In 2043, an alien probe originating from Alpha Centauri is detected in our solar system. Attempts at a peaceful first contact fail and a missile barrage is launched at Earth. Earth's ABM systems successfully destroyed all but one missile, and its sheer power of destruction prompted the world governments to invest significant effort into.
![](/uploads/1/2/6/3/126394442/914000324.png)
Alien Legacy | |
---|---|
Developer(s) | Ybarra Productions |
Publisher(s) | Sierra On-Line |
Platform(s) | MS-DOS |
Release | 1994 |
Genre(s) | Real-time strategy |
Mode(s) | Single-player |
Alien Legacy is a sci-fi strategy game developed by Ybarra Productions and published by Sierra On-Line in 1994 for MS-DOS.
Gameplay[edit]
The game includes elements of city construction, research, resource management, industrial production and combat. Players must colonize a star system light years from Earth by building planetary cities and Space Stations. Several advisors guide the player through the plot and a PDA reminds the player of important tasks as objectives, revealed as the scenario progresses. Given sufficient player immersion, the game atmosphere may add to the experience of ensuring the survival of mankind. The game progresses in real-time but the game speed can be adjusted.
Some tasks must be done before a set time limit or else the game will end prematurely. For example, at the beginning of the game, if the player fails to form a self-sufficient colony on Gaea, (a colony with at least one habitat, power plant and factory) the science advisor (also the mission's executive officer) will kill the player for incompetence and take over the command.
Story[edit]
Plot[edit]
The game takes place after the arrival of the UNS Calypso in the Beta Caeli star system. You take the role as captain of the Calypso. The Calypso has been sent from Earth to colonize the system. The UNS Tantalus was sent to the same star system after you, but because it makes use of a better engine, arrives in Beta Caeli before you do. The Calypso, Tantalus, and similar ships were sent to colonize other star systems due to the threat of humanity's extinction on Earth as a result of an interstellar war.[1] The story involves the Calypso's attempts to find out what happened to the Tantalus and its colonies which have gone missing, as well as other mysteries involving relics of previous non-human inhabitants of the system.
Planetary systems[edit]
The Beta Caeli system is similar to our real-life solar system, with a barren, rocky inner planet, terrestrial planets in the habitable zone of the inner system, followed by gas giants in the outer system that first increase and then decrease in size, and a tiny rock outermost.
- Beta Caeli (F0-type Star; Blue-White in color)
- Alpha Asteroid Belt; analogous to the nonexistent Vulcanoids
- Hermes (Rocky Planet); analogous to Mercury
- Rhea (Earth-like Planet) Similar to Venus in position, but has a large Moon and is slightly larger than Earth. The presence of the large natural satellite and a quick rotation rate supposedly prevented the runaway greenhouse effect, making it Earth-like.
- Prometheus (Natural Satellite of Rhea), analogous to Earth's Moon
- Gaea (Earth-like Planet); the Calypso starts the game orbiting Gaea. It has no moon.
- Ares (Desert Planet); analogous to Mars but poor in iron
- Beta Asteroid Belt; analogous to the Solar System's main asteroid belt
- Zeus (Gas Giant); analogous to Jupiter
- Hera (Natural Satellite of Zeus); analogous to Io but larger and less volcanically active
- Hebe (Natural Satellite of Zeus); analogous to Ganymede
- Cronus (Gas Giant); analogous to Saturn but has no rings or moons.
- Poseidon (Gas Giant); analogous to Uranus and Neptune
- Thetis (Natural Satellite of Poseidon); analogous to Triton but larger
- Hades (Minor Planet); analogous to Pluto
The naming of the Caelian planets closely matches that of naming planets in our solar system. But while our system uses the names of Roman deities (except for Uranus), Caeli has Greek ones; Gaea is the Greek goddess of the Earth, and Rhea is her daughter. In addition, as Beta Caeli is brighter and hotter than the Sun, the Caelian planets are more distant from their sun than their Solar System analogs are. In reality, Beta Caeli may be too bright and young to host life, a fact noted in the game itself where they noted that the system is 2.5 billion years old but an F0 star lasts for about 5 billion years, yet both Earth-like planets have advanced life forms.
Races[edit]
- The H'riak, a highly xenophobic race who have apparently seeded many planets in the Galaxy with their life, including Beta Caeli and Alpha Centauri, but apparently not Earth. They have an automated sporeship hidden within Gamma 1 in the outer asteroid field. The sporeship seems to send signals to the biota of terrestrial planets, and program it to attack any non-H'riak life forms nearby. Gamma1 was originally heavily armed, until the Tantalus colonists managed to destroy most of its weaponry at the cost of all of their ships.
- The Empiants, who resemble purple squids in appearance, inhabit the gas giant Cronus. In the past, the Empiants waged war against the H'Riak. After the player establishes a station orbiting Cronus, the Empiants attack. The Empiants communicate telepathically and are adversely affected by Human brainwaves after the Calypso colonists establish a station orbiting Cronus. This leads the Empiants to attack the Humans, but once a solution is found to block Human brain waves, they are not unreasonable, only asking that gas for energy not be siphoned from Cronus. (Zeus and Poseidon are still acceptable sources of energy.)
Reception[edit]
Game journalist Niko Nirvi awarded Alien Legacy a score of 82% in Pelit magazine.[2] The game's plot carried the game for Nirvi, keeping him interested throughout ('after the plot finally started.')[citation needed] He found the plot to be quite linear, and while events may happen differently on replay, felt no need to return to the game after completing it.[citation needed] Conversely, he found the strategy side lacking: the advisors 'warmly hold the player's hand as they guide him through Alien Legacy, leaving the player balancing the colonies instead of using wits.[citation needed] He summed up the game as 'a nice enough snack, no more, no less' that friends of Star Control should inspect.[citation needed]
Nirvi deemed the game's graphics pleasant, its interface generally well-working, and its sounds nondescript.[citation needed]
References[edit]
- ^Chiu, Philip. 'Alien Legaxy by Dynamix/Sierra On-line'. Game Bytes. Retrieved 7 April 2011.
- ^Nirvi, Niko (June 1994). 'Alien Legacy: Calypson tahdissa'. Pelit. pp. 30–31. Retrieved 11 April 2011.
External links[edit]
- Alien Legacy at MobyGames
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Alien_Legacy&oldid=904171341'
The player takes on the role of of the UNS Calypso, a colony ship sent from Earth to the Beta Caeli system in the wake of a between humanity and the Centaurians as a last-ditch effort to ensure that humans survive in some parts of the galaxy. Upon waking up from a state, you receive messages from Earth sent decades (centuries? Millennia?) prior, which inform you of another colony ship, UNS Tantalus, sent to Beta Caeli 16 years later but, thanks to a more efficient engine, set to arrive 21 years prior to the Calypso. Upon arriving to the system, you see that it is remarkably similar to the Solar System. There are also remains of the Tantalus colonists' presence but no colonists themselves.The game involves colonizing the system and figuring out what happened to the Tantalus and her colonists. This involves sending shuttles to scout planets for resources and viable colony sites, building new colonies, populating them, and constructing buildings necessary to make them self-sufficient.
Some colonies cannot be self-sufficient by definition, which includes space stations (which can't mine natural resources) and the Calypso herself, which is a giant, albeit mobile, space station. While only two planets (Rhea and Gaea) can support life, all planets short of gas giants can be colonized. The player can build habitats, power plants, factories, and labs for the colonies. Habitats house and 'produce' colonists, power plants allow other buildings to function and produce the 'energy' resource.
Factories can be set to mining (produces the 'industry' resource) or production (builds robots, shuttles, or missiles). Labs generate scientific resources, depending on what each lab is set to produce (mathematics, biology, physics, chemistry, astronomy, electronics, and geology). The main resources in the game are 'people', 'industry', 'energy', and 'robots'. Scientific resources are used to research new technologies.
All but 'people' can also be found while exploring planets with shuttles. The player has several advisors to help you get started and keep you informed about new developments.
You also have a PDA that allows you to look up information and keep notes.The more clues you find as to the fate of the previous colonists, the more you begin to realize you're not alone in this system.Tropes present in the game:.: Despite the mentioning the Centaurians, you spend much of the game with no aliens in sight. Then you find the Empiants and the H'riak sporeship.: The H'riak, who program all their creations with an overriding urge to destroy all non-H'riak-created organisms. This explains the Centaurians' hate towards humans.
Empiants lack their hate because they were created unintentionally from waste.: The first thing the Centaurians do after discovering humanity is to send a heavily-armed probe to the Solar System with missiles filled with a deadly virus. They then proceed to send fleets to attempt to wipe out humans. There does not appear to be a reason for their hostility, until you discover that all races seeded by the are genetically-programmed to hate all non-Hriak-based life.: Averted, as only two planets in the Beta Caeli system are habitable. All planets, moons, and asteroids can be colonized, though.: The maximum number of colony platforms deployed simultaneously is only around 40, while there are 77 colonizable spots (47 sites on planets and asteroids, 30 orbital stations).
The purpose of this cap is unclear — extra colonies don't take much memory compared to the game's requirements, they don't affect game balance, but the limit forces the player to juggle resources frantically, if he invested in the inner planet and then decided to expand outward.: Beta Caeli is described as F0 yellow-green dwarf 55 light years from Sun and 2.5 times more luminous. Actually it is 90 light years away, and 6 times brighter (even though it's F2, which are cooler than F0).
According to, the creators of the game knew that Beta Caeli is too bright and short-lived to have habitable planets but chose it due to its relative proximity and easily-remembered name. In reality, colony ships would most likely be sent to G-type yellow dwarfs, which would also have to be far enough away for the Centaurians not to find them and would, therefore, likely have a Henry Draper Catalog designation (e.g. ).: Despite having never encountered humans before, the Centaurians somehow manage to come up with a deadly virus that kills millions of Sudanese.: The H'riak sporeship is destroyed and there is peace with the Empiants. Several colonists (both human and Empiant) manage to leave the system using the new FTL drive.
However, all first-generation colonists are doomed to die soon thanks to the flawed process of turning people into. This doesn't seem to be mandatory; a technology available early in the game should leave you with only sweetness.: Multiple instances:.
The is that Earth is losing a war against the Centaurians and is sending out colony ships to remote systems with orders to maintain communication silence and assume Earth and all other ships are lost. You command one such ship, Calypso. The last messages indicate the destruction of the last Earth fleet and all off-planet installations and preparations for the. There are no survivors in the Solar system. The colony ship Tantalus was launched later, but, though you see no traces of it. Later it's revealed that colonists on habitable planets were. Created by the same xenophobic race who created Centaurians and remote-controlled from an automated seedship.
For other planets see below. If you abandon colonies on Earth-like planets Gaia and Rhea, your people on other planets and orbital stations start to die slowly. Due to the damage done by chemicals, Calypso passengers and crew now need some anti-toxins that can only be harvested on Earth-like planets.
It is never mentioned whether Tantalus faced the same problem or if they used more advanced cryo-storage process. Later in the game you find ruined human colonies on most planets. Most of them survived destruction of colonies on Rhea and Gaia, tried to live on, to wait until Calypso arrival or to fly to meet Callypso, but everybody were or got killed in seemingly random accidents. The last human died a year before your arrival. It is speculated that they could have survived if Tantalus wasn't dismantled, and they didn't loose most of their fleet fighting the seedship. At least they managed to destroy the seedship defences.
In the best game ending you get, powerful alien allies, telepathy, ' and are ready to spread to other systems and take the war to Centaurians.: Played straight on a government level, especially after several shuttle upgrades. Even the starting shuttle can travel from Alphas to Hades in a reasonable amount of time, if it deploys stopover colonies for refuelling and waits for the next planet to get close. Once you get a number of self-sufficient colonies going, you can start cranking out dozens of shuttles for your needs. Private citizens or companies don't have their own shuttles, and civilian travel seems to be restricted indefinitely, see. But judging from recovered records, private shuttles weren't uncommon for Tantalus colonists and they freely roamed the system.: Averted, for the most part. Building and sending interstellar ships is a major undertaking, requiring the combined resources of the entire world. Since humanity is engaged in a war for its very survival in the, humans have to build interstellar warships, even though most get destroyed in the Oort Cloud.
Some make it to Alpha Centauri and proceed to Tau Ceti. This takes decades, though. The Odessa-class colony ships, like the Tantalus and the Calypso, are equally funded by the entire world, as they represent the last vestiges of humanity. It is also mentioned that, while the Calypso is launched 16 years before the Tantalus, the latter arrives 21 years before the former due to a better fusion engine. Given that Beta Caeli is about 90 light years away, it would take at least 180 years to get there at half the speed of light (even that is pushing it).
This explains how a marginally-better drive allows the Tantalus to overtake her sister ship and arrive first despite the late launch. The Calypso travelled for more than 90000 years to reach Beta Caeli. Sounds like a lot, but keep in mind that the Tantalus took about 37 years less while only being 0.04% faster.
Even the creation of FTL travel at the end of the game only allows for one ship to be fitted with it. The game also doesn't reveal what happened to the ship that jumped. Additionally, this FTL method requires the presence of Empiants to punch through space-time.: A possibility (read: ) for a large number of as-yet unopened pods to fail if you don't act fast enough to provide a lot of living space in your colonies. Furthermore, if many colonists die this way, your science advisor will grant him/herself a (read:).: We never see Earth architecture, Calypso bridge crew (whom you see most of the time) don't dress too unusually, but planet governors wear white robes with coloured stripes. Hard to notice, since they only appear twice other than for.: Once the biota wake up, the formerly peaceful, Earth-like worlds of Gaea and Rhea quickly become these.: If a certain is not completed successfully, the Beta Caeli star will go nova, destroying the system.
If the mission is successful, there is still an but on a much smaller scale.: Given that centuries (if not milllennia) have passed since the launch of the Calypso, the fate of Earth remains unknown, especially since the most recent messages were erased or badly corrupted by a. The implication, though, is that the Centaurians have finally broken through Earth's defenses and wiped out everyone on the planet.: Beta Caeli colonies spend the entire game this way. Due to the unknown dangers that wiped Tantalus out without a trace, everything is strictly controlled by the Calypso captain.
People have to live where they are told, work where they are told, and be ready to move to another colony at a moment's notice. Good thing they are so long-lived. On the contrary, Tantalus colonists seem to had had no restrictions on where to go or where to settle.: The 'transcendental radiation' research allows shuttles to scan for things of interest on planets, moons, and asteroids.: In the, first contact with the Centaurians in 2043 involved their probe destroying a scout ship and bombarding Earth with plague missiles. It's not even clear if humans even met a live Centaurian. They do have Centaurian gene samples to compare to life on Rhea and Gaea, possibly collected in the Oort Cloud after one of the many battles there.
The first contact with the Empiants also results in a war. However, this is due to a misunderstanding, as human brainwaves hurt the psychic aliens. Some players report that attacks get much bigger if the player previously from gas giants. What may count as the first contact with H'Riak, or at least their machinery, was Tantalus colonists finding an ancient pylon on Gaia and trying to break it. After that biota started attacking humans.: All shuttles are armed with lasers.
During the conflict with the Empiants, shuttles can also be armed with missiles that increase their firepower.: Averted at the beginning, when it takes the Calypso over a century to reach Beta Caeli on sublight. Even the Centaurians and the H'riak don't have FTL drives. At the end, though, the humans and Empiants manage to build that complement the Empiants' natural that, in conjunction with the Calypso's fusion reactor, tear open a hole in space-time.: Once the biota are triggered and attack the colonies, this initially appears to be the case, especially since one of the habitable worlds is named Gaea.: A ghost system, in this case.: Zigzags.
Originally expected to be harmless. Subverted early on, when your scientists discover negative side effects to being turned into a. If you research the cure, you get the method to prolong human life manifold, of sorts. If you don't, all first-generation colonists are doomed to die soon, but their children born after will survive.: The war between Earth and the Centaurians began when a Centaurian probe entered the Solar System, destroyed a ship sent to scan it, and launched a volley of missiles filled with a deadly plague at Earth, killing millions.
Since then, both sides constantly sent warships at one another, usually meeting up and fighting it out in the Oort Cloud. No human warships have ever returned, although some have managed to get to the Centaurian colonies in Tau Ceti. When the final, largest, offensive against the Centaurians has failed, the Earth governments have decided to pool all resources into defending Earth and building, knowing that the Centaurians won't stop until all humans are dead. One of the messages received by the Calypso while underway claims that the final Centauri offensive had begun and, likely, succeeded.: All colonists and crewmembers spend the decades of travel in cold sleep. The crew is woken up first, including the first batch of colonists. Colonists are woken up based on need. However, a random malfunction can result in several thousand colonists dying in their sleep, when their cryochambers fail.: Empiants come close.
Despite them being around for about a billion years, your advisors remark surprising inferiority of their craft. Unfortunately, their diamond hulls prove quite resistant to your lasers.: If you blunder spectacularly, one of your advisors will for incompetence and take charge of the mission. Usually this involves a task with a time limit and many people die. The failures include:. Do not set up a self-sufficient colony on Gaea. You get plenty of time and multiple warnings here. You're killed by a science advisor note at the beginning she/he is introduced as an Executive Officer and your second in command, but that detail is never mentioned again.
Apparently, the military advisor just sits by and does nothing. Do not create enough living space on a short notice when several hundred cryo-chambers malfunction. Science advisor again.
![Alien legacy sierra Alien legacy sierra](/uploads/1/2/6/3/126394442/213294048.jpg)
Fail to develop the blood filter. Science advisor. Improperly respond to Fanatic's crisis on Hades. Military advisor. Fail to suppress a riot.
Deplete energy storage too many times.: A rare sublight example. Given that relatively slow speeds at which the Calypso and the Tantalus travel and the vast distance (90 light years) involved, it's not that surprising for the Tantalus to arrive to Beta Caeli 21 years before the Calypso despite being launched 16 years later with only a marginally more efficient drive. It still stings to wake up from cold sleep after such a trip only to learn that you're expected to provide 'support' to people who you didn't know were supposed to join you.
Had nothing bad happened to the Tantalus colonists, there would probably have been a lot of bitterness between them and the Calypso colonists.: Averted, while you can research and build missiles to be put on your shuttles during the conflict with the Empiants, each shuttle can only carry one missile at a time.: All planets are named after, which are equivalent to the names for planets in the Solar system. The two Earth-like planets are named Gaea (earth goddess) and Rhea (mother of the gods). Interestingly, one of the ruins contains a mention of a movement among the Tantalus colonists to rename the planets to their Roman counterparts.: Your military advisor, technically, commands militia — people whose main occupation isn't service.
Your fleet is repurposed transports with weak lasers, which prove ineffective against Empiant ships, and maybe carrying a single missile.: Several messages from Earth have been erased when the ship passed through a magnetic anomaly prior to the game.: Several notes found from the previous colonists reveal that the captain of the Tantalus had the ship dismantled to use the fusion reactor on Gaia surface as a power plant. After the H'riak threat became apparent, many colonists cursed the captain for leaving them no option but to fight (they couldn't flee the system or even retreat to Tantalus). A late note reveals that Tantalus colonists discovered a H'riak pylon and tried to destroy it with explosives, which may have been the event that triggered the Biota attacks and seedship awakening that killed them all.: Besides, shuttles can drop bombs that produce mushroom clouds and wipe out anything in the immediate vicinity on the planet below.
The only limit to how many you can drop is the shuttle's energy/fuel, implying some sort of energy bomb.: The H'riak are discovered to have seeded habitable planets in several star systems with life programmed to hate any living thing of different origin. Earth is not one such planet.: You can syphon hydrogen from gas giants to get cheap energy. The Empiants, who live on Chronus, probably won't like it.: The Empiants are a telepathic species who are hurt by human brainwaves. They can also melt human brains.
'Transcendental radiation' was invented by Tantalus scientist and is rediscovered early in the game. It allows to, by creating 'a resonance between what the brain can conceptualize and what is physically on the planet's surface'.: After the H'riak sporeship is found by the Tantalus colonists, they send their entire shuttle fleet to attack it. They manage to destroy all its weapons but at the cost of 90% of the fleet. This also makes them unable to evacuate their colonies on Gaea and Rhea, when the local biota attack.: The floppy version intro shows an enormous web being folded, as the Calypso is entering the Beta Caeli system. A recovered video clip shows Tantalus linking up with a similar web bigger than Jupiter. The manual states that Odessa class ships indeed collect interstellar hydrogen with such net and burns it in fusion reactors.: Several research options become available only after random events (usually, tragic). For example, the idea to develop mass drivers for sending cargo between colonies comes after a manned shuttle engaged in a 'pipeline' mission inexplicably blows up.
If you only use automated shuttles (there is no advantage to be using manned shuttles, except occasionally ferrying advisors to colonies), then this won't happen.: At the beginning, the Calypso only has 4 shuttles with limited fuel tanks to go ferry supplies and colonists between the ship and the colonies. Shuttles can be either unmanned or manned (almost no difference). They can also be used to send your primary advisors to colonies for certain quests. Once you set up proper self-sufficient colonies, you can set your factories to build more shuttles. Additionally, you can research shuttle improvements such as a larger fuel tank, better weapons, larger cargo space, more efficient engine, stronger armor, etc.
Once the conflict with the Empiants starts, shuttles become your (or if you send them unmanned), although you pretty much have to send them en masse in order to make a difference. Shuttles can be sent on a variety of missions: scouting planets, exploring regions, sending cargo and/or colonists, building space stations, establishing pipelines (automatic ferrying of supplies and/or colonists between two colonies), patroling, etc. Since planets continue to orbit the star Beta Caeli, distances (and fuel requirements) constantly change.: The asteroid Gamma 1 turns out to be the 'sporeship' that brought life to the system.: Several tasks must be completed within a certain time limit. Unfortunately, you're not told about the time limit. Fortunately, you do get a lot of time. Failing to perform some tasks results in a.: During the later part of the game, you can develop a that is required to prevent a ( which involves the H'riak spore ship colliding with the Beta Caeli star and causing it to go nova). However, during the war with the Empiants, you also have the option of using the bomb to destroy the Empiant homeworld.
Unfortunately, you can only ever build one bomb, so if you do the latter, the game becomes unwinnable. Then again, it's clear the designers of the game meant for the conflict to be resolved peacefully, so it can be assumed that not being able to win the game is a punishment for opting for the violent option. Actually, the game gives you another option: Death of a Hundred Paper Cuts. If you don't develop the bomb, you're given the task of sending Missile Mission shuttles to your target to attack a weak point in the armor.
The number required is random-ish floating around 100. (This doesn't mean you need 100 shuttles; you just need to send shuttles on Missile missions 100 times. You do need 100 missiles.) Failing this task without the bomb eventually results in a game over. (The game has a grace period where you could use the bomb on the star to stabilize it if you failed the destruction segment.) You lose mostly by trying or being negligent, really. The game usually gives you options out of every story branch.: was punished by the for killing his son and generally being a dick to be trapped for eternity in constantly presented with food and water and never being able to reach them, as well a huge rock suspended over his head. So you decide to name a ship that is supposed to keep humanity alive with a guy who ended up this way.
is a character in who forcibly kept Odysseus on her island for many years. Not much better. On the other hand, another meaning of 'calypso' is 'to conceal', which is appropriate for a ship that is supposed to carry the last humans away from a race of murdering aliens.: Rhea is an Earth-like world whose position in the Beta Caeli system is similar to that of Venus in ours. It's not difficult to see that the creators wanted to show what Venus would be like as a lush, life-giving world.
The main difference is the size (Rhea is slightly larger), the spin (Rhea spins much faster), and a moon. The theory is that these factors helped prevent the greenhouse effect that makes Venus a hellhole.: The game is non-linear, which means you are free to do as you please, for the most part, in terms of building colonies and expanding. Certain events do trigger new missions, though.: Empiants can do that to your shuttle pilots with their.
![](/uploads/1/2/6/3/126394442/914000324.png)