Fall of Man (Mythos based) (Chapter ?? done)

[Academia Nut]

Chapter ??: Whose idea was this anyway?

“Okay… let me see if I have this right…” Geoff asks, his voice hoarse but getting better, his vocal cords slowly adapting to the stresses put on them. “You want me… went on one mission and got his ass kicked… to take out the entire army parked outside. Sir.”

“No… we want you to decieve the entire army parked outside and blow up one of their shield projectors so we can sucker punch them,” General Halsey states.

“But… assuming they actually buy the act, I’ll be in the middle of… how big is the army out there anyway sir?” Geoff croaks out.

“Thirty Squids, seventy Dagons, one hundred Hydras, thousands of tanks and AFVs, and several million barracudas and cultists. It’s about twice the total forces of both sides combined for the Battle of Kursk in World War Two… not counting the Squids or Avatars or the fact that a single modern tank is so much stronger than the ones back then that just one could have decided the entire battle by ignoring enemy fire and simply wiping out the entire command structure of the opposing side,” General Halsey lists.

“Was that supposed to make me feel better about this sir?” Geoff asks, mildly annoyed.

Thinking this over, Halsey shrugs and says, “I’m not one for mincing words, and frankly, this is the only shot we’ve got at actually winning this engagement. If either this Ark or Banff goes down, the other won’t have the resources to go on much longer, and as best we can tell, we are the last two bastions of humanity left on the planet. We can’t afford to lose or even tie. We need to smash that army out there now and forevermore, or this is the end for us.”

Mulling this over, Geoff finally says, “This is one of those, ‘fucked if you do, fucked if you don’t’ sort of situations, isn’t it sir?”

“More or less,” Halsey says with a shrug.

“Permission to ask for something sir,” Geoff asks.

“Permission granted,” Halsey replies.

“Okay… sir, seeing as this is more or less a suicide mission, can we wait until tomorrow so I can spend my last day on this planet fucking my girlfriend like an animal?” Geoff asks.

“Granted. The techs need some time to finish installing the new equipment on your rather unusual Horror anyway. Also, we know how… dependent she is on your presence, so we’ll make sure she gets the attention she deserves afterwards,” Halsey replies.

Gulping at the realization that he and the general are already thinking of him as a dead man, Geoff salutes and then leaves, a heavy feeling in his stomach, which was only made worse by his growing sense of unease that he was being watched by… something.

Ever since his dreams of the undersea city of horror had stopped, new and far more sinister ones had filled his nights. They varied a great deal, but they often involved either discussions with a shadow, or attending court in Ancient Egypt to see a great and terrible Pharaoh. He could never remember the details of the various conversations, but they always left him feeling unclean in the morning. And over the past few days, he kept seeing a strange, black man in the corner of his vision, but whenever he tried to confirm what he saw, nothing was there. And the man was not black as in of African descent. He was black as in seemingly carved from jet or possibly obsidian.

Geoff wanted to say that he was just going crazy, a common enough occurance amongst Pilots, but he couldn’t help shake the feeling that what he was dreaming and seeing had their own, objective existence, and were more than just things in his head.

Several hours later, as he lay naked and curled up next to Cassie, he got confirmation of his fears, to a certain extent, when he actually remembered what happened.

He first realized that he was dreaming when he heard a sinister voice whispering in his ear, “You want to save her, no?” He knew that this was a dream because the only people who could get into his apartment without making a terrible racket blowing the door or windows off didn’t care. Plus the whole experience had that strange dream quality that separated the waking world from that of the sleepers.

Opening his eyes in the dream, Geoff stares up at Pharoah seemingly made from some awful, glossy black stone speckled with some sort of inclusions that gave the impression of one looking at the night sky. He had his arms crossed over his chest, holding a crook and flail, and a striped headdress reminiscent of Tutankahem’s burial mask that obscured his face in dark shadows.

“You want to save her, no?” The strange figure repeats.

“I want to save everyone,” Geoff states, somewhat surprised that his voice is not cracked, but the rich baritone he had before he became a Pilot.

Pointing his flail accusingly, the Black Pharaoh says, “I see through the lies you tell, even the ones you tell yourself. You don’t care for anyone else, just her, and yourself.”

“What?” Geoff asks, dumbfounded.

“If you thought you could get away with it, you would take her and walk out of here, leaving everyone else to their fate. But you know you’re not strong enough, not strong enough to survive in the wasteland on your own. But you could be…” The Black Pharaoh says slyly, gesturing to Geoff’s hands.

In the way that only dreams can, Geoff finds himself inexplicably holding a wicked sharp knife in one hand, and a large, rheumy eyeball in his other.

“You have the Eye of Cthulhu,” the Black Pharaoh says, pointing at the eye and using the strange word often used by the barracudas and their cultists. “You have in your hand the power which has guided that Great Old One and his people for the past hundred million years, the gift of prophecy that led him to take certain measures to protect his spawn from the drowning of their world. The same eye that led him to make the first Deep Ones to serve him beneath the waves while he slumbered.”

“That’s nice and all, but what’s the knife for?” Geoff asks warily.

“You only have room for two eyes, now don’t you?” The Black Pharaoh says in a sinister tone, and for just a brief moment Geoff swears he sees three points of red light burning like coals within the shadows of the thing’s face.

“Uh… yeah…. cutting out one of my own eyes and sticking in this one doesn’t seem like a smart idea,” Geoff says, trying to get rid of the items but finding them inexplicably back in his hands every time.

“Oh, but it is, it is,” the Black Pharaoh replies, and with his crook, he begins to part the air, revealing a sickening hole in space and time. “For you see, if you do not, the past will become the future, and your precious Cassie will end her life were it started.”

Geoff tried to look away, to not behold the monstrous nightmare on the other side, the unimaginable suffering that was the swampy hell of barracuda controlled Lousiana. The worst rumours could not compare to actually watching it, watching what really happened down there. Cassie had tried to blow her head off the first time he met her, just to escape the memories, and if these images were what she had lived through, then he did not blame her in the least.

For the barracudas could breed with humans, creating abominable offspring that looked human at first but slowly transformed into horrific monstrosities. And the barracudas, suffering from the nuclear exchanges of the beginning of the war, had systemized the rape of the human women under their territorial control for the explicit purpose of making more fishy spawn.

“You will fail tomorrow if you do not use the Eye, and they will drag her kicking and screaming back to the plantations, where they will violate her again, and again, and again, until twenty years from now after having twelve children destined to serve Cthulhu, she will find a sharp piece of rusted iron, and jam it into her brain. It will take her about two hours to actually die, and then only that soon because some Deep Ones will find her bleeding out and begin to eat her still breathing, still twitching body,” the Black Pharaoh whispers cruelly.

Finally having had enough, Geoff lashes out with the knife and screams, “Get out of my head!”

Waking with a start, Geoff immediately rushes for the bathroom, where he proceeds to empty the contents of his stomach, then heave up some bile, and finish off by dry retching for about half an hour, Cassie hovering over him, terrified by his sudden illness.

Looking up at her after recovering, Geoff smiles weakly and tries to give the impression that he is just worried about the upcoming mission, and while he had not explained it to Cassie, he knew that she knew that something bad was coming.

Just how bad had yet to be seen though.

Several hours later, and the largest performance of military deception in the history of human military endeavours took place. The trick was not to let the enemy see nothing at all, because that was suspicious, but to let the enemy see what he wanted to see.

So the lights of the Colorado Arkology began to flicker, the bombardment by the siege guns began to become more sporadic, and the shields began to waver, all giving the impression that something bad was happening inside the fortress city. And then, in one awful moment, everything went dead, all the power of the city cutting off at once.

For several minutes, the only sound that could be heard over the city was the wind amongst the mountain-tops and the distant chanting of the enemy army, who had yet to make a move. They had yet to make a move, because they were waiting.

Waiting for their god to come out of the city triumphant.

And so Geoff indulged them, striding confidently out of the city towards the assembled masses, his tentacle faced Horror dressed up in various nanofabrics to more closely resemble the statues the barracudas and cultists were worshipping, and more generally the Squids that shared the same basic body design as their god, if significantly smaller.

It took all of Geoff’s willpower not to run. Only the knowledge that if he broke the masquerade before taking out at least one of the shield generators that protected the army from Colorado’s siege guns the city would fall, and thus Cassie would suffer a fate worse than death, kept him from bolting.

When the front lines saw him, they began to cheer, increasing the volume and fervour of their chants of, “Iä! Iä! Cthulhu fhtagn!”

Millions were dropping in prostrate worship before him, except for the Avatars and Squids, which stared at him with a look he could best describe of as suspicious, despite the fact that their alien features made attaching human emotions and motives impossible.

Geoff felt a sort of panic well up within him as he realized that they knew that he was a fake. In mere moments they would pull out one of the myriad of unpleasant weapons the barracudas favoured for their Avatars, and cut him to ribbons.

“Use the Eye, it will show you the way,” a voice whispers seductively in the darkness of Geoff’s sarcophagus.

“No,” Geoff whispers back pathetically.

“It’s already a part of you, that’s why you can see and hear me. Accept it and the power it offers, if not for your sake, then for hers,” the voice replies, a distant, agonized female scream from the past or a possible future following after, sending shivers up and down Geoff’s spine.

He could feel a tickle at the back of his head, and he wondered just what exactly it would involve. He didn’t mean to unlock the power, didn’t want to, but he was so afraid that he felt it could not hurt to look. Unfortunately, whatever power he had, it wasn’t restrained very well, and just thinking about unlocking it was enough to break it free.

Geoff screamed, and the voice laughed mockingly, telling him in a cackling voice, “The Lurker on the Threshold demands tribute little mortal! Tribute for access to his realm. Now pathetic thing of flesh, the price must be paid!”

Just in front of Geoff’s Horror, the sky opened up, allowing eye-wateringly strange bubbles to begin flowing out, scintillating with colours that defied categorization. The opposing army began to scream in terror, especially the Squids and Avatars, who seemed to know what was happening.

An awful not-voice filled Geoff’s mind, showing him concepts rather than expressing them through words. It nearly shattered his mind, but he could feel the power bubbling forth from him actually give some context to the alien vistas and thoughts. It roughly translated out as, “To see beyond the veil of time, one must offer a fitting sacrifice in tribute to the All in One and One in All. However, the tribute has already been paid in full, and the theft from the original client has no bearing on that. The Thief has already paid.”

There was a short pause, followed by that sinister voice screaming in absolute fury, “WHAT?”

The scintillating bubbles and the alien entity they represented seemed… not quite smug, because trying to attach emotions to this thing was like trying to attach emotions to an atomic bomb. The best way to describe it was that the thing felt pleased as much as it could be said to feel anything at all.

This time, when the thing spoke, it was not addressing Geoff directly, but the entity that had been trying to tempt Geoff, so the effect was not as bad. Still, he got the gist of the message, which was, “Do not question the decisions I make regarding my realm. Now come, the sultan wishes to speak with you.”

Then the bubbles began to burst and the hole in reality began to seal itself, the presence that had been haunting Geoff leaving with it, only saying in passing, “This isn’t over mortal…”

And then the assembled army broke out into ecstatic cheering. Their god was the greatest of all gods, to have faced down that thing without blinking. The Squids were howling their pleasure, their tentacles lashing about wildly while a wet, raspy noise was heard from their suckered, lamprey-like maws at the centre of the tentacles.

His head pounding with power and his mind shaken by the encounter between what he now knew were entities so vastly more powerful than him that it was like comparing a bacterium to a human in terms of power and understand. Tightly clamping down on the visions of stars and galaxies spinning, he forced himself to exist in the now.

Marching triumphantly under the shield, Geoff walked up to the now bowing Avatars and Squids surrounding a great, twenty metre tall carving of their squid faced, dragon-winged, obese god. Made from some strange, sickly green substance that looked like soapstone at first glance yet suggested far strange origins upon the second, the statue was the centre of worship before Geoff’s arrival, and the largest shield projector.

Reaching it, Geoff smiled, letting the masquerade fall as his Horror’s face split in a way that a Squid’s couldn’t, and he opened six more eyes on his head while opening the eyes and mouths on his tentacles. Unfortunately for those praying to him, they weren’t looking.

“In the immortal words of Chesty Puller, you outnumber me 200 to 1 and have me surrounded. You can’t get away now!” Geoff says gleefully while ripping open the faux skin “jacket” that served as part of his disguise to reveal the weapons he had concealed.

One of the Squids had just enough time to look up before he got hit by a modified, up-sized bore, cut down barrel Mutilator shotgun, straight to the face. While firing a sawed-off shotgun one handed was a stupid idea for a human being, inertial compensators meant that Geoff could pull off the trick, and multiple eyes and instinctive targeting meant he could do it with both hands at once.

The Squids, enormous, green-skinned blobs of something that did not behave like normal matter, could not be killed by conventional means, which was why the Horrors had been developed in the first place. Only by saturating their substance in a strong Nightmare Field could they be put down for good. And Geoff was projecting a very powerful Nightmare Field, and at that range with the upsized Mutilator, the Squid might as well have been hit by the broadside of an Iowa class battleship… loaded with canister shot and fired at point blank range.

It disintegrated, its otherworldly substance splashed over half the battlefield while thousands of hypersonic ball bearings travelled straight through, killing and maiming hundreds of mortals at their feet.

The other Mutilator was pointed directly at the statue, and when it fired, the obscene effigy shattered under the barrage, taking the majority of the overhead shield with it.

In the monumentally brief period of time it took the news of this fact to propagate at the speed of light back to Colorado, several things happened. First of all, the capacitors that had been holding back mind numbingly huge quantities of power opened up and instantly re-establishing the shields that protected the city. A few seconds after that, the siege guns opened up hurling hundreds of tonnes of high explosive death at the now vulnerable enemy. Ten seconds after the shield fell, the entire RNA 3rd Army began to stream out of Colorado, outnumbered but better protected and armed.

Now that his primary objective was complete, Geoff had to focus upon his secondary one, which while formally was “Get back to friendly lines”, was more or less “Kill as many motherfuckers as you can before dying”.

He emptied his Mutilators in about three seconds, blowing apart two more Squids, a Dagon, and six Hydras. Three seconds was also the time it took for the barracudas to overcome their shock at their apparent god backstabbing them. By then, all of Geoff’s fear and anxiety had transformed into a fine, killing rage fuelled by adrenaline and stranger hormones.

And that was when the Eye truly opened.

Perhaps it was survival instinct at work activating the power in a do or die moment, but suddenly Geoff was seeing in higher dimensions, and not just seeing, but comprehending what he saw. And what he saw was the possible paths the future could take. His Horror began to “evolve” the capacity to not just process this information, but use it, growing new neural clusters for Geoff to utilize.

Tossing his empty Mutilators aside, Geoff pulls a Nightmare Sword and Vengeance pistol, and begins to fight in earnest. With a 360º view of the battlefield and the capacity to see what his opponents will do before even they know, the fight goes from “Unfair for Geoff” to “Unfair for the 191 foes capable of engaging him” in the time it takes him to ignite the sword.

Often compared to the lightsabres of Star Wars fame, the Nightmare Sword produced an incredibly powerful Nightmare Shield in a flat plane that could cut through any known material and gave shields a tough time. It was however, disturbingly like that space-time parting effect of the Black Pharaoh and the bubble entity. No matter, it was a weapon, and probably Geoff’s best chance at victory.

What happened was best described as Vaslav Nijinsky at the height of his career in a dance-off with several blind, deaf, drunk hunchbacks, each with two left feet. Only this dance-off involved disembowelment, loss of limbs, and bullets the size of artillery shells to the head. And the hunchbacks could win by tripping Nijinsky with raw numbers.

It was fast, chaotic, and Geoff quickly lost himself in the battle, nothing existing but the next moment as he dodged, blocked, parried, cut, and shot. Shells and energy beams flashed through the sky, and further out, he noted that the bombardment was continuing, throwing up thirty metre high plumes of dirt and pieces of bodies. The advancing army was laying down a murderous hail of fire into the confused mass of barracudas.

And then Geoff felt the missiles exploding against his shields. So caught up with the Avatars and Squids, he had deemed the anti-tank weapons insignificant, but now that he had massed fire raining down into him, he realized he could not ignore the squirming bodies at his feet.

So he began to eat them. It was instinctual and there was a segment at the back of his mind horrified by the concept, but in between the fighting, he would send his tentacles down to snatch up the barracudas attacking him and begin tearing them apart with the numerous mouths covering the tentacles.

After ten minutes of non-stop, insane battle as more and more of the Avatars and Squids joined to take down the false god, Geoff discovered that quantity has a quality of his own. His visions showed him simply overwhelmed by fire power, and there was nothing he could do about it. The attacks would come in from too many angles for him to dodge or block or take on his armour. He was going to die.

Still, he would go down swinging, fighting on as long as he could, so he would take the hit that would be least debilitating. Slicing off one of the three serpentine heads of a Hydra, he gritted as two dozen different attacks slammed into him, the worst being a plasma lance that cut through his chest and left him feel rather odd instead of hurt. Ignoring the sensation, he lunged forward and skewered a Dagon through the head with his sword before crashing to the ground and sliding on a wave of dirt and smashed bodies, coming to a stop beneath the foot of a Squid, which was looking hungry with its tentacles waving in the air.

And then it exploded like an overripe watermelon hit by an A-10 warthog as an APFSDS round passed straight through it and clipped a Dagon in the arm, which in the Nightmare Field Geoff was kicking up, caused the limb to explode messily instead of shrugging off the impact.

Scrambling forward, Geoff managed to throw himself clear of the circle of foes just as the tank division that had come to his aid opened up and the Horrors behind them started firing anti-matter missiles. Geoff swore he saw the eye of a Squid twitch just before it was blown back to whatever cosmic hell had spawned it.

Wearily picking himself up, Geoff examined the battlefield. The confusion from the betrayal and the overwhelming need to defend their god’s honour by slaying the imitator had cost the barracudas big time. Hundreds of thousands were dead, and the entire army was in full retreat as the humans pursuing them butchered them like the sub-human monsters they were. Soldiers in power armour walked amongst the dead and dying, delivering swift executions, while the tanks pursued the enemy armour and the half dozen or so remaining Avatars.

And that was when Geoff figured out what the weird sensation in his chest was. The breach in his armour extended down to his sarcophagus, which meant that he was now exposed to open air. Worse, he was now exposed to the flesh of the Horror, which would devour his body in a manner not too dissimilar to an auto-immune disorder in humans. Not that knowing the process made things any better.

Geoff had just enough time to pop his hatch before a tar-black pseudo-pod lashed out and caught him by the face, drawing him bodily towards the frothing black mass visible through the breach.

He screamed.

[Big Orange]

Great, great, great stuff - I kinda of imagine the barracuda/human cultist armies to be the most grotesque rabble to ever befoul the Earth with their AFVs being both ex-Soviet and ex-NATO, but in various stages of disrepair, all decorated with evil occult runes (painted in blood) and banners (mainly made out of flayed human skin and other assorted human body parts).

[GunDoctor]

some of them yes, but if he's pulling from some of the same source material I'm thinking of, the most powerful cults are going to be much more sophisticated in their depravity; it takes deep pockets to study the occult, when your primary sources are rare books with a handful or less copies extant. And just because you worship alien star monsters in hope of surviving his coming doesn't mean you're stupid, just insane.

[Academia Nut]

Yeah, the barracudas are one of the largest forces out there, and there is a very good reason all of the Arks I have listed so far are well in-land. And yeah, the cultists might be insane, but with the kind of territory and resources they control, they have extensive manufacturing capacities. Perhaps not as good as the more focused, rational, and scientific forces of the RNA, but numbers and open access to eldritch knowledge tends to make engagements more or less equal. Only the fact that only sane humans seem capable of using Nightmare Shields on AFVs has kept humanity's head above water.

If you want real scum, the Nameless are dedicated to decadence, hedonism, and decay, although they are actually quite intelligent and have some of the best equipment available. It's just that you really don't want to see them in their off hours.

Also, I haven't mentioned it yet, but Avatars are actually much closer to actual mecha than Horrors, which, as has been mentioned, are really shoggoth mechs. In fact, the creation of the Avatars was in direct response to the Horrors utterly smashing any force without a massive numerical advantage.

As to sources, its actually a strange combination of Lovecraft's work (and Lovecraft's alone so far) and the Internet. The only CoC material I have is some information on the SAN mechanic (only mechanic I actually use in my head though is 0/1 per 24 hours exposure to the wasteland), but that is actually from Unearthed Arcana.

[GunDoctor]

huh, seems so much like Eva, i mean

star monster = angel right?

and both the shoggoth mechs and the Evas are grown rather than built. Grown using technology/source material not human, and not meant to be known.

ah I rather thought the avatars were minor projections/slivers of a great old one's self, perhaps anchored by the belief/summoning of the deep ones and cultists.

and the squids are star-spawn, right?

But yes, I was referring to your SAN draining nightmare energy, brilliant!

Cthulhu's eye, good stuff!

Oh, and don't forget Kassogtha, sister and mate of great Cthulhu, Queen of Kashkash, her great and terrible city of cyclopean and non euclidean standing stones... right were NYC is now... mwahahahahaha.

[Singular Quartet]

This is Lovecraft/Eva. The above, however, is pure Lovecraft given mecha.

[Big Orange]

The barracudas are obviously the primary badguy faction and they seem somewhat rational for monstrous creatures if they are using human made weaponry, run organised rape/slave camps and tolerate human collaborators in the form of "janissary" cultists. The barracuda/homo sapien cultists appear to be organised into armies with access to modern vehicles and weaponry, but they seem to concentrate on quantity not quality and I doubt most flesh eating, blood drinking psychotics would grasp the concept of NATO level military tactics or strategy.

[Singular Quartet]

The barracudas are obviously the primary badguy faction and they seem somewhat rational for monstrous creatures if they are using human made weaponry, run organised rape/slave camps and tolerate human collaborators in the form of "janissary" cultists. The barracuda/homo sapien cultists appear to be organised into armies with access to modern vehicles and weaponry, but they seem to concentrate on quantity not quality and I doubt most flesh eating, blood drinking psychotics would grasp the concept of NATO level military tactics or strategy.

You forget: The flesh-eating and blood-drinking are doing it for their God. They do have some intelligence... just in other ways.

[Big Orange]

You forget: The flesh-eating and blood-drinking are doing it for their God. They do have some intelligence... just in other ways.

MBTs and fighter planes are very complicated to operate, then there are military commanders (although why are humans working with the barracudas, those other freaks and the Things from Beyond?).

[Academia Nut]

Eh, might as well clear up a few things.

Squid = star spawn of Cthulhu, obvious
Horror = human grown shoggoth-like creature shaped by human thoughts and fears into a ten metre tall humanoid killing machine
Avatar = robot-like entity with an organic pilot serving as the focus for a fragment of a god's power, providing motive force, shields, and the capacity to drive people insane. Construction methods vary from faction to faction, ranging from mostly robotic to more golem-like animated matter

Also, I'm currently using something of a "pick-and-choose" method for aspects of the Mythos, because it is quite frankly a mess, and understandably so. Mostly I'm going by the rule of thumb of "If Lovecraft himself wrote it, I can probably find a place for it, although I might interpret it differently, and I reserve to outright reject later additions". So far, the biggest things I've gotten rid of are Derleth's elemental system and his good vs. evil divides. The Great Old Ones and the Outer Gods and all those alien entities seem evil to us because for the most part, they just don't give a fuck, a crush us underfoot with the same casual destruction as we do to ants. Of course, their human worshippers, who should know better, are both evil and insane, but that's a different kettle of fish. One of the few actually evil entities Lovecraft ever dreamed up was Nyarlathotep, who I think is immensely cool if rather childish when you think about it (basically he is the equivalent of the guy who goes around tearing the wings off flies and burning ants just for kicks).

And since Big Orange posted while I was composing this message, read "The Shadow over Innsmouth" to see that humans and Deep Ones (what I've taken to calling barracudas in my story as it sounds more informal and thus more likely to be taken up civilians and the general military) can and do work together, and more simply, they share the same god, namely Cthulhu, who has a globe spanning network of human cults as well as being worshipped by the Deep Ones along with Father Dagon and Mother Hydra. As to the operation of MBT and fighters, well, the Deep Ones, are at least as smart as your average human, if not smarter, considering the fact that they can live upwards of 80,000 years, only dying by violence. They are also skilled craftsmen, one of their main bribes to small coastal communities aside from improved fishing being intricately crafted gold jewellery. And while they are tough enough that they might underestimate a human with a Glock because most of the time the bullets will just bounce off, they understand that they can't bum rush a tank and hope to win, they need their own advanced weaponry to fight such things.

Again, just because they are insane doesn't make them stupid. Hell, the majority of the guys not used as a cannon fodder are probably more reminiscent of people like Hannibal Lector than anything else.

[Enforcer Talen]

I would like to see more of the occupied zone, in a CIA style analysis - population, rates of production, leadership, etc.

Otherwise, great stuff. My preference for cthulhu eye would be deal with the devil style tragedy, but I like those kind of stories in general.

[GunDoctor]

This is Lovecraft/Eva. The above, however, is pure Lovecraft given mecha.

I, see... Oh it burns us!

Anyway, I get the distinction, I just get a certain feel from the imagery here that harmonizes with that from Eva. Anyway, good stuff here, whatever the inspiration.

Yeah, I don't like the Derleth style manichaean Mythos either; it's so last century. If anything can save man, it is man's own vices and virtues; we're ornery sons of bitches who like a good scrap, and were stubborn too. But I don't mind expanding the beasties with more unpronounceable space monsters; a target rich environment makes it hard to miss

And the elemental system some have tried to cram on just sucks donkey balls; i mean a) why does a mythos older than humanity (or the dinosaurs) comply with renaissance grimoire traditions? and b) how the fuck is Cthulhu a water elemental when being submerged under water puts him in a comma and blocks his evil influence on men?

That still leaves us with the Mi-go, ghouls, cthonians, and other assorted nasties waiting in the wings... can't wait.

So, write more please!


P.S. What about some Delta Green fun, huh? Can't go wrong with secret groups within groups all trying to their damnedest to fulfill their duty as they see it, and seeing the other as dangerously delusional at best.

[Academia Nut]

Well, I've just learned of Delta Green, so it will take me a bit to get around to incorporating such things, but you can bet your ass that not all internal factions within the RNA are going to see Geoff's transformation as a positive thing. Plus, in chapter 6, you can see some definite "good people doing bad things for desperate reasons" if you interpret it correctly.

As for the Mi-go, they're still a while away, but I already have a name for their section: "Me go? You go off!" I know, it's a terrible pun, but shit like that tickles my funny bone.

And while I don't have an definite CIA factbook style set of numbers, here are the various local factions:

Republic of North America- Built on the remains of the nations of the United States and Canada, along with large scale immigration from the rest of the world, particular South and Central America, in the initial uprisings and assaults, they used the time bought by the nuclear attacks to consolidate their remaining populations in the Arkology projects, the prototype and eventual largest one being built out of Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado. Originally describing a rough quadrilateral with points at Colorado, Banff, the Great Lakes, and Atlanta, over the past twenty-five years, all but Banff and Colorado have been taken in sieges with other factions, the most recent being the last of the original four Great Lakes Arks, Chicago. By far having the most advanced technology of the North American factions, the RNA relies heavily upon robotics and automation for primary and secondary industries, their fusion reactors and nanotechnology allowing them feed and clothe their citizens with minimal input from areas outside the Arks. Because of the high degree of automation and the justifiably paranoid bent of the rather authoritarian government, over 40% of the population is employed to watch the rest. While the official and unofficial stance is that the RNA is too busy fighting for survival to care about any non-directly dangerous activities, privacy is non-existant and wealth and influence only makes surveillance less noticeable. The RNA lost all contact with other human factions world-wide when Beijing went silent several years ago. Tactics emphasize coordination and combined arms. Only faction in North America to use Horrors.

Northmen- Large in territory but small in population, the Northmen control everything within the Arctic Circle, and the vast majority of North-Western Canada and much of the East as well, only giving up sections of the Saint Lawrence and Great Lakes to the barracudas, some parts of the Canadian Rockies to the RNA, and the Cascades to the Nameless. It is also believed from their equipment that they also have control over the majority of Russia and the Scandanavian countries, making the RNA wary to throw around large numbers of antimatter warheads around them on the off chance they have access to the remaining Russian stockpiles of nuclear weapons. While manufacturing capacity is unknown, there is clearly some present as they have access to decent equipment, some of which, such as their freezing weapons, are clearly new. The two traits that best define the Northmen are their cannibalism and their love of cold. They seem to alternate between ritualistic cannibalism, whereby they eat the bodies of the dead to gain their power; opportunity cannibalism, whereby they eat the dead for rations or possibly to conserve rations; and Wendigo syndrome, whereby they kill and eat anything that moves simply because they can. For their love of cold, aside from their aforementioned freezing weapons, they also claim that the expansion of the ice cap and glaciers in the north is the work not of nuclear explosions many years ago, but their god. These two aspects tend to combine together with the individuals, whereby they often appear to have severely frostbitten flesh covered in gnaw-marks, but often seem indifferent to such things despite the fact that the damage should be crippling. Considered on occasion the most "honourable" of the inhuman factions. Battle tactics revolve around hit and run and harrying methods, designed to slowly pick away at strength and morale. Avatar model is the Wendigo, which appears to be composed of animate ice capable of varying colouration from black to transparent, making it extremely stealthy when need-be.
Note: Rumours persist of a rebel faction even more degenerate and harder to kill than the standard Northmen, who none-the-less seem to hate the Northmen with a passion. Tactics reminscent of World War I Triple Entente stormtrooper... **Data sealed by order of Colonel West**

Nameless- Controlling the vast majority of the West Coast, they extend from Baja California in the south, to Vancouver in the north, and as far east as Salt Lake City. Considered powerful for their size, they have managed to keep the barracudas from invading from the sea by sheer military strength alone. So vile that the RNA and Northmen have been known to temporarily ally during single battles if the Nameless are present as well, the Nameless are born of the collusion of several cults that festered amongst the wealthy living on the West Coast. Preaching the utter nihilism of existence, they seek the absolute destruction of all things civilized, going so far as to abolish the use of names amongst their members. Indulging in every decadent, hedonistic whim, they turn ever city they conquer into a celebration of the Seven Deadly Sins, with LA and Los Vegas being considered particularly hellish pits of lust and violence. While they have technology rivalling the RNA, inherited from all the tech industries located in their territory, they seem to enjoy intentionally misusing it. Most notably, when given the choice between fusion and fission, and fission and hydrocarbon fuels, they invariably choose the method that uses up the scarcer resource and causes more pollution, preaching, "We must destroy the resources now so that our children can never use them!". Most terrible of all though, is their use of various techniques, brands, and symbols to forcibly convert their enemies to their cause, a tactic they can actively use on the battlefield with devastating results. However, this is also a great tactical weakness as they tend towards human wave assaults and overwhelming their enemies with hordes of screaming fanatics that may have only hours ago been allies, methods that good commanders can cut to pieces relatively easy so long as they keep firm control over their men and the battlefield. Avatar model used is the King in Yellow, noted for being the first model of Avatar on the planet, eerie floating figures shrouded in yellow silk and projecting particularly powerful Nightmare Fields, using weaponry designed to break down the enemy's body or morale.

Barracudas- They have no official name, just the slang term for their horrid creatures that make up the core of this faction along with insane worshippers of the same gods. Attacking nearly everywhere at once twenty-five years ago, they overran the East Coast of the United States and were only pushed back into the ocean for a short time when the US used its own nuclear weapons to turn its cities into glass parking lots, an attack that probably lowered the barracuda population world-wide by 25%, stalling invasions on all fronts and buying humanity some time to get to cover, so to speak. With global reach, the only coast lines in North America they don't control are either ice bound in the north, or under the iron grip of the Nameless in the west, and they have gained most of North and South American over the years. It is presumed that they also have Britian and most of Europe, all of Oceania, much of India, and all of Japan under their control, although rumours persist that in Britain and Japan there are still pockets of resistance in the mountainous regions. It also goes almost without saying that they have total sea domination. Manufacturing capacity is huge if disperse and under-utilized, and the barracudas are noted for their skilled craftsmanship, most notably that even without Nightmare Shields their tanks still only have a 1:3 kill ratio against RNA tanks on an even battlefield, meaning the normally outnumbered RNA forces usually have no hope of attacking a position defended by the barracudas as the historical 3:1 advantage for defenders puts them at parity where numbers win out in the end. Tactics seem to vary heavily from commander to commander, but they seem to prefer WW2 style tactics of manuever along with overwhelming numbers. Perhaps as an indicator of their strength, they have two models of Avatars, the Dagon which looks like a ten metre tall version of a barracuda and the Hydra which has three draconic heads, along with a strange Avatar-like species of creature called Squids, which are notoriously hard to kill seeing as they are capable of feats of reintegration that standard physics say are impossible.

[Big Orange]

Apart from the organised rape camps, what is like living under the fishy barracudas? I imagine it is a more puritanical version of the Nameless realm, with most humans living in slavery and even barracuda living in a semi-primitive condition; in many ways the barracuda are seemingly a cross between Tolkien Elves and Orcs, although I wonder if they can be turned from their "gods" in the same way the Jaffa can be turned from the Gou'ld...

[Singular Quartet]

Apart from the organised rape camps, what is like living under the fishy barracudas? I imagine it is a more puritanical version of the Nameless realm, with most humans living in slavery and even barracuda living in a semi-primitive condition; in many ways the barracuda are seemingly a cross between Tolkien Elves and Orcs, although I wonder if they can be turned from their "gods" in the same way the Jaffa can be turned from the Gou'ld...

I imagine that the Barracuda/Deep Ones make the Jaffa look like fucking UUs. I mean, not only is their god there, but he's real, towering hellish monster who will eat you, and can turn creatures into jibbering crazies.

[Academia Nut]

Conditions under the barracudas vary from territory to territory, depending upon how thick the Deep Ones are on the ground and who the local governers are. Generally you can think of it as a mishmash of the worst parts of theocratic Iran, Stalinist Russia, and the worst African hellholes, with perhaps a touch of medieval Europe for spice. Generally, most people worship Cthulhu although the sheer numbers of people involved means that the fervour isn't as intense as the cultists of the past. Still, intense worship is sort of like belonging to the Party in the Soviet Union, in that can improve your situation as you climb the social ladder. Not showing enough deference can get you dragged off as a human sacrifice, although just being in the wrong place when a roving band of worshippers show up looking for blood can be just as bad.

In general, the human population are not slaves per se except for in places where the Deep Ones have settled like the Louisiana plantations. Rather, they are the workers in the factory kept there by fear of the outside world. The governers have gone to great lengths to ensure that the debilitating mental effects of the wasteland are cultivated to produce a population that is more afraid of the rest of the world than their overlords. As the first generation to be born completely into this nightmare world matures, many long term plans have begun to come to fruition, for this world is all they know, and a different one is impossible for them to conceive of.

The higher ups, usually the former cult leaders, tend to live quite well, perhaps not as well as they once did, but still good enough that we would not sneer at their living conditions. Most of the human controlled areas are in the ruins of the East Coast of the United States, where the radiation and general drying of the climate from the nuclear attacks has driven the Deep Ones to the more comfortable swamps of the South. While they still have a presence, so long as there is a steady stream of goods, weapons, and soldiers, the Deep Ones tend not to care what the governors there do. This region of control is probably the "best" territory in North America under their control for humans, while the worst is the South, where slaves serve to build horrid palaces for their masters and serve as a means of population growth and occasionally as little more than livestock.

[Big Orange]

Barracuda-ville sounds very misrable and dull, I rather take my chances with the Nameless Ones if they know how to party hard.

The technical specs on AFVs and military aircraft could be interesting if the barracuda could field slightly better MBTs than the very technically advanced Republic of North America and Nameless factions (the Northmen must be fairly advanced too if they have access to Russian, Canadian and Scandinavian industrial assets).