Ares #04

Fiction

  • The Tattooist by Robert Vincent

  • The Tarka Node by Eric Del Cario

  • Polygot by George S. Walker

  • We Go Way Back by Shale Nelson

  • And the next part of The Fall by Kenneth Steven

Features

  • Interview with Samantha Anderson of Cakes Cove

  • I, For One…Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the SIngularity by Michael Anderson

Extractors

Doriana, a Sol-like star system in the Sagittarius arm. Doriana-5, a medium sized planet barely suitable to life, is inhabited by bipedal intelligent creatures, organized in "hives". Not as curious as us, their evolution has been slow, but they have now reached a technology level high enough to put a halt on the centuries-aged wars between hives. Dorians became aware that continuing these wars with weapons more and more deadly would lead to mutual extinction....

5 light-years away, the Avronians develop the ability to send non-living materials through space at effective speed faster than light. Carbophosphate composites, the main organic energy source on Avronia, has now become very scarce but, according to recent probe reports, it is common on Doriana-5.

Whilst most of the Avronian masters are still debating the best way to negotiate their energy crisis, groups of desperate peoples decide to send armed forces (huge semi-autonomous machines) to secure large extraction perimeters on Doriana-5....

Extractors is a two-player game of medium complexity and medium solitaire suitability. One player controls a company of the Dorian Cellular Forces, consisting of Augmented Infantry Sections organized in cells and support vehicles. They face Avronian Machines whose AI is represented by the second player.