Civilization V: The Swedish Saga, part 6: The Epic Conclusion

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Epilogue

There are some who say we failed. That, when the secrets of the universe were handed to us, we only used them to destroy our fellow men. When this vessel departed from Stockholm National Starport on September 21st, 2008, the bleakness of the global outlook certainly supported that theory. The relentless military response by the Norse Democratic Union was not swift enough to keep the Greek Empire from seizing global dominance through manipulation of the world's minor states in 2006. In the process, much of the continent was blown away and irradiated by nuclear arms. Fallout sent into the atmosphere over the course of a few short years has nearly assured a global nuclear winter that will leave nothing the same.

The day we left, the Norse Defense Ministry activated its new robotic army against the Confederated Nations, driven by AI I fear they will not be able to control.

But we survived. We few hundred souls who have escaped the gravity of the small rock we were born on, and will within the next century escape the star system it orbits in. What awaits us in the depths of the wider galaxy, we cannot say. But we will journey ever onwards, and build new lives for our families among the stars... far from the reach of the fires of war. For we alone remain as testament that human ingenuity can bring great wonder, just as it can bring great destruction. Our legacy is one worth preserving. And that, alone, shall become our continuing mission.

End of log.

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So, the upshot is that I technically lost. I focused all of my forces like a spearpoint to capture Athens as quickly as possible and stop the UN vote, but it just wasn't going to happen. In retrospect, I should have razed the entirety of Greece in the Great War. Hindsight is 20/20.

I actually kept the game going quite a while after my defeat, and sure enough, I won the space race two turns later. At that point, I proceeded to start cranking out Civ V's ultimate unit, the Giant Death Robot, and roleplayed that Skynet had taken over my government and determined humans were too violent to be allowed to live. While I probably could have squeezed a few more installments out of that alone, I felt like it was about time to close the book on this chronicle. It basically would have just been "giant robots stomp such and such city into dust" over and over again for about 40 years.

It's been a long ride, but there's one last page to turn...

Len Hafer
Contributor

Len Hafer is a freelancer and lifelong PC gamer with a specialty in strategy, RPGs, horror, and survival games. A chance encounter with Warcraft 2: Tides of Darkness changed her life forever. Today, her favorites include the grand strategy games from Paradox Interactive like Crusader Kings and Europa Universalis, and thought-provoking, story-rich RPGs like Persona 5 and Disco Elysium. She also loves history, hiking in the mountains of Colorado, and heavy metal music.