Quadralien Brought to you by Belgarath It was October 2057 when I awoke. I had been in cyberslumber for 3 weeks while the shuttlepod silently crossed the Asteroid Belt and docked with Jupiter Outpost 5. There wasn’t even time to visit the rest room before the Outpost’s director, Dr. de Boochs was with me. “What’s happening?” I asked, still groggy. They dragged me out of bed and bundled me on a Zippo TransBelt Sleeper for Jupiter the same day. No clue about the mission. No time to pack. And of all the places to go, Outpost 5!” Outpost 5 was pretty dead, only a few people eavesdropping on the weird stray signals from the sinister Quadraliens, who seemed to be all over the sky. It is the last place you’d expect the kind of lethal bother that I handled. “‘It’s Astra. Boy are we in trouble” said de Boochs. I lit up a cig and asked, “Astra? The powersat? “It’s the massive fission reactor they orbited a couple of megaclicks down Jupiter orbit from here. It powers everything we’ve got in deep space, including this place. " “Fine. But the whole stack’s on auto and has been ever since the construction crew packed up twenty years ago. Any problems and there’s some system of magnetic slave droids to sort it, isn’t there?” “Yes, the Dynamic Magnetics System of Entropy Control. It’s functioned flawlessly until a month ago. Now the telemetry tells us the system’s gone rogue and the temperature’s rising. Radioactivity’s all over the shop, We could be heading for a real Chernobyl. " "Hmmm" I said, looking for an ashtray. “Bad news. But you could override Astra’s central computer and chain the whole thing through to Earth control. You don’t need to drag me out of bed. " “Yes we do. Astra’s Computer won’t talk to us. And it’s sealed off access to all its higher levels. " ‘Machine mutiny? So, no way to defer Meltdown remotely. That’s bad.” “it’s worse than that. " I glanced through the window and could see a dark speck move across the swirling face of Jupiter. It was too small to be Galilean, too large to be Amalthea. It must be Astra. It looked like I’d be down there pretty soon. “What could be worse?” I asked, trying to set the voice to cool. “You know the quantum-quantum power beams Astra sends out? They go in all directions, where ever there’s a deep-space machine that needs energy. It looks like the beams have taken Z-way traffic. " “Huh?” By this time, I was holding a smoldering stub. “The Quadraliens. They’ve ridden a beam down to Astra.” “You mean.....?” “Yes. The Quadraliens have established a foothold in our Solar System. There’s a Mother in the very heart of the Reactor itself. " “Okay, de Boochs, what can I do?” “We’ll give you six droids. They’re all packed and ready to go. it’s too radioactive for you, even in a suit. you’ll have to control them form the comms-room on each of Astra’s levels. You know now it’s a double mission, don’t you?” “Yeah, "" I said. “‘Prevent meltdown. That’s hard enough. But you also want me to seek and destroy the Quadralien Mother, don’t you?” As I spoke, the lights dimmed for a moment, then came back on, but blue and eerie. “They must be tampering with our energy beam” said de Boochs. “The Quadraliens have us in their power already. You’d better go. Any questions?” “Where’s the rest room?” LOADING Atari ST: Double click on the icon labelled QUAD.PRG Amiga: The program will auto-boot. PC: Note: CGA disk 1, VGA disk 2. Boot your computer with DOS. “Log onto” the floppy drive containing the Quadralien program disk. Type "QUAD" . NB-PC version: all mouse functions must be actioned by indicated function keys. Mission Briefing: Astra Astra was the last and largest of humanity’s fission reactors. It orbits Jupiter and transmits power on quantum-quantum beams to almost all machines and outposts in Deep Space. Astra has 3 levels, each comprising 6 chambers, and the Reactor Core. Each chamber is a unique environment. Astra is fully automated, day-to-day maintainance being controlled by the Dynamic Magnetics System of Entropy Control (DyMSEC). This system comprises slave droids which either attract (red-black on PC) or repel (blue-white on PC) and Mega-boxes whose fields extend indefinitely. Objectives You have a double mission, 1. Prevent Complete Breakdown of Astra. Astra will cease to function if the core TEMPERATURE is too high or the operations ENERGY is too low. Temperature is reduced by sending water barrels down chutes, or occasionally reducing the Entropy level, which is a measure of the movement of the DyMSEC (see above). 2. Find and Destroy the QUADRALIEN MOTHER. Selection Screen The first mouse operated Screen is the Selection Screen. This enables you to choose your , select Droids and Chamber, and upon a chamber. LEVELS Astra's computer has sealed ail but Level One. 70 gain access from one level to the next, you will need to reach a Target Score for that level. Then you will be given the security code the next level. This code must be entered on the Levels Screen (on which you appear in a spacesuit, except on PC} using mouse or keyboard. Once you have reached a higher level, new games can begin if you retain the code number, THE DROIDS 1. SELECTION You have 6 droids from which to choose 2 to deploy at any one time. A droid is selected or deselected by using the mouse to click on its picture. The selected droids’ pictures are highlighted by a drop-shadow. 2. WHICH DROID? Each droid has different characteristics, and these can be studied by clicking on the red squares at the top left of the droids’ pictures, Detailed information is similarly available for each characteristic- click on the red box. Particular characteristics, are likely to favor certain droids for work in particular environments. 3. CHANGING DROIDS You may change your droid selection at any time by bringing a droid to a console, accessing it and clicking the function and then entering the Droid Selection Screens. 4. OPERATING THE DROIDS Once you are in a chamber, you can only operate one droid at a time. This droid is represented by the icon near the top right of the screen. This droid’s energy is directly below the icon, and the other droid’s energy is to the right of this. THE CHAMBERS Each level has 6 chambers, increasing in complexity clockwise from the top. The chambers in the same position on each level constitute a module. Chambers can be studied and selected in a similar way to Droids, by mouse control from the