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THE UGH AND THE MERRING
Ben Voynick/Bagg/Phwendo
I know what you're thinking - not another two closely allied races. But
that's not what this is - you'll see. Let's concentrate on the Ugh. The race
name is, quite literally, Ugh - as in when you say, Ugh, that's gross. I guess
another way of spelling this would be Ug. Anyway, the Ugh are very hostile - I mean
HOSTILE. Whenever an Ugh pops onto the screen, they give you about ten seconds to say
stuff, and then they try to kill you. Well, not exactly. They give you all the time in the
world.
And now for the jaw-hanger: the Ugh are really the Merring! Yep! The Merring come
from two constellations just outside the map in SC2. They were a rather blunt race; their
attitude if they met any aliens was to be. Let's be friendly, but if you attack us,
we're gonna kick you into the next dimension. (They had plans for a grand
space-faring empire, but hadn't found Hyperspace yet). Then they found Hyperspace and
explored their constellation. They have only found one Precursor device, a useless piece
of junk, that they didn't even know was made by the Precursors; they thought it might have
been made by an insane person of their race long ago. They stuck it in a musuem, and
pretty much forgot about it; not even a bit of technology like was found in the first war
(SC1) were found by them.
Unfortunately, when they began meeting other races, they met all
the hostile ones (the only race this relies on that cannot be replaced with another
hostile race is the Squivanin). Soon they were fearful, and they made up the Ugh and
pulled the Ugh over their bridge whenever communicating, and spend a lot of their ship's
power hiding the image of the captain in battles. I hope to come up with a conversation
tree soon, but basically, the Ugh'll always say. You will die. Ugh when you
first communicate. Once you say something, they will say the same thing again, except this
time they will initiate battle.
The Merring want to keep their SE (Sphere-of-Enfluence)
location secret, so you have to go to some measures to find it: First, you must always
complete the battle, instead of warping out. You'll get a "report from orbit"
after mining RU from the debris which will report that they have obtained a partial data
file from the wreckage with the sphere. Yes, the Ugh sphere when it first appears IS
small. This is because it is only a 1/4th the size of the actual sphere; you must go
through 4 complete Ugh battles before the sphere is shown at its actual size (each time
you complete a battle, you'll get another report saying more Ugh sphere data has been
recovered, and the sphere will grow another 1/4th of the actual size, until its actual
size, at which the report will say next time you finish a battle the Ugh sphere is
correct, and no further reports after that). However, there are two ways to solve this
problem. The first is the Melnorme; the information is VERY costly, and you are not given
the option to get the info at first in the game, but its immediate. If you don't want to
spend a truckload of credits to get the immediate effect, or can't wait, there's a more
intricate way to discover this: The actual use of the Precursor device they have is a bomb
amplifier; if this had been had before the battle of the Sa-Matra, the enhancements to the
bomb could have been made without the Chmmr's help, and it would have taken less slots.
Anyway, the (Fill in a race here - the Druuge? The Ilwrath?) covet this bomb enhancer, and
they take advantage when it's transferred a colony world temporarily (during the game).
They attack, steal the enhancer, destroy the colony, and leave only one, poor damaged
Merring ship in orbit, which is stranded with its lack of Hyperwave and Hyperspace
abilitys. The ship is too damaged to hide behind the Ugh, and the Captain will
reveal everything to you if you will only take him and his crew aboard, and you can go
talk to the Merring Council (leading guys) at the Merring homeworld. (The ship will be
dissassembled for RU for you, and the crew from the Merring ship will appear as a device,
and you can activate; them to talk to their captain, like the Dnyarri.)
Well,
the Merring won't be happy, but they'll agree to leave your ship in peace, though none
others, if you transfer the Merring Captain and his crew; if you don't, they attack, so
it's a good idea to agree. From now on, Merring Captain's will say "Oh, it's you,
bye." and leave again. If you attack their ships after this, they'll begin attacking
you again. Anyway, if you're insistent on possibilities of an alliance, or at least
galactic peace, they'll tell you they want two things: the device the (whoever it was
stole the bomb enhancer) back. They won't tell you what it is, only they want it back.
Also, they want a data dump of your entire Precursor info. Several races, such as the
Zoq-Fot-Pik, will locate this planet eventually. You will have to fight your way past
several ships to get it.
The first thing you give them (the device or the data dump), the
Merring will agree to stop attacking people. If you do the other thing (giving them the
bomb enhancer or data dump, whichever you haven't done), they will even ally with you. As
soon as peace is declared, you can meet a Merring anywhere, because they've sent ships off
to explore. If you ally, they'll excitedly tell you about any races they find (EVERY race,
so they'll tell you about finding the races you have met that are not in the Alliance in
addition to new ones) on this journey; and also, the other benefit is being able to build
their ships! If you're wondering how they know about the Precursors, it's the Squivanan.
They'll tell you so when you talk about the Precursors with the Merring. There is also a
mis-step you can talk; it's mentioning you have Precursor artifacts when you're still
talking to Ugh instead of Merring. They will demand one of your artifacts,
which is no doubt something you do NOT want to lose. You will never see the artifact again
once you give it, even though Ugh you give artifacts to will not attack. Even
if you mention them to the Merring once you're allied; the Merring's obsession is the
Precursors (as well as exploring once you ally). Also, though the Captain window is
obsucred by total static when you don't yet know of the Merring, a hint that the Ugh are
really a different race is that a set of spots showing polkabot-areas of the actual
Merring Captain appear, different little areas revealed for each function; if all
functions were used at once, it would show the actual Merring bridge, but since it's
highly unlikely the ship would be turning in two directions at once, a half-picture of the
real Merring.
Since *Angelfish* was kind enough to send me the source code for his
communications examples program, I may be using it to make an Ugh example, if I know
enough Turbo Pascal yet. I also hope to add a picture of an Ugh; I have to figure out what
Merrings look like before I draw them, though - I'm thinking humanoid, but I'm not sure.
The Shofixti Snubfighter and the "Ugh"/"Merring" race
are my own creation; feel free to use them, but contact me and give me credit for making
them. If you want to use them a bit modified from my own version, please ask me first. The
Squivanan are *Angelfish*'s creation, and they are his idea; I'm just using them for a bit
of explaining about how the Merring know of the Precursors if there's only one sign in
their space (Yes, the Squivanan told them about the Precursors).
Download the Ugh/Merring conversation trees here. You'll
also need *Angelfish's* SC
Comms kit.
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