The Open Door (megacrossover)

[Crayz9000]

At a guess, I'd say its the Pirates Compass. The Golden Compass is a little more complex than that, but I have no idea about the Compass movie.

It's definitely the pirate's compass, since that always points to your heart's greatest desire. The Golden Compass only allowed one to determine the true meaning of something.

[Academia Nut]

I can't believe none of you have made any "The Emperor is an immortal Jack Sparrow!" jokes, because while he's not, the image is rather hilarious.

And yeah, the compass is the PotC compass.

[holyknight]

I can't believe none of you have made any "The Emperor is an immortal Jack Sparrow!" jokes, because while he's not, the image is rather hilarious.

And yeah, the compass is the PotC compass.

Methinks that Sparrow it's more likely to be one of the oldest, and most unruly spawn of the, by then, the Shaman in question. Otherwise one can't explain his sheer luck and skill to save his own ass even on the direst of the messes that he got so often...

[Robo Jesus]

I can't believe none of you have made any "The Emperor is an immortal Jack Sparrow!" jokes, because while he's not, the image is rather hilarious.

Quite a few people I show that quote to all seem to agree with you on that. The image of Jack Sparrow as the GEoM is funny. Lightning_Count wrote a snippit even.

Jack- Well see here'z the thing, I am, well, I'm a bit like a god.
Will- God of what exactly? Certainly not hairdressers.
Jack- Az it happens I'm not actually like a god, but in point of fact just god.
Will- You? You are the almighty?
Jack- Yeah, ain't it grand?
Will- They send crusades against people like you.
Jack- And apparently for me, I feel so special. Hey, how about this, I'm going to turn water into rum!
Will- Which water?
Jack- Err...all of it, oceans of rum! And wenches, remind me about the wenches after I do the rum thing.
Will- I don't believe this! You are not god!
Jack- Thatz alright, thatz alright my child. I forgive you. Come closer.
Will- Why? You still haven't cleaned your teeth.
Jack- A god does not floss. Its a perk, I can get away with anything. Now come here so I can lay my hands upon you.
Will- Not a bloody chance!
Jack- Yeah, alright then.... Mind if I lay my hands on yer wife?

[holyknight]

...........It passed a Week....so with a LOT of luck, we'll have AN showing up something near the end of the week.........

PS: British...Invasion??? (palms Face)...........


....hehehehehehe...hhahahahaha...BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA......how i didn't saw it before? Tzintchi's insertion wouldn't be related to certain chap nicknamed....Zero???

[Academia Nut]

So I'm back. I had most of a chapter written out with the good old pen and paper... but then I realized that it would be much better if I did it another way. So maybe Friday there will be an update.

Code Geass is not part of the British Invasion. That series requires special care and attention. Plus I'm tempted to just wait until the damn thing is over with so that the writers can't throw a... would a fastball count as a curveball in this series seeing as there seems to be nothing but curveballs and odder at this point?

[White Haven]

Man, as crazy as this stuff is, a one-dimensional construct would curve.

[Aranfan]

I wonder how Chaos will react to Subaru, robot that she is.

[Singular Quartet]

My brain keeps asking what would happen if our new Chaos gods sunk their teeth in the Megaman Universe. Subverting the Maverick virus? Building an army of Reploid Masters armed with bolters, blasters, whatever the handheld fusion pistol is called (I forget off the top of my head. Melta something?), and whatever wily-esque elemental weirdness weapon that they're given (See every damn fire character. All of them.)

It'd be so easy, really. Megaman has his peace-kick that eventually sends him over the edge. Zero was starting to lose his mind by X4 or X5, but I suppose he'd be a pain in the ass to kill since Wily keeps dragging him back from the dead until you can subvert Wily himself. Or you could just start with Wily, I suppose... Hell, start from the begining, subvert Light, and just build legions of robot masters... so many ways to corrupt, so little time.

[Mutant Headcrab]

My brain keeps asking what would happen if our new Chaos gods sunk their teeth in the Megaman Universe. Subverting the Maverick virus? Building an army of Reploid Masters armed with bolters, blasters, whatever the handheld fusion pistol is called (I forget off the top of my head. Melta something?), and whatever wily-esque elemental weirdness weapon that they're given (See every damn fire character. All of them.)

It'd be so easy, really. Megaman has his peace-kick that eventually sends him over the edge. Zero was starting to lose his mind by X4 or X5, but I suppose he'd be a pain in the ass to kill since Wily keeps dragging him back from the dead until you can subvert Wily himself. Or you could just start with Wily, I suppose... Hell, start from the begining, subvert Light, and just build legions of robot masters... so many ways to corrupt, so little time.

Going with Wily and the original line of robots would be incredibly awesome. I can imagine it already: Cut Man spilling blood for the Blood God, Snake Man and Needle Man finding brand new service under the Princess of Pleasure, and Tzintchi finding great amusement with Pharaoh Man.

Not sure what Reigle would go for other than Skull Man. I've got the feeling that actual robots might not be her thing.

[Singular Quartet]

My brain keeps asking what would happen if our new Chaos gods sunk their teeth in the Megaman Universe. Subverting the Maverick virus? Building an army of Reploid Masters armed with bolters, blasters, whatever the handheld fusion pistol is called (I forget off the top of my head. Melta something?), and whatever wily-esque elemental weirdness weapon that they're given (See every damn fire character. All of them.)

It'd be so easy, really. Megaman has his peace-kick that eventually sends him over the edge. Zero was starting to lose his mind by X4 or X5, but I suppose he'd be a pain in the ass to kill since Wily keeps dragging him back from the dead until you can subvert Wily himself. Or you could just start with Wily, I suppose... Hell, start from the begining, subvert Light, and just build legions of robot masters... so many ways to corrupt, so little time.

Going with Wily and the original line of robots would be incredibly awesome. I can imagine it already: Cut Man spilling blood for the Blood God, Snake Man and Needle Man finding brand new service under the Princess of Pleasure, and Tzintchi finding great amusement with Pharaoh Man.

Not sure what Reigle would go for other than Skull Man. I've got the feeling that actual robots might not be her thing.

I think the various wood and planet men could be subverted to her. Just convert them to some sort of fungal nightmare monsters.

[holyknight]

I wonder how Chaos will react to Subaru, robot that she is.

Subaru ain't a full robot, but a Cyborg...meaning that she has a soul, and the bits what men(And Teana Lanstar) generally enjoy. What she has robotic enhancements what make look a SPARTAN-II like a weakling, she it's also pretty much like any human on what counts, and vulnerable to corruption by Chaos........


PS: We saw the reactions from Tzeentch, Leman Russ, that Harlequin Troupe, and a PMS-ing, without Midol or Chocolate, Eldar Farseer.........

What would have happened with a certain Dark Eldar, now on Commorragh??? For not talking of the upcoming chat between the Inquisitor and the Blood Angels??

And Nanoha, likely saw the world where she left Vita, turned into a glass ball.....and the first seeds are planted....

[Academia Nut]

Chapter Twenty-Two: In Medias Res

Picard sat quietly, picking over the remnants of the Chaos base and examining the various artefacts with an archaeologist’s trained eye. The pragmatic part of him was trying to say that this would give the Federation valuable insights into a dangerous culture that could help them to better understand them in any future encounters.

The rest of him said that he was trying to run and hide, metaphorically, from the memories of what had happened.

Still, looking at the various bits and pieces left behind by a year’s worth of habitation and a rapid evacuation, Picard did not think that understanding these people was possible. As far as he could tell, they had created the so-called “Year of Chaos” for fun.

What an awful, terrible year it had been for the Federation. First the Stiletto had shown up in the Damocles nebula, then the war with the Dominion had broken out, and then the Borg had shown up again! The only silver lining was that the Stiletto had aggravated the Cardassians as equally as the Federation and when the Dominion had blitzed through the wormhole their first order of business was to try and clear up the biggest threat to their operations: the only ship in the quadrant capable of moving undetected and at unimaginable speed.

Well, the fact that the Borg had been largely uninterested in the Federation this time around was also something that many had counted their blessings on, but the fact was that the greatest threat to the existence of the Federation had successfully established a route to the Alpha Quadrant.

Emphasis on had. Those that followed Chaos seemed to enjoy simply fighting and the Borg had been quite thoroughly kicked out of the Alpha Quadrant. For now. Of course, they would probably be back, especially since they had no idea that their target had disappeared to parts unknown.

Sighing, Picard shook his head to try and banish the wool gathering tendencies and to focus upon the inscriptions he had gathered from one of the temples, trying to decipher the underlying meaning. The language itself was terrifyingly in a form of English, but it was filled with confusing metaphors and paradoxes. Just like the people in general he supposed.

These people had access to technology that made the Borg drool, and yet they often used it intentionally in archaic and primitive ways. For example, the inscription he was reading had been, according to analysis of debris, carved by hand into the stone wall using polylaminate titanium-steel chisels with diamond edges, and wooden hammers. The chisels were absolute overkill considering the fact that the hammers and muscle power had been the limiting fact, and for the fine work required the sort of industrial grade system that would have actually found such a chisel useful would have not worked.

The worst bit was that they had apparently made the chisels on site because they also had fusion cutters capable of better precision work at a higher speed elsewhere.

It was almost as if they enjoyed a certain degree of inefficiency. So far the best hypothesis was that the one who had made the chisels had quite simply been showing off.

Of course, showing off appeared to be a major part of the culture of these people. Again, with these inscriptions, there were accompanying pictures to depict what was happening, and as the process had gone on at least two of the artists had got into some sort of bizarre contest where they tried to increase the baroque grotesqueness of their work.

The overall story was apparently a creation one, and it was highly unpleasant, although considering some of the other things they had found, just being unpleasant was actually a high point. It detailed the rise and fall of entire pantheons of gods and the people that worshipped them, and all of them seemed to be extraordinarily evil. One set, called Star Vampires, apparently ate stars for sustenance, people for pleasure, and had apparently killed everyone who worshipped them and turned them into walking corpses. They were at war with a number of different pantheons, who were in turn at war with each other. Every one of these gods seemed to demand the sacrifice of sentient life, except for a pair mentioned in passing that seemed to just enjoy breaking things. There was also vague mention of a Great Devourer that had been trying to kill and eat everything in its path before the end came.

At that point the story got weird. Apparently the Star Vampires had been on the verge of victory when all of the other gods had put aside their differences long enough to destroy the world, including themselves, before reincarnating into four mortals, who were now the current gods worshipped by Chaos, but apparently they had aspects of all the others as well.

It was a long, bloody, violent story that told of many, many great ages that had come crashing down due to the actions of others. Picard had the feeling that these people were a splinter colony of another group who had run to escape a devastating war. Various comments during the brief moments of communication with them indicated that they had very recently gone through a phase of great suffering.

But that didn’t make sense! This was a rich, complex mythology filled with strange symbolism that indicated roots in a pre-FTL civilization, and yet these people had technology far in advance of the Borg. They should not have incorporated recent events into their mythology; they should have already known that there were no such things as gods.

“Oh, are there now?” A familiar voice said behind Picard.

Whirling about a touch too quickly, Picard winced and clutched at his still healing right arm before hissing out, “Q!”

Wearing a more typical Starfleet uniform than the last time they had met, the trickster alien said, “So charged, mon capitaine. I must say that I am impressed with your actions a month ago. Very clever. Very noble. It took a great deal of courage to do what you did, and I salute you for that.”

“And it also led to me being trapped here,” Picard said while waving with his still healthy left arm to the dimly lit storage room where he had taken up residence, rummaging through the abandoned bins for the ration packs that had been left behind.

“If it comforts you any, you saved a great number of lives. I mean, from my perspective you all live about the same length of time as cockroaches so a decade or two here or there seems all rather inconsequential,” Q said before lounging on one of the pallets.

Frowning, Picard was about to say something when he suddenly thought about what was happening. Glaring at Q, he said, “You would not come here to mock me while I wait for the life support of this base to run down, that’s not your style. You like to taunt me, but you always have some sort of lesson in store.”

“Moi?” Q said with clearly fake offence. “Trying to teach you primitive apes anything is quite beneath me, and I must sadly say, above even my considerable talents. Of course, since you seem to occasionally get lucky and learn a lesson, even if it was not one intended, I suppose I could ‘throw you a bone’, as the colloquialism delightfully goes.”

Getting up, Q picked up a statuette Picard had been studying, cast from bronze and allowed to develop a bright green patina. It featured an ethereal young woman coiled about a gigantic warrior in sexual embrace. Smiling wryly, he said, “This statuette has bothered you since you saw it, and not in the same way that some of the symbols in this place hurt your eyes. There is something about it that you cannot quite place, something familiar.”

Picard glanced at it and admitted, “Yes, there is.”

“What part of it picks at your brain, like a scratch on the roof of your mouth?” Q asked.

Taking the idol from the alien entity, Picard looked it over once more before he said, “It is the warrior. It is like I have seen him before.”

“You have. When you pulled the little stunt that got you stuck here, you saw him in the halls,” Q explained.

Picard blinked and looked at the statue again. Yes, he had seen a face like that, but the man it had been attached to…

“It was that man who was nearly twice my height!” Picard cried out. He then remembered where he had found the statuette. It had been in a secluded cave, far too small for that giant to have ever been.

“Bingo. This is an icon featuring him and his wife, ahem, consummating their marriage,” Q explained.

“Curious. I had thought that this was a fertility icon when I first discovered it, but-” Picard began.

“Actually, it’s not a fertility icon. It’s a contraceptive icon,” Q corrected.

Blinking, Picard said, “I suppose that does explain why there were unused barrier contraceptives scattered about it, but that while I can see a tribal society picking a great warrior to serve as the inspiration for fertility, I can’t see them turning a living warrior into a contraceptive icon. Of course, a tribal association doesn’t make much sense for these people as not only do they possess technology in advance of our own, but they show clear evidence of knowing how to maintain and even adapt what they already have to new uses, which implies that they should have a more advanced social model.”

“What if they do have a more advanced social model and they do know what they are doing. What if I told you that the contraceptive idol you carry was constructed by a society that had long ago discovered the scientific method and in fact had already excised itself of the majority of its superstitions,” Q asked, somewhat mockingly.

Frowning, Picard considered the question before him. Finally he began talking, more to himself than to Q. “Everything produced by sentient life must have some purpose, even if that purpose is immediately, or even ultimately, useful from the perspective of an outsider. Typically something such as this would have religious or spiritual or ritual purpose. The shape of its construction leads to the idea of being somehow associated with sexual activity. The fact that it was found in association with contraceptives lends credence to the idea of the idol being believed to somehow enhance the power of such items. However, since one of the subjects is living, therefore his presence is either an invocation or a mocking, while…”

Picard paused, winced at his own stupidity, and he asked, “The woman is one being invoked, isn’t she?”

Smiling wryly, Q replied, “That took longer than I had come to expect from you Picard, for shame.”

Examining the idol once more, Picard said, “She has certain… ethereal qualities despite being cast from bronze. Could it be that she is the dead wife of an honoured warrior and her presence in the idol is meant to represent the undying love between them while also indicating that conception is impossible?”

Shrugging, Q replied, “It might be something like that, but your thinking is still so limited, seeing everything as if the culture that had made that statuette was less advanced socially than yours, despite the fact that they are clearly more advanced technologically.”

“With all their barbarism and superstitious behaviour that makes it hard to believe. While the Federation has full freedom of religion and culture, these people wage war as if their gods had given them direct orders to do so…” Picard trailed off as Q’s grin became wider.

“There are no gods!” Picard demanded.

“What about those with omnipotent, or near omnipotent in the case of some, power? What if they let others call upon them for aid, what if they gave orders to those that followed them? Would they not meet the traditional requirements of deities?” Q asked mockingly.

“Those beings are not true gods; they are just those with greater understanding of the universe abusing the power they have obtained. I have met such creatures before, including you Q, and to a one they are all charlatans and liars,” Picard replied angrily.

Slapping his right hand to his chest, Q said mockingly, “You wound me Picard! To think that I thought so highly of you, relatively speaking of course, and you still do not see what is in front of you. Who said that they lie?”

Picard blinked, and then looked down at the copy of the inscription he had been studying before Q’s arrival, and felt a chill pass over him. He now knew so much more about what they were facing.

“The powers of Chaos… the gods that these people worship… they were ordinary people up until recently, weren’t they?” Picard asked.

“It is what the inscription said,” Q replied with a shrug.

“Ordinary people suddenly imbued with incredible power from highly destructive and predatory beings,” Picard continued.

“One more step mon capitaine,” Q urged.

“And instead of preying upon the remnants of their people, they instead help them while making them equally predatory. They possess incredible powers and understanding of the universe, and they share it with their worshippers while commanding them to go forth and conquer. They are… they are worse than the Borg. Most every other time we have encountered an ascended race they have ignored us, but this sort of encounter…” Picard trailed off.

“They literally see you all as target practice, nothing more,” Q stated. “If they want to, they can conquer the entire galaxy within a few centuries and make sure that they rule for the rest of eternity,” Q stated grimly.

“How can we stop them?” Picard asked desperately.

“We can’t. Even the Continuum does not wish to attack their gods directly, as while we might win on our turf they have demonstrated an ability to carry grudges capable of outlasting cosmoses. You however might be able to use your new insights in some surprising ways,” Q replied.

“Oh and how will I use these insights trapped down here?” Picard asked irritably.

Q raised his hand and said, “You don’t even need to worship me for this one.”

He then snapped his fingers and both he and Picard disappeared in a flash.

[Gerald Tarrant]

...except for a pair mentioned in passing that seemed to just enjoy breaking things.

Gork and Mork? or is it Mork and Gork?

[holyknight]

Talk about a brain-blowing revelation for Picard......i'm guessing that he's going to cause one heck pf a ruckus, no?

And, HOW exactly ended he on that situation???

[LadyTevar]

Yes, I'd like to know just what Picard did to get into that situation.

[Darmalus]

Alright! The Star Trek chapters are my favorites. Here's hoping for more. I would also like to request a bit more detail on the Year of Chaos, it sounds like so much fun! Well, fun if your a Khornate beserker.

[Academia Nut]

Well, your frustration over how Picard got where he is would be why I called the chapter "In Medias Res". Basically, I didn't want to go from one gigantic fight scene to another, so I'm going to show you the aftermath and work backwards towards the fight, letting you know that something awesome happened but not actually telling you what until that exact point.

Ain't I a stinker?

[Singular Quartet]

Well, your frustration over how Picard got where he is would be why I called the chapter "In Medias Res". Basically, I didn't want to go from one gigantic fight scene to another, so I'm going to show you the aftermath and work backwards towards the fight, letting you know that something awesome happened but not actually telling you what until that exact point.

Ain't I a stinker?

Yes. Yes you are.

[Academia Nut]

The teasing shall continue!

Chapter Twenty-three: Lost

“Where in the Warp are we?” Rong-Arya asked while unsteadily climbing back into her seat, the deck gravity pitched at an odd angle making it rather hard to move properly.

“Sensors indicate that we are no longer in the Warp,” Lieutenant Xavier reported.

“Okay, then where are we, in general?” Rong-Arya asked somewhat irritably while examining the restraining harness for her chair. She had only managed to get it partially buckled up when they had made their violent transition to the Warp, so the clasp had torn free. A regular human would have been killed on impact after such a violent event, but as a daemonhost Rong-Arya wasn’t even bruised.

“Unknown, the spin of the ship is preventing us from getting a clear look at the stars,” Xavier replied.

“Well then stop the damn ship from spinning!” The captain snapped irately.

“Engines are in full shut down, and full reports have yet to come in from the engine room. Cold starting the Gellar field has also overloaded numerous systems, but circuit breakers are being reset and fuses are being replaced as we speak. The surge did overload a few systems before the circuits broke, hence the lovely blue smoke, but surge protectors protected all systems we can’t easily replace,” Striker reported.

“Estimated time to engine restart?” Rong-Arya asked.

“Optimistically? Half an hour. The fact that we’re not being smeared into a fine paste by the spin means that the inertial compensators are still up and running, so damage was not too severe. Realistically though, we’re looking at just sitting here doing damage control for hours, days if you want me to be pessimistic,” Striker said.

Frowning, Rong-Arya said, “Keep me updated then.”


“Would you look at the size of that frakker?” Kara ‘Starbuck’ Thrace said in a low whistle as she kept her Viper in guardian formation with the Raptor doing the bulk of the recon work on this mysterious ship that had appeared on in deep space three light seconds from the battered Colonial fleet.

“Laser range finding indicates that it’s about 2.3 km from bow to stern, but whoever built it certainly isn’t home anymore. It’s making a rotation along its axis central about once every ten seconds, more than enough to pulp anyone unfortunate enough to be inside the majority of it. Surprised it hasn’t ripped itself apart yet,” Sharon ‘Athena’ Agathon reported.

“I’m kind of glad of that. The frakking thing looks… well, evil I suppose would be the best term,” Starbuck noted as they flew beneath the enormous ship as it drifted through space.

“Insane is probably a better word for it. That thing on the front? It’s a ram prow if I’m looking at it right and it has chunks of debris stuck to it meaning that it has been used recently,” Athena replied.

“A ram prow? What the frak is this, a frakking joke?” Starbuck asked incredulously.

“If it’s a joke it’s the weirdest frakking one I have seen ever. I mean, some of these telemetry contacts don’t make any sense. I’m reading things that are either fighter launch tubes or gun ports. And I’m thinking they’re gun ports because the smallest things that actually look like guns are bigger than the main guns on the Galactica,” Athena replied.

“Are you trying to tell me that this thing has frakking point defence guns bigger than our main guns?” Starbuck asked.

“Hey, I’m just reading off the telemetry here. Huh… looks like a may have found the main hangar,” Athena said, growing quizzical towards the end.

“Can it hold the frakking Galactica?” Kara asked sarcastically.

“Actually, no. I think it has less hangar space than we do. I’m guessing it’s not a dedicated carrier,” Sharon replied.

“Think we can get anything useful out of it?” Starbuck asked.

“Maybe if we could get it to stop spinning, but otherwise its just going to drift here forever, with no one able to get inside without going squish,” Athena said with a verbal shrug at the end.

“What about the toasters?” Starbuck asked.

“They’ll go crunch then. If it has joints, the G-forces will take it apart. It’s impossible for anything to survive for long in there,” Sharon said confidently.


“Huh… Captain, at first I thought it was an anomaly in the antennas, but we are definitely being scanned with radar and range finding lasers,” Xavier reported.

“Really?” Rong-Arya asked, perking up and going into full combat mode. “Hostile?”

Shrugging, Xavier said, “Hard to say, but the search patterns are fairly lazy and the energy output a touch low so I’m guessing it’s a targeting system being used for survey. I could be wrong though.”

“Lieutenant O’Hare, begin wide band radio hailing. Let’s see if there is anyone to talk to out there,” Rong-Arya commanded.


Athena looked at her telemetry display. She looked at it again. She double checked with her ECO, who was the one doing the scanning work directly. Finally she said, “That’s frakking impossible.”

“What?” Starbuck asked over the radio, which was picking up some interference.

“The ship is trying to talk to us,” Sharon replied in astonishment and horror.

“I thought you said that was impossible!” Starbuck cried out.

“It is! It’s spinning too fast for anything living or mechanical to still be functioning. Frak, the antennas broadcasting the signal should have been ripped off their mounts! But I’m picking up a frakking transmission,” Athena cried out in frustration.

“What’s it say?” Starbuck asked.

“I have no idea, its gibberish. Definitely a language, but not one I can make out,” Athena said. “Here, let me contact Galactica, see if they want us to reply.”


“Picking up radio transmission from one of the targets to a location beyond our current resolution in this spin,” O’Hare reported. “Decryption protocol has already broken through their key… their computer technology would have been considered laughable back before Third Impact if that’s what the call encryption.”

“Contents?” Rong-Arya asked.

“Unknown language… possibly derived from Greek. Running it through the universal translator,” O’Hare replied, grinning as he interfaced the computer with the best piece of technology they had taken from the Federation. Rule one of interstellar diplomacy: develop good guns before you develop fancy toys or the first guys you meet might take those toys from you instead of talking.

Listening in on the conversation for a moment, O’Hare said, “Looks like they’re asking their superiors for what to do. Should we butt in?”

Rong-Arya considered for a moment before saying, “Patch us in.”

O’Hare’s grin nearly managed to equal his captain’s.


Admiral Adama had been listening patiently to Athena going on about impossible ships, as if finding a monster bigger than a battlestar drifting and spinning in deep space wasn’t impossible enough, but now she was saying that it had somehow started transmitting despite the fact that it should be impossible. Sighing patiently, he was about to ask if she had considered the possibility of automated systems when something impossible happened.

“Attention unidentified vessel, please state your affiliation and purpose for approaching our ship,” a deep voice, oddly affected by reverb asked over the channel.

Everyone on the bridge paused for a moment before Adama asked, “Unknown contact, this is a secure Colonial military channel. Please identify yourself and what you are doing on it.”

“We asked first, and this channel is not secure to us,” the voice replied, causing a thrill of fear to jump through everyone. The Cylons could crack their codes, but it took time. Time that that should not have been available.

“The channel was encrypted, and I don’t care who you are, you had to have deliberately cracked into it,” Adama countered.

“Fine, so you have us. We are Captain Rong-Arya of the Stiletto, the ship you are currently examining. So now we ask again, who are you and what are you doing here?” The voice said.

Adama did not recognize the name of the ship as it was in a foreign language, or at least he thought he didn’t recognize it because he thought that he heard a word that sounded like ‘stiletto’, in which case it was the worst ship name ever if given to a monster like that.

“Captain, I am Admiral William Adama of the Galactica and the Colonial Fleet. As the duly appointed military leader of these people, it is my responsibility to know whether or not you constitute a threat to us,” Adama stated.

“Oh, we very much represent a threat to you, in the same way that a whale represents a threat to a minnow. Now, if you mean an active threat, well, that very much depends on whether or not you decide to start shooting at us,” Rong-Arya replied.

Frowning, Adama said, “You’ll find that I prefer to finish fights rather than start them.”

“We’re sure you do,” Rong-Arya said somewhat derisively. “Now, we might as well ask this, but do you know where exactly we are? And we mean star coordinate wise. We’re a little lost.”

“I would rather not disclose that information at this time,” Adama retorted.

“Fine. How about the way to Earth, if you’ve heard of it? That would help us orient ourselves enormously,” Rong-Arya asked.

The bridge held its collective breath for a moment, hoping against hope for the next words to be all their dreams come true. Thinking very carefully, Adama asked, “Why do you want to know the way to Earth.”

“Its home,” Rong-Arya said.


“Ow! The channel just exploded into shouting,” O’Hare said while wincing at the input into his neural jacks.

“I guess they were looking for Earth,” Rong-Arya said with a shrug.


Once Tigh managed to get the bridge crew to settle down with his cyclopean stare, Adama cleared his throat and said, “I will admit that we too are looking for Earth, but we don’t actually know where it is.”

Sighing, Rong-Arya said, “So much for doing things the easy way then. We’ll have to slow down our spin and orient by the stars before trying to get off a signal.”

Frowning, Adama asked, “About that, my officers say that you should be spinning too fast to survive. How exactly are you doing that?”

“The spin is only about 70-80 Gs in the worst places, easily compensated for,” Rong-Arya replied.

“What do you mean ‘compensated for’?” Adama asked.

“As in we have inertial compensators that keep us all from going squish when we engage our main drives or go through manoeuvres,” Rong-Arya replied.

“You have this technology?” Adama inquired.

“It’s pretty fundamental. A ship can’t pull 10,000 Gs without some form of inertial compensation. By the way, thanks for telling us you don’t have that sort of thing,” Rong-Arya said laconically.

Mentally smacking himself, Adama replied, “Thank you for telling us the acceleration specs of your ship.”

“Not bad, although just by looking at your fighters I think we can outrun your missiles from a dead start. Anyway, as a denizen of Earth, I suppose I should ask you why you are looking for it,” Rong-Arya replied.

“I do not want to disclose that information to you at this time,” Adama replied.

“Alright then. Oh, you might want to tell your people to stand clear, my conn officer just informed me that we can use our retros to slow down our rate of spin,” Rong-Arya said. “We will fire our engines in 60 of the units represented by the time between these two beeps.” There was then a set of two computer generated beeps one after the other.

“Athena, Starbuck, get away from that ship now,” Adama ordered, and the two pilots rapidly agreed.

A few light seconds away the nose of Stiletto was consumed in blue white fire as one of the retro-thrusters fired counter to the direction of spin. To the Galactica it looked like the ship had just detonated a city-buster nuke right next to its bow.

“What was that?” Adama cried out.

“Our engines… ah, much better. Hmmm… damn, we are off course!” Rong-Arya commented.

“What?” Adama asked.

“My navigation officer just ran an analysis of the stars against our catalogue, and we are on the wrong side of the galaxy from Earth. This’ll take a day or two to sort out,” Rong-Arya answered.

The wrong side of the galaxy? Damn it!

“Hmmm… nice ship. You guys do good construction… for what you have to work with anyway. A bit battered though. The battle scars look nice, but you could definitely use some time in a dry-dock,” Rong-Arya commented out of the blue.

“You were scanning us,” Adama asked while glaring at his own sensors officers, who all threw up their hands in confusion. They had not detected any active scanners.

“A bit. Tell me admiral, how many refugees do you have aboard those ships?” Rong-Arya asked.

“For the safety of my people I refuse to disclose such information,” Adama replied firmly.

“Oh. Well, I just asked because Earth is a little empty after a series of nasty incidents, so we could probably use the extra people, especially if you have knowledge of building, maintaining, and living aboard space-based objects,” Rong-Arya replied, before adding on, “Oh, and so you know, I broadcast that last statement on an open civilian channel as well as this military one.”

Adama blinked before he felt a touch of rage well within him. He demanded, “What are you trying to do?”

“Sow a little chaos, that’s all. Maybe now that the cat is out of the bag you’ll be willing to talk a little more openly with me.”

“What. Do. You. Want?” Adama hissed.

“I want to learn things Admiral; it is what my original mission was about. So I want to know why you are the only warship, and a battered one at that, in a refugee convoy looking for Earth,” Rong-Arya asked.

Glaring at the microphone as if he could cause the voice on the other end to spontaneously combust, Adama admitted, “A race of robots called the Cylons, who I presume you haven’t heard about, attacked our worlds and killed billions. We’re almost all that is left, with a few scattered survivors being enslaved by the Cylons.”

“Interesting… see, now that you’ve told me that, I, as a former refugee myself, will now offer to bring you back to Earth and personally eviscerate any Cylon that dares come near you. We won’t come back for you, so it’s a limited time offer, but I think it’s a pretty good deal. We protect you, bring you to our home where we have plenty of living space and need more people, and generally everyone wins,” Rong-Arya offered.

Adama was taken aback by this sudden change in mood, but he quickly regained his footing and said, “That sounds very generous of you, but I hope you won’t be offended if I have to pass such a decision off to the civilian government and point out that we don’t really know you and we have reason to be paranoid.”

“Ha! It’s not paranoia if they really are out to get you! Don’t worry about it, we’re not a group used to having people swoon over us right away… running screaming in abject terror, but we’re really a bunch of softies under all the armour plating and spikes,” Rong-Arya said, causing everyone on the bridge of the Galactica to look a little worried.

“You’re not helping to sell your case here,” Adama pointed out.

“Look, it’s like this: the best way to win a fight is to never start it. If your enemies fear you so much that they wet their pants at the mere mention of your name, then it pays to have an ‘evil’ reputation. So in battle we’re all about the dismemberment and blood drinking and decorating ourselves in the skulls and flayed skins of our enemies, but we’re really quite nice to the conquered civilian populations. Imperialist as all fuck, but atomic wastelands don’t aid the war effort the same way as functioning factories and a population who have noted a rise in their standard of living since conquest do. Of course, we don’t explain it that way to most people because it takes a while and hampers our ability to scare people. You on the other hand, well; we want you to join us, so it behoves us to explain just what you’re getting into. In this case it will probably be warm beds, plentiful food, open skies, and government sponsorship to sit back, relax, and have lots of kids. Seriously, that’s the average life of a person on Earth. Oh sure, you have to work too, but it’s not the life of a refugee, I can tell you that,” Rong-Arya explained.

“You know, the last bit almost erased the first bit,” Adama said in disgust.

“Trust me, we’re not that bad. Also, we get lots of neat abilities. For instance, these Cylons you speak of will be arriving in thirty seconds. Our main reactor will not be online for… several hours. This will get interesting,” Rong-Arya said somewhat smugly.

[von Neufeld]

And nBSG gets frakked.
The question is: Are they all home from the same universe or not?

[holyknight]

And nBSG gets frakked.
The question is: Are they all home from the same universe or not?

Heh.....The Bio-Cylons are REALLY frakked, if Chaos manages to corrupt one of them, then kills it, to send the warp-infused soul into the Resurrection Ship. resulting on a cascade taint....

[Singular Quartet]

And nBSG gets frakked.
The question is: Are they all home from the same universe or not?

And are they carrying a supply of Federation refugees with them?

[LadyTevar]

Oh dear. This is going to get interesting.

[holyknight]

Oh dear. This is going to get interesting.

Ya THink!?