario out to The People. So I've posted it without stuffing it - I have no utilities with which to compress it, hard as that may seem and I haven't written even a simple readme. After all, Rome wasn't built in a day, and I wouldn't want you to demote yourselves to Beaverbrothers.

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"I feel it is important to let the people know their president is not a crook. I am not a crook."

Sorry delete. You know my policy.

1. It's a preview. Only Total Conversions deserve postable previews.
2. It has no documentation. Sorry, but it must have some kind of documentation.
3. It isn't compressed. Unlett it's in .sit or .hqx format it won't be reckognized by Ambrosia's ftp server and won't download properly. It will only display a page of random characters.

I used my experience when I made this action. When you have a full version.

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Give a man a match and he'll be warm for an hour... Set him on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
-Polaris Confederate Recruitmant Theme
StarLance

I see. Well I suppose you were guided by very sensible decisions so I'm not angry with you. But, Slug, it IS a Total Conversion. That is if you're saying that only a preview should be posted if the full plugin in question is a total conversion. No readme. Well, that was rash, I'll scrape one up. You see my main dilemma though. I have absolutely no compression utilities. None. Not one. And by the way I have successfully downloaded something from Ambrosia that wasn't stuffed. It downloaded as a page of hex in Netscape, but it still unstuffed when I dragged it in. I'll go about finding a compression thing. Oh, and Slug? Maybe your mind would be at ease if I called it something else that didn't include the word preview. May your stars receive an early nova.

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On another note, do you live in Australia?

He's a yank.

Slug, did you just steal my sig? I swear that that was mine, only that you wrote it correctly.

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'Light a man a fire and he'll be warm for one night. Set him on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.' Terry Pratchett

Friends, countrymen, lend me me your ears!

I have just performed the momentous task of writing a readme, and I believe I will be able to secure a compression utility. There is still the long wait before it goes into download sections, but I have something even more momentous to announce:

I am changing the Universe of my plugin. What the hell is he talking about? You say. Hmm... good question - most of the time. I mean I am using another type of Storyline that does not include all that Argeisian/Coranus/Sol fed stuff. Here it is:

<
Chronicle of the past billion years:
Personality Identity #225 / 003928117 : Historian

We Armadians must remember that although we are the most powerful beings alive in the galaxy, and have achieved static civilisation for the past 8 billion years, other races exist with the thoughts and impulses we ourselves abandoned so long ago.

Originating on the planet Ktatatk, the fathers of our civilisation, the Enaians died with their rashness. They left us the task of maintaining galactic peace. We have taken up the regency of the galaxy, and no race has successfully disputed it.

The Enaians made two important editions to the Ktatatk gene pool, the inability to turn against any Enaian, and the inability to turn against each other. When the Dechrednor came through the Phyramidian Gate, and the galaxy was in danger of rampaging slaughter, we held them off long enough for to construct a ship capable of unleashing the Mee-gahn jjBodan.

Other races evolved, when the planets had cooled long enough to allow for ordinary life. Most notably the Zirzacht, Mneomonai, Jaddriack, Naarad and Technon. Although we have tried to maintain galactic peace, the Mneomonai tried to expand their space by attacking the local Armadian Securitar. We repulsed them and they learned the futulity of that direction. Noticing worlds sparsely occupied by the Preknese, they managed to kill a good number before we were alerted to the war.

As we were programmed to protect the Enaians, some of our #23 Personalities (Commanders) transferred that to their Preknese protege and classified the Mneomonai as a threat to galactic security. The one time any race has received that classification before was the Dechrednor. To our eternal shame, we almost exterminated their race.

The elusive Zirzacht are something of a mystery to us, and the only race we have been wary of in the past. Zirzacht, inspired by the Dechrednor, and also from the Erratic Dimesions have tried to disrupt the fabric of space time enough to allow the Dechrednor to jump the colossal distance into our galaxy once again.

The Technon (often referred to as The Machinated) are perhaps another danger. Descended from a freak programming error, the Technon Virus spread from world to world in the galactic network. Inspiring robots all governments united to hunt them down. Some escaped and erected a new civilisation. 20 years later, that civilisation spans an area as large as Flotilla Home, and no one ever erected another galactic network.

Other races such as the Humans and Duthul have risen to prominence within our own senate - the Dais. Inferior in technology they have proven resilient defenders of galactic peace, and do not seek, like some other races, to overtake our Regency.

This is the result of an entire days worth of thinking (and there's more to it.) I'll let people see which story they like more.

-Captain Calculas : Working to make Ares more fun

I can't really understand what that all means, but oh well.

I have a problem with readmes. I only have CompactPro, and I can only get it to stuff one file at a time, and there's no way I can find to combine them into one thing that I can submit. I also have no idea where I could get anything else... Any suggestions?

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"I can ail what cures you."

Stuffit Dropstuff, of course! Just go to (url="http://"http://www.aladdinsys.com")aladdinsys.com(/url) to download a free copy. Oh and in the future please don't submit Compact Pro (.cpt) archives. They're hard to read on the ftp server.

Also, since StarLance is a in the distant future, I won't post a preview.

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Give a man a match and he'll be warm for an hour... Set him on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
-Polaris Confederate Recruitmant Theme
StarLance

sniff You people have no language for mystery.

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"Without Good, no Evil;
Without Want, no Lack;
Without Desire, no Need;
The Circuit is One;
And One is the Machine;

-Base line in the Technon virus

I can't find StuffIt Dropstuff there, Slug.

Also, you've actually started it with HERA?!?

All I've done on Terran Wars is design half the ships and some multiplayer levels! I've also designed a few new ship graphics with Strata3D, but that's about all.

Also, what do you mean, ".cpt?" I make it convert them into .hqx with CompactPro...

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"I can ail what cures you."

(This message has been edited by Mag Steelglass (edited 09-29-2000).)