Floatpoint Playalong

[grahamiam]

Floatpoint is a science fiction story in which the player must decide the best diplomatic outcome for Earth and its lost colony. It took first place in the 2006 IF Competition and received XYZZY awards for Best Setting and Best NPCs of 2006.

1st person to post may decide the next move in the game.

[grahamiam]

It is night on this side of the planet. Settled areas are lit: a jagged crescent in the tropics, lining the island sea. The bright splatter along the top of the curve is Tanhua, as bright from space as New York. The north continent is darker, sprinked finely with small lights, where the falling climate makes it hard to survive a winter. And the northernmost point, almost lost on the slope of Mt. Cordia, is the original Aleheart Colony, where the first settlers from Earth landed. It is your destination as well.

Altogether, the population comes to two hundred and thirty-seven (237) million not-quite-humans, most likely doomed if they stay here. The ice comes faster every year. It would have been more convenient if they had had this crisis twenty years ago, but Earth can still use it.

Your job is to make an arrangement acceptable to both sides, to bring the Aleheart population home.

The shuttle drops.

Please press space to continue [SPACE]

[grahamiam]

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/grahamiam/20071220715_floatpoint1.JPG
32.1*KB

Lakeshore 10:25AM
When Aleheart Colony was choosing landing spots, Cordia Peak was deemed a good source of geothermal and hydroelectric energy. This lake, snug under the mountain, is the oldest manmade thing on the planet, you have a poster of it at home.

In the early pictures, the lake is whitish, silty water in a bowl of bare rock, fed by a trickle of glacial runoff, and dammed at the south end with concrete. Now it is deep blue. The glacier has progressed so far that it forms a wall across the north end of the lake, tall enough to block any view of Cordia Peak except the summit. Icebergs float on the water. Fine black grass, rippled like velvet, grows on the bank. At the south end, the concrete too is gone; the water simple seems to stop.

The arc of Aleheart's ring system crosses the southern sky, much the same pale white as the moon in daytime.

A narrow path climbs west through a low point in the ridge and continues along the face of the glacier towards town.

quote:Some options to try (to play without guidance, type novice mode off):
examine (X) anthing in sight
go west, or got to any room you've visited
think to review what you need to do
help to see a more complete set of instructions

[Tubby Rower]

Examine.

[grahamiam]

What do you want to examine?

>think (I'll do this from time-to-time to help the players)

You run over the things you still need to get done before you can settle in:
- go to the Clearing to meet Valenti
- show up at the Embassy

[barbu1977]

go west

[grahamiam]

>go west
You climb the gravel pathway. On Earth you would be struggling more with this slope; the lighter gravity and richer air are a great help. Even so, it's a trip of some minutes.

Aleheart's Edge
This is as far north as you can come without ice-climbing. The glacier is chunks and patches of ice at first, but soon solid beyond that. There are rocks on the face of it, and twisted metal, and scraps of buildings, which were formerly the northern part of town.

You can feel the frigid air coming off of it, and hear the rumble of breaking and shifting ice -- the danger is obvious -- but somehow it gives the impression you could start walking now and in an hour come to the summit; stand at the top of Cordia and turn around, and see the rings filling the sky and the visible curvature of the world, the western ocean green with engineered algae, the patches of land made fertile and those still barren rock.

From this direction the rings frame the outline of town, off toward the south.

A narrow path descends east along the side of the glacier towards the lakeshore.


quote:Some options to try (to play without guidance, type novice mode off):
- examine (X) anything in sight
- inventory (I)
- go east or south, or go to any room you've visited
- think to review what you need to do
- help to see a more complete set of instructions

>

[socralynnek]

>examine rocks

[grahamiam]

>examine rocks
Carried down from higher up the mountain, presumably.

You have a little time to look around, but you shouldn't drag this out for long: you're supposed to meet your predecessor, Ambassador Valenti, in the center of town, as soon as possible.


quote:Some options to try (to play without guidance, type novice mode off): look
- examine (X) anything in sight
- inventory (I)
- go east or south, or go to any room you've visited
- think to review what you need to do
- help to see a more complete set of instructions
>

[Tubby Rower]

go south

[grahamiam]

>go south
You walk about half a mile. There are now some buildings along the east side of the street, though most of them are abandoned.

Broad Street
To the northwest is a public building with a deep portico; to the east, one with a conical roof. The others are private houses, but, except one or two, they don't look lived in. There is a general atmosphere of neglect.

The street continues south into the heart of town, or north towards the mountain and the glacier. A track for a floating train cuts southeast between the buildings.

The rings in the southern sky are partly obscured by the buildings on the horizon, but are still bright enough to catch the eye.


quote:Some options to try (to play without guidance, type novice mode off):
examine (X) anything in sight
inventory (I)
go east, north, northwest, or south, or go to any room you've visited
think to review what you need to do
help to see a more complete set of instructions

I decided to examine the track.

>examine track
The tracks run away between the houses, heading southeast towards southern settlements and eventually to Tanhua. They stop at the edge of Broad Street, so this must be the end of the line for any supplies or visitors being brought up from the south -- though presumably there is a larger station and a proper loading and unloading dock elsewhere.

>

[grahamiam]

No sign of the clearing yet, but the Embassy is probably S in the heart of town?

[Tubby Rower]

Examine track

[grahamiam]

I did that Tubby :) Nice to see we are thinking alike!

[Tubby Rower]

go NW

[grahamiam]

>go northwest

11:02AM

Ruined Vineyard
Once this was a kind of hothouse, but the glacier has knocked out loadbearing portions of the north wall. The roof is buckled at that end and gives a view of patchy sky; only a steel scaffold prevents it from falling in completely. Gusts of warm air from the wall vents quickly turn to cloud.

A pamphlet lies discarded near kiosks that line the west wall. The bulk of the area, though, is full of plant lines, growing on frames as in a vineyard.

You remind yourself about the waiting Valenti.


quote:Some options to try (to play without guidance, type novice mode off):
examine (X) anything in sight
inventory (I)
take the pamphlet
go west or southeast, or go to any room you've visited
think to review what you need to do
help to see a more complete set of instructions
>

[grahamiam]

>take the pamphlet
Taken.

>i
You are carrying:
a pamphlet
a comfortable outfit of chronometer, grey undersuit, shoes, and socks

To get rid of any of these objects, drop it, or take off anything you are wearing.


>x pamphlet
It is a single sheet of folded paper on which are printed instructions, which unfortunately you can't read.

>x steel scaffold

11:07AM
The scaffold is an ad-hoc construction that covers the underside of the roof like arteries around a heart.

It was self-indulgence to have the shuttle set you down at the Lakeshore, since you wanted to have a look at the part of the Colony you would recognize from pictures, before going on to the part that would be strange to you. But you shouldn't drag this out.


Some options to try (to play without guidance, type novice mode off):
- look
- examine (X) anything in sight
- inventory (I)
- go west or southeast, or go to any room you've visited
- think to review what you need to do
- help to see a more complete set of instructions

>

[Tubby Rower]

x wall vents (those might house something since this is deserted and shouldn't be heated.)

[grahamiam]

11:08am
>x wall vents
White cloud billows out thickly around your ankles.