The galaxy is exploding.
Not this one, you understand; the one in the TEP universe. Now, this is a bit terminal and would tend to curtail the open-ended nature of the game. With this in mind, this particular plot- thread will be entirely optional and the player will be warned discreetly of the consequences of accepting it.
Now to business.
All the stars are going supernova in some form of chain reaction. However, details are yet undecided because we are unsure of the intended properties of the wavefront.
There are several options:
The galactic core is very densely packed with stars. Once, a long time ago, one too many went supernova at once. The matter and energy thrown out pushed several nearby over the brink as well. Like a lump of uranium over critical mass, the chain reaction proceeded with ever more violence, destroying more and more stars and expanding outwards. The wavefront of the disruption advances through the galaxy at lightspeed as an extended pulse of very concentrated very high energy EM radiation, followed much further behind by an expanding shell of star debris. We assume that the energy density is sufficiently high to still trigger novae by the time it reaches inhabited space, but even if not, the gamma surge could sterilise everyone.
Wavefront speed: Lightspeed (sterilisation & maybe novae)
Sub-light (expanding matter, maybe -> nova)
Clearly the galaxy must be evacuated before the gamma pulse reaches us or our stars go nova.
[Whether our galactic core is dense enough, or indeed whether such a dense agglomeration of stars could ever form to allow a chain reaction, is beyond the scope of this article and its author!]
[Drawback: The wavefront will advance _very_ slowly in practical terms. Stars are light-years apart, and the wave only advances at 1ly per year. The time to reach, let alone engulf, the human worlds is too long.]
1.2) Core Novae with Gravitational Complications
The core has gone nova as above, but the central black hole of the galaxy has been destabilised by the sudden monolateral bombardment by matter and radiation it has received. It is spinning about at least two axes, giving off unpredictable pulses of gravitrons as yet more bursts of energy and matter hit home as more stars give way, leading to unpredictable distortions in gravity and the fabric of space-time. This means that the rate of advance of the wavefront is utterly unpredictable as space itself is warping and twisting as the gravitrons and gamma radiation advance at the same speed, outwards.
Wavefronts: Speed unpredictable. Gamma followed by detritus.
[This is fundamentally a kludge that could make things simpler for the programmers by allowing us to have the wavefront far out beyond the player's reach until the mission comes up, suddenly just in reach at the farthest attainable stars once it does, then to move not noticeably further until it suddenly surges and engulfs all of known space - Game Over!].
2) Hyperspatial anomaly
A region of hyperspatial anomaly is passing over human space / the galaxy. This is increasing the incidence of mis-jumps and will continue to do so until space travel becomes impossible. This will lead to the collapse of interstellar civilisation. Prompt evacuation is an imperative.
Cause: Could be anything. Limited core supernovae perturbing the black hole (who really understands what those critters do to space-time anyhow?). Natural hyperspatial phenomena. Malignant intervention by beings powerful beyond our wildest dreams.
No wavefront: Mis-jumps just increase in frequency until they are happening every time, in which case the player might as well give up on getting anywhere and quit.
3) Cosmic String
A cosmic string was postulated by some scientists trying to figure out why galaxies form. They figured there had to be some massive disturbance to mess up the universe enough for some gas to condense into galaxies and the superclusters made of galaxies. The Cosmic String is this disturbance. It is a seam in the universe, may make up some of the 'dark matter,' and is thought to exist in the cosmic void. From hyperspace, a black hole is supposed to be viewed as a point with a massive gravity well. A cosmic string is a linear black hole. (It'd be extremely hard to visualize, as part of it would stick out into the fourth dimension.)
Cause: Probably natural. Not sure how fast one could move (it could possibly move faster-than-light by distorting space-time, slower than light, or unpredictably due to its complex nature), but it'd start flinging some stars around before it got here. Definately a warning sign for our scientists. Anyway, what the cosmic string doesn't suck in, it'd throw out of the galaxy, so the galaxy would be eaten up and torn apart at the same time: a very bad situation for an interstellar society, as soon the distances would be impassable.
No wavefront, no misjumps: As the string approaches, hyperspace ranges would be likely to increase. However, at the same time, stars would be disappearing and moving apart simultaneously. One may be able to purchase a map upgrade that could make predictions on which stars will be swallowed up, and how fast the others will move.
This mission will trigger long after all other plot has finished. The player will be approached by an unidentified contact and asked if they wish to take a mission which could affect the future of humankind as we know it.
At the bottom a footnote will appear:
Accepting this mission leads to a finite game length in a win/lose scenario.
For an open game, select NO.
This is a brief step out of character, but if anyone can come up with a better way of conveying this fact without interfering with game atmosphere, tell me!
Upon accepting, the player will be told to investigate a system right on the limits of attainability, and a package of special scientific instruments shall be fitted to their ship. They are advised to extreme caution.
They travel to the system. For a supernova scenario, the screen shall go bright white, and their shields start depleting rapidly, as they are bombarded with radiation and dazzled by the light of a million exploding suns. They have to jump out quickly, or ker- splat! For the hyperspace scenario, they'll just get a mis-jump.
However, a message shall appear to indicate that the readings have been taken and that they are to return to XXX in [?,?].
Following this it turns out that the player was hired by a panel representing all the major governmental powers, it is revealed how the explosion was discovered, and a vast evacuation is planned.
The details of these sections are yet undecided, with the exception of the evacuation.
A fleet of massive hyperspatial vessels.
Three possibilities:
packed full of cryogenically frozen evacuees, capable of hyperspace to the Magellanic Clouds (our nearest neighbour galaxies - actually more like little galaxiettes).
The game ends when the player docks at one of these. (Superficially, this will either be a docking slit like on a station, or a miniature starport-like construct like you get on the airless worlds in FirstEnc. The latter again makes it easier for the programmers - it's exactly the same as a planet!) This is followed by an ending sequence.
[? insert details from old mail here]
Drawback: Taking even a Class 4 Military drive with _no further mass attached_ it would be impossible to attain a hyperspace of the distances required. Two bare class 4 drives would have the same power-to-weight ratio as one. So to haul something along with us (the spaceships!) we need some sort of super-drive. If so, why isn't it available for normal ships? Possible answer: It's so huge it can only be fitted in a moon-sized ship. It hasn't been built up until now because nothing has justified the cost.
2) The leapfrog approach
We build light probes capable of carrying large amounts of fuel, with a range equal to that of the final starship. Then we send them out as follows:
Suppose a probe can carry enough fuel for itself to leap 100ly with an equal amount as cargo.
Send probe 1 100ly out towards the Greater or Lesser Magellanic Cloud. Send probe 2 out to probe 1, refuel it off probe 1's cargo, then send it another 100ly out. Then send another probe to replace probe 1. The next probe leaps to probe 1, refuels, leaps to probe 2, refuels then leaps to a spot 300ly out. Replace probes 1 & 2.
Repeat until a chain of refuelling depots exists all the way to the Cloud.
Launch a ship to follow the chain.
In practice a probe would be able to carry far more than 1 refuel, being far lighter than the ship but outfitted with the same engine. Thus it would be less costly on probes than it first appears, with replacement of early-chain probes being far less frequently required.
The probes must be automated as they aren't intended to come back.
3) Hyperspace Portal
Here, the fuel is all at this end. A device is created which opens a hyperspace tunnel to the destination, and _keeps it open_, using fuel at our end only. The ship which is subsequently flown into this portal doesn't even need hyperspace! (Though it's a good idea to have it in case the target system is unpleasant and we need to move on smartish.)
The evac ship would be long and narrow to reduce the size of portal required. Picture a hi-tech doorway floating in space, a hundred metres wide but fairly far away, and a ship passing under your point of view, on towards the portal, metre by gleaming metre, at a pace that appears to be that of a running man until you realise how colossal the thing is, and it keeps on passing by, its irregular surface covered in radar dishes, living sections connected by girders and walkway-tunnels.
[This speed is the one things always move at in SF films - implying a stately grace and rather too much engine power to be plausible.]
Maybe the player even gets to fly an evac ship!
NB In cases 1 & 3, a fleet makes more sense than a single ship, in case something goes wrong. You're not putting all your eggs / populace in one basket. In case 2, a single ship makes more sense as only one journey along the chain is required (the chain will be costly and awkward to set up).
In traditional Elite style the game becomes open-ended. Maybe there are a few scare articles in magazines, but then the pilot who went to do the research comes back and it is loudly declared that it was all a false alert.
Example: The cosmic string could make an unexpected shift on the fourth dimension (time) and vanish. That would also mean that it could come back anytime, though. And I'd expect reports of "Strange Happenings in Hyperspace" would abound.
As a final note, I would like it very much if the player was to find a line of poetry engraved on a platinum moonlet as a hint - "The centre cannot hold"...
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