 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(February 2015) |
| Xenocracy | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Developer(s) | Simis |
| Publisher(s) | Grolier Interactive |
| Platform(s) | Windows, PlayStation |
| Release | 1998 |
| Genre(s) | Space combat simulator, strategy |
| Mode(s) | Single-player, Multiplayer |
Xenocracy is a space simulator developed by Simis and published by Grolier Interactive in 1998. Xenocracy is a cross between a space combat action sim and a political strategy game. [1]
The year is 10 600 of the Common Era. Mankind has colonised space, founding a Solar dominion on the power and wealth created by the mineral lycosite. Four great planetary superpowers - Earth, Mars, Venus and Mercury - wage a covert war for the outer colonies and their rich reserves of lycosite. Only the peacekeepers of the United Planet Nations can prevent these skirmishes and raids from erupting into all-out Solar War. You are the WingToucher commanding the elite U.P.N. [2]
In the far future, four planetary superpowers (the Earth Dominion, the Mercury League, the Venus Alliance and the Mars Combine) are vying for control of the solar system and on the brink of all-out "thermostellar war". As commander of the United Planet Nations peacekeeping fighter squadron, your role is to maintain the balance and prevent cold war and localized conflicts from escalating into open interplanetary hostilities. Further complicating the matter, you must deal with pirates and a looming alien threat.
As each planetary superpower launches low-intensity strikes (as opposed to open warfare) against the colonies and outposts of the other three, you are presented with the choice, via a strategic solar system map showing flaring geopolitical hotspots, of which to aid. If you aid one superpower too much at the expense of the others, as one is first tempted to do, you upset the balance and cause the war you sought to prevent. Whichever you choose, afterward you are realistically presented with complaints and political propaganda from the other three superpowers, and receive news broadcasts concerning the interplanetary geopolitical wrangling.
In addition to keeping the peace, you also manage research and development of newer and more powerful technologies, which will eventually prove crucial. Several fighter and weapon types are available, and the scenery varies from asteroid belts and dust clouds to planetary surfaces. You may choose from several wingmen, each with a personal description and personality type, whom you must do your best to keep alive. Missions include such tasks as defending mine complexes from attack (or attacking them) and protecting convoys (or destroying them). [1]
The game allows multiplayer up to 8 players over TCP/IP or serial connections. [1]
Interplanetary spaceflight or interplanetary travel is the crewed or uncrewed travel between stars and planets, usually within a single planetary system. In practice, spaceflights of this type are confined to travel between the planets of the Solar System. Uncrewed space probes have flown to all the observed planets in the Solar System as well as to dwarf planets Pluto and Ceres, and several asteroids. Orbiters and landers return more information than fly-by missions. Crewed flights have landed on the Moon and have been planned, from time to time, for Mars, Venus and Mercury. While many scientists appreciate the knowledge value that uncrewed flights provide, the value of crewed missions is more controversial. Science fiction writers propose a number of benefits, including the mining of asteroids, access to solar power, and room for colonization in the event of an Earth catastrophe.
The Mariner program was conducted by the American space agency NASA to explore other planets. Between 1962 and late 1973, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) designed and built 10 robotic interplanetary probes named Mariner to explore the inner Solar System - visiting the planets Venus, Mars and Mercury for the first time, and returning to Venus and Mars for additional close observations.
Space exploration is the use of astronomy and space technology to explore outer space. While the exploration of space is carried out mainly by astronomers with telescopes, its physical exploration is conducted both by uncrewed robotic space probes and human spaceflight. Space exploration, like its classical form astronomy, is one of the main sources for space science.
Space colonization is the use of outer space or celestial bodies other than Earth for permanent habitation or as extraterrestrial territory.
Terraforming or terraformation ("Earth-shaping") is the hypothetical process of deliberately modifying the atmosphere, temperature, surface topography or ecology of a planet, moon, or other body to be similar to the environment of Earth to make it habitable for humans to live on.
Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is a rocky planet with the densest atmosphere of all the rocky bodies in the Solar System, and the only one with a mass and size that is close to that of its orbital neighbour Earth. Orbiting inferiorly, it appears in Earth's sky always close to the Sun, as either a "morning star" or an "evening star". While this is also true for Mercury, Venus appears much more prominently, since it is the third brightest object in Earth's sky after the Moon and the Sun, appearing brighter than any other star-like classical planet or any fixed star. With such a prominence in Earth's sky, Venus has historically been a common and important object for humans, in both their cultures and astronomy.
A gravity assist, gravity assist maneuver, swing-by, or generally a gravitational slingshot in orbital mechanics, is a type of spaceflight flyby which makes use of the relative movement and gravity of a planet or other astronomical object to alter the path and speed of a spacecraft, typically to save propellant and reduce expense.
Planetary engineering is the development and application of technology for the purpose of influencing the environment of a planet. Planetary engineering encompasses a variety of methods such as terraforming, seeding, and geoengineering.
Buck Rogers XXVC is a game setting created by TSR, Inc. in the late 1980s. Products based on this setting include novels, graphic novels, a role-playing game (RPG), board game, and video games. The setting was active from 1988 until 1995.
The interplanetary dust cloud, or zodiacal cloud, consists of cosmic dust that pervades the space between planets within planetary systems, such as the Solar System. This system of particles has been studied for many years in order to understand its nature, origin, and relationship to larger bodies. There are several methods to obtain space dust measurement.
The colonization of Venus has been a subject of many works of science fiction since before the dawn of spaceflight, and is still discussed from both a fictional and a scientific standpoint. However, with the discovery of Venus's extremely hostile surface environment, attention has largely shifted towards the colonization of the Moon and Mars instead, with proposals for Venus focused on habitats floating in the upper-middle atmosphere and on terraforming.
The terraforming of Venus or the terraformation of Venus is the hypothetical process of engineering the global environment of the planet Venus in order to make it suitable for human habitation. Adjustments to the existing environment of Venus to support human life would require at least three major changes to the planet's atmosphere:
The Lunar and Planetary Laboratory (LPL) is a research center for planetary science located in Tucson, Arizona. It is also a graduate school, constituting the Department of Planetary Sciences at the University of Arizona. LPL is one of the world's largest programs dedicated exclusively to planetary science in a university setting. The Lunar and Planetary Lab collection is held at the University of Arizona Special Collections Library.
The exploration of Mercury has a minor role in the space interests of the world. It is the least explored inner planet. As of 2015, the Mariner 10 and MESSENGER missions have been the only missions that have made close observations of Mercury. MESSENGER made three flybys before entering orbit around Mercury. A third mission to Mercury, BepiColombo, a joint mission between the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and the European Space Agency, is to include two probes. MESSENGER and BepiColombo are intended to gather complementary data to help scientists understand many of the mysteries discovered by Mariner 10's flybys.
The Planetary Science Decadal Survey is a serial publication of the United States National Research Council produced for NASA and other United States Government Agencies such as the National Science Foundation. The documents identify key questions facing planetary science and outlines recommendations for space and ground-based exploration ten years into the future. Missions to gather data to answer these big questions are described and prioritized, where appropriate. Similar decadal surveys cover astronomy and astrophysics, earth science, and heliophysics.
Alien Legacy is a sci-fi strategy game developed by Ybarra Productions and published by Sierra On-Line in 1994 for MS-DOS.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the Solar System: