Here is a quiz for you. Below is a paragraph from the Reach for the Stars manual.
Without looking back at the text, what do the Arimechs use to grab onto things? I had to first read that paragraph and then type it in and then check to make sure I didnt screw it up when I typed it, and I dont remember, either. Thats ok, though, because its completely fucking irrelevant. Here is something that is not irrelevant: in Master of Orion, the Klackons are big ants. Why? Because ants are good workers, and Klackons get production bonuses. Notice how I remember that, yet I didnt just type in a big paragraph about it.
I saw Wall Street way back when it was in theaters, so Ive had over a decade to assimilate the now well-known axiom that greed is good. Therefore, when somebody presents me with a well-dressed man by the name of Morgan and informs me that hes very rich, I can pretty much write my own backstory right there. This backstory then serves as a mnemonic device to make sense out of all the subsequent arbitrary game devices that Reach for the Stars has somehow transformed into Arimech tentacles. I know a planned economy is bad because its not much of a leap from Hitler or Milosevic to rounding people up and dumping them in mass graves, so when I need to choose an economy for J.P. Morgans team, I know right away that planned probably wouldnt work. For role-playing reasons. And guess what? Its prohibited by the game rules! I could probably sit down right now with only the Critique of Pure Reason and the dungeon masters guide from some space role-playing game and figure out the rest of the games rules just from the leader portraits. By way of contrast, just now I read the planet suitability characteristics for one of the space races in Reach for the Stars, and not only can I not remember what they were, but Ive already forgotten what the name of the race was.
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