A Solo Player's Pride
I supposed I had this sudden revelation of a secret (?) to thank for it.
The moment I grasped the real reason no other clans had ever approached me the way they had the other solo rankers — not until this event, at least — I could feel pure, seething rage ignite from somewhere deep in my gut and roar upward like a furnace.
And what really threw more fuel on that fire wasn't just the solo ranker chat room.
The "Solo Players" chat I'd casually slipped into to check had, at some point, turned into a social club for people freelancing as outside mercenaries for various clans — everyone except me and a handful of others.
That scraped a few more raw nerves, so I dove straight into the gallery the way I always did, ready to delete a few of the usual troll posts wandering around and blow off some steam.
And right then, one particular post caught my eye.
I was about to delete it out of pure irritation — until I actually read it.
[Image of a toad making a pissed-off face]
Unlike the other rankers, this guy won't even join a clan and acts all high and mighty by himself. It's pathetic.
And whenever word gets around, it's always about how insane his fleet is this, how broken that — but with no clan backing him he's broke on Gold and sits there whining in the auction house.
Every other ranker is living large off clan support, and this scrub is out here alone crying about not having one. Admit it? Yeah, admit it.
On a normal day I would have skimmed past something like that and moved on. But after Jessica's brutal fact-checking, the other solo rankers' stories, and everything I'd just absorbed about players freeloading off clans — my already-scraped nerves had nothing left to give.
I deleted that damn post on the spot, slapped a fifteen-day ban on the author, and then—
"Jessica. Jessica."
"Yes, Commander?"
"Today is a day of extreme vibe damage."
"Vibe... damage?"
Everyone else was living large off the cities and star systems their clans had conquered. Unlike me — who only got protection — they were receiving real resource support, material aid, and manpower, eating well and living well.
So I was genuinely the only pure solo player left.
The moment that staggering reality hit me, I could feel a truly monumental rage boiling up from my core — a rolling, roaring, horororororororok of pure fury.
Watch carefully what I can do. (1)
Thoroughly scraped raw by the troll posts, I did what any human being would do under the circumstances.
"C-Commander, maybe you should rest a little first...?"
"Be quiet, Jessica."
"Augh..."
As if possessed, I plowed straight through every post related to solo play and every hit piece aimed at me. In the process I got to watch Oxianor — who'd come by to tell me something — flinch and freeze in alarm, and no-pants Tiamat bounce in energetically with Ignis only to reverse right back out in the exact same pose and expression. All sorts of peculiar little scenes, really.
But at the time I was in no condition to care about any of that, so I ignored every last one of them like trash.
And after reading through everything, one way or another—
[Concept art of a fortress city's defense batteries]
There are thousands of defense batteries alone, and while hundreds or thousands of interceptors and patrol fleets pour out to stall for time, a full war fleet with battleships rolls out and pounds you into scrap.
The armor plating is ridiculously thick too.
After dropping the finishing blow on the comments of a post I'd stumbled across by pure chance—
"Jessica."
"Ah... yes?"
"Cancel the clan founding. These bastards just touched my pride."
Scraped raw past the point of no return, I tossed my clan-related PTSD out the window and resolved to try something for real — something that would defend my pride as a solo player (?).
And what exactly was that "something"?
"Commander, what exactly are you planning to do?"
"Jessica. There are space cities in the Central District that clans use as invasion staging points, right?"
"Ah, yes, there are."
"And the biggest one of those was Tannhauser Gate Fortress, if I remember correctly..."
"Yes, that's right, but... Commander, you're not seriously—?"
"We're taking it. Starting now."
That was it: the ultimate solo-player circus act you could pull off in this dumpster-fire masterpiece of a game, Astral Lagrange, without a single scrap of clan help.
The plan to conquer a so-called "space city" entirely alone.
And not some small fortress colony that a halfway-decent solo player could force through with enough grit — no. A genuine space fortress-slash-port, far larger than most planets, complete with an attached super-massive warp gate.
Naturally, Jessica looked thoroughly worried about this sudden acceleration of a plan.
"But Commander, conquering a city alone could easily turn into a Pyrrhic victory."
"Hmm..."
"Even with ships like Hresvelgr and Kraken that can take on fleets as single vessels, there are still limits."
"Hmmmmmm."
And hearing Jessica say that, I found myself remembering a gallery post I'd been looking at just a moment ago.
[Clan map — locations of unconquered fortress cities and planetary systems in the Central District marked]
Why are there still this many left?
It's not like there are no clans over there either.
[jpg of some nameless players' fleets exchanging fire in a fleet battle]
Real simple summary: among the players who survived in that den, there are a lot of top-tier rankers too.
So those top-tier rankers could absolutely conquer a stronghold if they wanted to, but—