Apocalypse Reborn: Unique Victory Conditions

Apocalypse Reborn: Unique Victory Conditions

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Commissioned by Chaosbrain

Wordcount: 2000

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A Silent, Dead World:

Non-Faction Specific

Prerequisites:

-Unlock Fission Bombs

-Use Fission Bomb Strike Package 10 times.

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We thought that we were on the cusp of victory, but we now rule over ash. The continent is secure. How could it not be? We have created a sea of death between our realm and worked to make the rest of the world a blasted ruin. Our enemies lie dead. Those who did not die to heat and pressure are sick and dying. Everything out there is dying now.

The Citadels protect us and our lands. They have created a dome around us that sustains life. We cannot see the sun any longer, and many crops and animals have died, but we have changed and adapted. Beneath the great, continent-wide dome… we reign as rulers of a dead world.

Already there are rumors.

Already blame is being aimed.

Already weapons are going missing.

Like we aren’t all to blame.

We all cheered when the first bombs fell and said nothing as more and more were built. When we sat back with our children, knowing that they were safe, we felt only joy in our hearts. It is only now when we know that everything outside the dome is dead, and nothing out there grows any longer, do we care enough to act. Even then, most just want to take power, and aren’t truly guilty.

If we were truly guilty about killing the world, we’d have hung ourselves.

No.

In the end, after killing all the outside threats, we’re going to go back to killing each other now.

We can all only hope that no ones blasts apart this one, last refuge on a dead world.

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A World Undone By Hope:

Ancient Descendant Specific

Prerequisites:

-Unlock Fusion Bombs

-Fully surveil crisis factions through espionage. (Must complete for every active crisis faction.)

-Use Fusion Bomb Project 5 times

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The cheers still linger in my ears. The resounding roar as news arrived. We sent off the rickety fleet of bombers towards our enemies. Their only duty was to fly high and return with one bomb each. They all returned and reported, again and again, the end of the threat to our people. With each run they made, with every delivery, they all returned with brighter eyes and news.

Now, a mere handful of seasons after the first bombers left, they have come to ask for terms.

No.

They have come to beg for terms.

None question our leadership now. We have not only won the war for the Citadels, but we have triumphed over our Ancient foes. We have brought them to their knees, and now they live at our mercy. All the cruelty and power of our foes has been undone by sheer might.

But something is wrong.

There are whispers amongst scholars. Some of their number have vanished. Observatories have been closed. Though many still celebrate, many have been called back to their barracks to report, and factories have begun to churn once more. The Citadels have been closed off and some say their shape at the very tops have changed.
To what end, no one knows.

But, sometimes, when I look up at the sky?

I sometimes believe that I see a constellation of unfamiliar stars glowing brighter and brighter.

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An Emerald Hell in the Void:

Children of the Elm Specific

Prerequisites:

-Defeat all other Citadel Factions

-Complete the Beast Plague Project.

-Deploy the Beast Plague Project five times

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At last, the great journey is at its end. The last dregs of worthless animals have been expunged. Their corpses and blood now water the groves.

We are now custodians of the world entire, and there is much work to be done.

In their death throes, the beasts turned their lands into charnel houses. With their pitiful minds undone, and only their primal instincts remaining, they slaughtered each other. Their fanciful notions at pretending to be Children of the Elm were undone by mere particulates laced into the air. They consumed each other, inflicted depravity on one another, forgot to eat and drink in their bestial revelry, and so all threats that remained ended.

Now, the Beast Plague is being applied to finish the lessers that remain at our motherland. The final, struggling holdouts will fall with time. Either to the Beast Plague, or to slow, inexorable death thanks to the limits of their own numbers.

Meanwhile, we shall see the cities unmade and the land returned to nature. We shall see this world filled with lush greenery and animals worthy of life. Animals that do not question their place in our garden. Perhaps, there shall be use for the remaining animals that dared call themselves ‘mortals.’ A lesser variant of the Beast Plague, perhaps, would rob them of pitiful thoughts and make them truly the animals that they are.

Or, perhaps, we shall simply be rid of them all.

Whichever path our king chooses, I shall follow.

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A World Where Children Only Know Death:

Guardians of the Caverns Specific

Prerequisites:

-Defeat all other Citadel Factions

-Complete the Cathedral of Rebirth Project.

-Complete the Cathedral of Rebirth Project in at least four Citadels

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They said that they would save us, but they were just monsters, too.

We thought that they would fight back against the demons and other things after they reached our city.

They came with songs, with food, and repelled the demons. We cried with joy, while we filled our stomachs, and as they danced around the fire.

They gave lots of hugs, sang, and told stories.

Everyone thought that they were saved.

Then, when we all went to sleep, they have gone into every house and home and killed with smiles on their faces.

I hid.

I tried to hide.

But they put something in the food.

Some little thing that I ate, which they could use to follow me.

So, I decided to run.

I ran so much that I fell and broke my leg.

The monsters lost their smiles at that.

They lashed the one who ‘lost’ me until I saw bone on his back, and they carried him away.
They carried me away to someone in white robes.

They healed me, they comforted me, and placed me in a bed while they took and stored all the bodies.

The one who healed me, who took care of me, and who saved me stood over my bed with a knife ready, while something in the air made my vision blur and feelings go numb.

I tried to ask why.

Why was I born into a world filled with monsters?

But I couldn’t ask.

Darkness consumed me before I could.

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A World Truly Conquered

Conquerors of the Dessert Specific

Prerequisites:

-Defeat and/or ally all other Citadel Factions

-Defeat all Crises

-Fully Research Conqueror Bloodline

-Use No Weapons of Mass Destruction.

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Power is the ability to make change.

We were created to be powerful, but not to make change.

Ours was the path of warriors. People who were meant to enforce the wills of others. That is why, despite all our strength, we were enslaved after the fall. We were tools. A means for others to enforce change.

But with time the subservience in our blood faded away. The technologies and methods to do so lost… or destroyed by the last remnants of the Ancients before they were truly wiped away.

As time passed, amongst our number, there arose those who did not wish to be controlled.

Those who did not wish to be tools.

Not subservient meat that obeyed and did not think.

Not beasts beholden to rage who needed to be tamed.

But a free, thinking people that had the power decide their own path.

Many opposed us on our path.

Our enslavers, we escaped.

Those who opposed our rise, we defeated.

The so-called rulers of the world, we destroyed.

Now, we stand with all the power in the world. Our forces are beyond number, or strength without question, and all who oppose us are defeated.

Those who wished for our extinction broken and held in reservations.

At this peak, shall we become beasts as well, and lose our power over ourselves?

My answer, and the answer of all other Conquerors, is no.

The time for violence as a tool of change is over.

Now is the time for words and minds to affect change for all peoples of the world.

Those oppose this?

They will be defeated like all the others.

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Born From A Blazing Star

Scholars of the Skies Specific

Prerequisites:

-Retain at least 1 Citadel (Level 3).

-Complete Research The Void Vessel.

-Complete all Void Vessel Projects (5/5)

-Complete the Tripwire Protocol Project

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A world filled with fools and demons.

That is what our ancestors found themselves in.

We were once the greatest minds and technicians. Our bodies made to be efficient, if small, while our minds and limbs remained dexterous. In the void, we were the best at operating ships, our ability to sense danger in our surroundings tuned to such a degree that it bordered on precognition. In the stars, we operated great vehicles of immense size, which used unfathomable energies, and crossed the immense distances between stars in a matter of days.

Everything was destroyed by the hubris of our ancestors, or rather those of them who dreamed of greater heights. They looked to abominable things for immortality, gave too much power to soulless machines, altered their bodies for pleasure and pain, and created abominations in the abyssal depths. However, that was not the full extent of their foolishness and vainglory.

None of those things could’ve defeated them without outside help.

Help from beyond the world.

We studied the most broken of records, calculated the throughput of their immense civilization, and all the forces they had under their control. Not only that, but we looked and analyzed the ruins around the scarred moon and the debris field in orbit. The truth became frighteningly clear: the end of our world was merely the start of a great and terrible war that set the entirety of known space aflame.

Something out there stood equal to the Ancients, and they saw our planet as a threat to be eliminated through espionage and subterfuge.

When this was discovered, we did what needed to be done.

While the rest of the planet went to war, we held the line, and finished our vessel. Dry-docked after countless centuries, we repaired our city, and enabled ancient systems and assets. We begged, we stole, and we killed to improve the strength of our Citadel, before ceding away what we could not hope to keep.  Those we tried to tell never believed us, and so we found volunteers from all races, and gathered what we could of their genetic lineages to one day… to one day make up for our final gamble.

Once we fled from the planet, our drive signature would be discernable, and the world would be searched.

Those who remain would tell their invaders of us and bring us low.

So, we did the only thing that we could do.

Destroy life on the planet, and hide our survival in the brightness of the toxic star that killed it.

-Bonus: Have at least one Divine Engine

With that murderstroke, we hide our existence, and can begin work on the project that our ancient foes feared the most: the creation of machines that can manipulate reality itself.

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A Planet Where None Are Weak

Forgers of the Mountains Specific

Prerequisites:

-Retain at least 1 Citadel.

-Complete Research The Immolation.

-Complete all Immolation Projects (5/5)

-Optional: Complete the Genetic Foundry Project

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You stand with skin bare against howling winds that scorch trees.

The winds do not harm you.

You stand on ground composed of liquid, molten rock.

The molten stone does not melt your feet.

Your eyes gaze across red skies and a horizon filled with flame.

The world entire cannot harm you.

You look around you, and there are others who can stand by your side.

They search for metals and you aid them. The new world necessitates changes to old paradigms. Refinements to many techniques passed down through generations. Instead of furnaces, you must create places to quench heat instead. Wood and organic material are incredibly rare and kept in reserves within isolated spaces. The new world created for you and your kindred is a harsh one with many different rules.

But a single truth remains: it is a world for you.

Those who have not aspired.

Those whose genetics have not been cultivated.

Those who struggle in vain against the inevitable.

They will all perish soon and all that will remain are the Forgers

Those who have not only inherited the will of the Ancients, but who will also inherit the stars themselves.

On fiery chariots that shall cross the void, the Forgers shall set all worlds aflame, and create a kingdom worthy to hold reality itself in the palm of its hand.

When it is done, perhaps there shall be time to refine and better those who were not able to better themselves as you have.

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Unity Reforged
Guardians of the Moon Specific

Prerequisites:

-Have at least 5 Citadels under your control.

-Ally with at least 3 other Citadel Factions.

-Do not use any Weapons of Mass Destruction.

-Have 0 active Atrocities against remaining Citadel Factions.

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The battle is over, but the war persists.

Still, the news comes from every army sent to hold the continent’s borders.

Secure.

Secure.

Secure.

Secure.

Four theatres of operation. The perimeter of a whole continent. All of it is now secure against the forces of evil.

Our enemies surround us, but now we have the whole of the continent ready to fight against them.

Side-by-side, we take up arms against those that remain of our ancient foes.

And, as we take up arms and fight together instead of apart, everything changes.

We see the grand design of the Ancients, as we set aside old grudges, and follow the rule of law rather than custom and tradition. Our common foe has done more than make us aim our weapons at it rather than one another.

Now, we work together, as one people and find the reason behind our differences.