Mission Earth x Full Metal Panic! Crossover: Between a Rock and a Hard Place
A fan story loosely based on L Ron Hubbard’s Mission Earth, some stuff from D&D and the Anime Full Metal Panic!
By Blayne Bradley
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Notes on the story, the goal of the story is to take the settings of Mission Earth a ten volume setting that was some very funny satire of which I liked a few of its characters and generally liked the setting presented even though much of the details were muck and Full Metal Panic which I felt that there was a few things I felt would go well together. And finally because I like Dark Elves I threw a sort of D&D derivative of them in a bit of modern world building I came up with a year ago into this crossover as well because well I think they are cool and can solve my primary problem with Mission Earth.
The Voltair Confederacy in Mission Earth never seemed to have ever been in or will ever be in a war for its survival and I felt that if you strip away its Mary Suetopia from it is quite heinous in its (implied) crimes and felt it could use a good thrashing but on non rigged terms meaning I do not yet have an ending planned.
So the story will frame a war between the Ilythirian Republic and the Voltarian Confederacy the former is a spacefaring nation I made up and the latter is so obscure that no one will care what happens to it and gives me some liberty to fit certain vague or unrealistic aspects of them in their story to better fit my story.
The story I haven't planned out the details yet but I do plan to bring all three elements (the Ilythir, Mithril & Co, Jettero Heller & Soltan Gris and the rest of the V. Confederacy) together eventually and I'll try to speed it up along if it seems to be going slowly but I aim to have quite a bit of build up wars are never started just because someone got greedy or because group A met group B but because of a complex series of unfortunate events (pun) that conspires to cause the war just or unjust.
And question for future reference if I write a story in MS Word how do I copy it into here and yet keep the italics with the copy? This could be important, I've readded some now and will try to add any missing ones later, italics are meant for me to denote explicitly expressed thoughts while normal implicit thoughts are un-italics.
I will try to write as much as I have the energy for the next while and then probably settle to something around a biweekly or weekly release if feedback is encouraging.
Please I welcome constructive criticism and any questions that I will non spoilerishly try to answer.
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Chapter 1.
Aboard the Ilythiiri Interstellar Federal Republic Ship The Ithralochar 1947 C.E.
“Captain Cin’claer to the bridge please.” Buzzed the female announcer’s voice from the 1MC intercom in Cin’claer’s quarters rousing him from his impromptu nap with a start, cursing he got up palmed the door control panel and made his way to the bridge being a captain of a exploration starship was a mind numbingly boring profession most of the time and absurdly dangerous when it wasn’t so he spent most of his time playing games or napping. However this was his first and only command with the recent budget cuts after the end of the War so the Fleet has had to make do and make ends meet on a shoe string budget. A shoe string budget and yet expected to defend the interests and space lanes of an empire encompassing over a hundred worlds, it is ridiculous Cin’claer thought to himself as he made his way down the hallway. He passed by and saluted several officers and crewmen, the ship was over 50 years old and would have been decommissioned and scrapped if it hadn’t passed inspection from the Naval Corps of Engineers and it did pass so it was now his and barreling hundreds to thousands times c skipping past star systems previously explored and probed and heading deeper into uncharted space looking for habitable worlds to colonize. They were far out beyond the range of space telescopes to get accurate readings of star systems out here and doctrine had it that a manned spacecraft had to explore as it was felt that a probe wouldn’t cut it, not that Captain Cin’claer was complaining (loudly anyways) he did after all relished the chance to have his own ship rather than be stuck in the reserve officer pool on ‘indefinite leave’ or rolled back to a lower officer grade to serve as an XO to whatever officer outperformed him. So he jumped at the chance and now silently regretting it for it was boring out here, he was a military man, a professional he was trained to find the enemy and destroy it so utterly it could never pose a threat to his command ever again and here he was scanning down space dust for space bacteria or something trivial that he had no interest in.
“Captain on the bridge” spoke his XO; Commander Larae who to him she was always the impeccable stoic professional he thought, noticing that there wasn’t a single speck of dust on her uniform and her at ease posture was absolutely elegant as usual, a shame that mating with her would complicate the chain of command. Other male senior officers may have no trouble manipulating their female subordinates to keep their ambition sated but he didn’t think he had that skill, he was straight forward and had no patience for subtlety and she appeared to making the effort of being only the consummate professional, suddenly making it a sexual relationship might break her restraint and that would be a bad thing. A very bad thing he continued to think as he took his seat and buckled in, “Commander, sitrep?” he asked thinking why did you disturb my nap? He must have been making a face that betrayed his thoughts as she suddenly stiffened and reported “Commander our head Astronomer called for you he said it was urgent.” She said while was barely holding back a shrug, so he turned to the Astrophysics terminal on the bridge where the Astrophysicist Phaere Antriia had just turned to reluctantly tearing his eyes from the console to address the Captain. “Captain! This is amazing, we have discovered not just a habitable world in a area of space that even the Astrophysics Institute of New Ched Nasad didn’t think was possible for one to appear in! Which was pretty big on its own I could submit a paper on this but, that’s not the important thing, the important bit the really important thing we have just discovered is, oh dark Seldarine I can barely breath we discovered a inhabited world, inhabited Captain! This- This. Is. Huge!”
The physicist clearly couldn’t contain his excitement or maintain his composure for good reason even Cin’claer was startled his jaw had dropped and he had physically lurched forward in his seat at the news, a breach of professionalism he would have time to chastise himself later for but now he is the Captain and it was time to act the part breathing in a deep breath he composed himself.
“Okay, so we found an inhabited world but I know my ship she is old and the refit for exploration was rushed hatchet job we couldn’t have been able to determine that this world was inhabited from out here at the outer edge so… I am guessing that have significant radio transmissions then? Meaning they have a somewhat decently advanced civilization?” Suddenly seized by panic he made a sudden realization his eyes widened and leaned forward in his seat as much as his buckles allowed asking “Are we at risk of being discovered and fired upon by these inhabitants? Are they spacefaring?”
It was an odd question in the sense that by not being a security officer he hadn’t really thought to check and realized instantly that this is question the Captain needed to know now and preferably like 5 minutes ago ‘Hey ya the people down there have seen us and firing missiles at us.’ This was important to everyone for their safety and for his career he can’t be making careless mistakes now. Okay, think act do. Use the information you already learned to formulate a response ARE they spacefaring and are they a threat? Thinking back on this the answer was fairly obvious. “No Captain, the readings from what I recall would be very odd for a space faring civilization, long range optics only see relatively few lights corresponding to urban centers and the radio transmissions picked up are actually very sparse they are there and they do have radios but probably only very recent I suspect at least a hundred years as an educated guess before they could seriously harm us and we would need to be extremely careless I imagine to be detected with such enough clear evidence to be considered aliens.”
Cin’claer sank back into his seat noticeably relieved, he could think calmly and once again mentally reserved yet another reason to chastise himself later he was clearly over reacting to a perceived threat. Overreacting would not have changed the situation if they were detected and reasonably if they could harm their admittedly obsolete ship they could have been able to do it and intercept them outside the solar system or at worst right now at the edge but this obviously wasn’t the case. So they are a civilization that just industrialized or only beginning to… What did he mean by those odd readings? I should ask. Leaning forward in his seat he prepared to listen to the remainder of the report. “Continue Phaere with your report this could be the career maker for all of us I don’t want to move around blind here what else do we know?” Clearing his throat Phaere continued.
“Captain, there’s not much to say there is not enough data at this distance we would need to continue our course and take a orbital position to get better readings, I suggest the dark side of their moon I can say with confidence that they don’t have the means to track us there. Besides that I can say that their solar system has about 8 planets and dozens of planetoids a very interested asteroid belt between the fourth and fifth planets must be a sign of failed planet formation. They have a gas giant that can be an excellent source of helium and their sun is fairly young with billions of years left in its lifespan but the rest of the system pales in interest compared to their world.” Satisfied with this Captain Cin’claer nodded his ascent and gave the orders to move in an intercept course to place them behind in a stationary orbit behind their moon.
“Engage.”
The ships engines thrummed to life, the engines were capable of two different ‘speeds’ Faster-Than-Light speeds where the ship quickly accelerates to hundreds or thousands times the speed of light allowing for convenient travel between star systems and allowing the birth of the IIFR and the spread of civilizations at relatively little cost. The system also fixed the problem of the crew going splat at such speed by generating a Proportionality Gravitational Field or PGF that did some kind of magic (figuratively) that reduced acceleration g’s allowing for the sudden acceleration, however such a field was unstable near gravitational objects so it would be impossible to move at such speeds near a star or planets and thus the drive performed its second purpose, interplanetary flight. Since near gravity wells the field tended to fail at high speeds it forced the ship to decelerated to speeds at fractions of the speed of light while far too slow for interstellar travel was convenient for interplanetary travel, the drive would also fail when entering a planets gravity well so that near planets relativistic speeds would be too dangerous and the crew would also go splat. This actually works out very well as it has the side of effect of preventing warships as being used in desperation as planet killers as the field would just fail and the ships come to a halt, as such between the safe guards and the helmsman’s skill it was usually best to cruise around a quarter of c and would take the ship under sixteen hours to make it to the third planet of this solar system. Time that at first the crew spent in eager anticipation but as minutes ticked on and the first hour passed by the crew went to work as normal and the Captain satisfied with the situation retired to his quarters.
Aboard The Ithralochar 1947 C.E. 17 hours later.
The excitement that had faded hours earlier picked up again with a renewed vigour as the ship had eased itself into orbit far above the planet’s surface, safely tucked away behind the dark side of its moon two hours ago. Crew gossiped eagerly about the leaked news debating what the creatures looked like, would they be short like the Khazad? Brutal and ugly like Goblinkind or would they be graceful and beautiful like the Ilythiiri or our kin the Tel’Quessir? Talk turned into whether these new people would be guided and watched over until they could be invited to join the Republic or if they’re warlike and violent and thus watched and manipulated as to not be a threat? A minority viewed non-interference as best as look at what happened with our interactions with the other races on our own world and how they are constantly causing unrest on the colonies especially the ones where they have a plurality! The momentum of these discussions went back and forth between some level of caution and suspicion upon this new race to the more benign and charitable. The gist of such discussions had reached Captain Cin’claer’s ears further complicating the situation, should he contact High Command or should he take the initiative? The former was safe but would lead to little gains for his career and the latter was an absurd risk that could lead to his name put down in the history books as the synonym for failure eating away further at his self confidence, he put these concerns aside to focus at the task at hand.
“Astrophysicist Phaere, we have been above this world for two hours now and while the view is pretty for a planet I have not much interest in just looking at it, I want relevant information before I make a report.” Leaning forward to show his full attention to the scientists’ words.
“Captain our position here gave us the perfect vantage point to scan this planet using our optics and our high orbit probes to study this world and its inhabitants. Firstly I can proudly state that I figured out the irregularities with our initial scan from outskirts of the solar system, the planet must have just came out of a large planet scale mechanized war that left I would state either a large portion of it devastated in which case it is still recovering and as a possibility other areas of it are probably underdeveloped to begin with. The smaller of the two main continents is the most developed and seems to have had no discernible damage while the large continent has massive and easily seen signs of devastation on the peninsular landmass in the north west and much devastation on the curved island chain just off a small peninsula in the north east of it and along the coast of the continent itself, much harder to tell right there I would say a combination of war and under development. I am not a military analyst however so I cannot give a definite conclusion if the war is still ongoing which brings me to the next news. Secondly, the world definitely has radio my earlier hypothesis was correct at this distance it is easy to discern and pick up its ‘chatter’ observe I will reply some recorded passages.” Phaere had turned back around and hit a few keys while palming the magnetic mouse, within seconds static followed by sounds of what was most probably a speech blared from the consoles speakers.
“…Skvoz' grozy siyalo nam solntse svobody, I Lenin veliky nam put' ozaril...”
The music turned off as Phaere hit a key and continued. “This has been playing from the eastern area of the north western landmass, if I was to guess it was a victory song. But I cannot be certain as I am not a linguist and we have none on board we would need to wait either for support from Home or a reply via ansible from the leading Linguist faculties of our top Universities.”
Phaere shrugged, it couldn’t be helped and continued. “I have determined they have a population approaching 2 billion based from a few statistical algorithms from the database using the level of urbanization as a guide this could be incorrect but not widely.”
His eyes had widened a bit as he said the last bit of this which increased his anxiety as the look of utter shock in Cin’claer’s and his XO’s faces filled him with worry, as everyone else had literally halted what they were doing to turn and give Phaere his full attention this was huge unbelievably huge. The Ilythiiri only had a population of 900 million when they had reached a similar stage of development and only had a total population of 9 billion now after over a thousand years of space faring only draconian population control laws on the other constituent races of the republic kept the ratio in their favor.
“Captain this would show either they have a lot of unused urban space as a result of war or that they most certainly breed faster than us possibly having shorter life times I could easily see them having a more ‘rushed’ uh outlook on life and the sciences it could be possible they develop technologically a slightly faster pace to us but this I cannot confirm without access to their libraries. Their C02 levels are unnaturally high for a world of their class so they most definitely are industrializing although the process thus far is uneven using radio signals as a guide I have transposed radio transmission densities onto this digital map here.” A map of the world below appeared on the main viewscreen replacing the picturesque angled view of the planet.
“The northern land area above the center thin point there which through our optics appears to be an artificial canal which implies a high degree of situational determination and engineering ability among the inhabitants but anyways, the northern part has a very high relative density of transmissions I would put them as the most advanced and developed either neutral in the conflict or the victors probably allied with the people who originated that other signal we just heard. We then get a very weird level of density that isn’t uniform over that devastated parts in the north west of the bigger continent I would imagine that they were the second most developed but the war would have pushed down their development and ergo they would have less radio transmissions. I am not an anthropologist however so I can only make the widest and most inaccurate of guesses as to the rest of the world as it peaks in a number of smaller areas and islands but is otherwise very low even when compared to the southern part of the smaller continent. We confirmed however with telescopes that they are however seafaring and probably technically advanced at it as we had puzzling levels of transmissions as you noticed along the seas and oceans which we determined to be boats some very large and probably naval ocean going warships and a lot of them I might add, possibly possessing several hundred in the larger ocean and about half that number in the other.”
Phaere had looked up from his console and noticed that if he had failed before this definitely got everyone’s fullest attention and increased their intense attention to his words, gulping and then coughing as he attempted to clear his throat at the same time continued nervously, this last part will blow their minds. “This is what I could imagine is the worst bit uh… Sir… Remember when I said they wouldn’t be able to harm us given a hundred years? Turns out while technically true I was largely incorrect…” Nervously tightening his muscles in preparation so hard that he actually flinched he dropped pardon the pun the bombshell.
“Sir radiological readings indicate their society has both the theoretical and practical engineering knowledge to… “ Stop posturing for time now spit it out “…Split the atom. They have atomic bombs sir and have detonated at least half a dozen small primitive ones, this report is 100 percent conclusive.” That did it. The usually stoic XO literally lurched from her standing half leaning position behind the Captain’s Chair and barely kept herself from falling and the Captain had clearly been stabbed for it seemed like all the blood had drained from him as he paled and his knuckles whitened as he gripped his chair completely shocked. Everyone else had not only stopped even bother to half pretend to be working but if it weren’t for the buckles on their seats would have fallen out from them. For several seconds that seemed to stretch on forever aside from a few gasps the Bridge stayed silent until finally ending the spell paralyzing them Captain Cin’claer blurted out. “That’s impossible! It can’t be possible!? Can it? Split the atom and used it as a weapon? Wait no, what did you mean technically still can’t harm us? You mean yes it has to be that, you mean they still lack an effective orbital delivery system to launch nuclear weapons at us from orbit correct?” Cin’claer’s face almost had a pleading look to it.
“Correct sir, they have no satellites in orbit and most likely would be using cheaper and more convenient aircraft to bear their payloads to the enemy, rockets would require much more sophisticated guidance and computer abilities that currently they don’t have and require I think a few leaps of innovation to get to we would still have quite some time before they would be capable of hurting us in orbit. We’re perfectly safe up here.” He said in an almost soothing way, bringing the kind of reassurances the Bridge crew badly needed but like they say about provoking fate sometimes when you do it once too often the Universe’s ability to restrain itself collapses and you are slapped by its cold hands and brought into reality and drowned in it for when the Astrophysicist Phaere Antriia had just finished his assurances smiling almost triumphant in his new found self confidence the Universe quite figuratively collapsed, in a moment that would change history, change fate, the fate of two civilizations and would have ripple effects of years to come… Ensign Ianarth whose job it had been to monitor the orbits of the probes if he hadn’t just abandoned to even pretend to be doing just glanced back at his monitor to confirm everything was all right…
It wasn’t alright. Ianarth bellowed out shock and dismay and nearly screamed her surprise as she whirled back into position and began to furious battle for fate, as it turned out that for several minutes now a probe one of the older models that the inspectors and shipyard workers had been refitting to the ship had decided to not bother inspecting had began a rapid orbital decay and was falling fast into the atmosphere below. Fighting furiously she didn’t even answer her Captain’s visibly frightened orders to report on what was going wrong and very quickly they found out what, nearly a third of the Bridge crew now crowded around her in a blatant disregard for discipline that if the situation hadn’t been so serious Cin’claer would have noticed. Minute by minute using every trick in the book and several that weren’t she fought to regain the probes altitude and recall it but it was too late she had barely managed to get it to raise its orbit by 100 meters before its thrusters failed and it fell like a rock to the world below…
“This is a disaster.” Captain Cin’claer stated in dumbfounded stunned shock. “Where did it land, can we recover it?” He pleaded.
“Sorry Captain, by now it would have already crash landed and very close to a settlement. Based on its angle and speed it wouldn’t have burned up it seems our efforts to save the probe seemed to have condemned us, as it saved it from burning up in reentry.” Phaere said spreading his hands apologetically. “The inhabitants below will undoubtedly have seen and will most likely investigate it they might even think it was a missile attack by their enemy if the war is still going and it is beyond our ability to retrieve, I’m sorry sir but we lost it.” He said.
Groaning loudly and bringing his hand to his pounding forehead Captain Cin’claer considered his options, this was an emergency he had no choice he would have to immediately use the ansible and gain a real time video conference meeting with his superiors possibly even with the Minister of Defence and a representative of the Ustyri the elected leader of the Republic. What was it General Ilnari once said? ‘Know, think, choose, do’? Well he knew the situation it was a disaster, a catastrophe that will most likely ruin his career, the world below now had access to the remains of a crashed probe possible decades beyond their technological level and his options were limited. He could either swear his crew to secrecy and cover it up, or report it sneakily at the end of the combined reports of the mission and hope it won’t get noticed or fess up to the situation and report immediately to his superiors. Well now the choice was clear, he had to report it and report it now. Unbuckling himself from his chair he got up and went to the back of the Bridge. Do. “I am going to the ansible room to report this situation; I won’t name any names we can save that for the Inquisition that will come later because of this fubared situation. Any chance do you have a name however for where the probe landed?” he asked of Phaere.
“I do, listening closely and running a scan on recognizable commonly used words transmitted via radio in the area I believe it is called ‘Roswell, New Mexico.’”
Between a Rock and a Hard Place (Mission Earth & FMP!)
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