After Action Report – Not All That Glitters Is Gold, or: Dave Powers On
This week’s theme song:
🎶 Follow the Yellow Brick Road 🎶
Follow the yellow brick road, follow the yellow brick road
Follow, follow, follow, follow, follow the yellow-brick road
Follow the yellow-brick, follow the yellow-brick
Follow the yellow-brick road
(Repeated loudly, enthusiastically, and increasingly sarcastically every time something yellow exploded.)
With Craig taking the night off—presumably to rest, recover, and avoid being blamed for anything that went wrong—we discovered an unfamiliar sensation: relative competence. This lasted approximately twelve minutes.
We began the evening with what can only be described as administrative cosplay. Spent mines were sold off like last season’s fashion, walls were upgraded to Level 3 (The Ultimate™), and our power storage was boosted to a positively obscene 2.6 MW. Baby.
We then collectively stared at the research queue and asked the ancient gamer riddle:
“Why does this say five hours?”
After much squinting, muttering, and Dave insisting it was “definitely fine earlier,” we uncovered the truth: power only works if you actually send it where it’s needed. A shocking revelation that will no doubt reshape modern engineering textbooks.
Enter: Nuclear Solutions
Naturally, the only reasonable response was to build a nuclear reactor.
Picture it like Fukushima.
Only sexier.
And placed right next to our main base, because safety is really more of a vibe than a rule.
The reactor needed cooling, so we embarked on a majestic industrial ballet:
Pump mud from a swamp
Filter it into sparkling-clear water
Store it lovingly
Pipe it directly into the reactor
Walls were erected around the reactor and water systems to stop “pesky critters” from causing a runaway nuclear meltdown, which we all agreed would really ruin the evening.
Beer Logic™
With that handled, we decided we deserved a drink. Since yeast = beer, we headed out to explore an acid fungi yeast colony.
This logic was flawless.
The execution was not.
Those colonies suck. Deeply. Personally. With malice.
Home Invasions, Alien Edition
Returning to base, we were immediately greeted by several alien swarms, who demonstrated—quite rudely—that our walls and defences were less “impregnable fortress” and more “suggestion.”
In response, we upgraded our tornadoes to Superior, because nothing says “problem solving” like weaponised weather.
Meanwhile, Character Studies
Myles spent a significant portion of the night running around following Dave again, like a concerned parent trailing a toddler with a screwdriver.
Zaph cleared maps with surgical precision, hoovering up loot before Dave could wander in and “accidentally” steal it.
The Golden Lie: Palladium
Eventually, it was expedition time. Off we went to discover Palladium.
Palladium is:
Yellow (like gold)
Comes out of the ground in little ingots (like gold)
Is therefore definitely gold-adjacent
This delighted us so much that we immediately researched 101 ways to use Palladium, then decided the only sensible thing to do was establish a mining colony.
While Zaph explored, Myles and Dave built an outpost.
Dave confidently announced:
“All our power needs can be met with one nuclear reactor.”
And immediately started building one.
Myles, meanwhile, sensibly set up the radar installation, because foresight is his tragic flaw.
Countdown to Disaster
“Incoming alien attack – 2 minutes,” chimed the base system helpfully.
“Radar would be really nice right now,” said Myles.
“How long till the reactor is online?”
Dave paused his lunch break.
“Four minutes,” he declared.
“All the time in the world.”
Myles stopped building walls and sprinted into the jungle, screaming about Dave’s poor timing, while he and Zaph heroically stopped the alien horde through violence and spite.
Let There Be… Nothing
At last, the reactor was finished.
“Let there be light,” said Dave, flipping the switch.
Nothing happened.
Clearly, Dave is not a god of electrical engineering.
“Where is my radar?” asked Myles.
“Incoming alien swarm – 2 minutes,” chimed the base again, smugly.
“Nooo!!!” said Dave. “The reactor isn’t getting water!”
“Maybe this missing pipe section?” suggested Myles, helpfully connecting it.
(Dave is also not a plumber.)
Still nothing.
“The water should be flowing,” said Dave. “Why does the cleaning plant have no power?”
He ran around furiously switching everything off:
Palladium mines
Radar
Hope
Still nothing.
“Arrrgggh!” was Myles’ response as he ran off to stop another alien horde.
Success, Technically
Eventually—through desperation, panic, and blind luck—everything worked.
The power came on.
The base lit up like a Christmas tree.
Which, unfortunately, attracted even more alien hordes.
We mined relentlessly toward our entirely reasonable goal of 10,000 Palladium (seriously, who sets these targets anyway?).
Wildlife Encounters
Dave ran off to join the fight. As he approached the horde, a large red circle appeared under his feet.
“Yuck,” said Dave. “Giant snails throwing exploding rocks. I hate those things.”
“Bees,” replied Myles.
“Why is it always bees?”
Meanwhile, Zaph, scanning for Palladium, found absolutely nothing except underground exploding rocks, which feels less like mining and more like being personally insulted by geology.
Closing Carnage
Another successful night of:
Slaughtering everything in sight
Stealing everything (even if it was nailed down)
Listening to Dave complain that he can’t get the blood out of his mech armor
A timeless tradition.
Achievement Summary
Dave (1) achieved: I’ll Do It Myself
(Kill 500 aliens with Mr Riggs’ bare hands)Myles achieved nothing again.
Craig achieved a good night’s sleep.
Zaph slaughtered everything and still achieved nothing.
And thus concluded another evening on the Yellow Brick Road, where the gold is radioactive, the power grid is optional, and Dave remains humanity’s greatest argument against unsupervised reactors.
