Jump 142: Endless Legend

Jump 142: Endless Legend

Location: Auriga, Desert
Age: 23
Identity: [-200] Vaulter
Drawbacks: [+800] Epic Speed, Slow Traveler, Wrong Biome, Necrophages Ate My Neighbors

[50/1600]   Advanced Alloys
[150/1600]  Holy Resource
[300/1600]  Uncommon Alloys
[500/1600]  Rare Alloys
[750/1600]  Endless Recycling
[800/1600]  Dust Mint
[850/1600]  Alchemical Foundry
[900/1600]  Extractor Tool
[1000/1600] Reaping Station
[1100/1600] Arcane Smelter
[1200/1600] Alchemy Workshop
[1300/1600] Dust Refinery
[1450/1600] Mythic Forge
[1600/1600] Automated Harvester

Auriga was an interesting place. A microcosm of the greater galaxy it occupied, with a wealth of resources that might otherwise only be found in scattered locations across the galaxy. And, unexpectedly, I had found myself with one of the local factions - the Vaulters, as they called themselves - if in a location that was less than ideal. They had many established cities, but I found myself in one of the least habitable ones, in the middle of a desert.

Setting up a small bit of magitech to make life easier for the locals, instead of leaving them sweltering and dehydrated, did a good enough job of ingratiating me to them, but from there I merely choose to explore the planet, meet the locals, and so forth.

Many of them were content to live alongside the others. Some wanted their own space where they would be unbothered. A handful, though, would settle for nothing short of the extermination of their perceived enemies. And it was those that were the worst issue... foremost, the Necrophage.

The secondary issue of course was the winter. Because, as it turns out, winter is coming. Winter is always coming, and every cycle of winter coming, it got more severe.

Now, I set myself up as something of a trade broker. Information, raw resources, finished products, technologies, anything that didn't involve slaves or particularly distasteful practices were things I was happy to provide. And this included resources to keep winter at bay, for those who were willing to play ball diplomatically.

Of course, being who I am I had no problem playing the long game. Claiming resource deposits to trade, that was usually doable, but as the winters got worse I began arranging alternatives for those who were willing. Relocation to other worlds, when the situation was untenable, or in the case of the humans and near-humans, relocation to something else entirely.

The best defense against the Necrophage was pulling the strings off the assorted trade agreements I'd managed to establish and coordinate between the different factions, to ensure attacks were blunted. They were, are all, an existential threat. Not that it was easy to bring some groups around, but such threats unite others as few things can, and during one long winter a campaign was waged on a massive scale to exterminate them fully.

Once they were dealt with, however, there was the issue of the winters. All data indicated that there was no real way to fix it, without actively terraforming the planet, and even that was a stopgap measure. Indeed, the Dust of the planet seemed to have been doing that until it began to fail for reasons unknown. No, whatever the planet's former inhabitants had done, they'd poisoned their star and its output read fluctuating wildly, but consistently reducing how much light it put out. There was, in the end, only one option: exodus.

The Vaulters were the first to take the offer, though not the last. I worked with everyone willing to do so, but not everyone was willing to do so, even knowing the planet's biome was damned to a frozen death. But one cannot save those unwilling to be saved.

Colony ships left Auriga.

The planet froze.

And, alone, I made my own way off world and to the stars, the machines I left behind siphoning the planet's scant resources to whatever ends I saw fit, because none were left any longer to object.