Well, I haven't seen /that/ event before. I'm not sure if it's from one of the mods I picked up or vanilla, but it ended up being pretty touching.
The U.N. found a cryo-vault filled with aliens on a moon. No biggie, right? Well, this one didn't contain
just some aliens, but Human corpses as well. We did some research and probed their archives, and found co-ordinates for four homeworlds for four of the six alien races. The last two were us, who obviously knew where Earth was, and another alien race that was represented more heavily, leading us to assume they were the ones who built the facility. We also found signs they were trying to uplift the other races, so we were interested enough to look at where those co-ordinates were.
Each world we went to was differently doomed. One was frozen over, a giant snowball. Another was a molten hellhole, dragged too close to the sun by some unknown force.
The third was covered in crystals, which we found were of the same kind that the space-crystals were made out of. We had about enough time to say "Oh shit, that's bad!" before a Sovereign warped into the system with hostility in its... lattice? Our science ship managed to scramble out without being hurt, and we sent in the newly-combined fleets of the Humans and the Flowermen-I-still-haven't-but-really-should-learn-the-names-of. There was a titanic clash, which consisted mostly of our force throwing Fusion missiles like Macross, although for all the damage each one did we may as well have been tossing pop rocks out the window. The Sovereign got irritated enough to shoot back, but my fleet being mostly Corvettes with Mid-tier engines meant he couldn't easily hit us, and the advantage in numbers and lumbering intellect of the silicate being meant he wasted time shooting at different corvettes with every barrage. The battle actually lasted long enough that some of my corvettes
shields started to recharge mid battle, but eventually they managed to cherry-tap the Sovereign to death. Somehow, we didn't lose anyone, which shocked me, because the Sovereign wiped shields with one hit, and Corvettes are fragile. Still, we managed to kill it, and now we're researching Crystal Growth patterns on the planet - carefully, in case any more Sovereigns show up.
The fourth planet was
coated in mining drones. Each one of their forces was far weaker than my combined fleet, but there was enough of them combined to make it quite the task to clear them out. Unfortunately, I don't have any epic battles here; it was closer to exterminating an infestation of particularly thuggish termites than a bunch of knights slaying a dragon. We found that the system had been targeted by the mining drones for being unusually mineral rich. What I found out when I scanned the system is that my secretary apparently has a strong sense of irony - That one system had
24 minerals in total, with every planet, moon, and asteroid having at least 2 minerals and most having 3. While I sent my constructor, who wasn't doing anything since I'd long since run out of energy deposits or large mineral deposits like this one, to go build the mother of all mining rigs (and a memorial), my scientists were working on restoring power to the cryo facility. a short while later, they succeeded, and we had the coordinates of the "Oreill" Homeworld, which coincidentally didn't show up on our scanners previously because fucking game mechanics or some shit.
When we arrived at the Homeworld that had just appeared miles deep in our territory for some reason, I got a bit scared. You see, this was a nice big, long chain of quests, and when a nice big long chain of quests leads you to a system so covered in space debris and wreckage that you can see it all the way zoomed out, savvy gamers tend to shit their pants.
This is exactly how I found the Oreill Homeworld. Oh, and all the planets were uniquely named too. Also there was an Asteroid with moons, which I didn't know could happen.
Sucking it up like the pussy pretending to be a man I am, I sent my science ship to go knock on the Totally Not Suspiciously Shielded Planet. I also brought my military fleet in with a couple new Destroyers, because fuck if I'm fighting off some monolithic beast with Deflectors and Hope.
Turns out, didn't need the warships at all. The Shield was full of sads. ;-;
I was contacted almost immediately by an AI. The AI told me that he was just the mental image of an Oreill saved into a databank. The
Last Oreill. Cortana told me that he and his people were of the peaceful sort, but didn't get too big into the planning of things - they cloned themselves into sterility before they realized it, and instead of harvesting brainstems like some other aliens, they decided that they were going to let nature cull the foolish. But there were violent races out there, ones who would pick on the natives the Oriell had grown fond of. So since they knew they wouldn't be around to protect them, they tried to let them protect themselves. They started an uplift program, and tried to teach the natives spaceflight and all the science they'd need to survive against the more violent types.
One such Opponent took umbrage to this. I can only assume that they're the relatively close by FE further down the Galactic Arm, a Militant Isolationist empire I could see doing something like this, because there aren't any other advanced species for miles. The only other option is that it was the Cybrex empire we've been researching, since recent reports indicate they may have had some sort of civil war. But who it was doesn't really matter - despite inferior tech, they invaded the Oreill, who fought back as valiantly as they could. But the Oreill were sterile, and while they had the bigger lasers, every one they lost was irreplaceable. They weren't able to stop the Opponent in time, and eventually retreated behind their shield, where they slowly died. The last Oreill impressed his mind onto a machine, creating an AI, for the sole purpose of apologizing to any of their "Children Races" that managed to stop by. They don't know why the Opponent didn't off the Humans, and we don't know either. But the Last Oreill asked us a question.
The Oreill had dedicated their entire species, by the end, to protecting those in the galaxy who had no means of fighting back from those who would invade them, conquer them, and enslave their people. The Oreill fought to the last man, literally, to stop the Opponent from destroying native species that could barely figure out how to farm their own food, simply because they could. The Oreill had a promise to themselves, that they would watch over and protect every primitive they encountered, and do their best to ensure that they were happy, healthy, and safe. The Oreill fought to protect the Galaxy.
And then they died.
The Last Oreill asked us if we would promise to do the same. Whether Humanity would forge it's own path among the stars, or if it would take up the mantle the Oreill had left unfilled for too many Millennia. He asked us if we would protect the weak, if the United Nations would continue the project to Uplift the primitive and bring them plenty.
There wasn't any hesitation. I said yes.
"The United Nations has not changed it's path. We were always set down this path; as xenophilic as our people are, as diverse as our opinions on everything is, how could we not allow the aliens the same rights Humans had? The aliens we met in our first forays into the stellar sea were narrow, primitive, and easily exploited. And yet, we did nothing but learn their language, come to them not as gods or kings but as guardians and observers. We came to the fascistic Lesenti people and presented ourselves as we were - as divergent and deviant from their norms as things could possibly be. But we still gave them honesty, and respect, despite the fact that they were just discovering the benefits of the rail and the steam engine, that they were using early rifles and we were using liquid powder rounds and assault rifles. We could have conquered them easily - both them and us
know they would have done the same. But we did not conquer them. We met them, spoke to them, got to know them. And then we gave them technology, uplifted them from the train to the reusable rocket, and allowed them to have their own government, elected by their officials. Yes, we kept some hedgemony; how could we not? But it was not a Human that started the Individualist movement that would grow to encompass them all. There was no human hands in the Enlisted Revolution that established their Republic. It was a Lesenti, and Lisenti paws that did these things. And now they come to us, willingly serving our forces in our military. Out of fascists, democrats made friends, and we both prospered.
Humanity walks this path out of our own free will. We are great, not because of our similarities, but because we have all
chosen this path. We've told the Oriell that we will defend the weak races of the galaxy, and in time give them the means to protect themselves. And if they wish independence, then we will grant it.
We've added a new clause to the U.N. Charter. That all Sapients are created equal. That all Sapients are owed by their nature, certain inalienable rights: The Right to Live. The Right to Prosper. And the Right to Choose."
~Secretary General Ivana Kawasaki
United Nations General Release, "Amendment 32"
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Topic: Stellaris: Paradox Interactive IN SPACE (Read 1742042 times)