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missmarquin · 5 years

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Magnetic, Ch. 1

In the future, romantic attraction is literal: each person is fitted with an electromagnetic bracelet which will pull you to your soulmate. It's hard, wondering who's out there for you. It's harder yet, when you have to come to understand yourself first.

Read on A03, for best quality (Including proper italics and such!)

Domain

‘A magnetic domain is a region within magnetic material in which the magnetization is uniform in one direction.’

Eighteen was a big year for many, but turning twenty is what people truly waited for.

Otabek had never really given it much thought, he supposed. Amita might not have been his initial choice of who he’d want to spend his life with forever, but she had since grown on him-- not unlike a fungus. She was sharp and quick-witted, and he had to admit that his parents had made a good choice. Really, they had. He and Amita just worked together, their relationship didn’t require much effort.

So the ceremonious receiving of the Destiny Bracelet wasn’t so ceremonious for him. He didn’t want to fuck up something that was good for him.

“It’s such a stupid fucking name,” Yuri said through the phone screen. Amita rolled her eyes, as she held the phone out, and Otabek smirked back at the video feed. “ Destiny Bracelet . What is this, some shitty fucking rom-com?”

“Hey now,” Amita pouted, leaning around so Yuri could see her through the screen. “ Some people like shitty rom-coms.”

“I guess you’re allowed to,” Yuri said with a genuine smile. “You’re special though.”

Really, Otabek’s luck couldn’t be better. Yuri was the most important person in the world to him, at the end of things, and he fucking lovedAmita. They were practically partners-in-crime themselves.

“What’s the point anyhow?” Yuri continued griping. “ It’s not like you aren’t getting married regardless. You and Amita are stupidly in love.”

Otabek and Amita shared an amused glance, and he said, “Why not? It’s not like it’s going to hurt me, you know? Besides, Mom is curious.” Not his mom, just Mom, the woman who had seen Yuri once before instantly adopting him as her own. Much to the boy’s aggravation.

Yuri snorted, rolling his eyes. Otabek wasn’t sure that he was stupidly in love with Amita, but he was happy and honestly, that was more than he could ask for. There was a mild fear that the bracelet would want to pull him somewhere else, but many people ignored it anyway. The journey of finding that soulmate wasn’t worth it to some.

Otabek was okay with that. He wasn’t the kind for grand romantic gestures or sweeping adventures. It was less work to stay in his tidy little bubble, and it suited him.

“Are we all ready in here?” A voice piped from the doorway. Everyone turned to meet a middle-aged man, the proctor in charge of attaching and turning on the gizmo. Otabek nodded and he whisked into the room, settling into the rolling stool beside the bed.

“I was I could be there for this,” Yuri muttered. “I wish I could see the annoyance on your face, the moment that bracelet beeps.”

Such a Yuri thing to say and do, to take pleasure in the vexation of others.

“Someone has rehearsal to be at, you know,” Amita chided. “Someone scored a spot in the Bolshoi Ballet Company, so that someone needs to stay put and not burn bridges before they are even built.”

Yuri sighed and Otabek hid a smile behind a carefully placed cough. Yuri wouldn’t listen to him, but he would always listen to her, begrudging as it was.

“Hold out your arm now,” the proctor interrupted cheerfully. Otabek did as he was told and the man fitted a length of cool metal around his wrist. It wasn’t his first time seeing one and it wouldn’t be his last, but he was always surprised by how boring it looked. Just a simple chain of lightweight links, fitted with neat and elegant looking square. The way it worked was a carefully guarded secret, but it worked and that’s all people cared about.

The point of the Destiny Bracelet was to make people happy, not make money and so, the world-wide program had been adopted free of charge. Yuri had always said it was stupid, because it could have made billions. He wasn’t wrong.

“As you probably already know, there’s nothing really needed to know about it’s use,” the proctor said. “It’s waterproof and practically indestructible, so you don’t need to worry about that. It can easily be removed if so wished, and once put back on, instantly kicks into gear again. No fancy buttons or doohickies,” he finished with a laugh. “You ready?”

Otabek shrugged and the man took a thin little tool, about the size of a paperclip, and shoved it into the pin-sized hole on the square. The bracelet beeped, indicating that it was scanning.

The room waited with bated breath, but nothing seemed to happen.

“Beks?” Amita said gently, curiosity full on her face. “Anything?”

“Uh,” Otabek started, lifting his wrist slightly. “No? I don’t think?”

The proctor didn’t seem fazed though, asking, “No tingling sensations? No feeling of being tugged a certain direction?”

“No,” Otabek confirmed. “Nothing.”

“Well, that’s not unusual,” the man said. “It only comes to life if your partner’s bracelet is active. Give it some time and it will start to work, I promise.” He folded his hands into his lap neatly. “Any other questions?”

“Yeah,” Yuri said from the video call, “Who’s placing bets on when that fucking happens?”

Otabek shot Yuri a glare, but Amita burst into laughter. The proctor smiled, before standing and handing Otabek a flyer. “This should give you more in depth information, but don’t hesitate to call, okay?”

Otabek nodded and thanked him, before standing himself.

“Three months till your woman gets hers,” Yuri drawled, “Ten thousand rubles that hers lights up like a damn Christmas Tree in your direction.”

The thought of Amita’s bracelet reacting to his own was a nice thought, but a one-in-a-million chance. Otabek remained hesitant about it, not wanting to get his hopes up.

“We don’t use rubles,” Amita tittered, her lips pulled into a sarcastic smirk. “What’s that about in tenge, Otabek?”

“About fifty-six thousand,” he deadpanned, and half Yuri’s monthly salary. Amita pressed her finger to her chin in thought.

“I’ll accept the bet and raise it, Yuri,” she finally said, a gleam in her eye. “One hundred thousand tenge that his bracelet doesn’t do jack shit when mine is activated.” Amita came from old money and didn’t bat an eye at the outrageous amount.

Otabek started slightly at that, but Yuri was already accepting the challenge before he could process that she had bet against them.

“You’re on, you hag,” Yuri snapped. “It’s pretty fucked up to bet against your own romance though.”

“Plenty of people don’t go searching for their soulmate, Yuri,” she said with a shrug. “Many people already love someone else and stick with them. Otabek and I are no different.”

It wasn’t that he didn’t believe Amita when she said it, but the both of them weren’t the kind to throw around something like lovelightheartedly. When they walked out of the building though, Amita’s hand reached out to find his, squeezing gently as they told Yuri goodbye.

It’s enough to believe that this might actually work.

It wasn’t.

Otabek didn’t know what was wrong with him when he finally came to that conclusion.

The more and more he thought about the silent bracelet on his wrist, the more he realized that he would be okay with it staying that way for the rest of his life. And that he would be a-okay with Amita wandering off and finding her own destined one.

Because honestly, the woman deserved it. She deserved more than a half-hearted romance with a man who just liked her. Like wasn’t the same as love. Otabek understood that now.

“Relationships are fucking useless,” Yuri groaned over the video call.

“I take it that the date didn’t go well then,” Otabek mused.

“It was great, until he tried to eat my face off like some sort of rabid dog. ” Yuri paused to make a disgusted sound. “You know, that was the first time I’ve kissed a dude and honestly I feel sorry for women. Men are disgusting.”

Otabek wasn’t sure what surprised him more-- that Yuri’s first kiss had apparently been with a woman, or that he had admitted that men were gross. “You told me he was gross before you went on the date,” he pointed out.

“Personality wise yes,” Yuri replied, “but Beka, have you seen his fucking calves?”

“Yes,” Otabek said. Yuri had shown him tons of pictures of the company, all the while complaining about every single member.

Yuri rolled his eyes. “You know, ignore that, it’s not like you’d ever fucking agree.”

It came out harsher than he meant, and Otabek mused at the irony of his statement. Otabek wouldn’t consider himself gay, but Yuri never failed to get under his skin when the time accounted for it. That moment wasn’t an exception, with his low-scooping neckline and hair falling around his face like spun gold.

Otabek promptly reminded himself that what he had with Amita was good enough, and not worth risking the only fucking friendship he had.

“So,” Yuri drawled and Otabek’s attention snapped back to him. “Less than a week until Amita get’s her little bracelet.”

Otabek smirked. “Regretting your bet yet?”

“Absolutely the fuck not. Everyone knows you two are disgustingly perfect. You’re almost as bad as the Piggy and Old Man.”

Otabek seriously doubted that, but laughed all the same.

“Are you worried?” Yuri asked.

“Not really,” Otabek said with a shrug.

“What if it’s not you?”

Otabek hesitated, but then said, “Not a problem. Like Amita said, many people stay with those they aren’t meant for. It’s not a bad thing.”

Yuri was quiet for a moment, regarding him carefully through the screen. Finally, he said, “You aren’t the type to do things half-way, Beka.”

It wasn’t a critique, it was the honest truth, and for once he didn’t know how to reply. But as soon as introspective Yuri had shown his face, he was gone, throwing out a dirty joke that he had heard from one of the pit musicians.

After a long time of tossing jokes around and swapping stories, their call comes to its end. Yuri was clearly tired, eyelids drooping as he tucked into the hoodie that he stole from Otabek years ago.

Yuri had said his goodnight, about to end the call, when Otabek said something else.

“Would it make me a terrible person if I wanted her bracelet to point to someone else?” It wasn’t a planned question, or something he would have ever asked Yuri. His friend blinked slowly, his hand hovering over the keyboard of his laptop. “I wonder,” Otabek continued, “if I’m a horrible person because I might want to pull away.”

“Of course it doesn’t,” Yuri finally said. “It makes you normal. Everyone questions their relationships. Sometimes people are constantly questioning them.” He paused and considered something else. “You’re lucky though, I think. Amita seems the kind of woman tough enough to handle rejection in the end. She’d slap a smile on her face and thank you.”

Yuri wasn’t wrong, and despite his heavy-handed worries, Otabek managed another smile before they ended the call for the night.

Otabek couldn’t dedicate time to be there, when Amita’s bracelet was activated. She came from old money, and despite working, she worked for her parents. They showered her with all the vacation and time off she could have ever wanted.

It wasn’t like Otabek’s family weren’t well of either-- that’s how they had met-- but he didn’t like to dip his hand into the cookie jar so to speak. He worked hard for his coin, and as a result had less leeway.

So that night, he had been in his garage, fixing up a vintage bike for a collector. It was dirty work, leaving him smeared with grease, but he loved it. The feel of the tools in his hand, the way that the engine whined when finely tuned to perfection.

Really, it was all could have ever asked for.

“I take it that it’s been a good day for you, Beks,” Amita said, stepping into his space quietly.

He swiped at his forehead and turned to smile at her, but she seemed distant and subdued. Slowly he dropped his hand, as he regarded her.

Amita fidgeted, she never fidgeted, and Otabek couldn’t help the crease that stretched across his forehead as he moved to speak. But she held her hand out and paused. And he saw the bracelet there, blinking gently in the dim light.

His didn’t blink at all, because it had no call.

She saw his gaze and moved her hand self-consciously, tucking her hair behind an ear. “It’s not strong,” she said, “the pull. Whoever it is isn’t close by. I’m not surprised though.”

“I-- I’m not either,” Otabek replied, but the words didn’t sound bitter. Nor was there dread in the pit of his stomach. If he had to be honest, he felt relieved.

Amita leaned against his workbench. “I know what we told Yuri, but--”

“But it’s not right,” Otabek finished, knowing that’s where she was going with this. He stood, wiping his dirtied hands on a spare rag in his pocket. He moved to lean next to her and she smiled sadly.

“It’s stupid, right? I mean, I want to marry you.”

“I would like that too,” Otabek said truthfully.

“But it isn’t… it’s not right,” she repeated. “I can’t really describe it any other way.” She sighed softly. “I couldn’t deny whoever your soulmate is, you, Otabek.”

He snorted at that. “I think it’s safe to say I’m doomed to be alone, Amita,” he replied lightheartedly. And that was probably the truth. Most bracelets activated within several months, and the longer it took, the less likely it ever would. He was past the point of holding his breath.

She turned to look at him, her eyes flashing. “Why on earth would you think that?”

Otabek rubbed at his neck nervously. “I don’t know, I’m just not the kind of person who does people, you know? I’ve been thinking more and more about it lately, and I think that the single lifestyle would suit me.”

Amita regarded him quietly, tapping her finger against her chin like she always did when she thought. “I think the problem Beks,” she finally said, “is that you just haven’t found your person yet. I would love to be them, but… it’s not fair.”

“Yeah, it’s not fair to you--”

“ To you,” she interrupted. Otabek blinked at her words, her conviction. “You deserve happiness as much as anyone else,” she said firmly.

Otabek breathed an uneasy sigh, rubbing at his neck again. “I’m not holding my breath, you know,” he finally said.

At that, she laughed. “I wouldn’t expect you too. Above all Otabek, you are practical.”

He managed a smile at that. “What will you do, then? Go after him?” He took her hand gently, pulling it closer to see the bracelet. All it did was blink, signaling that it was on.

“I don’t know,” she said quietly. “I’m not sure my parents would be happy. They love you.”

“They love you more,” he pointed out.

She hummed at that, before reaching up and cupping his chin in her hand. “I’ll always love you,” she said quietly. “Despite what this bracelet says, or yours, I’ll always love you. I’m just not the one meant for you, I think.” She leaned forward and pressed a kiss against his brow sweetly. “Who knows? Maybe they’re closer than you think?” She smirked widely as she pulled back and let him go.

Otabek could think of one person that he wouldn’t mind, but those odds were heavily stacked against him. And he wasn’t the kind to dream.

Still, when she left him behind in his shop, his heart didn’t feel heavy. He thanked Amita for her unwavering friendship, knowing that he’d have it forever.

The first year after the break up had been weird.

Amita had decided to go West in the end, following the tug of her bracelet. Otabek had seen her off personally, hugging her tightly at the airport. They parted well, with light hearts and encouraging words. Otabek knew that they had made the right decision, no matter how disappointed their parents had been.

In turn, being alone had given him time to think.

The single life wasn’t so bad, he thought. Amita’s words about how he hadn’t found his someone yet floated around here and there, but he had chosen to mostly ignore them. It was easier worrying about himself, and devoting the time to come to understanding who he was.

Yuri told him that he was stupid, but didn’t press the issue.

The second year was better. The second year, Otabek discovered himself, exploring his freedom. He finally used that vacation time and savings, and hit the open roads on his bike. Not too far though gone, because he never missed his nightly calls with Yuri.

Yuri threw himself into ballet, constantly tired and bruised. And when he wasn’t punishing his body with grueling training regimes, he threw himself into shitty date after shitty date. No one seemed to stick, not that Otabek was surprised. Yuri was as prickly as a summer cactus, and his personality wasn’t much better. Not everyone could handle the abrasive man.

“A huge part of me doesn’t want to get the stupid bracelet, Beka,” Yuri complained one night during their call. His twentieth birthday was looming over them and in a few weeks, he’d know.

“You don’t have to get the bracelet, you know,” Otabek said, leaning back against his headboard. It was a late night and both of them were settling for bed.

Yuri sighed, sitting on his tony mattress with crossed legs. That night he wore baggy sweatpants and a wide-necked black shirt that showed off his collarbones--

Otabek distracted himself by taking a sip from the water cup on his side table.

“I thought about it, actually,” Yuri said. “But then you know, I also keep dating assholes, so clearly my method isn’t working out.”

Otabek raised an eyebrow at that. “Don’t date assholes then,” he chided, smiling.

Yuri rolled his eyes, before falling back against the bed. “How do you do it?” he asked. “How do you just… do your own thing?”

Otabek thought before he answered. “It’s taken time and a lot of thought,” he finally said. “And of course, Amita pushed me, I guess.”

“A cross-country trip to discover yourself doesn’t hurt either,” Yuri teased, and when Otabek looked back at him through the screen, he saw the smirk across his lips. Otabek smiled right back.

“I’ve thought about taking it off,” Otabek continued with, flicking at the metal on his wrist. Nearly three years later and it was still dead as a door nail. Frankly, Otabek had lost interest in waiting. “My soulmate doesn’t define me, you know?”

Yuri hummed quietly. “Don’t,” he finally said. “I mean, at least wait until it turns on, yeah?”

“It probably won’t, Yura,” Otabek sighed. “Studies show that most activate within the first year. I’m probably the rare case of never activates at all . And honestly, I’m cool with it.”

“Well I’m not,” Yuri scoffed. “You can’t tell me that someone doesn’t get Otabek Altin as a fucking soulmate, I won’t take it. You’re too cool to go it alone.”

“You literally said that you admire that about me.”

“That doesn’t mean I don’t think you’re deserving.”

Otabek ran a hand through his hair gently. “You aren’t like me, Yura,” he finally said. “Even though you don’t like people, you crave their attention. You’d never be okay on your own.”

“I wouldn’t be alone though,” Yuri replied quietly. “I’ll always have you, you know.”

Otabek did know, and he smiled. “It’s taken me a long time to get to where I am, but I’m good now. Give yourself a chance too, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he grumbled. There was a short pause, and then, “Do yourself a favor Beka. Don’t you take yours off either, okay?”

Otabek’s lips quirked into a smile. “Okay.”

“It’s a promise?”

“Always, Yura.”

Despite all of Otabek’s annoyance for his own bracelet, he was excited for Yuri.

He watched through the screen as Yuri sat on the exam table, twitching with apprehension. The phone must have been propped up against something. “It’s stupid,” he snapped. “I should be at rehearsal, I should be running through forms, hell I’d rather be doing fucking squats.”

Otabek smiled at that. “It’s not the end of the world, Yura,” he said amused. “A few years ago, you were excited .”

“Yeah, until I realized what a drag dating is, and how disgusting men are.” He paused then, his face twisting into horror. “Beka, what if my soulmate is a woman? My life would be over!”

“It could be worse, you know,” he joked. “It could not work at all.” He raised his own wrist in response.

Yuri scowled at him, about to retort when the proctor came in. When requested to, Yuri stuck his arm out, the smooth skin pale against his dark shirt. Otabek watched as the man slipped the chain around his wrist, snapping it closed. And then the tool came out.

Yuri looked hesitant, but his eyes were bright as the man activated the bracelet.

But then they both fell quiet, watching. And then there was a little beep and Yuri’s bracelet blinked. He regarded it with an odd look.

“You know, I wish Amita were watching. I bet her smug ass would have enjoyed this.”

Before Otabek could retort though, there was another beep, this time not through the phone call. He froze and looked down, right as his bracelet flared to life.

#Otabek Altin #Yuri Plisetsky #yuri on ice fanfiction #yurionice #otayuri #otabek and yuri #OtabekAltin/YuriPlisetsky #Alternate Universe

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ciathyzareposts · 4 years

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Planet’s Edge: One Line in Three Dimensions

One of several stitched-together mini-quests that I encountered this session.

Planet’s Edge is not shaping up to be what I thought it was going to be, which was a New World take on Starflight. I think that the developers perhaps started with an intention to imitate Starflight; certain similarities between the games are too stark to be coincidences. But they removed one of Starflight‘s most attractive traits–the joy of exploration in an open universe–and replaced it with something that I’m not convinced is better. Specifically, there’s a lot more emphasis on axonometric exploration of the planets’ surfaces, which could have been done well, but so far is a bit silly and trite.

When we left off, I was headed for Sector Algieba, as I had a couple of hints that it would be the best place to start. The sector consists of seven star systems–Subra, Talitha, Regulus, Algieba, Alphard, Koo-She, and Miaplacidus–any of which would also serve as the next Nissan model. Talitha was the closest to where I was coming in, so I explored it first. The system had six planets. As with all the systems with multiple planets, it’s hard to keep track of which ones you’ve already visited since they don’t stop whipping around their suns, fast enough that a year might pass while you take a sip from a soda bottle.

The stars of Sector Algieba.

In Starflight and Star Control, there was a certain joy to exploring even random planets because you might find useful and valuable elements. That’s sort-of true in Planet’s Edge except that it’s very rare to find a planet that has them, you can mine them near-instantly when you do, and at the beginning of the game you can only carry 5 units of any cargo at a time. If you get rid of all your weapons, you can carry 8. So clearly element recovery isn’t going to be a big thing until I can build a ship with more room. I’m not 100% sure if I could do that now or if I need to find some plans.

Each planet has a nice textual description (when you “scan”) regardless of whether it has any utility. I was enjoying these a lot for a while, but then they started repeating. Ultimately, it turns out there are only about 9 common descriptions:

A molten, superheated surface giving off toxic fumes.

Lots of organic life but no intelligent life, “a nice place to have a picnic.”

A small rock with a thick layer of gases.

Incredibly hot, unstable, with constant volcanic activity.

A “jelly world” with large crystal formations.

A surface only recently cooling down from volcanic activity, no vegetation or atmosphere.

One of the “generic” planet descriptions.

A desert planet.

A planet of grasses and plains with no intelligent life.

A snow and ice planet.

All but one of Talitha’s planets were one of these. On Talitha II, however, my scan revealed a castle, “the seat of Avian government.” Oddly, the scan screen was titled “If Love Be True,” which made no sense at the time but later turned out to be related to the mini-quest that I found on the planet. Thus, it seems that if you scan a planet that has such a quest, you know it immediately because you get a title.

I’m not sure that the game needed to be so explicit about each quest.

We found ourselves in an Earthlike castle with guards stationed at just about every intersection. The game repeatedly referred to them as “avian,” so I guess they were bird-like. We never got a close-up portrait. Most ignored us, but a guard at a section of the castle that was clearly an arena told us that the queen had canceled all spectator sports for a few weeks. We would later meet the queen, and her two princess daughters, but let’s pause for a moment to note that these aliens are the first non-human sentient life forms that my characters–perhaps humanity as a whole–have ever encountered in-person. They apparently look like birds and live in castles and have the same type of social structure as a past Earth society. And we’re able to speak their language I guess because of information from the crashed Centauri Device? In any event, my characters managed to jump right in to palace intrigue while in real life they probably would have still be staring open-mouthed at the alien guards. For their part, the aliens didn’t react to us at all despite presumably never having seen humans before.

Exploring the castle.

From dialogue with NPCs, it transpired that Princes Jhenna was being forced to marry a reptilian alien from another sector. She naturally didn’t want to do this and was hoping to escape Talitha II to find her true love, a former palace servant who came from the planet Henresia, also known as Subra II. Meanwhile, some faction was planning a coup and had placed a bomb in a fountain near the wedding site, intending to kill both the queen and the princess. We agreed to help the princess. I don’t think this was a role-playing choice so much as something that you have to do to as part of the main plot. She said that she could escape through a hidden door if we could move a heavy piece of furniture. This required us to find a “levitator,” which was on the other side of a navigation puzzle so annoying that whoever designed it should be hunted down 30 years later and forced to make it through a real-life version.

The princess’s sister, who I guess is also a princess, explains the situation.

The puzzle required the party to wend our way through a roughly 6 x 10 matrix of bushes, only some of which could be walked upon, and some of them had mines planted within them that would damage the party members for about half their health if they were within the one-square explosion radius. Unless I missed something, there was no way to tell which bushes had bombs without setting them off.

You can S)earch for them, which is the subject of its own annoyance. The reference card that comes with the game doesn’t mention “search” as a function when exploring on land; it only mentions “look.” (It does mention “search” later in a master list of commands, but not in the list specifically within the ground movement section.) For most of this session, I didn’t even realize that “search” existed, which means that I missed a lot of loot in various chests and barrels in the palace and probably on the Centauri outpost, too. But even when I reloaded and checked, “search” just caused the bombs to go off.

Thus, through trial and error, I had to make a map of the safe route through the bushes (this reminded me unfavorably of a level in Wizardry IV), only to discover that it still wasn’t safe. You only really control the movement of your lead character. The others do their best to follow, but they often go blundering off in their own directions, get trapped behind closed doors, get lost in mazes, and so forth. Even when I had the right path mapped, I couldn’t necessarily stop my trailing characters from wandering off it. I eventually just had to accept the damage and move on.

My moron party members set off a bomb despite my best efforts.

In due course, we found the levitation device, used it on the bureau, and hustled the princess through the secret door. The passage led to a courtyard where one of her friends waited with a spaceship. As she rushed aboard, she tossed something at us and told us to take it to “He Who Speaks” on Henresia, presumably her lover. The item was a “trinket.”

Man, this would have come in handy in the Bolingbroke household over the last month.

I tried to explore more, but the palace guards all turned hostile at this point, and without any experience gain or any place to sell looted equipment, you’re basically fighting for no reason. We ultimately beamed back to the Ulysses and moved on.

The crew has a Star Trek-like transporter chamber for beaming up and down.

The closest next star was Subra, presumably home of the Subra II that we had to visit to find “He Who Speaks.” We warped to the system and scouted a few planets before we were contacted by a ship. It had the same thuggish-looking alien who’d defeated us in combat before, demanding 3 “units of cargo.” I hadn’t saved in a while and wasn’t confident in my ability to win in combat anyway, so I offloaded 3 units of heavy metals we’d brought from Earth.

Transferring cargo.

The transfer screen above comes up at the warehouse on Earth, while you’re in orbit around planets, and when you’re trading with aliens. You hit + or – to add or subtract cargo from your ship. It’s not quite as fun as taking a lander down to the surface and looking for signs of ore deposits.

The next quest begins.

On Subra II, we hit the next quest, titled “Gift of the Magin.” The planet was far more imaginative and alien than Tanitha, covered with swamps, ferns, mushrooms, tall trees with sprawling root systems, and biting insects. We were attacked several times by some kind of bear-looking beast which left meat behind when we killed it.

Firing at, and killing, a beast.

The intelligent species was a fungus-based biped with no eyes or mouth. To communicate with them, we had to first find a writing tool called an “imastyl” which the aliens could use to write messages in the muck. One of them wanted the meat we’d collected from a beast to allow us to cross a bridge.

The party approaches the Magin on the weird planet of Subra II.

Living in the hollow of a dead tree, we found a woman named “She Whose Steps Are Wise,” otherwise called “The Magin.” She asked us to kill a mutant named “He Who Speaks” who lives on the other side of the river and apparently sets traps for his fellow Subraites. We fell victim to more than one of them.

We found “He Who Speaks” in a cave. He was so-named because of a genetic mutation that allows him to talk with a mouth, and he claimed that the deformity left him persecuted by his people. We declined to kill him (again, I don’t know if we had any other real option). He thanked us and asked us to go rescue Princess Jhenna. When we gave him the trinket instead, he thanked us and suggested that if we took the Magin the Talking Stick that he previously stole, she’d prize it more than his death. Jhenna hadn’t arrived yet, but he seemed confident she’d be along. I’m not sure how an anthropomorphic bird mates with a talking mushroom, but I guess that’s for them to figure out.

I guess maybe this is a real choice, and I could have killed him to solve the quest.

We found the Talking Stick in a cavern nearby. There was some creature called the Bladderclaw–an underground beast whose bladed tentacles came bursting out of holes and attacked us. We tried to fight it for a while, died, reloaded, then remembered we had no reason to keep fighting once we had the stick. (Perhaps there was a cache of better weapons and armor past him or something.) We left Bladderclaw in the cavern and returned the Talking Stick to the Magin. She said that since she had it back, she would be “too busy to deal with the Algiebian issue” and thus appointed us as her envoys to . . . something.

The crew wastes time trying to fight a monster.

The next star was Koo-She. It had only one planet, Koo-She Prime, where a scan promised a quest called “Solitaire.” We beamed down into some structure beneath the surface of the planet. That’s as far as we got. We were blocked at the first door with a message that “only envoys of the President are allowed in the facility.” I guess the Magin isn’t the president because that didn’t do us any good.

I swear to you, Sy Sterling sent us!

The Miaplacidus system also only had one planet, and it was guarded by two ships and an orbital platform. When we communicated with them, they turned out to be staffed by the same species of goon who had previously extorted us for cargo. Here, he just demanded that we leave on pain of death. I decided I was sick of being pushed around and chose to attack.

Space combat in the game is disappointing. Basically, you just maneuver around the enemy, point your nose at him, and shoot. You can even turn on automatic firing if you want the game to shoot for you, which makes it almost just like Starflight. I assume that once I have a ship with cannons and missiles on the wings and such, I’ll have more things to shoot, but nothing really will change. Numbers show the status of your shields and your opponents. I honestly found it easiest to stay in one place and just rotate to face the foes. In the first combat, I destroyed both alien ships but then got killed by the orbital platform. I figured that was close enough to try again, and I achieved victory on my second attempt. My ship was repaired automatically afterwards, requiring no inventory of elements to do so.

Destroying the alien ship. I have no idea why the GIF is so slow in the beginning. I have issues with GIFs.

Miaplacidus Prime turned out to be uninhabited, but the planet had 27 units of “alien metals” to mine. Of course, after jettisoning the heavy metals we’d brought from Earth, we could still only take 5.

The Alphard system had mostly generic planets. One of them, Alphard Six, had 107 units of inert gases available.

Those gases do not look inert.

That left the Algiebian system. It had several generic planets and something called Ishtro Station. As we approached we were contacted by an alien who said that the world is “under the Great Protection Treaty signed by affiliates of the Galactic Enclave,” and that I would have to pay a fee of 6 cargo units before being allowed to contact the world. I tried giving him just 5, but he wouldn’t take it.

What would you say he look like? A horse?

Random notes:

One denizen of Talitha II did recognize us as “humans” and said that he hadn’t seen any of us “since the Concierge locked up the Izor system.” This suggests that humans live in the Izor system and perhaps that its ruler even is one.

There is no consideration of fuel in this game, nor does there seem to be any kind of timer.

The inability to move diagonally is really annoying.

I didn’t talk much about ground combat, but it has so few options that the game might as well have offered autocombat.

I got stuck in He Who Speaks’s cave for a while because although there was an obvious ladder, apparently the command needed to climb it was “search.” The game has a lot of weird interface quirks like that.

Since my ship is only capable of carrying 5 units of cargo, I leave you heading back to Earth to either build a new space ship or remove my only weapon from my current one to make more space.

My suspicion is that I’ll find some quest that leads me to the first artifact and that the other seven systems will have other batches of extremely linear, named, interrelated quests. But with no open exploration and no good RPG mechanics (there’s no character development and combat tactics are minimal), everything is going to hinge on the quality of the stories that make up those quests, and I find their quality mixed so far.

Time so far: 8 hours

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/planets-edge-one-line-in-three-dimensions/

#retro games #dos games #retro #crpg #adventure #amiga #oldcomputers #8bit #16bit #blog #repost

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