16-08-2000 04:57									#1
	AC/Chtorr crossover? Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

Is anyone out here familiar with the War Against the Chtoor series by David Gerrold? It's a SF series (four books out now), and it's one of my favorites. It's got red, man eating worms. It's got fungus. It's got big island-sized creatures in the oceans. It's got fungal towers.
A couple interesting things: it's not mentioned in the suggested reading. It's set ON EARTH, same time frame. and humans can't remove the fungus.
I'd like to build a senario for this. Would be an Earth world map, circa several hundred years from now. Game starts fully terriformed, starts turning red. Aliens on abundant. Some way of disabling remove fungus. All factions start with high tech.
US is spartans, I think.
Story premise has a series of plagues break out right prior to invasion, so randomly reduce population on some of the cities (San Francisco destroyed by firestorm). US has only standing army because other nations used military to try to control plague. South america is definately Gaians or Cha Dawn, they are trying to plant fungus and worm farm.
This is one of my favorite book series I have ever read, and I play AC mainly because of it. I'd like someone to make a senario based on it. Any takers? Please?
Black Sunrise
more info available upon request.
PS, beanstalk is in south american faction. some lunar bases, but they collapse soon after the invasion starts, so picture a peaceful game that had just got the first two or three mining stations up and suddenly went from no aliens at all to maximum alien infestation, with a bunch of eco-disasters.

	16-08-2000 05:28									#2
	Support Apolyton

I think that Cha Dawn is located in the Rocky Mountains. Repeated reports of Renegades cooperating with the worms have surfaced from that area. Notoriously hard to clear do to terain (rocky land=easy fungal stronghold).
Gaians must have south america, then.
Third World Federation owns part/all africa/middle east. Bent on "war of economic liberation". Hates US.
US has bit of a tech lead. Attack copters, jets common and used. Japanese may be run by the Morganites, mention is made of them and their money-grubbing ways.
Black Sunrise

	16-08-2000 06:23									#3
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

Black Sunrise,

I remember the books, and they were pretty bleak. There were a bunch in a series, but I never got the last few (I found the first 3 or so in a used book store half a decade ago). I specially enjoyed the ideas of competing ecosystems, and how Earth's 'young' and underdeveloped ecosystem was losing badly (never mind that this premise is a bit loopy). Overall it was a great escapist read. It had worms, and I mean giant worms (no 10-cm worms here), and a weird alien ecology that was generally pink (but otherwise didn't have much in common with Planet).

However, The Jesus Incident (Herbert) is the clear winner for the basis for Planet. It has worm boils, sentient 'fungus'/gaia planet, a mad scientist that will sacrifice anyone for his goals (sound a bit like Zak? Hmmmm?), Lab One (which is destroyed, like in Datalinks), and ascendance with Planet. It almost screams plagiarism…

Just my two cents.

Hydro

	16-08-2000 18:46									#4
	Put an end to popups!

On a practical note, any scenario looks for an alpha.txt in it's own folder to override the main rules. So to stop the removal of fungus, copy alpha.txt (or alphax.txt) into the scenario folder and change the terraforming lines so that Remove Fungus has Disable as the required tech (IIRC).