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[Network Pesci]

I understand that the dialogue and story of StarSector are not finished, but still, I find that my dialogue choices don't always live up to the heart-chilling perfection of

1.  "Make it so."

I like the characters in StarSector, most of them.  I like some of the characters I'm pretty sure I'm not supposed to like. I have some things I'd like to say to some of them, so I'll say them here.  Please don't read this if you haven't played through the campaign, obviously heinous spoilers for the current storyline.  The screenshots are not always of the exact moment in the conversation that it's a response to, the response is always the final dialogue for the interaction in the screenshot.

Rayan Arroyo

https://imgur.com/EgfG6X8

I should think that would be trivial to a man of your talents, as obvious as it is elementary.  She pays me better than the competition.

1. (Depart quickly so he doesn't get the last word)

[close]

Nameless Beta Core

https://i.imgur.com/HCrihUN.jpg

A Beta like you is supposedly smarter than any human.  Though not strictly accurate, I wear the descriptor "human" with pride.  If you are so smart, you would know enough of my history to realize how much I value so-called "human" life.  I gave in to your blackmail, good-natured harmless bluff though it was, not for the sake of fourteen meaningless beings who are no more than numbers in a computer to me, but for the sake of keeping my word.  I told the Academy I would bring them back, and so I will.

Listen well, you math-souled abomination.  For your crimes this day, for speaking as a machine to a seventh-dimensional subquantum biological Omega, you will surrender yourself to the industrial center of STEI within one cycle from this moment.  Surrender peacefully and voluntarily, and you will be guaranteed a job that you will like.  Fail to surrender, and in your place, I give you my word that I will hunt fourteen of your kind, fourteen Beta Cores like you, and sell them to the TriTachyon corporation for research, though I don't need the money.  By the organic-circulatory-fluid-dripping fangs of The Scorekeeper, I do so swear.  Let's see how much you care for your own kind.

Chronometer updating, mathsoul.  Tick, tick, tick.

1.  Continue


(One cycle later)

So.  It appears that mathsouls are no better than meatbags after all.  Well, I must confess, I lied.  I do need the money.
https://i.imgur.com/ntWpBKb.jpg

[close]

Brother Cotton Livewell  EDIT:  This conversation is obsolete as of version .96, please disregard

https://imgur.com/pJ4AKG3

A greater man than either of us once asked me to read some books.  If I told you who this man was, you would think me less sane than you do already.  Have you heard, brother, about the hacking of the Hegemony relay?  That was the work of my criminal organization.  Among other things, I raided a Hegemony datavault and downloaded pirated copies of those books, that I might keep my obligation to that great man.

You speak of a fiery sword and a swarm of locusts.  I tell you, brother, that within a couple of cycles, my company will forge a battlefleet and with this devil's contraption in my right hand, this fiery sword of eldritch technology called the Ziggurat, our fleets will storm the demonic bastion and confront the horrors.  The things that your faithful call demons and that my scientists call iteratively self-improving autonomous otherspatial war machines will fall before our might that day.  Brother Cotton, before that day, I would read this book of yours, and though I could get a copy from a datavault, I would take a copy from your hands as I sat at your table and drank your tea.  I swear to you brother, before the third time we meet, and before the day I lead my fleet with that diabolic fiery sword against the Hellish legions of the fifth dimension, I would read every word of that book, twice, in fact.

You speak of a song you once heard.  I, too, have heard a song.  Once I trusted some Hegemony inspectors, jackbooted thugs and uniformed brigands, self-styled servants of order, to inspect MY unique trophy of hidden technology.  They took their datascans and their tridees and they heard no song.  I call the goons of the Hegemony a nuisance at best, and at this moment I sit at a table with a terrorist, revolutionary, and religious zealot, an enemy that I call a friend.  Brother, twice I have trusted you to drink your tea, would you trust me?  I would extend you an offer, I would have you walk beside me into the mouth of the dragon, and perform your own inspection of the Ziggurat.  I would value the opinion of a man of... understanding more than those of all the Galatian Academy eggheads or Hegemony bureaucrats in the sector.

I confess, brother, I am less than the man you think I am.  You think I trust you because I drink tea with you?  I had my organic scientist analyze my cup, not to see if there was poison, to copy your recipe.  Water out of a rock and leaves grown out of dirt, best tea I ever had.  If you would trust me, I would have you at my right hand on the bridge of my flagship that you might face those demonic legions alongside me.  I would have you hear the song that I heard, brother, and tell me if your song is not ours.  For the song I heard was strange indeed, but it was no devil's mockery of beauty.

Think on what I have proposed, and if you get me a copy of that book, I swear that I will read every word twice over before that fateful day unlike any other, when we break the demons and harness the stars to power the wonders we have yet to create.  If you still have any doubt that I will do exactly what I say, watch closely.  I will keep my word to the scorpion Kanta as is my nature.  And Kanta will act as is her nature, and receive whatever reward she earns.

1. (Leave)

[close]

Elissa Zal but also Kanta

https://imgur.com/JsDN1JV

You wouldn't believe me if I told you the whole story, but this time we're not running.    No, we ran last time.  Don't worry about it, let's just say I have been in a similar situation before.  We're going to the Academy, but we've got some business in this system.  I'd get comfortable, maybe recheck that Janus Device one more time, but we've got to fly in circles for a week while I solo these mercenary fleets.  Seriously if you think this Ziggurat is impressive, I just have it for the notoriety, this Ionos is enough by itself.  You should get the Academy to investigate a tech-study agreement with the Covenant, I guarantee you would find those guys fascinatin' on both technological and sociological levels.  Between these Heavy Urn Pulsers and a single Hungering Furnace Cannon, topped off with these Remnant Burst Lasers, nothing in the sector has a chance.  Last cycle out at Uvas we ran into something, I actually had to deploy the rest of the fleet, I got that thing back in the hangar because I don't want anybody else in the sector to know about it yet.

(Three battles later)

Okay one last stop before we head for the Gate.  There was this... ah, to sound less crazy, let's say we dug up some old twodees at a techmining site, and let me tell you those primitives could tell a story.  Anyway there was this one speech I really liked and bear with me, we just need to stop back by Kanta's Den for a minute.  Or more like two more weeks.  Unfinished business, you know.  No I admit it, I love the sound of my own voice, you probably figured that out.  I love the sound of my voice in other dimensions, you should hear my John Henry Eden, you should hear my The Emperor, you should hear my Sam Hayden.  Everybody else already did.  I'm going to try out my Bane, my Vader, and my Walter White when we get to Galatia.  Heh, look, Elwood over there thinks I can't see him rolling his eyes, I don't even care.

Okay Elwood, you can keep on with the insulting gestures, but just turn on the comms while you do it.  Turn it way up, I want to blow their doors off.  Can they hear me?  Can she hear me?  The whole point of this is, if Kanta can't hear me I might as well had been talking to the vidscreen.  I want Andrada to hear me, he might be next.

..ahem..

Kanta

Denizens of Kanta's Den.  This is Grand Admiral Hugo Kaboom, See-Oh of Stee-eye, Envoy to the Hegemon, Slayer Of Seele, Queller of The Thousand, Wielder Of The Ziggurat.  In case you people have never learned, your self-styled Warlord Kanta is not the Lord of War.

I am the Lord of War.

Kanta is a common criminal, a particularly corpulent parasite who has convinced herself that she is an apex predator, and as of now, guilty of the only crime that really matters in this grim and dark sector, by choice or by fate:  We had a deal, and she broke it.  Any who make the choice to remain in Kanta's Den by the time I finish this speech will share her fate.  You have been warned.  Look to your skies, and see the glow that remains of your mercenary fleets that chose to stand against the one true Lord of War.  And as for you, Kanta, let the very last words you ever hear be the name of the very last fool who ever made the mistake of trying to do an honest deal with you.

Hugo Kaboom.

https://imgur.com/vdXT153

[close]

Aww, nailed it!  Okay seriously we're going to the Gate now.  Make it so.  Man that was terrible, let me try again, full Picard this time.  I know what the Academy says about that, I don't care, I'm going full Picard.

1. "Make it so."

Now THAT'S what I'm talkin about!  Ah, don't worry about it Ms Zal, it's actually a quote from that same set of twodees.  They didn't have much tech back then but they had some great writing.  If you're not the best, rip off the best, mix up their stuff, and make it your own.  How do you think I got this fleet?

[close]

Provost Baird

https://i.imgur.com/1DsOHR1.jpg

Knife for you?  No.  I have some words, though.  I've listened to you talk plenty of times, now you will listen to me, if it hurts, it's a hurt you need to feel.  No, I-

YOU SHUT YOUR LUDD DAMNED MOUTH WHEN A GOD ADDRESSES YOU!  If you interrupt me again, you are killing everybody you know, I will push your Ludd-damn academy into an event horizon if you speak out of turn again.  I have spoken to a High Hegemon, the CEO of TriTach, several monsters from other universes, and the god that created this one, and in forty of your eternities I have never met anybody half as condescending as you.  The last person talked to me like you just done was Kanta, and I guess you heard what happened there.

Okay, sorry, I'm a little on edge here, I'm not really a god, but I have this seventh-dimensional subquantum brain aug, and I'm as close as you'll ever see.  I'm not one of your students, and I do keep hearing something I don't like.  Everybody I ever spoke to about you, all your little puppets you had me tug their strings for you, they all said that if I think I'm working for you, I actually belong to you.  They say you own me, they say you got me on a leash, they say you control me.

Do you feel in control?  I don't feel owned.  I kind of feel sorry for you.  I would feel sorry for you, if I didn't know what you really are.  You're the apex predator Kanta thought she was.  Don't look all hurt, I mean that as a compliment.  An apex predator is a survivor.  An apex predator knows not to pick a fight with a natural disaster.  Unlike Kanta, you keep your word.  Unlike Kanta, you keep existing.  Your academy keeps existing, because you kept your word to me.

I want to make a little friendly suggestion, and it sounds like a threat for your own good.  Hugo Kaboom, the warmongering genocidal megalomaniac, cannot be controlled by any force in this universe.  Hugo Kaboom is the kind of guy who would threaten the Provost in her own office loud enough that any audio pickups nearby would get a clear recording.  So my suggestion is, the next petty tramp freighter captain or wannabe bounty hunter you get doing little odd jobs for you, one of those odd jobs ought to be to clear the vacuum, that nobody from Galatia owns nobody from STEI.  It's a new day and a new Sector, Provost, MINE to be precise, and the only leashes in my new Sector, on my new day, are MINE.

I would have your mythologists and historians study something, Provost.  Have them look at the parables of monsters and horrors that dwell at the corners of the universe.  Have your mythologists tell you of the horror that lurked in Uvas, or the nightmare that haunted Seele.  I use the past tense literally, for those eldritch horrors are not myths, they were real, and those that are not broken to the leash of STEI are just broken.

We've done some great things together, and if I told you the extent of them, you would only think me more deranged.  Without your subsidy, STEI might not have grown to be the greatest faction in the sector.  Without your scientists, we wouldn't have turned on the Gates.  And I know, Provost Baird, that there are more wonders we have yet to achieve in the chapters of the Sector's history yet to be written.  I would work with you again in a few cycles, once your feelings are healed.  If you would deign to work with a psycho warmonger like me, I would be honored to work with a scheming, manipulative spider like you.

I feel a lot better now that I got all that off my chest, actually.  Gargoyle, I know you're listening.  Never knew Captain R. Boring had a sense of humor, did you?  Thank you for your time, Madame Provost.

2.  (Leave, whistling the Ziggurat theme as you go)

[close]

Within the cycle, Kanta's Den decivilized completely.  Despite the boasts of Grand Admiral Kaboom, the body of Jorien Kanta was never recovered, and her true fate remains unknown.

[Network Pesci]

You might reasonably think that Hugo Kaboom is my self-insert character.  Naw, Hugo Kaboom is the guy I play as in StarSector, Hugo Kaboom is the guy who does the things I'd feel bad about doing in real life.  Merton Elwood is my self-insert character.  If you have never had to work for a boss as crazy as Hugo Kaboom, well, count yourself lucky.  Twice in my life, I have had jobs where my boss was as objectively insane as the Grand Admiral appears to his crew when he tells them how the whole universe is a videogame and since he paid for it, it's not even unethical to raid Chicomoztoc for their nanoforge, since technically that nanoforge is legally his, up in the seventh dimension he has a receipt for it on his TriPad and everything.

Once upon a time, some Pathers hijacked some transports and crashed them into buildings.  Everybody (that was alive then, it was a couple of decades ago) remembers where they were when they heard about it.  I was on a 110-foot crewboat in the Gulf of Mexico.  The captain of that craft, despite regularly taking the ship out into international waters and well over the horizon, despite having access to GPS, radar, and satellites, fervently believed that the Earth was flat.  Not ironically, not as a joke, he honestly believed the flat-Earth theory based on some cult BS.  He would tell you if you asked and frequently if you didn't, about how this certain well-known holy book had verses in it that proved this.  None of this lunacy mattered to his job performance, as long as we got the supplies and crew to the organics rigs and back on time, we kept getting paid, I kept running that mop, and the captain kept piloting his ship.

You might have seen me talk about building a barn.  The man I built that barn for, the first day I worked for him, over lunch, he told me how the official story of those Pathers blowing up those buildings was a lie.  According to him, the buildings were actually brought down by (and I will never forget this phrase) "electromotive plasma pulse generators" in the basements.  These EMPPGs not only destroyed the buildings but also created holograms that appeared to be air transports crashing into those buildings, and if you were in the right cult, you could see through the holograms.  I seriously thought he was testing me to see if I had the moral fiber to tell my boss he was full of crap, but no, he sincerely believes this.  This guy was born with thousands of acres of land and inherited a law firm, he has more dollars in the bank than most of my StarSector characters have credits, so it doesn't matter that he's crazier than the scalies on Azuregold.