StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Part 0
Minas Tirith, Gondor

The overcast sky filtered the sun’s light into a permanent leaden tone. Even though it was high noon, the day’s hue was more suited to a typical fall evening in Seattle, reflected Marina, as she stared over the ramparts of Minas Tirith’s fifth level at the fires twinkling in the distance. She shivered and pulled the wool cloak closer about her as she considered the impending battle.

Across the Pelennor Fields, from just beyond an arrow’s flight to beyond the far encircling wall – which had fallen easily, without a fight, to the onslaught – was arrayed a besieging force of orcs, wargs, and trolls. From burying herself in history books, she had relived of this sort of battle a thousand times from Vicksburg to Stalingrad to Troy itself, but nothing had prepared her for the reality of it. Fielding such a force was no mean feat, and if the reports were correct, it was only a fraction of Mordor’s military.

As it had poured into the plain, the advance scouts harrying the last desperate reinforcements into the city, the generals of Gondor and the military engineers, with the detachment on permanent loan from the home base in Eregion, had surveyed the army through crude looking-glasses from the upper levels. There were perhaps one hundred thousand enemy all told – four divisions of infantry, supported by a division of warg cavalry.

She felt a hand on her shoulder and looked up.

“Looks tough, don’t it?” said the Spartan in his thick Texas accent.

“Yeah.” She rested her chin on her hands.

“You think we’ve got enough supplies to outlast them?” he said.

“No,” she said. “But I’m more worried about an assault.”

“That shouldn’t be an issue,” he said. “We have plenty of surprises ready for them, and the reinforcements ought to be here tomorrow.”

“I hope you’re right,” she said again, “but the reinforcements were supposed to be here last week, and they never sent word.”

They did have plenty of surprises, but he was still wrong. The next day, the first level fell.

It happened like this. The assault began at first light, and by noon the first level was burning. The city’s supply of wood was already rationed, since most of it was needed by the foundries, so snowmelt wasn’t enough to douse the flames. The five cannon were enough to pick off the large siege engines, but the infantry rushing forward to scale the wall on ladders were too small and numerous to target. The hail of crossbow bolts stymied the tide at first, but it soon overwhelmed the first level’s untrained defenders.

That evening, overseeing the construction of a barricade across the gate to the first level, Marina ran across the Spartan again. He seemed a little thinner than she remembered, and his eyes had bags under them. “How was your day?” he said.

“Very busy,” she said. “I was in charge of putting together barricades and rationing the raw materials for casting more cannonballs. What were you doing?”

“I was on the sixth level with the cannon. They had a problem with their sights, so we had to fix ‘em,” he said. “I didn’t think they’d take the first level so fast.”

She shrugged. “Numbers,” she said. “We don’t have enough men to stop them from swarming the walls.”

“The next level shouldn’t be so easy,” he said. “Their ladders aren’t long enough. They’ll have to come through the gates.”

“We hope,” she said. “The reinforcements still aren’t here, though.”

They did have to attack the gates, and the barricades held all the next day. The assault stopped the next day, although nobody dared venture down into the first level. The day after, the food rations were cut in half and the foundries went cold to melt snow for water. “Denethor should have sent all of the civilians away weeks ago,” said Marina to herself.

The next morning, meals were cut down to two a day, and there was still no sign of the reinforcements.

Haha, yes! I thought this was never going to be written!

Looks most good, I look forward to more.

Awesome! The long awaited story is finally being told! How did Minas Tirith end up in this state? What/who are the reinforcements spoken of? I await more developments.

I dunno, it seems like you're jumping a little too far into a story already in progress. Its like turning on the TV and thinking the movie must be half over (even though its not). How long has SDN been in ME? Minas Tirith has cannons, so I assume it must have been a while already, but that just raises so many questions.

It's throwing the audience into the action and then playing catchup later once they're hooked. Exposition at the beginning is boring.
[line 2]

Part 1
Unknown Location

The entire adventure began with a sigh. At least, that’s what everybody seemed to remember later. Each person said that one moment, they were busy with something – at work in a cubicle, working on furniture, programming, having sex, just wasting time – then, behind them, they heard someone exhale. Next thing they knew, they were all standing there in a crowd, morning sun shining on their faces.

Where was there? Nobody knew. “There” was a glade in a forest, with a small river running nearby. Boulders were scattered through the clearing, sticking up through the grass. Over the tops of the surrounding trees, bright mist-shrouded mountaintops peeked from three directions. The air was thick with the woody scent of moss and leaves and deep loam. The sun was just hovering over the horizon away from the mountains, casting long shadows across the meadow. Some stars were still visible above the mountains.

The crowd was sizeable, but not overly large – perhaps one or two hundred people, when they counted the children. Some people recognized each other immediately, and it wasn’t long before they drew the connection between everybody. The man named Ghost Rider, talking with Dalton, was the first to voice it.

“We’re all members of the SDN forums,” he said.

Dalton climbed onto a convenient rock and raised his voice. He was a big man, towering over those near him. “EVERYBODY, LISTEN UP!”

The crowd fell silent.

“Okay. We don’t know where we are or how we got here, so we should probably set up some sort of shelter and then have a meeting to discuss what to do.” There was just a hint of New York in his voice. “How many people do we have?”

There was a moment of counting, then several people spoke at once. “Two hundred fifty.” “Two hundred forty six.” “Two hundred fifty nine.”

“Okay,” Dalton said. “Let’s split up into groups of about ten.” He paused for a moment as people shuffled around. “Each group pick a leader.” Another moment of muttering and finger-pointing, then Dalton gave out the assignments.

Eight groups were sent in different directions to get an idea of the lay of the land. The remaining seventeen stuck around. “You all get to start trampling some space out in this meadow, then we’re going to try to put up lean-tos. It looks like the sun is rising, so we have probably twelve hours to get some living quarters set up for the night. You guys –“ he pointed at a group – “you get to look for something to start fires.”

The Spartan’s group headed toward the waterway, away from the rest of the group. They swished their way through the long grass until they stood on the bank. It was too big to be called a stream, not quite big enough to be a proper river – maybe twenty feet across, running too deep to see the bottom in the middle.

“What are we going to do?” asked a short man – more a boy, now that the Spartan looked at him. He had a rash of acne across his forehead.

“We’re going to split up,” he drawled. “What’s your name?”

“I’m Marina,” said the woman he’d addressed.

“Okay, Marina, take four with you that way, and I’ll take you four with me this way. Find a crossing point and come back this way; we’ll meet up on the other side.”

They split up. As the Spartan’s group headed downriver, the teenager struck up a conversation with an older woman.

“What’s your name?” he said.

“I’m Broomstick,” said the woman. “What’s your name?”

“I’m DEATH,” he said. He spoke with a slight accent. “I’m from Israel.”

“I know,” said Broomstick. “I’m from Chicago. What do you do?”

“I’m a student. I’m studying physics and engineering, and thank god we got whisked here because I had a shit-ton of homework due tomorrow.” He leaned in conspiratorially. “I haven’t started it yet.”
“So,” he continued, “what do you do?”

She shrugged. “I’m a contractor.”

“What does a contractor do?”

“I help build things,” she said.

“What kind of things?”


“Remodeling, rewiring, reflooring, reroofing buildings.”

“Oh, then I bet there’s plenty for you to do here,” he said.

They walked on in silence for a moment, then he squinted up at the sun and asked, “What do you think we’ll do here?”

Broomstick rounded on him. “Look, pal, I don’t even know where ‘here’ is. I don’t know what is out there in those woods, I don’t know what kind of problems we have, and I don’t even know how we’re going to feed two hundred fifty hungry people tonight, let along tomorrow and the day after and the day after. Do you know what I do know? I know that back in Chicago, I was poor and I at least had a job, an apartment, and food. I also know that back in Chicago, I have a boss who is waiting for me to show up at a job, birds who are waiting for me to put food in their cages, and a disabled husband who is waiting for me to get his medicine. So I couldn’t care less what we do here as long as I can get back to Chicago soon.”

The Spartan had spun around to put a stop to it, but she finished right as he opened his mouth. “Let’s be quiet for a while,” he said. He didn’t say that Broomstick had hit the critical questions right on the mark. How were they going to feed two hundred fifty people? Let alone find out where they were and figure out what they were going to do about it.

Disquieting thoughts.

Nice start up, I wonder if you could blend that into a natural flashback or something.

I get to boss people around? Sweet.

Nitpick: the five cannon were enough to pick off the large siege engines, but the infantry rushing forward to scale the wall on ladders were too small and numerous to target.

If we're going by book canon, the army from Mordor didn't have anything that could damage or reach the top of the outer wall of Minas Tirith. That's why Grond was so important; the Witch King had to break the gate to gain entry into the city.

If we're going by movie canon, never mind.

Ted C wrote:Nitpick: the five cannon were enough to pick off the large siege engines, but the infantry rushing forward to scale the wall on ladders were too small and numerous to target.

If we're going by book canon, the army from Mordor didn't have anything that could damage or reach the top of the outer wall of Minas Tirith. That's why Grond was so important; the Witch King had to break the gate to gain entry into the city.

If we're going by movie canon, never mind.

I'm going to have to question this. The book does mention them assaulting the wall with seige engines at numerous places as a diversion. What would be the purpose of doing so if they had nothing that could reach the top of the wall? To quote Chapter IV of The Return of the King:

"Ever since the middle night the great assault had gone on. The drums rolled. To the north and to the south company upon company of the enemy pressed to the walls. There came great beasts... dragging through the lanes amid the fires huge towers and engines. Yet their Captain cared not greatly what they did or how many might be slain: their purpose was only to test the strength of the defence and to keep the men of Gondor busy in many places. It was against the Gate that he would throw his heaviest weight. Very strong it might be, wought of steel and iron, and guarded with towers and bastions of indomitable stone, yet it was the key, the weakest point in all that high and impenetrable wall."

Nowhere does it explicitely say they couldn't reach the top. All it really says is that the Gate was their best bet.

The Romulan Republic wrote:I'm going to have to question this. The book does mention them assaulting the wall with seige engines at numerous places as a diversion. What would be the purpose of doing so if they had nothing that could reach the top of the wall? To quote Chapter IV of The Return of the King:

"Ever since the middle night the great assault had gone on. The drums rolled. To the north and to the south company upon company of the enemy pressed to the walls. There came great beasts... dragging through the lanes amid the fires huge towers and engines. Yet their Captain cared not greatly what they did or how many might be slain: their purpose was only to test the strength of the defence and to keep the men of Gondor busy in many places. It was against the Gate that he would throw his heaviest weight. Very strong it might be, wought of steel and iron, and guarded with towers and bastions of indomitable stone, yet it was the key, the weakest point in all that high and impenetrable wall."

Nowhere does it explicitely say they couldn't reach the top. All it really says is that the Gate was their best bet.

OK, I can accept that the Mordor army would have things that could potentially reach the top of the wall. Nevertheless, I think it's clear from the narrative that they did not have a realistic chance of overcoming that defense to get troops into the city. If the wall were essentially undefended, maybe, but even with the number of orcs the Witch King had at his disposal, he could not reasonably expect to break the outer defense anywhere but the gate. Consequently, I still don't find it believable that enough orcs got over the wall on ladders to gain control of the first level of the city.

OK, I can accept that the Mordor army would have things that could potentially reach the top of the wall. Nevertheless, I think it's clear from the narrative that they did not have a realistic chance of overcoming that defense to get troops into the city. If the wall were essentially undefended, maybe, but even with the number of orcs the Witch King had at his disposal, he could not reasonably expect to break the outer defense anywhere but the gate. Consequently, I still don't find it believable that enough orcs got over the wall on ladders to gain control of the first level of the city.

Right, but I think they didn't really expect any breakthroughs on the wall itself; the point was to force the defenders to contest the walls and thereby draw resources away from the gate. After a breakthrough at the gate, securing the walls is pretty much just a bonus.

Ted C wrote: OK, I can accept that the Mordor army would have things that could potentially reach the top of the wall. Nevertheless, I think it's clear from the narrative that they did not have a realistic chance of overcoming that defense to get troops into the city. If the wall were essentially undefended, maybe, but even with the number of orcs the Witch King had at his disposal, he could not reasonably expect to break the outer defense anywhere but the gate. Consequently, I still don't find it believable that enough orcs got over the wall on ladders to gain control of the first level of the city.

Fair enough. For that matter, the very mention of ladders strikes me as odd. Sauruman used ladders at Helm's Deep, but Sauron is explicitly described as using siege towers, not ladders, to assault Minas Tirith.

My excuse: author's fiat. More seriously, remember that SDN teleporting into Middle Earth might change the OOBs significantly.

Surlethe wrote:My excuse: author's fiat. More seriously, remember that SDN teleporting into Middle Earth might change the OOBs significantly.

Even taking that into account, I don't see how it becomes realistic for the orcs to take THAT wall with ladders. But, enough of this digression... mayhap it will one day make sense.

Part 2
Unknown Location

Some people live from moment to moment. They take in the sights and sounds of their surroundings, enjoying it all. Death was like that, and he had to work to keep a big, goofy grin off his face as the small group made its way back along the river from the waterfall several miles west of the clearing. The evening sun was hovering just above the mountains, turning them black and torching the river deep golden-red. The whole day had been excitingly new: the sky was a perfect blue, the leaves were all large and green, the sun had been just warm enough (not too hot, not too distant -- at one point, it had reminded him of a well-done baked potato, of all things).

The Spartan's group had traveled two or three miles east, until the river had joined another one. Then they had turned around and followed the river back to the clearing, and then back up toward the distant peaks as the sun sank lower in the sky. As they pushed upriver and uphill, the underbrush thinned and the trees slowly changed from thick deciduous to taller pines; they'd rested again on the shores of a wide, shallow pool fed by a waterfall (someone in the group had estimated it at thirty feet) from a rocky crag. The cliff broke the ground for about a half-mile south and more north. After exploring along it for several minutes, they turned around and headed back.

Marina's group met them on the way back; after meeting up, The Spartan had sent them off again to roam the banks of the larger river to the east -- it was easier to manage four people than nine, Death had heard him say -- and she reported that the big river ran down through the foothills. They'd managed to find a nice lookout spot, and had a general idea of the lay of the land: they were nestled in the foothills of a north-south (at least in this part) mountain range, maybe thirty miles to the north the range juked out to the east, and the river-that-was-fed-by-this-river ran down onto a plain and joined a huge river that was visible from the lookout as a blue ribbon far to the east.

And through it all, Death had been loving the entire day. The walk hadn't taken him down at all; on the contrary, he felt even more energetic than when he'd gotten here. The air was crisp and cool and clear. He wasn't even feeling hungry as they rounded the last bend of the stream and pushed out into the tall grass of the clearing. In the east, some stars were already visible; as they rejoined the group, Death plopped himself down on his back and stared up into the sky, wrinkling his nose and trying to find constellations as the stars came out. It felt great to be away from the responsibility of school, the pressure of family, and the frustratingly difficult tasks engineering school had set before him.

While some people are naturally careless, most balance minute-to-minute tasks with looking forward and worrying about the future. And then there are some people who can't help but think about the future, who -- focused as they may be on finishing what they're working on -- always have a small part of their brain thinking about what comes next. Where will tomorrow's meals come from? How much will we have to spend on the rent next year? What time will I need to leave next Monday to get to work on time (five minutes early)?

Broomstick was one of those people; whether by birth, habit, or circumstance, she couldn't tell, but that's the way it was right now. And so, as they walked, part of her fumed at Death for being so clueless, part of her (a very small part) appreciated the beautiful scenery, and most of her was thinking about where tonight's meal was going to come from, how they were going to get appropriate drinking water, how to start fires and sustain the firewood supply, what kind of shelter they might need (this was followed by a tangent - what kind of beasts, human or animal, might be lurking around that could pose a threat to the group?), and so forth.

So it was pleasant and disconcerting at the same time to realize, as they walked into the tall grass of the clearing, that she was neither thirsty nor hungry. Not quite accurate: she was not hungry, though her stomach felt empty, and she was only a little bit thirsty, though she hadn't had any drinks at all the entire day. (Neither had anybody else in her group; her matter-of-fact statements about the graphic nature of dysentery, tapeworms, and other such lovely creatures that lurk in untreated water had scared them, she supposed.)

What was the deal? Some illnesses could rob a person of hunger and thirst, but none that she'd had, and none that she could have contracted so quickly. She frowned, but kept the unexplained phenomenon to herself. No need to scare anybody. But as The Spartan moved off toward Dalton to report in and the sun dipped behind the mountains, Marina piped up. "I'm not really hungry at all. Is anybody else?"

There was a chorus of "No"s.

"I wonder why?" said another person (Master of Ossus).

"Well," said Broomstick, "I have no idea. But that's helpful because that means that we probably don't need to eat tonight, so we don't have to worry about food right now."

As The Spartan walked toward him, Dalton was surrounded by representatives from the other groups. He had stomped down a large circle in the grass and was sitting in front of a small fire, which was shooting out a few flames now and again and sending up a thin curl of smoke. He was frowning. "So the woods continue as far as you went to the north?"

"No," said the man. "The terrain climbs until it becomes impassably steep. There were some trees growing on the cliffs, but they were scraggly little things."

"Okay. So to the north, we have the river, then forest until we move up into what looks like a mountain spur. South, the land drops until we have cliffs overlooking a valley between spurs. East, there's a larger river that runs southeast until it falls over those cliffs. West?" He looked at The Spartan.

"Well," The Spartan said, "west the river goes uphill until you get to some steeply impassable terrain and there's a waterfall."

"Ah, so we're surrounded ultimately by cliffs," said Dalton. "That's good or bad? I don't know. What about you guys?" He looked over at the leader of one of the groups that had been tasked with exploring nearby. "What did you find?"

"Guys," said the group leader, dropping his voice, "we have guns. Lots of guns."

Nice work.

As a guess to their location:
Spoiler

I Like. More please

I imagine that my character, should you use him, will feel right at home

I have to admit interest in this fic...and how exactly everyone is going to avoid killing each other with the 'guns, lots of guns'

Chris OFarrell wrote:I have to admit interest in this fic...and how exactly everyone is going to avoid killing each other with the 'guns, lots of guns'

I imagine since there's only 250 SDNetters here instead of the 3000-strong clusterfuck as on Nantucket, it'll be a little easier to keep organized. Plus, it seems so far that this number could be limited to mainly more high-profile members, who have all generally at least heard of each other. That could help cohesion here.

And, as basic psychology and statistics says, the people that are the most prominent have the strongest opinions, I wonder what will turn out from that...

Captain Seafort wrote:Nice work.

As a guess to their location:
Spoiler

On the north bank of the Nimrodel, west of Lorien?

So, Spoiler I rather hope not.

Part 3
Unknown Location

Dalton was used to sitting at a desk, not walking miles and miles, so he was surprised to find that he wasn't out of breath ten minutes into the brisk walk as Mike, who had discovered the guns, slowed down just ahead of him. Outside of the yellow glow from the pine torches, the clearing they were standing in was lit by the full moon filtering through the treetops, casting the grass and flowers and upjutting rock outcrops in silver-and-black. The clearing sloped up and on the other side rose quickly, breaking into a rocky slope; the grass was sparse and the spruce trees clung to the mountainside with thick, coiled roots.

There, just beneath the boughs on the opposite side, was a gaping hole in the ground. It yawned like a lion's mouth. As they crossed the meadow, avoiding marshy patches, Dalton sized it up -- it looked large enough that he'd be able to stand comfortably (and he was a big man), but not enough that he could jump up and down. Maybe three people could walk into it side-by-side, and another two could crawl in on either side.

It was obviously the mouth of a cave. A small rivulet of water trickled out of the entrance, deathly black in the night. As Mike walked in and the fifteen people filed in after him, the light from the torches flickered sickly yellow on the smooth brown stones. After a short throat, the cave widened out into a wide cavern, the ceiling rising and the floor becoming flat. The torchlight was swallowed into the darkness beyond a small yellow pool. Mike walked over to a wall and said, "Close your eyes." Something clicked quietly.

Dalton wasn't quite fast enough, and almost cursed as he closed his eyes against the sudden brightness. Shading his eyes and blinking rapidly, he looked around; as his eyes adjusted, he started to make out shapes. There was a quiet humming; up above, on the ceiling - maybe twenty feet up - were hanging lights -- fluorescent lights? In an alcove nearby, he glimpsed what looked like racks of guns. And spread out on a dust-free concrete floor in front of him were rows of tables with machines on them.

Several passages led off from the main room back into the mountain; the lights tracked along them, and in the distance he could hear a high-pitched whine and a low rumble.

"Well," said Dalton, "fuck me with a silver spoon."