Shut Up and Lurk

Of course, in keeping with the sacred law that exists in every community — STFU and lurk for three days — I resolved to keep my mouth shut and just watch, unlike when I'd been in the chat.

With that decision made, I started reading from the topmost post.

Reading that thoroughly miserable account, I felt my heart grow solemn without meaning to.

I've only been hit twice in a week, and both attacks combined didn't even add up to ten ships.

I wasn't the only one thinking that. The comments under the post were overwhelmingly full of sympathy for the author.

But as with all things in life, a closer look at the guy claiming to be tormented by pirates revealed that the real point wasn't the suffering at all.

What he was actually saying was: I keep getting invaded by pirates who bring fleets of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠over ten ships whenever they're bored — but the truth is, I'm strong enough to completely shred every last one of them!

The comments that picked up on that subtext, realizing the author had posted this as a humblebrag, shifted accordingly.

Watching the classic community hostility roll in one after another, I nodded and decided to check the next post.

This one had a deranged number of comments, so I clicked it out of pure curiosity…

Huh.

I had no idea what it was about — the content was completely inaccessible, and the comments were locked down too. A question mark drifted slowly into existence above my head.

If the author had been banned, the normal thing would be to just block access to the post entirely and label it as a banned user. So why leave the post up and only lock the content and comments?

What a baffling design.

I tilted my head at this strange community's architecture and kept exploring.

Before I knew it, thirty minutes had passed since I'd started browsing.

"Oh! Commander, you're already up?"

"Yeah. You too, Jessica?"

"Yes, sir. Would you like some coffee?"

"Mm. That'd be nice."

Jessica appeared with her hair still a little mussed, combing it into place. She handed me a rich americano along with a few light snacks. I crunched through the pastries, washed them down with the coffee, and decided it was time to wrap up my community tour.

"No need to look any further."

"Oh — d-did the snacks or the coffee not agree with you?"

"No, not that. I mean this community."

After thirty minutes of nonstop scrolling, I'd reached a conclusion about the general state of this place.

"Is something wrong with it?"

"Not wrong, exactly. Just nothing like what I was hoping for."

I pointed Jessica toward the very bottom of the community gallery listing — the date stamp on the first post ever written on page one.

"The users who got dragged into this game, myself included — we weren't all pulled in on the same day at the same time."

"Is that so?"

"But the so-called 'influx' date gap, even being generous… the maximum is one week."

Jessica tilted her head ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠at that, looking puzzled.

"Isn't a week fairly significant? If you measure from the midpoint, that would mean nearly a two-week difference, wouldn't it?"

"No. I'm saying the time gap between the very last person to arrive and the very first person to arrive is only that much."

"…Hweh?"

I nodded at Jessica's ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠strange little noise and continued.

"Still, it wasn't completely devoid of useful information. Now that everyone's more or less adapted, nobody bothers sharing anything serious — they just use the community as an emotional dump. But…"

"I see."

"Early on, though, you can feel the traces of people seriously chasing survival and trying to share all kinds of information."

And it was only after seeing those information-sharing threads that I understood why the system had given users nothing but an extremely limited chat window at the start, instead of full community access.

Plain and simple: the developers had put some thought into preventing users unfamiliar with community culture from getting instantly left behind through early networking and information trading.

And as a side benefit, starting out wrapped in free advice and loaded with fortuitous opportunities that weren't really fortuitous at all — then casually wiping out pirates while gunning for a late-game power spike — clearly wasn't the playstyle the developers wanted.

Anyway. Deciding there was nothing more worth seeing, I folded up the community window floating in front of me and shoved it into the corner of my vision, then started thinking about what we needed to do next.

Well — "thinking." I'd already more or less sorted it out in my head.

"Jessica, what's our remaining resource count?"

"Yes — thanks to the mining ship that just came through, our total minerals just crossed five hundred."

I closed my eyes for a moment at that, gathered my thoughts, then opened them and stated what came next.

"Then for our next construction… system restoration should start with the gacha."

"The Causality Adjustment Device, correct? Understood!"

A new gacha was always welcome.

Of course, if you asked whether restoring the gacha right now was a good idea, most users would tilt their heads. And for good reason — this game, like countless other mobile gacha titles, required a separate, additional resource for gacha-system characters and ships, distinct from the regular resources used for standard units.

But as for us, standing right here…

We hadn't obtained a single scrap of that beautiful dedicated gacha currency.

"Commander, we don't even have the materials needed for causality tuning. How exactly are you planning to use the equipment?"

"Hmm."

From an outsider's perspective, it might look exactly like what Jessica was saying — a pointless waste of resources. However…

"Jessica. Did you know that when our gacha system is first built, it gives you one free ten-pull?"

"What's that?"

Jessica, who'd been an NPC in the game, clearly had no idea. But no matter how stingy this game was — no matter how thoroughly it screwed over its players — a free first ten-pull was something they always handed out. Even if it came with an expiration date.

Ah, limited-time gacha. How generous!

Besides, at this extreme early stage, there was zero chance of anything showing up that our patrol ships couldn't handle. Pulling one more Super to pair with our dual-wielding king, Ignis, was exactly what we needed.

Not that the current setup was bad — focusing growth on Ignis while holding the line with the fleet. Looking at our present situation, it was an efficient operation ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠running on very few resources.

The problem, as I'd reminded myself several times already, was that Ignis was fundamentally a close-range, anti-personnel character.

If pirates ever hit us with an S-grade or higher who could pin her down, or if the Space Kaiju showed up and tried to win through pure numbers, our base and Ignis might end up getting squelched by pulsing cosmic tentacles.

And if we lost to the Space Kaiju, well — those things were extremely progressive friends who didn't discriminate between men and women.