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This article has been verified for the current PC version (3.10) of the game.

An eerie story written by the British writer Alexis Kennedy and introduced in the update 1.4, Horizon Signal is the longest and most complex chain in Stellaris. It is very rare and can bring massive changes to an empire's species. The event cannot happen to AI empires, so there is no risk of losing the opportunity by expanding too slow.

When a new game is started, there is a 5% chance for the Horizon Signal event to activate in a random uncontrolled black hole system. It should be noted that the systems containing the Infinity Machine and the Dimensional Horror can never trigger the event.

Worm in Waiting: Signals[]

The Horizon Signal story begins with the The Worm-in-Waiting: Signals event chain, which can be triggered by a science ship with a scientist assigned to it entering the correct black hole system.

The Horizon Signal

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Evt black hole

An alert communications officer has identified what appears to be a faint signal, almost lost in the gamma-ray flashes from the black hole here - faint, but unmistakably artificial. This raises intriguing possibilities for our scientists.


 
Trigger conditions: Is triggered only by:
  • Entering the correct black hole system

Event button on
OK
  • Issue Special Project: Analyze the Horizon Signal

The Horizon Signal: GRAVITY IS DESIRE

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Evt black hole

Science Officer [scientist name] reports that the signal was unexpectedly easy to decipher... but the team has spent considerable time confirming that it was not a hoax. It is a repeating, half-coherent message in the [empire adjective] language - something like a poem. It repeats the phrases GRAVITY IS DESIRE and TIME IS SIGHT. It encodes co-ordinates near the black hole. And it ends with a dedication by name to the Science Officer - who adds dispassionately that they have confirmed that the signal has been radiating into interstellar space before their birth. It fact, the signal may predate our civilization.


 
Trigger conditions:
  • The Horizon Signal
Is triggered only by:
  • Finishing the Analyze the Horizon Signal special project

Event button on
Fascinating! Send the vessel to those co-ordinates!
  • Event: The Horizon Signal: THE WORM
Event button on
This is a trick, or a trap. Log it and move on.
  • Event: The Horizon Signal: - message ends -

The Horizon Signal: THE WORM

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Evt black hole

As the [science ship name] approaches the co-ordinates specified by the signal, it begins to report spatial distortions and curious lensing effects - a rich stream of valuable data. Then the transmission becomes distorted. What happens next is analyzed exhaustively.

The excitement in Science Officer [scientist name]'s voice tautens to fear as the ship's hull struggles under increasingly exotic conditions. The ship triggers a distress call. [scientist name] cries out "the worm!" - or, perhaps, the Worm! Then all transmissions end. No trace of the [science ship name] is ever found - no further transmissions, no debris, and the space at those co-ordinates is innocuous and utterly free of distortions. But the data they sent back has advanced our Physics research dramatically. Perhaps it was worth their lives.


 
Trigger conditions:
  • The Horizon Signal: GRAVITY IS DESIRE
Is triggered only by:
  • Previous event choice

Event button on
They won't be forgotten.
  • Physics Research Gained: Physics Research 600-3000
  • Science ship and scientist are lost
Event button on
MaterialistFanatic Materialist We learn, and we go on.
  • Physics Research Gained: Physics Research 600-3000
  • Science ship and scientist are lost
Event button on
SpiritualistFanatic Spiritualist Darkness; light; darkness.
  • Physics Research Gained: Physics Research 600-3000
  • Science ship and scientist are lost

The Horizon Signal: - message ends -

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Evt black hole

[scientist name] complies, with a mixture of reluctance and relief. Their psych report later indicates that they are subject of recurring nightmares - of impossible labyrinths, of hungry vertigo of interstellar space, of their names being called in the dark. Within a homeworld year, the message has ceased.


 
Trigger conditions:
  • The Horizon Signal: GRAVITY IS DESIRE
Is triggered only by:
  • Previous event choice

Event button on
We have escaped something.
  • Physics Research Gained: Physics Research 200-500
  • Science ship scientist gains Field Manipulation Expertise: Field Manipulation
  • Science ship scientist gains Leader trait substance abuser Substance Abuser
Event button on
We have lost something.
  • Physics Research Gained: Physics Research 200-500
  • Science ship scientist gains Field Manipulation Expertise: Field Manipulation
  • Science ship scientist gains Leader trait substance abuser Substance Abuser

The Horizon Signal: REPRISE

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Evt black hole

The black hole in [system name] is active again. Once again, a looping signal flickers in the darkness at the edge of normal space. But this time, there's an acoustic message encoded in the signal. It sounds very much like [lost scientist name]'s voice. "What was shall be," intones, "what shall be was.". Then the same co-ordinates as the first signal, the co-ordinates where [lost scientist name] was lost - what the media christened "the Exit Point". Then they say a name: [scientist name].


 
Trigger conditions:
  • The Horizon Signal: THE WORM
Mean time to happen:

Time 320 days


Event button on
[scientist name] volunteers to go. Permit it.
  • Event: The Horizon Signal: I'm Through
Event button on
Permit them to go, but rig their ship's drive to detonate.
  • Event: The Horizon Signal: An Intervention
Event button on
Not this time. Ignore it.
  • Event: The Horizon Signal: - message ends -

The Horizon Signal: I'm Through

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Evt black hole

This time, the ship is running fully automated. [scientist name] is the only crew-member aboard. As it approaches the Exit Point, the telemetry stream fills up with fascinating data. Once again, space flexes, gravity uncoils. [scientist name] reads off the headline data, echoing the telemetry. They are commendably calm: we've sent a professional. It takes a little while for anyone to realize that something is peculiar about the timing.

[scientist name] is no longer echoing the data: they're predicting it. The telemetry disagrees, but only for a few seconds, until it catches up. The monitoring team is just reporting that the prediction interval is increasing when [scientist name] says, wonderingly: "I'm through."

"It's dark," they add. "That's not a problem. We can live in the dark. I never thought of that. But of course, we can live here forever - if the Worm will only wait - "

At that moment, the signal cuts out, and the ship disappears from our team's sensors.


 
Trigger conditions:
  • The Horizon Signal: REPRISE
Is triggered only by:
  • Previous event choice

Event button on
This is horrible.
  • Science ship and scientist are lost
Event button on
This is regrettable.
  • Science ship and scientist are lost
Event button on
This is fascinating.
  • Science ship and scientist are lost

The Horizon Signal: An Intervention

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Evt debris

This time, [scientist name] is the only crew-member aboard. The ship is running fully automated... and its systems are programmed to detonate the drive once conditions match those immediately prior to the last ship's disappearance. As it approaches the exit point, the telemetry stream fills up with fascinating data. Once again, space flexes, gravity uncoils. [scientist name] reads off the headline data, echoing the telemetry. They are commendably calm: we've sent a professional. It takes a little while for anyone to realize that something is peculiar about the timing.

[scientist name] is no longer echoing the data: They're predicting it. The telemetry disagrees, but only for a few seconds, until it catches up. Our monitoring team is just reporting that the prediction interval is increasing when there is a sudden energy spike.

The drive has detonated: a brief flare of stellar fury, quickly lost in the darkness of [black hole name]. Whatever we encountered there, it may regret its interference. We'll never know. The Horizon Signal does not come again. But our team may find something interesting in the ashes of the ship.


 
Trigger conditions:
  • The Horizon Signal: REPRISE
Is triggered only by:
  • Previous event choice

Event button on
And yet, this may not be the end.
  • Issue Special Project: Investigate fragments at Horizon Signal origin
  • Science ship and scientist are lost

The Horizon Signal: THE TRINE THE QUINE THE TRINE

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Evt black hole

Once again, the Horizon Signal in [black hole name] is active. It has upped its game. Once again, the transmission includes the Exit Point's co-ordinates. It's signed with the private comm keys of [first lost scientist name] and [second lost scientist name]. But this time it's a generative text program written in an elderly programming language that creates what appear to be love poems - love poems directed to [scientist name].

They're honestly not very good love poems. But it is, our scientists agreee, quite difficult to generate love poems procedurally, and quite unusual for a black hole to send love poems at all.


 
Trigger conditions:
  • The Horizon Signal: I'm Through
Mean time to happen:

Time 320 days


Event button on
Well, it's asked nicely. Send [scientist name].
  • Event: The Horizon Signal: Where the End Comes from
Event button on
Send [scientist name], with their drive rigged to blow.
  • Event: The Horizon Signal: An Intervention
Event button on
This is sinister, and ridiculous, and sinister. Let it go.
  • Event: The Horizon Signal: - message ends -

The Horizon Signal: A Lesson in the Ashes

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Evt metropolis

We've reproduced conditions that approximate those around the black hole. We've found that the fragments we recover cycle between states, in ways that should be impossible - as if time were oscillating. We can derive energy from this - although there are worrying changes to local spacetime.


 
Trigger conditions:
  • The Horizon Signal: An Intervention
Is triggered only by:
  • Finishing the Investigate fragments at Horizon Signal origin special project

Event button on
OK

The Horizon Signal: Where the End Comes from

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Evt black hole

This will be the end of me," [scientist name] says at the briefing before launch. "I know I won't come back. But I think I always knew this would happen. Whatever is in the hole has been waiting for us for a long long time - I think it's been waiting for me, since before I was born.".

Once again, the single-pilot ship approaches the Exit Point. Once again, space boils like a fever. Again, our sensor arrays soak up fascinating data. This time, [scientist name] is silent. The telemetry becomes intermittent; and then it, too, is silent. The ship has reached the Exit Point. The conditions around it are returning to normal. Nothing has happened.

Nothing? The monitoring team mutter furiously. The ship is different... in fact, it's a different ship. It's [first lost scientist name]'s vessel, lost these years past, drifting now away from the Exit Point. A salvage team finds it pristine and empty - no trace of crew, and no sign of violence. But there's a journal entry in [first lost scientist name]'s name, titled WHAT WAS WILL BE. Our scientists review it nervously. "Impossible," one says. "I hope so," says another.

The ship is renamed the "Foundling" and returned to service. The Signal, dead or sleeping, says nothing at all, ever again.


 
Trigger conditions:
  • The Horizon Signal: THE TRINE THE QUINE THE TRINE
Is triggered only by:
  • Previous event choice

Event button on
And yet, this may not be the end.
  • Research option gained: Tech akx worm 1 Entropic Recursion
  • Science ship and scientist are lost
  • Gain a science ship named "Foundling"

The Loop Temple: Signs in the Stone

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Evt in the dark

Archaeologists have found a forgotten temple in the remote highlands of [capital name] - buried for centuries, but recently exposed by an earthquake. Dating techniques suggest it's a pre-industrial relic, hand-hewn from volcanic rock. However, the recurring symbol on the walls and radial altar - a Möbius-looped serpent consuming its own tail - has no obvious precedent in our early history, and the inscriptions use an unknown alphabet. One excitable archaeologist suggests it's a relic left by an unknown precursor race.

In a presumably meaningless coincidence, the quake seems to have occurred at the same time as the final message from the black hole in [black hole system name].


 
Trigger conditions: Mean time to happen:

Time 320 days


Event button on
This merits study.
  • Issue Special Project: Investigate the Loop Temple
Event button on
Ominous.
  • Issue Special Project: Investigate the Loop Temple
Event button on
SpiritualistFanatic Spiritualist A way has been opened for us.
  • Issue Special Project: Investigate the Loop Temple

The Loop Temple: Time and Stone

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Evt metropolis

Our scientists have learned a great deal about the subterranean temple, but some questions remain. A roof aperture, along with the radial altar, suggests it was once a solar calendar; but it's so badly damaged by the earthquake that we can't be certain. If the builders found particular dates important, we'll never know which ones. We've had better luck with the "unknown alphabet." It's a debased variant of a better-known hieratic script - not an alien language at all - and we've successfully deciphered it. The temple is dedicated to the "Waiting Worm" or the Worm-in-Waiting. Most of the inscriptions are sonorous, poetic invocations requesting its appearance or, if read in the other direction, its departure. There is also a body of inscriptions describing the "operations of the universe," which our more excitable archaeologist swears contains references to advanced field equations - nothing new to us, but very impressive for a temple of this vintage. We have yet to find a physicist who's prepared to go on record as agreeing that the references are meaningful, though.

The temple holds no cosmic secrets or alien weapons, as far as we can tell. But its dark spaces have a distinctive, menacing beauty, and the poetry of the invocations to the Worm-in-Waiting becomes fashionable. They are set to popular music; they are published in collections.


 
Trigger conditions:
  • The Loop Temple: Signs in the Stone
Is triggered only by:
  • Finishing the Investigate the Loop Temple special project

Event button on
SpiritualistFanatic Spiritualist Make the Loop Temple a place of pilgrimage.
Event button on
Open the Loop Temple to the public.
Event button on
Reserve the Temple for academic study only.
Event button on
There is something wrong here. Show leadership by sealing the Temple.
  • Influence Gained: Influence 100-600

Optional events[]

Optional events can only take place after the initial event chain but before the Omega Alignment building has been constructed.

The Messenger: WHAT WAS, WILL BE

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Evt space debris

The [science ship name] has located a small, minimally powered artificial object, broadcasting a looping signal at local range only. These sorts of things usually turn out to be escape pods, and this looks like one of those. It's been out here a long time.

When the crew cracks it open - carefully observing quarantine procedures - they find ancient remains, preserved by the sterile pod environment. So far, not unusual. The captain of the [science ship name] indicates, however, that they did not expect to find the [empire adjective] words WHAT WAS, WILL BE; WHAT WILL BE, WAS daubed on the wall in the bodily fluids of the pod's occupant - who the crew are now wryly referring to as the Messenger. They add that there are some equally unexpected anatomical similarities between the Messenger's species, and our own.

 
Trigger conditions: Is triggered only by:
  • Entering any neutral system

Event button on
Interesting
  • Issue Special Project: Study the Messenger, and its message

The Messenger: Possibilities

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Evt throne room

We've established that the escape pod was the kind of commercially available knockoff common in the previous phase of galactic civilization - no new technologies or other insights. The remains of the Messenger, however, are another matter. It's unmistakably an ancestor or a variant of the [main species adjective] species. Perhaps we have cousins out there - or perhaps we were subject to genetic manipulation by a precursor race. [Society research leading scientist name] is requesting permission to conduct more extensive research.

 
Trigger conditions:
  • The Messenger: WHAT WAS, WILL BE
Is triggered only by:
  • Finishing the Study the Messenger, and its message special project

Event button on
No. And [Society research leading scientist name] must release their existing research.
Event button on
Release the funding.
  • Research option gained: Tech genome mapping Genome Mapping
  • Issue Special Project: Study the Messenger connection
Event button on
MilitaristFanatic Militarist Give permission to continue.
  • Research option gained: Tech genome mapping Genome Mapping
  • Issue Special Project: Study the Messenger connection

The Messenger: Unleashed

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Evt metropolis

[Society research leading scientist name] has reconstructed the Messenger species. It's feebler than ours, but has significantly improved cognitive abilities. There is some confusion about whether we were the source species, and the Messenger the modified version, or whether the Messenger was our ancestor. It is a little embarrassing to imagine that we might be descended from such an effete species - but [Society research leading scientist name] is firmly of that opinion. Indeed, they consider the loss of cognitive abilities a "tragedy.".

Such a tragedy that they have undergone a retroviral treatment to alter their own physiology to that of the Messengers. They insist that this will equip them much better to continue the project.

 
Trigger conditions: Is triggered only by:
  • Finishing the Study the Messenger connection special project

Event button on
A creative form of treason! Execute them, please.
Event button on
A creative form of treason! Execute them, please. Destroy their notes.
  • [Society research leading scientist name] dies
Event button on
Excellent idea! Get on with it, then.

The Messenger: Leashed

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Evt metropolis

[Society research leading scientist name] has reconstructed the Messenger. It's, ah, quite impressive - worryingly so. It seems to be considerably more robust and aggressive than our current edition. There is some confusion about whether we were the source species, and the Messenger the modified version, or whether the Messenger was our ancestor. [Society research leading scientist name] is firmly of the former opinion - that we were once much more of a warrior species, and that some meddling precursor muzzled us genetically. Indeed, they consider the loss of our martial abilities a "tragedy."

Such a tragedy that they have undergone a retroviral treatment to alter their own physiology to that of the Messengers. They insist that this will equip them much better to continue the project.

 
Trigger conditions: Is triggered only by:
  • Finishing the Study the Messenger connection special project

Event button on
A creative form of treason! Execute them, please.
Event button on
A creative form of treason! Execute them, please. Destroy their notes.
  • [Society research leading scientist name] dies
Event button on
Excellent idea! Get on with it, then.

The Messenger: A New Light

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Evt genetic modification

[Society research leading scientist name] has now recreated the genetic heritage of the Messenger species. Without stopping to ask anyone's opinion, they have also created highly contagious retroviral agent. It stalks our worlds. Under its influence, our primary species falls into a chrysalis-coma and emerges a day later as the Messenger species. This is causing, it is fair to say, some excitement.

 
Trigger conditions:
  • The Messenger: Unleashed
Mean time to happen:

Time 320 days


Event button on
This has gone too far. Now we end it. Control the outbreak.
  • All main species pops on the capital gain the Intelligent Intelligent trait, Pacifist Pacifist ethic and change portraits
Event button on
What was, shall be. We will change. Bring me a sample of the agent.
Event button on
AuthoritarianFanatic Authoritarian Control the outbreak, and purge all affected citizens.
  • All Pops on the capital except one from each species are purged

The Messenger: Night Falls

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Evt genetic modification

[Society research leading scientist name] has now recreated the genetic heritage of the Messenger species. Without stopping to ask anyone's opinion, they have also created highly contagious retroviral agent. It stalks our worlds. Under its influence, our primary species falls into a chrysalis-coma and emerges a day later as the Messenger species. This is causing, it is fair to say, some excitement.

 
Trigger conditions:
  • The Messenger: Leashed
Mean time to happen:

Time 320 days


Event button on
This has gone too far. Now we end it. Control the outbreak.
  • All main species pops on the capital gain the Resilient Resilient trait, Militarist Militarist ethic and change portraits
Event button on
What was, shall be. We will change. Bring me a sample of the agent.
Event button on
AuthoritarianFanatic Authoritarian Control the outbreak, and purge all affected citizens.
  • All Pops on the capital except one from each species are purged

A Rendezvous

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Evt metropolis

The [fleet name]'s name is being hailed...by the Syzygy of [empire name]. This, despite the fact that it isn't sending any ID codes we recognize, and no ship of that name has ever been commissioned. The Syzygy's commanding officer claims to be Captain [commander name].

 
Trigger conditions: Is triggered only by:
  • Entering any neutral system

Event button on
Hm. Our commander of that name is alive, well and elsewhere.
Event button on
This *must* be an ambush. We're taking no chances. Battlestations.
  • Event: A Rendezvous: How it Ends

A Rendezvous: How it Ends

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Evt metropolis

The Syzygy is powering weapons.

 
Trigger conditions: Is triggered only by:
  • Previous event choice

Event button on
Battlestations!
  • The Syzygy becomes hostile

A Rendezvous: The Captain that Will Be

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Evt metropolis

[commander name] is silent in the days that follow. It is no small thing to hear that you are already dead. But in time that silence becomes a determination, and an almost reckless confidence.

 
Trigger conditions:
  • A Rendezvous: How it Ends
  • Commander is alive
Is triggered only by:
  • Destroying the Syzygy

Event button on
Worrying.
  • Commander gains the Foredoomed to a Rendezvous trait
  • 900 Exp if commander's fleet triggered event
Event button on
What was, will be; what will be, was.
  • Commander gains the Foredoomed to a Rendezvous trait
  • 900 Exp if commander's fleet triggered event

A Rendezvous: Interference

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Evt debris

A static-speckled message comes from the captain of the "Syzygy". Behind them, the bridge is wreathed in smoke. "Too late," they cough. "You left it too long. The Loop won't forgive me. Please -"

The message ends there.

 
Trigger conditions:
  • A Rendezvous: How it Ends
  • Commander died
Is triggered only by:
  • Destroying the Syzygy

Event button on
OK

A Rendezvous: The Day and the Hour

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Evt star chart

In the years that follow, there are reported sightings of commander [commander name] across [empire adjective] space and beyond. When a celebrated leader dies, this kind of thing is not unknown, of course; and they had become a kind of legend since the Syzygy Rendezvous. But we can't be sure.

 
Trigger conditions:
  • Commander with the Foredoomed to a Rendezvous trait
Is triggered only by:
  • Commander death

Event button on
We may never know.
Event button on
Oh, we can be sure.

The Coils of God

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Evt primitive civilization

Our observation station on [planet name] reports the rise of an unusual minority religious-artistic movement, the Coils of God. Primitive mechanical clocks are considered holy, but ritually destroyed after a year's operation. The worm- and serpent-analogues of the planets are protected from harm. Time, the Coils-priests say, is a labyrinth. "What was, will be; what will be, was" they intone in their prayers.

 
Trigger conditions: Mean time to happen:

Time 600 months


Event button on
This sounds familiar. Observe it as closely as we can.
  • Society Research Gained: Society research 100-600
Event button on
This sounds familiar. Suppress it as best we can.

The Coils of God: a Subtle Persecution

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Evt primitive civilization

We've convinced native rulers that the Coils of God cult on [planet name] is a threat. The Coils-priests have been discouraged, imprisoned, or, regrettably, incinerated. Pre-FTL species have access to a deep well of hatred and suspicion: there are times when that's very useful.

 
Trigger conditions:
  • The Coils of God
  • 75% chance
Mean time to happen:

Time 12 months


Event button on
OK

The Coils of God: Deep Roots

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Evt primitive civilization

We've convinced native rulers that the Coils of God cult on [planet name] is a threat. The Coils-priests have been discouraged, imprisoned, or, regrettably, incinerated. But the cult is tenacious, and our observers express concerns that it may just have gone underground.

 
Trigger conditions:
  • The Coils of God
  • 25% chance
Mean time to happen:

Time 12 months


Event button on
OK

The Coils of God: the Labyrinth Ceremonies

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Evt primitive civilization

The Coils of God cult on [planet name] has grown with unusual speed. It can be found in every city on the planet, and it's fostering a series of lengthy ceremonies conducted by citizens in every walk of life. The whole species has taken to them with unlikely enthusiasm. The rich adopt elaborate circular dances for their celebrations. The poor daub complex looping sigils on their doors. Even playground games are chants about the circular nature of time.

 
Trigger conditions:
  • The Coils of God: Deep Roots
Mean time to happen:

Time 12 months


Event button on
This is unsettling. Intervene to shut it down, but subtly.
  • Issue Special Project: Disrupt the Coils rituals
Event button on
This is serious. Use force to shut it down, whatever the risks.
  • Issue Special Project: Prevent the Coils rituals
Event button on
Fascinating! Send a team to study the rites - to participate, if possible.
  • Issue Special Project: Participate in the Coils rituals
Event button on
Primitives do primitive things. Continue to observe.

The Coils of God: Ceremony's End

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Evt primitive civilization

Our campaign of subversion has disrupted the Coils of God ceremonies on [planet name]. The nobility abandon their cult. The looping graffiti on walls fades. The young return to playground games about flirtation, murder and other healthy childhood pastimes. There is a rash of suicides among Coils-priests. If there was a crisis, perhaps it is past.

 
Trigger conditions:
  • The Coils of God: the Labyrinth Ceremonies
Is triggered only by:
  • Finishing the Disrupt the Coils rituals special project

Event button on
"The Loop never ends, but it is not always completed."
Event button on
Well done, everyone. Stand down.

The Coils of God: The Blood of Priests

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Evt primitive civilization

Our operatives are merciless. They abduct or assassinate every Coils-priest they can find. They set demolition charges on houses bearing the mark of the Loop. [planet name] is alive with rumors that the Coils' blasphemy has aroused the wrath of a greater god. Before long, the natives are beating the Coils-priests to death without any assistance from our operatives. The observation team is horrified; but if there was a crisis, it has been averted.

 
Trigger conditions:
  • The Coils of God: the Labyrinth Ceremonies
Is triggered only by:
  • Finishing the Prevent the Coils rituals special project

Event button on
"The Loop never ends, but it is not always completed."
Event button on
Well done, everyone. Stand down.

The Coils of God: Navigating the Labyrinth

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Evt primitive civilization

Our ethnographers are fascinated by the complexity of the ceremonies. They hypothesize secret communication channels, steganographic prayer-encodings, or algorithmic underpinnings to the rituals. In fact, they're returning preliminary evidence of this last when their communications abruptly cease. In fact, all communication seems to have ceased, planet-wide. Reports from satellites and survey craft flyovers confirm: there is no activity on the planet at all. No vehicles moving on the road, no emissions or thermal signatures in population centers. No signs of life...

And here's the final report. The entire [primitive species name] population of the planet - including your ethnography team - is absent, with all the business of a sudden but not violent exit. Meals were left unfinished, pets unfed, the occasional house aflame from an unattended stove. Gravitational anomalies were recorded at the assumed time of departure. In almost every street, the looped chalk sigils of the Coils bear witness.

 
Trigger conditions:
  • The Coils of God: the Labyrinth Ceremonies
Is triggered only by:
  • Finishing the Participate in the Coils rituals special project

Event button on
"The Loop never ends."
Event button on
A difficult lesson.

The Waiting World

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Evt colony settlement

It appears this was not the first [main species name] settlement on this planet. A number of facilities and residences have been carefully moth-balled and, with a little restoration, will serve our new colony well. But all records have been erased. Possibly this was a smugglers' port, or a haven for political exiles.

 
Trigger conditions: Is triggered only by:
  • Colonizing a new planet

Event button on
Excellent! Make arrangements to restore the buildings.
  • Minerals: Minerals −100
  • Adds the D fertile lands Loop-Plowed Farm and D crystalline caverns Spiral-Hewn Mine planetary features
Event button on
This is too good to be true. Demolish the districts.
  • Event: The Waiting World: Demolition

The Waiting World: Demolition

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Evt colony settlement

Our engineers set charges and retire to a safe distance. The buildings are reduced to ruins. Eventually, the ruins will crack and crumble to boulders, pebbles, dust, under the assault of wind, roots, rain. But their shell will endure for centuries yet; and there will be stories, we'll hear, of shadows in the stone by day, blue lights by night. Our colonists will avoid them. They'll attract no visitors.

 
Trigger conditions: Is triggered only by:
  • Previous event choice

Event button on
Everything ends.
  • Forlorn Ruins modifier added, giving the following effects: Happiness Happiness −5%
Event button on
Nothing is forgotten.
  • Forlorn Ruins modifier added, giving the following effects: Happiness Happiness −5%
Event button on
I love those boomy noises.
  • Forlorn Ruins modifier added, giving the following effects: Happiness Happiness −5%

The Waiting World: Shadows in the walls

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Evt colony settlement

Our settlers were initially happy to make use the buildings on [colony name]. Their existence jump-started the colony. But now they've grown nervous. There are rumors that the buildings may still have occupants, or active security systems, although no evidence of either has been found. Some colonists insist, enigmatically, that there are "shadows in the walls."

 
Trigger conditions:
  • Existing D fertile lands Loop-Plowed Farm and D crystalline caverns Spiral-Hewn Mine planetary features
Mean time to happen:

Time 12 months


Event button on
Why take the risk? They are only buildings. Have them demolished.
  • Event: The Waiting World: Demolition
Event button on
Discourage this superstition. The buildings represent years of effort.

The Waiting World: Too Many

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Evt colony settlement

Interesting news from [colony name], where we found those abandoned buildings. A census shows too many settlers. Records on a new colony are always unreliable, but as far as we can tell they have authentic citizen IDs - and no-one on the world has suggested there are any mysterious strangers. But the birth rate must have been extraordinarily high, or we have unlicensed migration, or... something. Somehow, the population is higher than we might reasonably expect.

 
Trigger conditions:
  • Existing D fertile lands Loop-Plowed Farm and D crystalline caverns Spiral-Hewn Mine planetary features
Mean time to happen:

Time 24 months


Event button on
Destroy those buildings. We should have done it much sooner.
  • +1 Pop Pop on the colony
  • Event: The Waiting World: Demolition
Event button on
Investigate as best as we can; keep an eye on the situation.
  • +1 Pop Pop on the colony

The Waiting World: And They Still Come

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Evt colony settlement

Another update from [colony name], where we found those abandoned buildings. The number of colonists continues to increase, and now we're finding irregularities in the records - family groups that shouldn't exist, birth dates that make no sense. There must be secret migration from a lost colony, or else some peculiar sabotage by the colonists.

 
Trigger conditions:
  • Existing D fertile lands Loop-Plowed Farm and D crystalline caverns Spiral-Hewn Mine planetary features
Mean time to happen:

Time 36 months


Event button on
Destroy those buildings. We should have done it much sooner.
  • +2 Pop Pops on the colony
  • Event: The Waiting World: Demolition
Event button on
Peculiar! But we can always use more citizens. Monitor and continue.
  • +2 Pop Pops on the colony

The Waiting World: Everyone Is

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Evt colony settlement

Further unlikely news from [colony name], where the population had been mysteriously increasing. Population numbers are now what we'd expect, but there has been some sort of information sabotage, or... or what, our administrators aren't really sure. None of the individuals on the planet exists in our records. Every original colonist is missing. It's as if they've all been replaced by complete strangers.

As against that, they all swear they're loyal citizens of [empire name]. They're all productive and apparently sane. In all communications they deny all knowledge of any confusion, and insist there must be a mistake at our end.

 
Trigger conditions:
  • Existing D fertile lands Loop-Plowed Farm and D crystalline caverns Spiral-Hewn Mine planetary features
  • 75% chance
Mean time to happen:

Time 48 months


Event button on
Abandon the colony immediately, before this spreads any further.
  • The colony is given independence. If it was the only colonized planet it will take over the system and become a new random empire.
Event button on
Send a team to investigate.
  • Issue Special Project: Investigate the... whatever happened to the population
Event button on
AuthoritarianFanatic AuthoritarianXenophobeFanatic Xenophobe Purge them, and permanently quarantine the planet.
  • Issue Special Project: Purge the population of presumed alien duplicates

The Waiting World: Exit

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Evt colony settlement

An abrupt and total communications blackout from [colony name]. We somehow had too many people there. Now, it appears, we have no-one at all. The entire population has simply vanished overnight. Have they left the world? Gone into hiding? Engaged in planet-wide genocide?

 
Trigger conditions:
  • Existing D fertile lands Loop-Plowed Farm and D crystalline caverns Spiral-Hewn Mine planetary features
  • 25% chance
Mean time to happen:

Time 48 months


Event button on
Send a team to investigate.
  • All Pops and buildings are removed from the colony
  • Issue Special Project: Investigate the disappearance of the population
Event button on
Abandon and quarantine the world immediately.
  • All Pops and buildings are removed from the colony
  • Quarantined modifier added, giving the following effects: Mod habitability Habitability −200%
  • Influence Gained: Influence 200-1000

The Waiting World: Everything and Nothing

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Evt colony settlement

Our team reports that the population of the planet are healthy, normal and apparently bewildered by all the fuss. There are some peculiarities, though. An unusual number of multiple births; a planet-wide idiosyncrasy where no-one has any regard for punctuality; and fluctuations in local solar radiation that are characteristic of pre-supernova stars. They also observe a number of "luminosity events" on the surface where light somehow appears to be accumulated and released by prismatic functions of the atmosphere. This is valuable and peculiar data. But it could be coincidental. If anything has happened to the colonists, it remains a mystery.

 
Trigger conditions:
  • The Waiting World: Everyone Is
Is triggered only by:
  • Finishing the Investigate the... whatever happened to the population special project

Event button on
"What will be, was."
Event button on
Colonists: colonists are odd.

The Waiting World: the Purge

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Evt colony settlement

This may have been a terrible crime. Or it may have preserved our nation from something even worse. The population centers of [colony name] seethe beneath the energies of our weapons. When we are done, every building is glowing rubble; no living sapient remains.

 
Trigger conditions:
  • The Waiting World: Everyone Is
Is triggered only by:
  • Finishing the Purge the population of presumed alien duplicates special project

Event button on
Erase the records. In a hundred years, no one will know what we did.
  • All Pops and buildings are removed from the colony
  • Unity Gained: Unity 250-1500
  • Other empires react as with all purges
Event button on
Tell everyone. Let them hate, as long as they fear.
  • All Pops and buildings are removed from the colony
  • Influence Gained: Influence 200-1000
  • The Waiting World Purged modifier added for 60 months, giving the following effects: Unity Monthly Unity −20%
  • Other empires react as with all purges

}}

The Waiting World: the Quality of Light

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Evt colony settlement

Our team reports that [planet name] is, indeed, empty - not only of colonists, but of any sign the colony was ever there. The buildings are gone, the satellites and orbital structures are gone, the atmosphere shows none of the footprints of technological civilization. In the words of the team, it's as if the entire planet has been reset.

They also report fluctuations in local solar radiation that are characteristic of pre-supernova stars - and a number of "luminosity events" on the surface where light somehow appears to be accumulated and released by prismatic functions of the atmosphere. This is valuable and peculiar data. But it doesn't clarify the fate of the colonists.

 
Trigger conditions:
  • The Waiting World: Exit
Is triggered only by:
  • Finishing the Investigate the disappearance of the population special project

Event button on
OK

Omega Alignment events[]

Tech akx worm 1 Entropic Recursion and Tech akx worm 2 Doctrine: Strange Loop are prerequisite for a rare technology called the Tech akx worm 3 Omega Theory. Researching it grants access to a unique building, the Omega Alignment, that can only be built on the empire capital to bring the end of the event chain.

The End in the Beginning

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Evt metropolis

There is a consciousness outside time and beneath space. It is a labyrinthine tangle of desire and desperation. Our remote ancestors knew it as the Loop, the Worm-in-Waiting. We have met it out there, where the void is tormented by gravity. It seems to have taken a personal interest in us. There are mathematical proofs that it loves us, but love to the Worm is not like love to anything that subsists in ordinary space.

With all we have learned, we think that we might be able to use the Omega Alignment to open an access route - an Entry Point - for the Worm to manifest in our home system. (The Worm is fond of beginnings, and this is ours.) What consequences would that have? We have yet to find anyone who's prepared to commit to an answer. Immortality, perhaps, or apocalypse. But we would certainly learn a great deal.


 
Trigger conditions: Is triggered only by:

Event button on
Perhaps the Worm loves us, and perhaps we could love the Worm.
  • Issue Special Project: Generate the Entry Point
Event button on
This is not a safe experiment. But we could learn so much.
  • Issue Special Project: Generate the Entry Point

The Heart of the Sun

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Evt dimensional horror

The Project is complete. The accelerators are online. The power network of a dozen cities is diverted to wake the pseudo-singularity at the heart of the Alignment. Space shudders like wind-wracked cloth. [star name], for a heart-stopping moment, dims, and then brightens. A shadow coils in its heart. The Worm is here. It unfolds like origami.

Across the system, sensors shut down in abject disbelief as the incomprehensible data of its arrival sleets through them. On the homeworld, our subjects scream and cower as they feel its attention turned up on them, and upon us. It presents a wordless question - or rather, we have become aware that this question was always what it was asking us, every time we encountered it.


 
Trigger conditions:
  • The End in the Beginning
Is triggered only by:
  • Finishing the Generate the Entry Point special project

Event button on
YES. Whatever it requires, we consent.
  • Event: The Future
Event button on
NO. We have brought it here to learn, and if need be, defeat it.
  • The Worm appears in the capital system as a Dimensional Horror

The Future

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Evt black hole

The Worm loves us. It will always love us, and thus it always has. It winds around the hot heart of our home star. It winds around every infinitesimal loop of genetic information. It provokes a shuddering series of cataclysms in the planetary crust of our home, but when our star grows cold, that cataclysm will warm us. We understand so much more. We will always be what we were going to be, wound tight in the love of the Worm.


 
Trigger conditions:
  • The Heart of the Sun
Is triggered only by:
  • Previous event choice

Event button on
WHAT WAS SHALL BE WHAT SHALL BE WAS
  • Any star in the capital system main star becomes a black hole
  • Every solid Non-Ecumenopolis planet in the capital system becomes a Planet nuked Tomb World
  • Every pop on every Non-Ecumenopolis planet in the capital system gains the Natural Physicists Natural Physicists and Repugnant Repugnant traits and Planet nuked Tomb World climate preference
  • On ironman mode it unlocks the What Was Will Be What Was Will Be achievement

The Shattered Loop

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Evt crisis defeated

The Worm came in through the boundary fences of spacetime like a hungry predator, or a jilted and furious lover. It's still out there, and wherever it is, no doubt it's angry. But you have the incandescent shards of its avatar to hoard and to study, as a cosmic trophy. Other empires will know what you have achieved today.


 
Trigger conditions:
  • The Heart of the Sun
Is triggered only by:
  • Defeating the Worm

Event button on
There are none like us! And perhaps there will never be.
  • Energy Credits Gained: Energy Credits 1500-3000
  • Physics Research Gained: Physics Research 1000-8000
  • Start a Leviathan Parade Opportunity situation if other dimensional horror guarians were not defeated
  • If Ancient Relics Ancient Relics is installed grants the R worm scales Scales of the Worm relic
  • On ironman mode it unlocks the What Was Will Be What Was Will Be achievement
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