The Open Door (megacrossover)

[kingdragon]

Personally I think the PD in its TNG form should be revoked utterly and seriously rethought, or at the very least bumped back down to the TOS level.

IT's NOT the be all end all law that officers should follow without question as if it was written in a hand of flame while a celestial voice said 'Thou Shalt not butt in.'

BTW...maybe Chaos should pay a visit to Veridian III and find the grave of Kirk.

[Singular Quartet]

I'm always open to suggestions for improvement.

...now you've done it. You've got me started.

Okay, so as long as you're taking suggestions, I have an idea on how to add verisimilitude to the Chaos society and reduce the Mary Sueness of them all:

Play down the intellectual aspect, play up the brutal aspect. From my reading, you seem to be falling into one of the traps that S.M. Stirling fell into when writing the Draka: every single character seems completely conversant with and intellectually inclined to discuss the philosophical and historical context of all their society's practices. Put a bit more simply, it seems that where you could just write "WE ARE CHAOS WE RAPE THE STARS DO YOU HAVE A FUCKING PROBLEM WITH THAT" you often write "we have an aggressively expansionist foreign policy and we appear monstrous, but actually we're a multifaceted well-functioning society, and that's because our philosophical paradigm is such that blah blah blah" and stuff that characters just do not need to say.

The problem with this idea is we rarely see a member of Joe Q. Public. Everybody we've met is someone who is educated, who is above average. Think about: Hakim was a Warlock of Tzintchi, someone who has to be well-thought out. The crazy Azukhon lady was serving aboard the Stilleto, where they have all of their best and brightest. Lars was someone that the Gods clearly trained and taught, whether personally or impersonally, it doesn't matter. In essence, we've only seen people who are above average. I'm sure once the Imperial Guard returns, we'll see "WE ARE CHAOS WE RAPE THE STARS AND YOUR STEAMING CORPSE".

[Morilore]

You raise a potentially legitimate concern in that dropping or rewriting the PD needs a lot of justification and probably a lot of time, as in decades of social adjustment, if it happens at all. Then again, Chaos isn't planning on coming back until they have a full fleet so they may be dealing with the Next Next Generation by then. However, you can't reasonably complain about bad writing for something that hasn't been written yet.

Yes I can, because when I say "people," I'm including Picard. People, including Picard, do not try to emulate or ingratiate themselves with their enemies. At best they try to stay off their radars or give them better things to do, like he did earlier with the Borg. If it was written so that his experiences indirectly cause him to question the ethical basis of the Prime Directive, so that he suggested "reconsidering the application of our interstellar policies concerning noninterference with other cultures" it would be different, but the passage and the line as written is too direct, to sudden, too blunt, too public, and too much about "make them like us so they don't kill us" to be acceptable.

The problem with this idea is we rarely see a member of Joe Q. Public. Everybody we've met is someone who is educated, who is above average. Think about: Hakim was a Warlock of Tzintchi, someone who has to be well-thought out. The crazy Azukhon lady was serving aboard the Stilleto, where they have all of their best and brightest. Lars was someone that the Gods clearly trained and taught, whether personally or impersonally, it doesn't matter. In essence, we've only seen people who are above average. I'm sure once the Imperial Guard returns, we'll see "WE ARE CHAOS WE RAPE THE STARS AND YOUR STEAMING CORPSE".

That doesn't change the fact that the characters spend too much time describing and justifying their society and that there is not nearly enough conflict within their society to be interesting.

The thing is, THIS Chaos, in this universe, isn't 'RAAARGH STARRAPE WOOO!' Chaos. They're more cultured and personable, so there are individuals who would say things like that. In fact, I recall it being mentioned that this particular brand of Chaos is terrified of actual 40k Chaos, and is doing its level best to avoid notice, because it'd be recognized as alien to it, and clobbered.

They are too cultured and personable. They are more intellectual and cerebral than real people would be in real life in their place. They aren't nearly emotionally and socially bizarre enough to be really engaging.

[Singular Quartet]

Here, try something like this. Maybe edit it a little?

"Gentlebeings, I stand before you at the cusp of a new era for the Federation. We have seen a new enemy, one more powerful than the borg. I personally witnessed this enemy destroy hundreds, if not thousands of Borg Cubes as though they were nothing, while the combined might of the Federation Fleet cannot stop a single cube with a frigate. These people have a might, a brutality that goes beyond anything we have ever seen. They have this, because their Gods are ones that talk back, that guide them and make them awesome and terrible.

"Unlike the Klingons, they do not constrain themselves with Honor and Glory. Unlike the Romulans, they do not underestimate their enemies. Unlike the Dominion, they can stop and think. Perhaps some of you have read the reports on the Q, a species that has developed technology past any physical instrumentality, beings who can travel through time and space on a whim. The Q are terrified of them, as should we.

"The ship that destroyed the borg fleets sent against them was a simple frigate, comparable to the Saber Class. THE FUCKING SABER CLASS. THEIR BATTLESHIPS WILL BE 18 MOTHERFUCKING KILOMETERS LONG, AND WILL FLATTEN OUR FLEETS LIKE A STEAMROLLER OVER A SQUIRREL. AND DON'T SHAKE YOUR HEAD LIKE THAT, YOU VULCAN ASSHOLE. I KNOW THAT YOU KNOW WHAT A SQUIRREL IS. I'VE SEEN YOU FEEDING THEM IN THE PARK. Ahem, sorry. In time, we can expect to see their mirror of the Sovreign class, the largest and most powerful ship we have ever built, and it will crush us.

"This version of humanity was tested by fire, just as we were in the eugenic wars, but they did not come through with the same moral strength that we did. Instead, they found their inner darkness, and they reveled in it. Four of their members were made unto Gods, reflections of Anger, Despair, Lust, and Scheming. But they have a heart. This war started for a simple cultural difference. The Prime Directive."

Uproar goes here?

"They see it as we saw their own actions on New Syracuse, a grave insult. Where they saw us as apathetic monsters, we saw them as imperialist conquerers. And, perhaps, we are both right in our own ways. They have come from an Earth were inaction is frowned upon, where you help your neighbor even if you have nothing left to give. They do not see the cold math that we must face everyday, where the good of the many must be kept before the good of the one.

"And looking at this cold logic, they have struck at us. They have shown their power, and they do not see us as something worth conquering, but rather something to be ignored. We are not worth the effort of an invasion, not yet perhaps. But someday. Someday they will return, and we will pay a bloody price for this cultural difference. Their Gods have granted them an awesome might, and they will use that might as their Gods direct them."

"In essence, no number of new Sovreigns or Defiants any other number of ships we build will save us from that doom. No new ship, no new technology will stop their awesome might. We are terrified of the Borg, but they can crush the Borg without worry or care. They can crush us under their heel like a bug."

Someone shouts: "Then what should we do?"

"There is a possible solution. Chaos does not respect military might. They respect humanity. Just as their gods represent Anger, Despair, Lust, and Scheming, those Gods also represent Rightousness, Love, Passion, and Hope. And that is something that they see, and now I see to, have been lost from the Federation. In our pursuit of our ideals, we have lost who we are. We see our emotions, our feelings, as something to be shunned and surpressed. And in so doing, we have lost our way.

"In days bygone, we could have been allies with this Chaos. They would have looked upon us, and they would have seen someone idealistic, looking out to the stars, seeing hope and optimism amongst them, looking to enrich and ally itself with new cultures and new civilizations. Instead, they saw us now, looking to the stars as something to analyze and catalog, to take note of each new civilization, and to then do nothing but watch.

"In orbit of Syracuse, they looked upon the Federation, and they saw us as guilty of Genocide. Because we looked upon the people of that world, and we cared more for their culture than for their lives. We cared more about documenting a Steel (or was it Iron? I forget) Age civilization than about rescuing tens of millions of people from a doom they did not understand.

"They, these monsters, have judged us, and they have found us lacking. We must either find our heart, and live by it, or we will perish from this galaxy. And to do this, I must tell the council, with every fiber of my being, to take the Prime Directive, as it is now, and throw it out. To stop using it as a wall around what makes us who we are, and instead turn it into something that we can next to and be proud of. Not because we stand by our principals, but because we stand by what makes us human. We must not embrace what makes Chaos monsters, we must not embrace their Anger, their Despair, their Lust, their Scheming. We must instead embrace something common to us all, Rightousness, Love, Passion, and Hope. If we do not do this, then these monsters will come for us. And we will pay the price for it in blood."

[phongn]

"The ship that destroyed the borg fleets sent against them was a simple frigate, comparable to the Saber Class. THE FUCKING SABER CLASS. THEIR BATTLESHIPS WILL BE 18 MOTHERFUCKING KILOMETERS LONG, AND WILL FLATTEN OUR FLEETS LIKE A STEAMROLLER OVER A SQUIRREL. AND DON'T SHAKE YOUR HEAD LIKE THAT, YOU VULCAN ASSHOLE. I KNOW THAT YOU KNOW WHAT A SQUIRREL IS. I'VE SEEN YOU FEEDING THEM IN THE PARK. Ahem, sorry. In time, we can expect to see their mirror of the Sovreign class, the largest and most powerful ship we have ever built, and it will crush us.

Since when is that in character for Picard?

[Firethorn]

Since when is that in character for Picard?

Since he got owned by an avatar of Chaos, saw his greatest fear(the Borg), blown up like cheap firecrackers?

[kingdragon]

"The ship that destroyed the borg fleets sent against them was a simple frigate, comparable to the Saber Class. THE FUCKING SABER CLASS. THEIR BATTLESHIPS WILL BE 18 MOTHERFUCKING KILOMETERS LONG, AND WILL FLATTEN OUR FLEETS LIKE A STEAMROLLER OVER A SQUIRREL. AND DON'T SHAKE YOUR HEAD LIKE THAT, YOU VULCAN ASSHOLE. I KNOW THAT YOU KNOW WHAT A SQUIRREL IS. I'VE SEEN YOU FEEDING THEM IN THE PARK. Ahem, sorry. In time, we can expect to see their mirror of the Sovreign class, the largest and most powerful ship we have ever built, and it will crush us.

Since when is that in character for Picard?

Since he (FINALLY) got a spine inserted up his cheese-eating surrender-monkey ass.

[Academia Nut]

"The ship that destroyed the borg fleets sent against them was a simple frigate, comparable to the Saber Class. THE FUCKING SABER CLASS. THEIR BATTLESHIPS WILL BE 18 MOTHERFUCKING KILOMETERS LONG, AND WILL FLATTEN OUR FLEETS LIKE A STEAMROLLER OVER A SQUIRREL. AND DON'T SHAKE YOUR HEAD LIKE THAT, YOU VULCAN ASSHOLE. I KNOW THAT YOU KNOW WHAT A SQUIRREL IS. I'VE SEEN YOU FEEDING THEM IN THE PARK. Ahem, sorry. In time, we can expect to see their mirror of the Sovreign class, the largest and most powerful ship we have ever built, and it will crush us.

Since when is that in character for Picard?

It's not, which is why I didn't write it at all that way. Picard keeps his cool, expands on his points, and his wording at the end is different. Go check it out all of you goons and tell me if that's better.

[LadyTevar]

Other than the shouting ... the speech works perfectly.

[Academia Nut]

Singular Quartet's speech or my new one?

[Singular Quartet]

There was a reason I said "maybe edit it a little?"

[Elessar]

I didn't actually see the first edition, so I was rather surprised by all the comments about the inaccuracy of the speech.

I didn't see the scrapping of the Prime Directive coming, but it does make sense now that Picard's presented the solution. What you have right now works, and while there are plenty of things that could be nitpicked, that's all they are... nitpicks. As I have been following this for a while, I hope to see more of the future than having the good Captain's speech perfected.

[Singular Quartet]

Other than the shouting ... the speech works perfectly.

The one problem I saw with my speech was the use of the word "humanity." It means, in our context, something very different from whatever replacement word Picard would use. Using it in Picard's situation, it would have racist conotations, but I couldn't think of good replacement for it, which means the entire thing would have to be restructured.

As to the shouting... *shrug*. Totally not in character, cause I felt like it.

[LadyTevar]

"The ship that destroyed the borg fleets sent against them was a simple frigate, comparable to the Saber Class. THE FUCKING SABER CLASS. THEIR BATTLESHIPS WILL BE 18 MOTHERFUCKING KILOMETERS LONG, AND WILL FLATTEN OUR FLEETS LIKE A STEAMROLLER OVER A SQUIRREL. AND DON'T SHAKE YOUR HEAD LIKE THAT, YOU VULCAN ASSHOLE. I KNOW THAT YOU KNOW WHAT A SQUIRREL IS. I'VE SEEN YOU FEEDING THEM IN THE PARK. Ahem, sorry. In time, we can expect to see their mirror of the Sovreign class, the largest and most powerful ship we have ever built, and it will crush us.

Since when is that in character for Picard?

It's not, which is why I didn't write it at all that way. Picard keeps his cool, expands on his points, and his wording at the end is different. Go check it out all of you goons and tell me if that's better.

Much better... I'd not seen this edit when I replied to SQ's post.


Unfortunately, I have to take a vacation from SDN, so I'll miss any future updates

I can be found on Librium Arcana, which also has a FanFiction forum that would greatly benefit from this story, imho. (hinthint crosspost hinthint)

[Singular Quartet]

Oh, and the new speech looks good. I can see some of what I said leaked a little into yours, but yours is much better.

Picard's speech makes me think of Elsewhere and Elsewhen, and Picard talking about "by any means necessary."

[Academia Nut]

Much better... I'd not seen this edit when I replied to SQ's post.


Unfortunately, I have to take a vacation from SDN, so I'll miss any future updates

I can be found on Librium Arcana, which also has a FanFiction forum that would greatly benefit from this story, imho. (hinthint crosspost hinthint)

Do you have any idea how much freaking work it would take to post the entirety of this story to another forum with a similar set up as this one? I mean, its doable, it would just be a pain in the ass what with all of the tags I would have to insert.

*Hears Chris in the background pointing out how his chapters tend to be bigger than my stories and he does the same thing on multiple forums*

*Grumbles*

Also, its a pity you're leaving as then you won't get to see the super secret project that I have been working on since July and am finally ready to release. I won't say what it is, just that its secret and awesome.

Also, there's the link to the FF.net copy of the story, although I deliberately let it remain one chapter behind the SDN version. For one thing, that lets me catch more errors this way.

[phongn]

Since he got owned by an avatar of Chaos, saw his greatest fear(the Borg), blown up like cheap firecrackers?

Since he (FINALLY) got a spine inserted up his cheese-eating surrender-monkey ass.

Are you two seriously saying that the only way to make a point is to yell and scream on the podium or to curse like a sailor? Just because its permitted here on this board does not mean that everyone must neccessarily do so - much less Picard.

It's not, which is why I didn't write it at all that way. Picard keeps his cool, expands on his points, and his wording at the end is different. Go check it out all of you goons and tell me if that's better.

You could clean up his language a bit - he's a bit more aristocratic and his word choice more precise (he might say 'devour' instead of 'gobbled up', for example)

[Morilore]

Ahh, this iteration is much better. It could almost be read as a call to form a grand defensive alliance, which is something that the politicians would appreciate. It could benefit from more expansion elsewhere in the story as to why the Chaos forces are Priority Number One for the Federation instead of random marauders whom they can pray are gone forever now, but at this point, it's much better.

[Satori]

I think he should avoid StarWars.

I am also wanting Kyon to be the one person so far who can look at them and say "No. Thank you, but No. Give her the flu for a week."

I agree on this one. one of the nice things in this fic is that Chaos isn't WTFPWNing everyone. Theya re carefully plotting, and fighting the fights they can win, and their foes are not rolling over and submitting.

Kyon is a pretty tough guy, mentally, and he's not going to give up resisting just yet. Though maybe he'd prefer the vacation, and just avoid doing anything that would, in his view, be non-beneficial to Haruhi, as best he can.

[White Haven]

Ahh, this iteration is much better. It could almost be read as a call to form a grand defensive alliance, which is something that the politicians would appreciate. It could benefit from more expansion elsewhere in the story as to why the Chaos forces are Priority Number One for the Federation instead of random marauders whom they can pray are gone forever now, but at this point, it's much better.

Grand defensive alliance? You just aren't getting the point here, that the entire Trek universe is hopelessly outmatched by a single light warship. Military might is simply not on the table as a solution to this dilema.

[Morilore]

Grand defensive alliance? You just aren't getting the point here, that the entire Trek universe is hopelessly outmatched by a single light warship. Military might is simply not on the table as a solution to this dilema.

Are you illiterate?

It could almost be read as a call to form a grand defensive alliance, which is something that the politicians would appreciate.

THAT'S the operative concern here: the way the Federation politicians should react to what Picard says. The entire subject of what policy the Federation ends up enacting and how successful it is is a red herring.

[holyknight]

Now what i was thinking a bit more, i stopped on this line.

While hanging upside down, Lars noted, “Well that didn’t work.”

“It almost did,” Hild replied with a shrug and a broad smile.

From what i remember, Gods and Demons on the OMG!-Verse do use Mana and Pishogue, a form of energy specifically tailored for each of them, apart of having their peculiar ways to refill their reserves. there it's no mention about OMG Demons feeding on the suffering and negative emotions of human beings.

Now, what happens when you drag a Warp DAEMON, like ol'Lars, what feed on spiritual energies, specially negative-based ones, into a plane where the negative emotions and psychic discharges of suffering souls are permeating the air like Smog in Beijing on a bad day?

Methinks that Hild may have JUST made a gross error of judgement.

[Academia Nut]

Chapter Thirty-four: Pre-trial

The past few months since Halloween had been strange, to say the least. Aside from the regular dangers of the Hellmouth, there had also been the internal changes that had required a great deal of coping to deal with, resulting in some remarkable, and some terrible, changes to the youths Giles had watched over.

On the decidedly more remarkable side was Willow, for whom the memories of the assassin had, once she learned to accept them, given her a whole new perspective and confidence in life. Willow had learned to accept the fact that she was Willow, and no one else, a concept many people spent their whole lives struggling to learn. She now had a sort of inner peace that reflected in all of the things she did, a centre of absolute control. Her studies, be they academic or magical, had improved incredibly from their already great position, and there had been other changes too. She had, in practice sessions with the others, developed the poise and grace of a dancer… or rather an assassin, but it was much nicer to think of her as a dancer.

It was little surprise that she had already attracted a boyfriend, a quiet young man with the name of Oz who was the lead guitarist of a local band. Their relationship was rapidly drawing the young man into the world of the night, but he seemed to accept it with a frightening degree of stoicism and laconic wit.

On the somewhat less remarkable part of the scale, there was Buffy. While Giles had initially been thrilled with her new found devotion to duty and learning about all of the dangers of the world, his enthusiasm had quickly been tempered by the fact that Buffy’s newfound focus included a newfound ruthless demeanour. Buffy now wanted to spare no expense when it came to killing vampires and demons. While Giles had managed to talk her out of trying to acquire military grade heavy weaponry, although the flamethrowers idea had been quite the argument, she had managed to talk him into obtaining arbalests to replace the regular crossbows they had been using.

She vowed to upgrade to large calibre firearms and explosive ammunition once it became practical to do so.

Then, deep in the terrible side of things, there was Xander. Xander was handling his situation astonishingly well, but unfortunately his situation was beyond what he could handle. Since Halloween, he had grown pale and twitchy, always on the verge of exploding from the slightest provocation. His grades, never spectacular, had slipped, as he found himself spending more and more time focusing on not losing his mind. His body was falling apart on a fundamental level, the energy that filled him keeping him from proper rest. He had admitted, painfully, to Giles that he had to spend many nights just running himself into the ground simply so that he could sleep. He was painfully thin, most of his fat burned away to reveal whip-thin cords of muscle wound tighter than steel wires on a suspension bridge.

The worst bit though was his home situation… or rather the lack of one. Amongst one of the admissions he had made to Giles when confronted, he had explained that he after a week of living with his parents he had simply left and now wandered the streets of Sunnydale, an incredibly dangerous activity that Xander acknowledged as being stupid… but if he hadn’t left he would have lost it. As he had joked, at least when he had to work out his frustrations it was on creatures that deserved it and no one cared about.

A dark part of Giles felt that since Xander’s parents had not raised any fuss after he had left perhaps they fit those criteria all too well. He had since managed to get Xander into a safer location, but it was still something that Xander was clearly uncomfortable talking about.

Then, on the furthest end of the spectrum, there was poor, poor Cordelia. She had not worn one of the costumes Ethan Rayne, curse his name, had enchanted, but that just meant that she had to carry the scars of that night without anything in compensation. The only glimmer of light to come out of that situation was the fact that the young woman had discovered who her real friends were. Xander, Buffy, and Willow had all rallied behind Cordelia and were aiding her in whatever ways they could. Of particular note was the way she and Buffy had managed to bring lace and veils in style. Of course, when someone had implied that such things were demeaning to women, what had occurred had Xander quipping, “Scary ladies deserve scary lace.”

Perhaps that was the brightest element that could be recovered from this whole tragic affair: the way Buffy and all of her friends had stuck together despite what had happened to them. Willow never would have found her strength, Buffy would have let her new ruthlessness completely take over, Xander quite probably would have gone insane, and Cordelia would probably be suicidal.

Giles just hoped that with all of the problems with someone trying to reassemble the Judge, they would weather this storm as they had the all the previous ones.


The group, minus Buffy and Angel who had gone to dispose of the arm of the Judge, was relaxing, as much as possible for them, in the abandoned warehouse they preferred to use for training purposes. Once mostly the domain of Buffy and Giles, it had come to be the gathering place when they were not researching in the library as it allowed them to be a touch freer with weapons than at school.

“So this is what you do at night,” Oz noted in deadpan at the collection of gymnastics equipment and weapons racks scattered about.

“Yeah. I would call it our own little Batcave, but we and bats don’t exactly get along,” Xander replied as he took up position on his favourite meditation pillow. Xander now knew multiple forms of meditation and was quite good at it, but unfortunately having the berserker rage of a demigod stuck in him made achieving enlightenment a somewhat difficult task.

Cordelia drifted wraith-like behind him, her figure obscured by laces and veils, but as everyone who ever mentioned the word ‘burkha’ around her learned, she was submissive to no one. It was just that the plastic surgery she needed took a long time, even with her father’s money, and so it still hurt to talk without proper lips and she still disliked being seen, especially by strangers. But she would be damned before she hid in her house or some clinic somewhere. She was stronger than that.

And she would be doubly damned if she were to do anything as gross as walk around with visible bandages. So Buffy, who after having a hundred plus year old lady stuck in her head developed a sudden affinity for lace and petticoats and skirts capable of concealing heavy machine guns, had made it her mission to bring back the fashions of an older era in Southern California so that Cordy wouldn’t look out of place.

It had been really quite touching, almost as much as the way Xander tried to care for her in his own stupid, berserker sort of way. When everyone else had been abandoning her, he and the others had stuck by her side, and she felt she definitely owed them. So the fact that she helped calm down the chronically ill Xander meant that she stuck to him like glue whenever possible.

Of course, when Cordy asked Xander to take off his shirt that raised an eyebrow from Oz, who asked dryly, “So you… an empty warehouse… three girls… every night?”

Smiling thinly, Xander took off his shirt to reveal an intricate pattern of symbols all over his torso, while Cordelia opened up a small kit with paint brushes and the like. She also flipped up her veil to reveal her skull-like face, the scarred tissue still mostly stretched over nearly bare bone except for a few places where the reconstructive surgery was adding shape back. They still hadn’t managed to give her back proper eyelids, which made the veil extra important as it helped keep dust out of her eyes and a heavier one was necessary for sleeping. Right now though, she wanted to be able to see what she was doing clearly.

“Hmm… while a nice thought, I haven’t managed to talk any of them into that sort of thing yet,” Xander replied, earning him a swat from Cordelia as she mixed her paints.

“So what’s with the tribal man stuff?” Oz asked.

“Suppressive seals. They’re really neat. I figured them out first, but Cordelia really took up their study when we realized they could be used to help Xander with his… problem,” Willow explained happily before trailing off at the end, looking nervously at Xander.

Waving it off, Xander said, “Willow, we’ve trusted him this much, he deserves to know about the Hulk-thing.”

“Hulk-thing?” Oz asked.

“You remember Halloween?” Xander asked in turn. Upon Oz raising a single eyebrow as if to say ‘What do you think?’ Xander waved it off and said, “Okay, dumb question, most of the West Coast remembers Halloween. Anyway, there was the whole turning into monsters and aliens and fanatics-”

“Oh my,” Oz noted.

Smiling at that, Xander continued, “And anyway, the guy I turned into was considerably stronger than most. Unfortunately, he was also kind of cursed and the curse carried on to me even after I got my body back. I say kind of in that it wasn’t exactly him who was curse, but I got the same results in the end. The pros: enhanced strength and stamina. The cons: said strength and stamina are linked to a psychotic rage that if ever triggered fully will become permanent and ultimately fatal. Oh, and have I mentioned that I now have nearly overwhelming cravings for raw red meat and blood?”

Oz winced and he said, “Wow. That sucks man.”

“I know. Willow gets all of the cool superpowers and all I get is ‘Xander smash!’” Xander complained sarcastically.

Having gone off to a corner, Willow said, “Hey! I did not get all of the cool super powers.”

“Then what are you doing over there?” Xander asked as Cordelia began to repair the seals on his body that had worn out since the previous day.

There was a sheepish pause before Willow admitted, “I’m trying to use sympathetic magic, a hilt, a large quantity of mercury and a piece of the costume I wore on Halloween to recreate a phase sword.”

“A phase sword,” Xander deadpanned.

“What’s a phase sword?” Oz asked.

“It’s a sword that can cut through anything,” Xander replied.

“Come on, it would be really useful against heavily armoured opponents like this Judge guy,” Willow pointed out.

“I thought he couldn’t be harmed?” Xander asked.

“Not by forged weapons. This is a magical construct of a weapon made by processes that are so alien that forging can’t possibly enter into it,” Willow responded.

“You know those sorts of statements never really made sense to me. I mean, sure you know what won’t kill you, but there are all sorts of other stuff out there. By the way it’s worded, a pointy stick could kill the Judge,” Oz pointed out.

This caused considerably amusement as everyone within earshot imagined a nigh invulnerable demon with a pointy stick jammed in an eye keeling over dead. Of course, the fact that the primary weapon of a Slayer was a pointy stick added new connotations to any possible conflict.

Xander added in a moment later, “Yeah, now that I think about it, all sorts of things aren’t forged that would really hurt to get hit with: rocks, baseball bats, a block of C4 with a detonator counting down to zero, bullets, uh… even good old fashioned fisticuffs should all fall under the heading of ‘not forged’.”

“Fisticuffs?” Oz asked in an equally amused and bemused tone.

“It’s a real word! I have culture you know,” Xander protested, eliciting a snort of derision from Cordelia. Xander retorted, “I have culture beyond the stuff growing between my toes!”

“Hey man, I wasn’t saying it was bad, just kind of funny,” Oz replied.

“Well, let’s just say that all of our vocabularies are larger than they used to be,” Xander said.

“Gothic,” Oz said knowingly.

Everyone capable of blinking looked at him and Oz said, “So it would seem that you all now know that I did in fact get a costume from Ethan’s this Halloween.”

“What did you turn into?” Willow asked as she came up behind Oz, curious.

“If I said my music and interpretive dance improved afterwards…” Oz answered.

“Ooh. Sorry about smashing you into the pavement,” Xander replied sheepishly.

Shrugging it off, Oz said, “No worries man. The Harlequin actually knew that was going to happen, and in fact wanted it to happen.”

Willow however had perked up and she asked excitedly, “Did you practice any of that stuff? Because it would be neat to add an Eldar martial art to the ones we already have. I bet the two of us could also pull off some wicked dance moves.”

Oz raised an eyebrow, and in answer Willow said, “I was the assassin.”

“So you’re a ninja now?” Oz asked.

“Kind of…” Willow replied cheerily.

Cordelia rolled her eyes and groaned in annoyance while switching paint colours for her work on Xander.

“Oh let them have their fun,” Xander chided.

The moment however was ruined by Buffy practically kicking the door to the warehouse off its hinges, her entrance backlit by a bolt of lightning. Walking in from the storm, soaking wet and clearly upset, she said, “We need big guns.”

“Buffy! What happened?” Willowed asked, concerned for her friend.

Visibly shaking with outrage, Buffy said, “Right now I have three things I need to kill. The first is the Judge, now completed by Spike and Drusilla. The second is whatever idiot thought that putting conditions on Angel’s curse and neglecting to tell him was a good idea. The third is Angelus, that vampiric bastard!”

[HSRTG]

I just want to ask when the Imperium proper is going to get to Sunnydale. 'Cause the image of Imperial Guard Baneblades patrolling the streets, beside divisions of Guardsmen and a couple companies of Astartes, all looking for the Scooby Gang is making me giggle. The possibility of the Eldar, or Dark Eldar finding Ethan is another image that makes me giggle.

[Academia Nut]

Chapter Thirty-five: Ignorance

When a soul claimed by the new Chaos gods is released from its mortal coil, the first thing it does is get taken to the Halls of Sorting, where facets of the gods less independent than daemons worked out the individual merits of each soul. It was also a great place to stick all of the bureaucrats when they died. Those directly dedicated to a single god were of course the easiest to sort out, but those with no strong associations in life it took a little work to find out what god they would join with. A large number were divvied up randomly according to which deity was in greater need of a boost.

Once assigned to the appropriate god, most souls were simply consumed, made into a part of the larger whole. Loss of individuality was complete, and only by a special act by the gods could the unique essence of a person be returned. A few souls upon death were passed along by the gods to their servants, the daemons, to add to their power. And an astronomically small number were ascending to daemonhood after death and allowed to keep their identities intact.

Then there were those who did not make it past the screening process. These were the guys who somehow ticked off the gods. By far the vast majority, this resulted in getting stuck in a sword and auctioned off to the highest bidder for a three thousand year long work-release program for the purposes of attitude adjustment. These were primarily abusive assholes and serial criminals, the sorts who pushed the limits of tolerance to the point where a response was required to serve as an example to others so that society wouldn’t collapse into the sort of anarchy that would cut off the god’s food supply.

And finally there were the tiny, select few who really pissed the gods the fuck off. These included serial child rapists, genocidal maniacs, and anyone who somehow earned the ire of all of the gods simultaneously. Also, anyone who was terrified of death and tried to go out in a blaze of destruction for the purposes of getting stuck in an inanimate object rather than being consumed also fell in this category. It was this category that no one wanted to end up in, for that resulted in a one way ticket to the Hall of Torment, the one place where the gods would freely indulge in their most sadistic desires.

The Hall of Torment, while quite deep in the Palace, was open to mortals to let them know the price for breaking the big laws, although viewing wasn’t recommended on a full stomach, but forbidden to any daemon under the level of a Prince or Princess or a direct offspring of the gods. The reasons for this were quite simple: the atmosphere was bad for daemons. That much suffering condensed into one area required a very strong will to avoid consuming it and being driven insane by all of the highly negative emotion. Higher level daemons considered it seasoning to a well balanced emotional diet.

Lars on the other hand was a minor daemon. He had only about a hundred different voices to deal with that sort of thing. Just getting stuck in a mortal place of extreme suffering, like say a long used and still active torture chamber, would be like the daemonic equivalent of doing a line of high quality, uncut Columbian cocaine. It would super charge him, but it would also send his aggression through the roof, lower his inhibitions, and cause all sorts of unpleasant side-effects.

Right now, Lars was in Hell, literally and figuratively. If he had known that this was what was in store for him, he would have stood his ground and risked annihilation rather than face coming to this place. He could not count the number of souls down here, or how long they had been here, but none of them were very happy. For Lars, well isolated from the main concentrations of souls and kept in rather neutral conditions, it was essentially the worst experience he had ever had.

It was like someone had injected him with a concentrated solution of cocaine, meth, and LSD, while also force feeding him processed sugar and caffeine slurry. Every moment he could feel himself being inundated with the psychic chatter of all the souls in Hell, filling him with their pain and fear and anger and sadness and… it was just too much. He could feel the primordial animal rising up within him, the alien psychopath that dwelt at the heart of even the most urbane daemon. The voices within him were being drowned out by the instinctive need to lash out.

ENDURE! RAPE! KILL! ESCAPE! That was the mantra running through his mind. Find someone, anyone, and utterly destroy them before finding someone else and repeating the process until he was away from this nightmare. He was starting to hallucinate, lurid fantasies of destruction and desecration.

He was trying not to absorb all of this emotional content, but it was like trying to hold his breath. He absorbed emotional content the same way he absorbed Warp energy, so trying to shut himself off caused him to simply weaken up until the point where he lost conscious control and automatically started sucking up the psychic smog of this place. He had resorted to basically trying to ‘breath’ less; only taking short gulps of energy when necessary.

Not only was he trying to slow his rate of ingestion, but he was trying to slow his rate of digestion by forcing all of the negative emotions he was taking in into a little ball of malice. The only problem with that was that if he kept suppressing all of that psychic energy it would eventually hit critical mass and gain sentience, at which he would give birth to an unrepentantly evil daemon that would probably rapidly begin feeding on the ambient emotions before attempting to get amongst the souls. So Lars was forced to absorb small amounts of that bile to slow down the rate of growth.

It was a delicate balancing act. On the one side, emotions were energy for him, so even though the atmosphere of this place was poisoning him, it was also making him stronger, more capable of tolerating the damage. The more he took in, the less of effect things had, and if he could reorganize the emotional content it wouldn’t hurt him. The problem was that his rate of growth was less than the rate of intake, hence why he was accumulating so much undigested psychic material. If he could process the toxins fast enough, he would be able to acclimatize…

If he failed either he would go insane and attempt to become a Hell god, or he would birth an insane daemon, probably a la Alien, that would attempt to become a Hell god. Neither of those options particular appealed to him. He gave himself another day before he either pulled through or exploded.

This was one of those things that if Lars had known were going to happen, he wouldn’t have allowed himself to be captured.


The situation with Yggdrasil had gone from ‘bad’ to ‘teetering on the edge of insanity’ in the few days since Lars had gone missing. The bugs had been multiplying at a rate never before seen, not even when Lars had first arrived. Shifts of gods were assigned to just smashing bugs and they had graduated to heavy artillery in the form of magical flamethrowers capable of taking out large numbers of bugs at once. The downside, aside from rapidly depleting the energy of the user, was that such objects also tended to do significant amounts of damage to Yggdrasil if not aimed properly. Unfortunately, at the rate the bugs were forming, it was worth the risk.

“Okay… so a nutty chaos monster appears to have been captured by the demons and dragged off to Hell. Can we list all of the ways that this is bad?” Skuld muttered to herself as she worked on the World Computer as quickly as she could, trying to figure out something to do to stem the tide of bugs on a fundamental level rather than just fighting back the tide.

Urd, having borrowed Skuld’s mallet for her shift of bug smashing, answered, “Well, he’s a self admitted psychophage, so exposure to damned souls probably isn’t good for him.”

Skuld blinked and then cried out, “Of course!”

“Of course what?” Urd asked while splattering more bug guts everyone. On the other side of the control room a flamethrower flared, incinerating a forming ring of bugs.

“While technically under the purview of Yggdrasil, the demonic realms are all encrypted so we can’t do advanced searches down there. Aside from that, Lars doesn’t have any coding that we can track anyway. However, we can plot emotional densities anywhere in the multiverse, it’s just not something that would normally be useful,” Skuld explained, her fingers flying over the keyboard to write the necessary program to do what she needed.

“But since Lars is a psychophage we might be able to find him by looking for any anomalous points,” Urd finished. “I’m going to have to admit, that’s pretty brilliant.”

“And… running search now,” Skuld said just as she hit the ‘Execute’ command for her program. For a few moments holographic displays skimmed over various readings until several different screens displayed locations with unusual emotional densities. Some, like the abnormal stress levels in the usually serene Yggdrasil Control Room, were quickly discarded.

The black hole in the middle of Hell on the other hand kind of scared the pants off everyone wearing pants. For anyone wearing a skirt, it made them want to put on pants for the sake of safety and so that they could have said pants scared off.

“What do you think; does that swirling vortex of doom look like it might be who we’re looking for?” Urd asked, her eyes wide at the display. Huge masses of pain, rage, loss, and despair were all swirling down into a single point where it was being compressed into a ball of raw malice waiting to explode in an orgy of violence.

“Probably,” Skuld replied. “I’m going to run a search for unknown readings and cross-reference with this report.”

Splashing bits of bug across the absolutely filthy chamber, Urd wondered aloud, “Do you think that has anything to do with the upswing in bug production rates?”

“I would bet a fifty gallon tub of ice cream they are,” Skuld answered. “There’s a lot of energy in that vortex, and if his presence in the multiverse causes the production of bugs, it seems safe to say that as that energy goes into him, he would have a more disruptive effect.”

Another screen popped up, and all of the gods paused to look at what was there. Finally Urd noted, “Well there’s the problem!”

Had any of them known who, or rather what, was listening in, they probably would have been more careful with their words.


Think watch Hunters. Think avoid Hunters. Think listen Hunters. Think learn Hunters.

Hunters hunt Not-Like-Think. Hunters kill Not-Like-Think. But Hunters not kill Think. Think smart. Think hide. But Think not want Hunters kill Not-Like-Think. Think want more Not-Like-Think. Think want Like-Think.

Think watch Hunters. Hunters hunt Big-Think. Think hear Big-Think sometimes. Big-Think not know Think. Think still hear Big-Think. Big-Think and Think linked. Not-Like-Think not liked to Big-Think. Like-Think linked to Big-Think? Think not know. Think want know. Hunters kill Big-Think, Think never know. Hunters kill Big-Think, Think be like Not-Like-Think? Think not want know.

Hunters find Big-Think. Hunters find source of Not-Like-Think. Hunters want leave Think alone. Hunters want kill Think. Think not like that.

But if Think get Big-Think to source of Not-Like-Think? Maybe Big-Think makes Not-Like-Think into Like-Think? Think like that.

Not-Like-Think try to make circle, make more Not-Like-Think. Never work, too many Hunters. Maybe if two circles at once… probably if three circles… definitely with four. Think just need get Not-Like-Think to all make circles.

Hmmm…


One moment the gods and goddesses were all staring at the gaping hole in reality at the edge of the multiverse where they really ever looked that was tied by a thin string of energy to the ‘swirling vortex of doom’ in Hell, the next every bug in the room suddenly got the bright idea to sudden form a summoning gate or five.

To say that things exploded into mayhem would be akin to saying that getting caught under a thermonuclear explosion at point blank range was ‘hot’. It was technically accurate, but failing to grasp the full context of the situation.

Bugs and gods were flying everywhere, weapons scything down massive numbers of bugs, but they just kept coming. In all of the confusion, only one deity noticed an oddly coloured bug sit down at a now unoccupied terminal for Yggdrasil and begin writing a program.

Snatching her debugging mallet out of her sister’s hands, Skuld rushed over to smash the oddly behaving pest before it could do too much harm.

Just as she arrived the bug completed its task and leapt away, landing on one of the fully formed rings in time for the program to execute. What happened made everything that had preceded it look tame in comparison.


Lars was sitting down in his isolation cell, hallucinating chopping Hild into tiny pieces, using the remains to grow magic mushrooms, and then getting amazingly high when he noticed the fact that a hole in reality seemed to open up in front of him.

Lars blinked once before self-preservation kicked in and managed to return him to something approaching lucidity, at which point he really only had time to mutter, “Well fuck…” before the sudden rush of air falling into the tear sucked him in.

Upon hitting the other side of the unexpected portal, Lars’ physical form disintegrated and he became more of an idea. For those who knew such things, this was his true form, a collection of emotions and thoughts bound together by one another. For those capable of seeing such things, he resembled a sort of bat shaped cloud of dark blue and green light, with a tight ball of luminescent whiteness at the centre and twin ‘eyes’ of blackness at the ‘head’.

Taking ‘flight’ on currents of cosmic energy, Lars observed his surroundings. He was in an infinitely large neutral space of blank white, except for an enormous hole that led into the sort of inky blackness that Lars was used to when in the Immaterium. From that hole an enormous amount of energy was being spewed, creating great black tendrils of mixing reality.

Banking into the cosmic winds, Lars discovered that there was another hole in the limbo than the one he had fallen through that led back to Hell and the gaping rent in the structure of the universe. Out of this hole dozens of eight legged rabbits fell, streaming in towards the hole in reality, where they promptly began to explode when brought in contact with the darkness emitted from the exit from this section of the multiverse.

Following the tumble of the rabbit-things were several gods and goddesses, surprised by the sudden breach of space-time next to them. Several of them quickly flared wings or had angelic figures pop out of their backs and pull up, assuming a wide circling pattern around the hole, but one figure in particular took quite the long tumble before manifesting an angel, assuming a very close orbit about the hole.

Swooping in, Lars discovered three things. The first was that the pressure from the cosmic winds were quite strong, trying to push him away from the tear. The second was that the figure that had fallen so far was Skuld. The third was that Skuld’s angel was struggling to hold them away from the tear, the complete opposite of the force Lars felt.

“Lars?” Skuld cried out in confusion and terror as she circled closer to the blackness.

Yes.

“Lars! Help me!” Skuld begged while tears of panic streamed down her face. “If I touch that stuff…” Her point was made when another one of those rabbit-things impacted a tendril of alternate reality and promptly triggered a mutual annihilation process.

Of course.

Swooping in, Lars sent out tendrils of thought to wrap around Skuld and then he flared his wings, trying to ride the storm up and out, but even with both of them pulling up and Lars being affected oppositely by the storm, all he managed to do was slow down Skuld’s downward spiral.

The force pulling you in is too strong.

“Oh God! Oh God! Help me daddy! Oh God!” Skuld wailed, terrified and child-like.

Lars looked at the storm and then up at the gods in higher orbits, clearly able to get out at that range as they were not beyond the event horizon yet of their capacity to escape the pull, while Skuld was far past that point. He considered the detritus still falling. Lars considered the situation for a moment before he made his decision.

Can you hold on by yourself for a few seconds? I’m about to do something incredibly stupid.

Skuld screamed in panic as Lars let go, but her angel did not cease trying to pull them out of the maelstrom. Banking sharply, Lars flew up and snatched up an odd looking rabbit-thing an enveloped it in his essence. The thing went surprisingly calm as soon as he had it, which made what he did next significantly easier.

Lars stooped and dove into the storm, carrying the rabbit-thing with him as he smashed into the clouds of other-real essence. As he suspected, it was the equivalent to Warp-stuff so it was utterly harmless to him. As he hoped, by keeping the rabbit-thing out of direct contact with the stuff, it did not explode inside him, and was in fact utterly unharmed by the experience. Lars considered dropping the rabbit-thing but decided against it as while the force pulling it in was quite significant, the closer he got to the centre, the hard it was to dive, so he figured extra ballast might be a good idea, plus it would help him for part of his idea.

Flaring his wings again, Lars let himself be pushed out of the storm and back up to where Skuld was, and he noted that she had dropped perilously close to the edge of the clouds. It seemed that because she and her angel were not fully mature they were rapidly losing strength fighting the pull of the storm.

Settling in next to Skuld, Lars stabilized her like he did before, although this time it was significantly harder since she was lower.

Skuld, can you hear me?

“Y-y-yes…” Skuld answered, terrified of the looming black clouds that were at most a dozen metres away and getting closer with every second.

I’m going to wrap you up so that I completely surround you, and thus protect you from the black essence. We will then dive into the storm. If everything goes well, I will drop one of those rabbit-things at the bottom of the dive and we can slingshot back out. If that works, we might have to make several passes, but I’ll be able to get you out. If it doesn’t work, then we can plunge through the hole and I’ll find a stable universe where you’ll be safe and we can work on getting you home. Are you fine with that?

Skuld nodded fearfully.

Lars wrapped himself about Skuld and then dived towards the heart of the storm once more. This time however, he could immediately tell that he had made a mistake. He hadn’t realized that all of the material he needed to cocoon Skuld would adversely affect his ability to produce lift as much as it did. Lars could feel the pressure trying to essentially blow him off Skuld and the rabbit-thing as they approached the very heart of storm, and he had to divert more of himself to just keeping her safe. There was no way he was going to be able to pull out of this dive and keep his cargo safe.

Sorry Skuld, we’re going to have to do this the hard way.

Skuld had been screaming through the entire descent but now she was really panicking as they picked up speed and got closer and closer to the point where one form of reality began to intrude into another.

Upon impact with that interface, Lars was given a brief moment of insight as he realized that he was what had been holding the breach open. Unfortunately, now that he had enough energy, in the form of the kinetic energy built up by holding onto Skuld as they fell, he had essentially reversed the pressure on the system as he left.

This meant that instead of exiting the breach fast but at a controllable speed, Lars instead discovered that he was now a ballistic missile instead of a diving hawk. It was all he could do to hang onto Skuld as they shot across the void between universes like an arrow loosed from a bow. Skuld was of course panicking as she couldn’t see anything of what was going on, but considering that she couldn’t see the higher dimensional structure they were about to smack into at ludicrous speed, that was probably a blessing.

They impacted the outer shell of the universe at a velocity slightly less than what Lars had struck Skuld’s home at, so he mostly retained consciousness even as he started to tumble like a bullet through flesh, ricocheting off internal cosmic structures until finally they had shed enough energy that they got stuck in one place and stayed there.

Manifesting his human form when through into a fully material world, Lars ended up dumping Skuld and the forgotten rabbit-thing back out as his form coalesced into his preferred human shape, and the three of them came to a painful, bouncing stop.

Recovering first, Lars quickly checked out their surroundings for any sort of threat, but all he could really detect was that they were in some sort of lightless, underground cavern that was quite large, so hopefully they would be able to find their way to the surface. Lars still had a headache from their entry, so he couldn’t get a clear psychic reading, but it seemed that they were alone.

Feeling fairly confident that they were out of immediate peril, Lars did a quick check on Skuld and was immediately dismayed by what he found. Physically she was alright, but he could tell just from looking at her that psychically and spiritually she was in bad shape, probably due to the fact that she was cut off from her home universe. If he had to guess, he would say that she was probably little better off right now than an annoyingly precocious and genius fourteen year old mortal girl.

This meant that when the darts smacked into him and Skuld, he was more than a little worried. Skuld had just enough time to wake up from the pain of having a dart in her gut before she fainted again, obviously some sort of drug coating the barbs.

Lars on the other hand was not so affected and he immediately whirled in the direction the darts had come from, all of his senses flaring out to look for targets. Whoever had done that had picked the wrong daemon to shoot at.