Alien Legacy
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| Alien Legacy | |
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| Developer(s) | Ybarra Productions |
| Publisher(s) | Sierra On-Line |
| Release date(s) | 1994 |
| Genre(s) | Science Fiction Sim |
| Mode(s) | Single Player |
| Platform(s) | DOS |
| Media | Floppy disk,CD-ROM |
Alien Legacy is a sci-fi strategy game published by Sierra On-Line in 1994.
Contents |
[edit] Gameplay
The game includes elements of city construction, research, resource management, industrial production and combat. Several advisors guide you through the plot and a PDA reminds you of important tasks. Given a sufficient player immersion, the game atmosphere may add to the experience of ensuring the survival of mankind.
[edit] Plot
As the captain of the “Seedship” UNS Calypso, you arrive in the Beta Caeli star system with orders to assist the UNS Tantalus, which first colonized the system nearly 21 years before. But things don’t go as planned. The UNS Tantalus and its colonists are nowhere to be found. And now, alone in this unknown system, you must ensure humanity’s survival.
In 2043, humanity finally encountered alien life in the form of an alien solar sail probe from the Alpha Centauri star system. The US Scout Ship Friendship, currently on assignment surveying the Neptunian moon of Triton, was diverted to intercept the craft. On the first Friday in October of 2043, following many attempts to contact the craft, the Friendship closed to within 200 miles of the unknown vessel. Then without warning the probe fired an energy weapon at the Friendship, destroying it in mere moments.
Despite numerous counter-attacks by other ships and even missiles, the alien vessel continued to drive towards Earth. The probe then fired missiles of its own at Earth. Most of them were destroyed by the defense systems but one hit near Sudan. The viral weapons onboard the missile killed millions.
This violent act of aggression by the Centaurians was the catalyst for the humans to rally all governments under the auspices of the United Nations, realizing that only their combined effort would create an effective defense.
And thus, the Human-Centaurian War began. Earth put all its efforts behind spacefare research. Soon, a battlefleet departed for Alpha Centauri to take the war to the enemy. However, after a long voyage and some progress in the enemy starsystem, the battlefleet was destroyed without achieving its mission and a counterstrike was to be expected. Meanwhile, fearing complete annihilation, mankind constructed colonization ships called "Seedships" to spread our kind to other stars in case our defense failed.
The Humans and Centaurians continued to send battle fleets at each others' systems over the next several decades to attack each other's homeworlds, often encountering each other in the Oort Cloud and fighting vicious battles. Human fleets would attack the Centaurian homeworld, and if any survived, would continue on to other systems such as Tau Ceti. After a large Human offensive armada was destroyed, though, the Humans awaited a final Centaurian assault.
Overall, while the two species are approximately equally matched technologically, the Centaurians are far more aggressive, and it is apparent in the game that the Humans lose the war.
Massive enough to hold thousands of colonists, machines, supplies, and shuttles, the Odessa class Seedships were the pinnacle of technological advancement.
The key feature of these Seedships were their revolutionary Bussard ramjet engines that allowed them to travel vast distances without needing a large amount of fuel, simply by using the trace hydrogen found in the interstellar medium. Even though, the voyage took many decades and required the use of suspended animation techniques.
Several Seedships were launched, each with orders to assume that all others had been destroyed. Two of them were the UNS Calypso and the UNS Tantalus.
The Odessa Class 3-B Seedship UNS Calypso was launched in 2119 on its course towards Beta Caeli.
The Odessa Class 4-C Seedship UNS Tantalus, with its new Ramikin fusion engine, would arrive in Beta Caeli 21 years prior to the Calypso even though the Tantalus was launched in 2135.
Found in the Caelum constellation and located over 17 parsecs (over 55 light years) away from Earth, the Beta Caeli system was deemed a good candidate for survival from the Centaurians. (Note: Beta Caeli, a blue-white star considerably brighter than the Sun, was chosen as the setting for the story because it is fairly far from the Sun and has a name containing an easily-remembered Bayer designation. In reality, G-type stars like our Sun would be far more likely to be chosen for human settlement, but at the distance of Beta Caeli, would be quite dim and almost certainly have a hard-to-remember Henry Draper Catalog designation, such as "HD 136925", or at best, a Flamsteed designation like 37 Geminorum or 18 Scorpii. The real Beta Caeli, meanwhile, is not considered particularly habitable, and is not being observed by any of the major planet-hunting groups.)
The Beta Caeli of Alien Legacy contains, in order:
- Beta Caeli (F0-type Star; Blue-White in color)
- Alpha Asteroid Belt; analogous to the nonexistent Vulcanoids
- Hermes (Rocky Planet); analogous to Mercury
- Rhea (Earth-like Planet)
Similar to Venus in position, but has a large Moon and is slightly larger than Earth. The presence of the large natural satellite and a quick rotation rate supposedly prevented the runaway greenhouse effect, making it Earth-like.
- Prometheus (Natural Satellite of Rhea), analogous to Earth's Moon
- Gaea (Earth-like Planet); the Calypso starts the game orbiting Gaea. It has no moon.
- Ares (Desert Planet); analogous to Mars but poor in iron
- Beta Asteroid Belt; analogous to the Solar System's main asteroid belt
- Zeus (Gas Giant); analogous to Jupiter
- Hera (Natural Satellite of Zeus); analogous to Io but larger and less volcanically active
- Hebe (Natural Satellite of Zeus); analogous to Ganymede
- Cronus (Gas Giant); analogous to Saturn but has no rings or moons.
- Poseidon (Gas Giant); analogous to Uranus and Neptune
- Thetis (Natural Satellite of Poseidon); analogous to Triton but larger
- Hades (Minor Planet); analogous to Pluto
The naming of the Caelian planets closely matches that of naming planets in our solar system. But while our system uses the names of Roman deities (except for Uranus), Caeli has Greek ones; Rhea and Gaea are both Greek goddesses of the Earth. One amusing artifact that can be found in the game details a movement demanding that Roman names be used for the Caelian planets also. In addition, as Beta Caeli is brighter and hotter than the Sun, the Caelian planets are more distant from their sun than their Solar System analogs are.
(There is a discrepancy between the distance provided in the Alien Legacy manual and the actual information on the star Beta Caeli, which is not as well known as other closer stars. The most accurate measurement to date, from the Hipparcos satellite, suggests that Beta Caeli is 90.2 light-years from Earth.)
On arrival at Beta Caeli, you learn that Earth has been attacked and likely destroyed by the Centaurians attacking from above the ecliptic. You also learn that the Tantalus colony is supposed to await you already, and are thus stunned that there are few traces of it at all. However, leftover Tantalus technology may give you a boost later on.
During the later stages of the game, you will encounter two alien races:
- The H'riak (who appear to be identical to or at least progenitors of the Centaurians that destroyed Earth) have an automated sporeship called Gamma1 in the outer asteroid fields. The sporeship will send signals causing the biota of the terrestrial planets to attack your settlements. They are a highly xenophobic race who have apparently seeded many planets in the Galaxy with their life, including Beta Caeli and Alpha Centauri, but apparently not Earth, and programmed it (whether intelligent or not) to attack any non-H'riak life forms. (see also: Ancient humanoid) Gamma1 was originally heavily armed, until the Tantalus colonists managed to destroy most of its weaponry at the cost of 90% of their ships.
- The Empiants, who resemble purple squids in appearance, inhabit the Gas Giant Cronus. Although fundamentally different from both man and Centaurians - due to the reason that the H'riak tried to send a sporeship to a Gas Giant and experiment the birth of a species living in such a radical environment. In the long run, Empiants waged war against H'Riak,probably with same reason that they will wage war on Player's settlements.
- The reason that they attack the Human race is that Empiants and Men have different types of brainwaves, and that Human thoughts cause severe pain and disturbing in Empiant population on Cronus, but not vice versa.
- They are not unreasonable once you learn to talk, block painful brainwaves, and negotiate with them. In fact, they provide you with the science necessary to unlock previously unavailable hyperspace and win the game.An interesting issue here is that unlike usual sci-fi stories, hyperspace travel is not done by a fictitious Hyperspace-Engine,or remote-operated stargate,instead,with a sub-light speed fusion engine imbued with a few personnel with psychic abilities, thus ripping time-space reality, and propelling the ship through a warp gate, similar to Warhammer 40000 Universe spaceships.
