Not much changed in Kitty’s life since then. She read cheap old space pulp fiction and dreamt of adventures and adventurous men. Normally everyone outgrows this period. But it was not exclusively Kitty’s fault that she didn’t. Daydreaming is the sport of the hopeless and hopelessness is rarely chosen.

Kitty’s home planet was once a flourishing titan planet. Its prosperity stammed from the constant arms race, and although as a typical colony most of the profit was pumped out of it, the workers and miners could still make a decent living. And so would have it been till the end of times, were the planet not lying on a triple border. This geopolitically unlucky position led to systematic lootings and conquests. The local population could tolerate this, but finally after one of the empires occupied the planet, it decided to exploit it permanently.

Resources were quickly exhausted due to high production and the economy collapsed. This time not only the profit left the planet, but capital and finally the workers as well. Average lifespan jumped to 67 years in a couple of months and the youngest person was well over fifty. The planet was doomed. Its dwellers having tea and waiting to die.

Kitty was not young either, she was just over 61. And why didn’t she leave the planet as the others? Perhaps she was too naive and did not believe it was the end. Perhaps she was too patriotic who loved this snowball so much she couldn’t just leave it behind. Perhaps she was just too slow to decide and by the time she made up her mind it was too late. For it was too late now. No spaceship capable of flying, no man capable of driving was left on the planet. Nobody and nothing came here except for hyperwave radio broadcasts. The remaining population switched to self-preservation.

Kitty might have lived her life like this till the end, had not the long awaited adventure caught her up. A stray pirate ship crash landed near Kitty’s house due to a failed engine.

Getting over the first shock she became very enthusiastic. The pirates were a bit scruffy but really friendly. Especially after they tasted Kitty’s food. During their first lunch at her they joked about inviting her to be the chief cook on their ship. It took ten days to fix the engine. Although mines and factories had closed long time ago there were still enough spare parts. The pirates were preparing to leave. By this time they loved Kitty, this dear old lady so much as if she were their mother. So this time their invitation was not a joke.

Kitty could not sleep a bit that night, she was just flouncing in bed. All her life she was waiting for this. To set sail to outer space with a bunch of pirates and experience unbelievable adventures. And yet now that her dream was about to come true she became uncertain. She had to realize that dreams elaborated for fifty years outshine reality. Even this one and a half weeks were enough to see that these pirates were not exactly as she had imagined. What whould happen if she spent a month, a year or even more time with them? She would probably get disappointed not only in them, but in space, spacetravel and adventures. She realized that the perfection of dreams outmatches the reality of reality.

Next morning the pirates could not understand why she said no. Kitty didn’t tell them the real reason, because she did not want to hurt their feelings. It’s not their fault that they don’t compare to the non-existent pirates of her dreams. She baked them a few pans of pine nut cookies as a farewell gift.

Kitty was sitting on the porch when they took off. She looked up to the sky above the snowy mountains but she only saw a blur of light instead of the receding pirate ship because of the tears filling her eyes…

She never heard about them again and died a few years later. So she didn’t know that these nice pirates left the galaxy not much later. She didn’t know that although they were defeated in the Pirate Civil Wars they survived and fled. She didn’t know that once they arrived at the Cartwheel Galaxy they decided to give up piracy and populate it as ordinary citizens.

And she didn’t know that a pine nut from one of her cookies was planted and from that single nut during the next hundred years a whole wood has grown. A norwegian wood.

The Cartwheel Galaxy

Click to the map to view the details.

And if you are interested in the voyage of mankind in the Zandagort Universe, check this out:

Zandagort galaxies s1-s7

How old are you?
33

What do you do, when you’re not playing with Zandagort?
Girl friend, music, reading, watching movies, learning Hungarian language:)

How did you get to know about Zandagort, why did you sign up?
A friend of mine told about that game.

Since when do you play Zandagort?
First Pixell started on s3 now I’m his 4th reincarnation.

Why did you join Hello Kitty?
Cause they offered me good chance to learn the high tech PvP techniques, and they let me to play in my style.

Do you like scifi? What are your favorite scifi books, films, games?
Yes,i am a great Star Wars Fan.

What do you like most about Zandagort?
PVP combat

What do you like least about Zandagort?
Too many players play Zandagort as the Farmville and when somebody attacking them they crying like a baby. I fully respect the Umbrella Corporation they are different.

On average how many hours do you play a day?
As many needed, but i don’t like the great wars they take too much time.

How did you name your planets?
Nothing special

What is your favorite type of ship?
Heavy cruiser

What’s your gaming style? (e.g. builder, fighter, etc)
I’m a soldier. My superiors set the targets, i’m executing!

What motivates you in the game, what’s your final goal? Beating Zandagort, ranking high individually or as an alliance on the toplist, building the perfect economy, or something else?
To be a famous fleet leader and help my alliance to reach their goals.

How do you think we could recruit more players and reduce drop-out?
I think you need some good PR assistant.

Any major collaboration or cooperation worked only if it was driven not by external laws but internal motivations. Such an example is laziness resulting in the passivity of pirates. This was not caused by peace treaties, pirates are simply too lazy to loot actively. Their latest well-known joint action was fleeing from the s4 galaxy group, which was the result of another vice of pirates, namely cowardice.

The description above reflects the position of official piratology. Therefore, as typical in academic history writing, it can be regarded only mildly reliable. And right here is the tricky part…

Interestingly pirates are much more aware of their own history than average people. This may be due to the absence of any centralized government, which could have forged history for its own interest. History is written by the victors, and although in the long run it is always changing who’s the winner, there are eternal losers who never get their fair share of history, so some parts of the human history stay distorted forever.

But among pirates there are no real winners or losers, so their history writing is more reliable. The problem is it is hardly accessible. Inaccessible to be more precise. Or it has been until now.

Tinburg Jensen, who defines himself as a professional adventurer, just released a lot of information on pirate history in a blog post. He spent years in the company of pirates, for which he could expect long years in prison if the authorities could find him. He translated old shiplogs, collected pirate songs. After this publication probably the pirates would not spare him as well, so Jensen is now not only an outlaw, but an outoutlaw.

Piracy, like almost every other human activity began on the ancestor planet. In those days it was done the traditional way on water, only later did they switch to outer space. As looting was always uncertain, pirates made a living from fishing. Yes, fishing, the existence of which is denied by official history writing. But the pirates of course remember the fish. Which raises the suspicion that the mass amnesia on this topic came not by chance but in the interest of someone.

Many theories circulate about this among pirates. Each of these assumes that the most sensitive topic is the sudden extinction of the fish. If someone is responsible for that, he might have caused the oblivion. Since the direct consequence was the Third Food Crisis, the motivation should be sought in its effects.

Spaceship factories and the construction industry benefited the most from the acceleration of colonization. Previously they lobbied for tax relieves on extraterrestrial areas and ran major campaigns to convince people about the advantages of emigration, but all in vain, they couldn’t achieve any boom until famine broke out.

There were obvious political interests as well. The drastic change in the population has overwritten the previous balance of power, which now clearly favored the colonies. And not only the leaders of the latter. The demographic-political balance that had set centuries ago on the ancestor planet led to a narrow elite, with no place for the up-and-coming youth. After the crisis there has been a complete generation change in the political elite in the next decade.

One very bold theory even suggests religious causes in the background. Dysonism flourished in those days, by conservative estimation 10% of the population believed that the human race emerged to spread life and civilisation in a totally uninhabited universe. The ratio was about 50% among scientists and engineers. The cardinals of the Church of Dyson were almost exclusively leading scientists, which is not surprising, as academic secularism had been gone a thousand years before that.

Like conspiracy theories general, all of the above seem plausible, although there’s no real evidence. So you can choose according to your own liking…

But let’s get back to facts and the not so distant past. When alien fleets appeared again in 6383, the pirates had already been preparing for some time. Only fifty years earlier came the first news on the hyperwave about the new galaxy, and this upset them for obvious reasons. Although there is no clear evidence, there is good reason to believe that the Bering Fish Alliance was originally a pirate alliance. The hope that such an ancient legend might come to life, mobilized the pirates. This was the real reason for their retreat, not cowardice.

But the basically anarchist nature of pirates was not suitable for such a long journey. So around 6500 far from every living planet in the outest outer space, civil war broke out among the pirates. The conflict ended thirty-five years later, when ten pirate lords contracted peace, defeated the remaining rebels and created the Brotherhood of Pirates.

Since then they arrived at the new galaxy, declared war on every alliance, and although they claim to be interested only in looting, with such a background, it is not so plausible…

How old are you?

27.

Where are you from?

Canterbury, United Kingdom.

What do you do, when you’re not playing with Zandagort?

When Im not playing Zandagort, I work as an Occupational Therapist. I help people with learning disabilities using a range of methods and assessments to help them gain new skills in activities of daily living. It’s a very fulfilling job as I get to help people participate in all kinds of activity such as cooking, shopping, sports, communicating with others and structuring their day, working towards independence in their lives.

How did you get to know about Zandagort, why did you sign up?

I was introduced to the game by my friend and fellow alliance member Mr Toff. At the time we were in a Half Life 2 Clan, but this game is not played very much anymore. We needed a new game to introduce to the clan. Some of us are perpetual FPS gamers, but 3 of us joined Zandagort. We also enjoy the sci-fi element, planet building, warfare and maths based aspects.

Since when do you play Zandagort?

I started to play around June-July 2011. I played in server 5 until the end, and then I took a small break, before I joined the beginning of server 6 in December.

Why did you join The Skaro Faction?

I joined Skaro Faction when Mr Toff founded the alliance back in June. Since I was already a HL2 Clan member, I was used to our way of playing. We invite new players to join us and we help them to gain skills in playing the game. We play fair, and fight back hard when provoked. I became Alliance leader in December when Toff handed over the leadership. I learned a lot from him and I am now enjoying the role. There has been a lot of work in assigning roles and creating a structure within the alliance. We have developed a plan to defend ourselves from Zandagort at the end, but I won’t reveal what that is.

Do you like scifi? What are your favorite scifi books, films, games?

I love Sci-fi. I think spaceships and aliens are cool! Naturally I have a book on the hubble space telescope. Im reading it now and i’ve discovered some interesting facts about inter-galactic collisions and how galaxies’ forms are shaped. Gravity has a lot to answer for! I am a fan of Star Wars and Red Dwarf. I used to watch the Battletech cartoon when I was a kid. The best game I ever played was Half Life 2, that is sci-fi too. FPS shooters are my favourite genre.

What do you like most about Zandagort?

I most like the satisfaction of building lots of spaceships. I like balancing my fleets in an almost anal sort of way. I also like having a finely tuned planet. I also love the alliance theme and the chat room. Humans working together to defeat the aliens brings people together.

What do you like least about Zandagort?

Galaxies are very big and so I dont always get to appreciate the full picture of what is happening – who is expanding and who is at war. The large map gives enough detail to see what is happening locally, but with 30 or more alliances it is difficult to produce a full picture.

What was the most interesting story that happened to you in the game?

The Tale of my survival in server 5 was very exciting for me. I put fleets on all my planets and paid the price when large Zan fleets destroyed most of my planets. I quickly had to change my tactics and fled to my homeworld. I piled all my surviving fleets on Council. Overnight Zan hit my home planet 5 times and the planet held on. I did not hope to survive, so I sent 2 dozen fulgurs to empty planets to colonise. Many ships were stranded as Zan destroyed the empty planets, so I changed course again and again. Finally I found 2 planets and Zan gradually weakened, although he destroyed one more planet. I was left with 2 planets at the end, and was left exhausted with the ever changing environment around me.

On average how many hours do you play a day?

I do a quick 10 minute check in the morning to balance planets and answer urgent mail. After work, I spend a few hours in the evening buying and selling on the market and building my planets. Then I go to the chatroom to discuss strategy and socialise

How did you name your planets?

In server 5 I named all my planets after maps I created in Half Life 2. Council, Centrum, Freerunner, Jaeger, NextGen and Killbox. In the current server, I have named my planets after favourite games, a song and a cartoon.

What is your favorite type of ship?

I love the coordinator. Increasing firepower is a great weapon and you can conceal your fleet size.

What’s your gaming style? (e.g. builder, fighter, etc)

I’m a builder. I quietly beaver away and take note of my surroundings, carefully considering my next step based on the behaviour of others.

What motivates you in the game, what’s your final goal? Beating Zandagort, ranking high individually or as an alliance on the toplist, building the perfect economy, or something else?

A high producing war machine of a planet that is self-sufficient.

How do you think we could recruit more players and reduce drop-out?

Some players play games on the move, they lack the time and have responsibilities such as girlfriends and family. Mobile technology is the way forward.

What question would you have preferred to answer I didn’t ask? Answer it as well.

I would like to have been asked what is your favourite planet type?
My favourite is an A (Uranium). It’s the best to sell and is always needed for ships.

Would you like to be able to customize the look of the game?

I would like to see a ‘google maps style’ large map, with named planets even when zoomed out. The colour coded search is a great feature, I’d like to have more of these so I can see all alliances at once on the map.

What would you ask from the next interviewee?

What do you believe Zandagort ‘thinks’ about when he prepares his attack on human civilisation?

2011 Indie of the Year Awards via Indie DB

And spread the news!

A long time ago humans lived on only one planet called Earth. Where exactly Earth was or whether it existed at all, no-one knows today. But there’s another thing no-one knows, or only a few people. That seas and oceans were not the huge empty water tanks as today, but were full of life. Fish, crabs, corals, algae and other strange creatures dwelled them. Some so small that it couldn’t be seen by the naked eye, some so big as a house. Some lived near the shores in the sunlight, some thousands of meters deep in the pitch dark tranquility, bothered only by undersea volcanoes.

Humans loved these aquatic creatures. To eat them. This was the prevalent form of love those days. Just as these days. There even was a trade to catch fish, called fishery. It was such a typical livelihood that fishmen grouped into associations and corporations. One of them was the Bering Fish Alliance. It was no more unique than any other, except for the fact that it’s the only one that still exists. Although there are no fish anymore.

In the middle of the 32nd century, a particularly mild winter came to Earth. Those days the sea froze in winter, but in this one year it happened otherwise. Whether this was the cause or something else, I don’t know, but it’s certain that this was the winter when the fish died out. In a single month. All of them. Not just fish but every creature that inhabited the sea.

This is how the Third Food Crisis broke out. Famine decimated the population, society collapsed, and emigration to other planets that started only two decades ago boomed. Dozens of colonizer ships launched every day, some so poorly equipped in the panic that the crew starved to death before the arrival. The hegemony of Earth over the colonies was finally ended.

Naturally it was the end for the fishermen too. Those who survived started a new life. Fish corporations dissolved. But the president of the Bering Fish Alliance at that time, a man called Hemingway, did not give up so easily. He was always susceptible to mysticism, and such an inexplicable disaster was a good medium for his fantasy. He formed the alliance into a secret society, and no-one heard of them since then.

When I asked my grandfather how *he* heard of them, he just hummed.

This was a hundred and thirty years ago. And how it came to my mind right now? I was waken up this morning from a hundred years of stasis, because we’re reaching the galaxy designated by the Malt Directive to be our new home. Although shivering after the stasis (called PSS) lasts a few days, and every move hurts, I hurried to the observing hall to see where we arrived. I felt dizzy when I saw it. A fish shaped galaxy group.

Click to the map to view the details.

I’ve been watching it for over an hour and it’s no illusion. It does look like a fish. I asked a few people around but of course no-one mentioned fish. They don’t know what it is. But I do recognize it, since my grandfather drew it for me. I’m not a religious man, but I don’t believe in coincidences. And if it’s not a coincidence that we’re heading towards such a galaxy, there’s only one explanation. That the Bering Fish Alliance really exists, even today, and it controls if nothing else our fleet. And I have to find them.

This is the background story of s6, a new Zandagort server starting next Friday (November 11).

And how was it computed? There’s a toplist for every Friday during the game based on the score of players. That’s 10 lists altogether. The ranking (not the scores) of these lists were combined to form a new one. This combination is good for those who player well every week and bad for those who had a varying performance.

The Galaxy Naming Committee of LUP is stormed by thousands of requests to name the galaxy or at least its remains after Johann Malt. Once a traitor, he’s now considered the founding father of these colonies. The Committee yields to the demand.

The Malt Galaxy in 6183

A gigantic monolith is set up in the centre of the Malt Galaxy with the names of those who killed the most aliens carved on it:

1. havocgb
2. Roveles
3. Sadist
4. Toff
5. zerkon
6. Sardaukar17
7. Indusphere
8. Zog
9. Norbert Sykes
10. leonard
11. Atreides
12. hobbit
13. puddleglumsfoot
14. Malcolm Reynolds
15. partha
16. Tohar
17. HiggsBoson
18. HengerR
19. Kidak
20. BenInBlack
21. randar
22. Rhyfelmab
23. trotz
24. Reaping Willow
25. OldDriver
26. Islander
27. Alpha Omegaous
28. csupi
29. Sulevia
30. Varder1989
31. SUJIT
32. Kaszadragon
33. Jack O’Neill
34. Chronos
35. Saxon
36. Tanis
37. Manda
38. Morpheus
39. dbuck2001