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From the Desk of the Editor
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Author:Desert Demon
IP:user-0ceXXXX
Date: 02/14/04 10:02
Game Type: Starcraft
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Report Rating: 8.0, # of Ratings: 1, Max: 8, Min: 8
Lifetime Rating for Desert Demon: 7.7353
Untitled Document

Reporter Des D. Mon of the 3rd Colonial Militia was awakened by a harsh noise, followed by the emotionless female voice of the computer intoning that he had received new orders.
His eyes popped open as the message siren shattered the beautiful early morning silence of the Militia headquarters, which consisted of marines singing risqué songs and arguing about their skills.
Des found himself lying naked in his bunk, and further examination of his room revealed his clothes strewn about the floor of his quarters, and sitting on top of them, several cans of beer, flask of old brandy, and a scratched up bottle that he could not identify. Last night must have been a night to remember…too bad I can't.
The message siren screeched again, letting him know that he had an important message on the line and that he needed to get up and see what it was. Not that he wanted to. Why don't they make that damned message siren something more soothing, like a lullaby…He began to hum to himself until he drifted off into semi-consciousness. And was once again awoken by the screech of the siren.
"You have a message waiting, Mr. Mon."
"Agh…put it through on audio only…and give me some clothes."
Another female voice started talking. "Des, are you awake?" Angelica Morgan, editor-in-chief of the 3rd Colonial News Dispatch.
"Barely…"
"Well, get up here as fast as you can. We've got some good stuff for an article in the Dispatch, and I want you on it."
"What's in it for me…"
"We've got one of those valkyrie pilots taking you into the field."
Des woke up with a start. "I'll be right there."


Des headed up to Angelica's office, hoping that this was some saucy material on one of the less gregarious generals in the Militia. They were pretty well disciplined, so it was unlikely that this was the case, but one could always hope. It would be far more interesting than some obscure skirmish between rebel groups that he was always being sent to report on. That was all that happened on this godforsaken planet.
Des opened the door, and saw Angelica looking at her watch, obviously wondering when he'd get there. She looked up as she heard the door creak.
"There you are. This is good news, there are a couple of the rebel commanders heading out to sector 45. They're going to try to claim it from Commander TM. A hard fight, it seems. Should be plenty of action to please the peons."
"Sounds good," said Des, feigning interest. Then he suddenly realized something. "Wait, sector 45? Isn't that the place they call Hall of Valhalla?"
"Yes, that's the place. Why do you ask?"
"Bad memories…"
"Well, head down to the hangar. We have your personal wraith prepped for the trip." A small smile appeared on Angelica's lips as she said these words.
"Wait, my wraith? What about the valkyrie pilot thing?"
"They weren't too interested…"
Des groaned.


About an hour later, about three hundred meters above the surface of sector 45, or "The Hall of Valhalla," Des was sitting in his personalized wraith, cloaking device ready to kick in if he got into any sticky situations. He mumbled something about broken promises.
"Well, let's see what's going on…" The wraith plunged down from that atmosphere, and a heavy-duty camera in place of the wraith's burst laser went online. He began taking pictures with amazing speed and precision.

Commander XR landed his command center at the northern most plateau of WTF SPEED ZEALOTS BEAT SNORLAXS WHEN MICROED TO AVOID THE FATNESS KAKA -badmesector 45, sporting his yellow faction color, while his fellow terran, TM, landed at the west, wearing brown. Baron FS, commanding a zerg brood, had just recently finished his hatchery at the southern most plateau.
All three commanders quickly begin putting up structures necessary for their war efforts. XR opts for infantry, based on his decision to construct two barracks and shortly thereafter an academy, while TM goes for two factories and a more standard vehicular strategy. His academy comes later, if only for scan. However, he lands his scouting barracks inside of XR's main for later use. FS has made his way up to a lair, and begins morphing a spire to take to the skies. Opposing two terrans with air might be somewhat risky, as either might opt for valkyries making it hard for him to maintain control, however, he cannot be ignored. Interestingly enough, he also opts to construct a queen's nest. Whether he plans to use queens or wants a fast hive remains to be seen.
XR has constructed both a factory and a starport and put up a control tower, and he then loads his freshly trained infantry, consisting of medics and marines, into a new dropship. He then orders the pilot to set out for TM's base, however, TM decides to make his move at the same time. He sends a dropship filled with a tank and two goliaths towards XR's base, and at the same time constructs a pair of marines out of his offensively placed barracks. XR notices this shortly after his dropship leaves, and sends a pair of marines to deal with the threat. However, the three are able to kill XR's two first, and I spent ten minutes trying to think of alt-text to go here, and end up just telling you that. Sigh.proceed to begin attacking XR's buildings. On top of this, TM's dropship unloads beside XR's minerals and the tank and goliaths open fire on XR's base.
XR's dropship unloads into TM's base and the marines begin to kill SCV's mercilessly, but a the stalwart workers fight back, and with the aid of goliaths, they manage to expel the offending marines. XR is faring much worse, losing warriors and workers alike to the ijnvasion, and after a short period opts to remove his buildings from his base and fly them eastward. His supply depots fall, but the majority of his buildings make it away to the resource rich valley just east of his base.
FS has been constructing mutalisks and queens at his base, and the flyers idle as they wait for an opportune moment to move out and attack the invading terrans. Other than TM's continuing to attack the remaining buildings in XR's base, the game seems to be at a relative standstill. XR suddenly orders his workers to engage the goliaths, killing them, although the tank remains. As the SCV's repair what little is left of their base, TM drops an SCV off in the walled in area in the northwest, and begins construction of a command center.

"Holy crap, that was quick!" Des pulled his slightly charred wraith up and flipped on the cloak after a flyby of XR's base. "Don't tell me this fight is over already, Angelica. Fuel is too expensive for me to have headed out this far without a nice bonus."
Des pulled out a Led Zeppelin datastream and popped it into the wraith's stereo system as he turned to see what was going on in TM's base.

A funny thing happened to me on my way to BR.com...FS decides to make his move here, sending his force of queens and mutalisks up to TM's base. TM has a great deal of goliaths, making an all out attack seem somewhat futile, but FS has some tricks up his sleeve. The queens move to the front then fire out their broodling eggs into various goliaths, causing the little broodlings to rip out and begin to attack whatever they can find. Multiple goliaths go down this way, only managing to take down a couple queens as they die. The mutalisks move to engage, however goliath fire compels FS to retreat his force. The broodlings remain, however, and they begin to cut through various structures in TM's base. SCV's and goliaths move to engage, when suddenly the queens return, killing two more goliaths. This time the zerg retreat is final, however TM has lost a supply depot, a turret, and multiple goliaths.
The SCV's at XR's base have ousted the tank, although their losses are huge. The survivors quickly start up construction of a command center in the ruins of the old base, putting XR at two bases, yet still at a severe economic disadvantage. He however is not one to give up easily, and works to return to his orignial status. At the same time, TM constructs wraiths out of his starport, and begins research there, presumably equipping his fighters with cloaking technology to engage the mutalisks and queens and turn the battle in his favor.

"So much for mutalisks and queens." Des pulled up to get a better view of what was going on across the map, and also to relieve his reactor of the strain of cloaking. As "Rock and Roll" started up, he started drawing obtuse sketches of what was going on below him. After remembering he had no drawing skills, Des pulled out a sandwich. "Trust these idiots to have their skirmish during my lunch break."

FS moves to expand, sending out an overlord with two drones in it, however he decides to skip the mineral rich base just outside of his, and instead move to the valley to the east and north of his base. The players work on their economic strength, each now running two bases, but TM seeming to have the strongest.
Okay, as I'm unable to think of anything funny to go here, subliminal messages will instead. Give me a 10. TM constructs a valkyrie to combat the flyers from FS, but just as it finishes about five queens make another raid on his base, taking out three or four goliaths. TM's wraith pilots gun their engines and pursue the queens, turning on their newly acquired cloaking fields until they run into mutalisks at FS's base, where overlords telepathically locate the fighters, allowing the mutalisks to engage. The wraiths quickly make their escape. Immediatley after this, TM flies three dropships of golaiths and SCVs to FS's base, as well as sends his airforce, consisting of two wraiths and a valkyrie, to engage the zerg flyers. Unfortunatley for TM, the incompetence of one of the pilots prevents four of the goliaths from unloading, allowing the zerg force to dispatch the terrans that much more easily. Zerglings and queens kill the goliaths, and the fighters fly in a second too late, and are chased away by the mutalisks.

"I don't know why he hires these idiots to fly those things. I mean, any half assed recruit can unload goliaths. Why not these people?" Des shook his head, then turned and zoomed off to the other end of the sector to see what XR was doing.

XR is once again battle-ready, with several marines and medics freshly trained. He constructs an engineering bay and puts up several turrets throughout his main base. He has also begun the construction of dropships, and is preparing to drop. Both TM and FS begin expansions at around the same time, with FS's spawning at the eastern plateau, and TM landing a command center in the valley northeast of his base. TM has constructed more golaiths, and has also enhanced his airforce with a few more valkyries. TM sends two SCVs to the central walled in area to construct yet another base, and XR starts up a command The time I spent writing this and doing pictures is far less than the time I spent telling people to stop telling me to do this. Sad, isn't it?center in his base, however where he plans to expand is not yet clear. FS loads up several zerglings and rallies his mutalisks, having sighted TM's valley expansion. As the forces set out, they see another group of dropships from TM, and sharply turn to engage the new enemies. Using his strategy again of broodlinging, FS quickly dispatches the goliaths, but the valkyries butcher his mutalisks, and he is left without any way to defend against their attacks besides the few spore colonies in his base. To correct this problem, he constructs a hydralisk den and begins to morph the snake like creatures.

Des saw something on his radar. "FS is in some deep shit…I foresee violence in the near future. But hey, us humans like our medarine." Gunning his engines, Des zoomed across the sector to the eastern base.

Valentines Day, 2004. Majority of people are out on dates or something. I'm doing this BR, because I love you all.FS's eastern expansion is found by XR, who empties six dropships of medics and marines into it. The static defense at the zerg base is incapable of stopping the assault, and in a matter of seconds the hatcheies explode into bloody puddles. The terrans quickly load up and make their exit, moving southward, deeper into FS's territory. They are quickly engaged by mutalisks, but only one is lost before the army is unloaded in FS's main. Although things look quite bad for FS, he is soon able to dispatch the terran forces, leaving only one dropship alive. Back at his main, XR begins to construct starports, en masse. TM has done the same during this conflict, as well as attached a physics lab to his science facility, obviously moving towards BCs. He scans XR, sees theHe hax0red the window! -Arfenhouse starports, and decides that he does not want this to become a war for air superiority between the two terran powers. Two dropships of goliaths unload into XR's base, which after the attack on FS is sorely underdefended.XR once again is forces to flee from his main, although his newly obtained mineral only expansion west of his base goes unnoticed by the walkers. The remaining marines at XR's base are slaughtered, and XR begins his escape.

"Wow…XR is having a crappy day, isn't he. I'm so glad we didn't have him as our general at the 9,482,629,026th battle of Lost Temple."

FS has retaken his base at the easternmost plateau, as well as the southeastern walled in area, unaware of the battle between his two adversaries. He sends his flyer force to the central base, engaging the goliaths and turrets that are there. These buy TM enough time to bring in a few valkyries which chase away the offending zerg. The valkyrie pilots don't pursue the zerg, as TM is content to build up his force of battlecruisers.
XR has reconstructed his starports and erected a physics lab of his own. He begins the construction of battlecruisers, but short on cash, decides to expand at the eastern plateau. As his SCVs unload, they sight the creep, and he puts up a bunker and sends in marines to combat his foes. FS's drones are quickly butchered, and the marines make their escape into the bunker before the zerg guarding the base can react.

"I wonder how FS is feeling right now…" Suddenly, a siren went off and a ping appeared on the map screen at FS's main base. "Dear god…I'm so glad I'm not him. Way to get doubled, buddy."

FS has just unloaded his zerglings into TM's central base as this happens, and suddenly he realizes that XR is not alone in his attack. At FS's main You know that line about the battle during my lunch? It's true. It really was my lunch time.base, TM has attacked with goliaths, tanks, and his new fleet of battlecruisers, crushing the resistance and proceeding to raze FS's base to the ground. TM's battlecruisers dispatch the offending zerg in his middle expansion, and TM quickly resumes mining. At FS's east base, a similar situation arises as has in his main. Battlecruisers cut through the undefended base, and FS finds himself at half his base count.
TM will not let up on his assault on FS, and drops 16 goliaths over FS's valley base, and tanks and battlecruisers engage as well. However, the terrans stop short of destroying the entire valley base, leaving a hatchery, a spore colony, and a sunken colony alive. TM has dropped goliaths onto the eastern plateau, and engaged XR's forces there, drawingI somehow made it to the end...by ranting about how hard that is. his attention away from the valley base. He pulls his forces toward the eastern base, and from the plateau they destroy XR's starports. As TM unloads his troops under the valley, XR finds himself with limited options. He fires yamato blasts at the goliaths, and uses a few wraiths to combat TM's battlecruisers. The troops engage each other, carefully doing what damage they can, but XR realizes that the situation isn't one he can come out of alive. He orders the surrender, and the white flag is raised.
FS and TM are now the only ones left, but FS has taken quite a beating during the course of the battle. Although he makes several raids on TM's various bases, TM outnumbers him, and as the terran forces push towards his remaining bases, FS relinquishes control of the sector, deactivating his control over the zerg.

"Well, that's another couple bucks in my pocket." Des gunned his engines and flew his Wraith back to Militia headquarters.


Walking into Angelica's office, Des laid down the report and the photographs he had taken. "There ya go. Do I get a raise for this? Pleeease?"
"I'll consider it, Des." Angelica gathered up the papers and photos, then turned to her desk computer.
"Bleh…" Des walked out of the office and down to his quarters, sitting on his bed and downing a bottle of malt liquor…and then another…and then yet another.
As the clock struck twelve, Des had the strangest feeling he was a stripper…


Back in her office, Angelica logged onto battlereports.com and went into the report center. Logging in, she uploaded her scanned screens and Des's article.
"Hm…let's call this one 'From the Desk of the Editor'…"


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