Alien Legacy

Infobox VG| title = Alien Legacy


developer = Ybarra Productions
publisher = Sierra On-Line
designer =
engine =
released = 1994
genre = Simulation, Real-time strategy, Science Fiction
modes = Single Player
ratings =
platforms = DOS
media = Floppy disk, CD-ROM
requirements =
input =

"Alien Legacy" is a sci-fi strategy game published by Sierra On-Line in 1994.

Gameplay

The game includes elements of city construction, research, resource management, industrial production and combat. Players must colonize a star system light years from earth by building planetary cities and Space Stations. Several advisors guide the player through the plot and a PDA reminds the player of important tasks. Given sufficient player immersion, the game atmosphere may add to the experience of ensuring the survival of mankind. The game progresses in real-time but the game speed can be adjusted. Time is measured in turns, which can be quite confusing to some.

Some tasks must be done before a set time limit or else the game will end prematurely. For example, at the beginning of the game, if the player fails to form a self-sufficient colony on Gaea, (a colony with at least one habitat, power plant and factory) the science advisor will kill the player for incompetence and take over the command.

tory

Plot

With the arrival of “Seedship” UNS "Calypso" in the Beta Caeli star system with orders to assist the UNS "Tantalus", which had colonized the system nearly 21 years before, soon the crew of the UNS "Calypso" on arrival at Beta Caeli, learns that Earth has been attacked and is likely destroyed by the Centaurians also learn that the Tantalus colony has been destroyed with few traces of it at all left. However, leftover Tantalus technology may give the "Calypso"'s crew an advantage later on.

History

In 2043, with the first encounter with alien life is 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, diverted to intercept the craft. On the first Friday in October of 2043, after many attempts to contact the craft the "Friendship" closed to within 200 miles of the unknown vessel; without warning the probe fired an energy based 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. Once arriving an Earth the probe then fired missiles of its own at Earth with most being destroyed by planetary defense systems but one hit near Sudan. The viral weapons onboard the missile killed millions. This violent act of aggression by the Centaurians would be 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.

Thus, the Human-Centaurian War began, with Earth putting all its efforts behind spacefaring and warfare research. Soon a battlefleet departed for Alpha Centauri to take the war to the enemy; after a long voyage and some progress in the enemy starsystem, the battlefleet was destroyed without achieving its mission and with a counterstrike expected.

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 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 that the Humans are losing the war.

Last Hope

Fearing complete annihilation, mankind constructed colonization ships called "Seedships" to ensure survival of the human race in case Earth's defenses failed. Massive enough to hold thousands of colonists, machines, supplies, and shuttles, the Odessa class Seedships are the pinnacle of technological advancement. The key feature of these Seedships is 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; still voyages will take several decades and required the use of suspended animation techniques to reach their destinations. Seedships were launched, each with orders to assume that all others had been destroyed. Two of them are 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.)"

Planetary systems

The Beta Caeli system is extremely similar to the solar system, with a barren, rocky inner planet, terrestrial planets in the habitable zone of the inner system, followed by gas giants in the outer system that first increase and then decrease in size, and a tiny rock outermost. This suggests either that the "cigar" hypothesis of planetary formation holds true instead of the prevailing solar nebula hypothesis (the former proposes that a passing star rips a band of matter from another, a band that's thicker in the middle and tapers off at the ends), or that the game designers took the easy way out.

*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.

Races

* The H'riak, 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 (appears 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 seems to send signals to the biota of terrestrial planets, and program it (whether intelligent or not) to attack any non-H'riak life forms nearby. (see also: Ancient humanoid) Gamma1 was originally heavily armed, until the "Tantalus" colonists managed to destroy most of its weaponry at the cost of all 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 end, Empiants waged war against the H'Riak, probably with same reason that they would against the Humans. The reasoning behind such attacks on the Human race is that Empiants and Men have different types of brainwaves, and that Human thoughts cause severe pain and is disturbing to Empiants but not vice versa. Though aggressive from appearances, they are not unreasonable once a person is able to block brainwaves. In fact, the Empiants provide Humans 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.

External links

* [http://www.the-spoiler.com/STRATEGY/Sierra/alien.legacy.1.html Alien Legacy FAQ]
*moby game|id=/alien-legacy