Gaming story
Given my recent encounters on Egosoft's forums for DiD (Dead is Dead) methods of play for X3 terran conflict and my shiny new gfx card that makes everything look very pretty, I decided to try it myself with appropriate story so here goes:
After the end of the Paranid Incident in Heratic's End I decided enough was enough, it was time to get outta the military. My time of service was up and I had saved most of the cash I earned during it, just enough to get a beaten up old Elite with a few upgrades; 4 Particle Accelerator Cannons and a couple of 5MJ Shields. Less than I would like but more than I had expected.
I was now my own boss, taking myself wherever the wind took me, or more accurately wherever I could earn the most money. As I undocked from the Shipyard at Omicron Lyrae and eased back into the pilots seat Betty(the ships computer) chirped at me about an incoming message. Some jumped up bureaucrat's face appeared on the hud informing me of some Terran diplomats needing escorting to Heretic's End and that it would "be in my interest" to escort them. Great, never gonna escape the damned service. I opened a com-link to the station and informed them I would take the job but the pay better be worth it, those Terrans appeared damned keen to blow everyone to bits when they arrived in Heretic's End on that fateful day.
The Terran Scabard appeared from the station and fell in with its escort, myself and 2 others. One of the escorts was the classic Buster and the other guy was flying that ugly box the Bala Gi Research developed, the Eclipse, technically it's a good ship but god damn its ugly. We head off to Heretics End and except for 2 pirate clowns in Discoverers it's plain sailing.
Upon arriving at The Defense Station belonging to the Terrans they decide to offer to hire us, the other 2 turn them down but the money is right and I am curious to see what the mythical Solar System looks like. My first job is to fly a patrol with some Terran wing which I will meet in Pluto sector.
It becomes pretty clear pretty quickly that the Terrans have never had to do much fighting against anything but they have some nice equipment for their ATF (AGI Task Force). Shame the crap they give the normals looks so umm... white. Those are not particularly pretty ships either, even my old Elite looks dangerous in comparison to those formica-looking wedges. No doubting their capabilities though as, once I form up with the flight we get reports of AGI (Artificial General Intelligence, Xenons to us Commonwealth folk)attacking for the first time in 20 years, or so my flight leader informs me as we move to engage the Xenons. Very quickly the EMPC of the Terran fighters cut through the invaders. They were using a jump beacon to rally around, once destroyed the reinforcements stopped. Strange choice for invaders though a heap of light fighters even a small squadron can deal with, if it were me I wouldn't enter Terran space without a half dozen Titan class destroyers and a Colossus full of fighters for cover. Even then I wouldn't fancy my chances. My thoughts were interrupted by the mission controller informing us it was a distraction and that 5 Xenon message drones had sneaked past our defenses and hit a research facility near Mars, they were now running with stolen files towards the Oort Cloud. I was to intercept and find where they were running to. What I found was very interesting. Following one of the drones it turns out it was heading for another jump beacon but sitting next to this jump beacon was an Argon Nova which promptly fired a missile at the beacon and jumped out. I rejoined the wing and continued the patrol showing the, clearly very green, Terran pilots how to deal with the Xenon stragglers. Upon reaching Saturn we were ordered to dock with the research facility to have our flight recorders downloaded for further analysis and I was ordered to speak to some Major-General bloke in bloody Heretic's End, seems I am never gonna be able to escape that system...
After the end of the Paranid Incident in Heratic's End I decided enough was enough, it was time to get outta the military. My time of service was up and I had saved most of the cash I earned during it, just enough to get a beaten up old Elite with a few upgrades; 4 Particle Accelerator Cannons and a couple of 5MJ Shields. Less than I would like but more than I had expected.
I was now my own boss, taking myself wherever the wind took me, or more accurately wherever I could earn the most money. As I undocked from the Shipyard at Omicron Lyrae and eased back into the pilots seat Betty(the ships computer) chirped at me about an incoming message. Some jumped up bureaucrat's face appeared on the hud informing me of some Terran diplomats needing escorting to Heretic's End and that it would "be in my interest" to escort them. Great, never gonna escape the damned service. I opened a com-link to the station and informed them I would take the job but the pay better be worth it, those Terrans appeared damned keen to blow everyone to bits when they arrived in Heretic's End on that fateful day.
The Terran Scabard appeared from the station and fell in with its escort, myself and 2 others. One of the escorts was the classic Buster and the other guy was flying that ugly box the Bala Gi Research developed, the Eclipse, technically it's a good ship but god damn its ugly. We head off to Heretics End and except for 2 pirate clowns in Discoverers it's plain sailing.
Upon arriving at The Defense Station belonging to the Terrans they decide to offer to hire us, the other 2 turn them down but the money is right and I am curious to see what the mythical Solar System looks like. My first job is to fly a patrol with some Terran wing which I will meet in Pluto sector.
It becomes pretty clear pretty quickly that the Terrans have never had to do much fighting against anything but they have some nice equipment for their ATF (AGI Task Force). Shame the crap they give the normals looks so umm... white. Those are not particularly pretty ships either, even my old Elite looks dangerous in comparison to those formica-looking wedges. No doubting their capabilities though as, once I form up with the flight we get reports of AGI (Artificial General Intelligence, Xenons to us Commonwealth folk)attacking for the first time in 20 years, or so my flight leader informs me as we move to engage the Xenons. Very quickly the EMPC of the Terran fighters cut through the invaders. They were using a jump beacon to rally around, once destroyed the reinforcements stopped. Strange choice for invaders though a heap of light fighters even a small squadron can deal with, if it were me I wouldn't enter Terran space without a half dozen Titan class destroyers and a Colossus full of fighters for cover. Even then I wouldn't fancy my chances. My thoughts were interrupted by the mission controller informing us it was a distraction and that 5 Xenon message drones had sneaked past our defenses and hit a research facility near Mars, they were now running with stolen files towards the Oort Cloud. I was to intercept and find where they were running to. What I found was very interesting. Following one of the drones it turns out it was heading for another jump beacon but sitting next to this jump beacon was an Argon Nova which promptly fired a missile at the beacon and jumped out. I rejoined the wing and continued the patrol showing the, clearly very green, Terran pilots how to deal with the Xenon stragglers. Upon reaching Saturn we were ordered to dock with the research facility to have our flight recorders downloaded for further analysis and I was ordered to speak to some Major-General bloke in bloody Heretic's End, seems I am never gonna be able to escape that system...