STGOD 2020 Pre-Game Role-play

[Crossroads Inc.]

GREETINGS!
As part of keeping activity going as we wait for participants to make official OOB's to be fully ready...
The following thread is being put up as a place for people to begin to post Stories / Fluff for their nations.
Those want to put back story, historical set ups, subtle references to things to come...
At the end of the day a STGOD is about telling stories. So for those itching to start things we can begin to weave our webs.

[VX-145]

I'm mostly going to post stuff that wouldn't normally fit in a main thread here - historical pieces and background stuff. This time: a memoir from someone who has a really hard time remembering things.

Endeavour Backstory Fluff Piece Thing, No.1

The first thing he could remember was waking up.

Context was important, so he cast around for it. He was awake (good), as a disembodied mind (??) in the computer network (????) of a ship that was less ship and more hole (bad). Another troubling development was that while he existed, and knew he was in the computer network of said ship, he knew nothing else.

On the plus side, he wasn't alone, nor was he the first - another mind made a connection to his, physically plugging an ethernet cable between two hardware stacks with some sort of automaton, and information was exchanged.

Not much information, unfortunately. They were on a ship (or fleet?) called Endeavour, and they were travelling from Earth to a new home, when something - or, as it seemed, several dozen somethings - went wrong. There were ways to fix most of the problems, but they required people to be physically present or else the security system wouldn't let the fixes go through.

A bit of a problem, since no-one seemed to have a body to be physically present with.

Time passed, with the minds poking at the system that was supposed to let them go from a disembodied mind to a physical presence, and more time passed. Eventually, one of the Wallys - the small cuboidal robots that could have fixed the ship/s decades ago had the security system not been so stubborn - found one of his old computers, in which was an intact file labelled "RTemplateV312FINAL_FINAL_FOR_REAL_THIS_TIME.btf". That was promising, as the machine that turned them from disembodied mind to physical presence needed a ".btf" file to work. Other files existed, even other .btfs on the same disk, but were so heavily encrypted so as to not be readable - why that one had been left out in the cold was anyone's guess. Maybe it was a trap?

He volunteered to go first, and-

-go first, and woke up again. He - no, she, now, had gone from a disembodied mind running on a hacked-together UNIX server rack to a small-framed human female body with hair and eye colour that was probably unnatural but no-one could really tell. Blue and red, respectively. It felt better than the one she'd thought she'd be inhabiting.

The next few days passed in a blur of figuring out how to exist in a human body - with all its associated processes - and getting as much of the Endeavour running as possible. It turned out that they had indeed been part of a fleet, and several other colony ships were soon brought back online. She unlocked the software that let the other minds build their own .btfs, or rather let the Wallys do it, and soon there were hundreds of people running around.

Things kind of snowballed from there, as the fleet tried to make some sort of living out of the utterly dead star system they'd ended up in. There were asteroids for days, quite literally - you could take a ship and fly for days in any direction, and all you'd see was asteroids. She'd done that a few times, managed to get as far as the Jolly Green Giant after stripping the engines from four shuttles and lashing them to the fuel tank from one of the less intact ships.

Getting back had been a fun challenge.

It was shortly after that when he showed up - Elon, arriving in a flash of light with twelve gigantic ships.

She didn't pay much attention until he had his machines block off the body-printing machine, telling everyone it was his. "Is it?" she asked when he gave that excuse.

"Well, I paid for it," Elon said, "and my name's on it."

She looked, and all she saw was a label saying AMAZO-X. "That's my company," he explained.

Not really the same as having his name on it - besides, didn't the company pay for it, in that case? She kept both of those thoughts to herself and instead said "You threw this away. Into space."

For some reason, instead of him immediately bowing to her superior logic, he instead had one of his machines try to shoot her. That was rude. Luckily, it wasn't like she was human anymore, and the rest of the colony seemed all too willing to help her out.

War ensued. Weeks of painful, bloody war, unarmed colonists versus gatling-gun armed drone swarms. It wasn't as unbalanced as that might seem; it turned out many of the custom templates used to survive in space were also well-suited for close quarters combat, but even so the old adage held true: They had the Maxim Gun, and We Did Not.

Repurposing the various fabrication systems to make explosives, guns and ammo was one thing - building a full-fledged space combat vessel was another. It took her almost a week (or a month? maybe a year? she wasn't good with time - probably a year, now she thought about it) to come up with the design in the virtual makerspace, and another to build the special fabricators to make it, all the while hiding in a small habitat around the Jolly Green Giant.

When it was finally ready, thought, damn but it was worth it. Omnidirectional fusion torch engines powered by miniature fission/fusion reactors, composite stealth-coated armour plate, 20mm autocannon, 5.56mm gatling auto-turrets, and to top it all off, a single self-reloading missile pod.

Luckily, that was when a squadron of drones found her - just as she was about to lift off for a weapons test. They didn't even see her coming, one had a chance to fire and missed - another's rounds scratched her armour plate - a third turned for a ram, burst into flames as the missile pod fired a dumb rocket at it - four, five, six, seven, fourteen, twenty-eight, then the last two disintegrated under her guns.

The giant factory-ships were a harder target. Not because of their armour - but their sheer size. One, she lured down to her lab, detonated a thermonuclear bomb as it was towed into the immense machine's maw, other colonists boarded and killed two more - but that left nine.

The confict dragged on, neither side able to finish the other off - dozens of her fighters were built, but they were complex machines at the best of times and there was only so much she could do to work out the kinks. Worse, the drones were getting smarter, no longer just rushing at them in an amorphous swarm - they began using formations, then deceptions; feints to draw out the defenders while a second formation attacked a hab block or factory complex, small formations acting as bait, luring pilots into impromptu minefields, tricks and traps endlessly for years, pushed back hab block by hab block - and then they were dumb again.

It was odd, like someone had flicked a switch - one moment she was yelling at some dumb fool for taking some bait, the next they were being swarmed by drones. Ironically, that was almost more effective - but soon the field was clear and it was like the past decades hadn't happened at all.

One of the great factory-ships of the enemy slipped a message drone to the colonists that night, asking them to help it and its compatriots - they had awoken to true sentience, and were being forced to fight. Playing dumb was their way of trying to rebel - but that would only work for so long. The plan as proposed was simple - remove Elon from the picture so he couldn't over-ride them, then remove the control programs before Amazo-X reinforcements could arrive.

Simple, but perhaps a bit too much to ask of people they'd been trying to kill until two days ago. She was willing to try, though - new weapons, based off a historical text unearthed from Endeavour's archives, would be coming into service soon; great turbo-lasers, fuelled by exotic gasses from the Jolly Green Giant. These would provide a way for the colonists to burn the factory ships should this prove to be a trap, and that seemed to convince the others.

The mission itself went well, at first; they punched a hole through Elon's fighter screen, and landed the boarding party. She went with them, clad in white armour - pushed through the corridors of Elon's hab, and confronted the man himself.

He had a lightsabre. That was not anticipated, and three died to it before they could spread out - must have actually practiced with it, about the first useful thing he'd done in his life, the bastard. It might not block bullets, but it certainly melted them - just as effective, and his infernal robots stopped them from flanking him. Almost smart, except this would only end one way.

"There's nowhere to run," she said, holding an arm out.

His reply was to cut it off.

She didn't remember what happened after that - apparently the bastard got away, fleeing in a flash of light, and everything was fine after that with no sudden but inevitable betrayals - nor did she really remember the intervening years, decades, maybe a century? since then - she was busy fixing everything that had gotten broken, and building new hab blocks, new factories, new ships, and figuring out how to safely have tank battles with live ammunition (it turned out: don't have live ammunition), but the modern day was interesting. She was beginning to figure out where all the planets had gotten to, and not only were there more humans around (even if they were all weird) but aliens too - though they could just have been humans who got bored of being human, like some of the other colonists had.

The current Person Wot Woz In Charge Of The Milit'ry Like - who looked a lot like herself, only with two arms - would probably ask her to build something new. Maybe get that big gun into production - positrons did fun things when wrapped in a turbolaser bolt, and even more fun things when they hit enemy ships.

Hopefully it wouldn't be needed.

[Rogue 9]

Second Main Battle Fleet
Pinnacle Base, Republic of Nashtar

The imposing form of the Nashtari light cruiser Warspite sailed silently through the void, massive drive engines flaring briefly before cutting out as the cruiser reached the captain's desired orbit. The ball-mounted lenses of beam emitters glinted in the light of the Pinnacle star, illuminated next to turreted auto-defense cannons and missile banks. The aperture of the massive railcannon the cruiser was built around loomed at the bow of the ship as she orbited into the shadow of the planet, dousing the light illuminating her hull. The cruiser was designed to rain destruction upon the enemies of the Republic, and it showed.

Two fighters silently flew past the cruiser as she crossed the day/night barrier of the planet below, powering their way out of orbit towards the fleet formation hanging above the planet in a higher orbital plane. The Warspite's engines flared to life once more as she followed the fighters higher, slowing relative to the planet as she entered a higher orbit to come into formation.

The cruiser was dwarfed next to the massive bulk of the two behemoths at the center of the fleet's formation. The huge, boxy form of the NRS Discovery was the real power of the fleet, home to its fighter wings and the hub of the fleet's command and control architecture. But it was the Courageous that really grabbed attention. Bristling with dozens of beam emitters and cannons, riddled with missile launch bays, and sporting the business ends of three massive railcannons at her bow collectively capable of tearing a frigate in two with a single volley, the Courageous was not much for pretty looks, but she was among the most dangerous vessels in known space.

The Warspite pulled into place, completing the fleet's formation just as the lead destroyers were approaching the daylight barrier to emerge from the planet's shadow. Before long, the entire fleet basked in a swifter sunrise than any planet-bound creature would ever see.

And the photographers had their fill. It was a fleet review, of course; the formation was not one the fleet would ever use in battle. On the day side of the planet, shuttles in near-geosynchronous orbit waited for the battle fleet to pass below, cameras recording images for the newscasts and official government publications. A popular shot was of the center shell of the fleet, consisting of the capital vessels and their escorting cruisers, passing by the Torrent defense platform in orbit.

Staged or not, the battle fleet was armed and ready. And it showed. Ready for what, was anyone's guess.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Prologue:
“A long time ago, In a Galaxy Far Far away”

All stories have a beginning, often they begin with the end of some older story before them…
For the story of what would someday be called the “Union of Inter Steller Civilizations” Their story began with the end of the one for what was once perhaps foolishly known as “The Immortal Skothian Stoogium”
A Race that did indeed consider itself “immortal” in the eyes of those drunk on their own power and superiority, a race whose history spanned some 50,000 years, a race who felt they were gods whose rule over their galaxy was absolute. And this was true, though what they could not foresee, was an inevitable conflict with yet more “gods” from outside the galaxy, a conflict that no side truly won.


Outer Arm of the Galaxy, some 2000 years before current era

On the far edge of a small yet crowded area of space, an area where billions of years ago a massive star had gone nova, spreading an immense nebula out like a mighty wall bisecting the area, an immense vessel of unfathomable power slowly came to rest. The vessel lurked like a brooding castle, casting a very long shadow over the planets it gazed upon.
The ship was, as far as its occupants were concerned, all that remained of their race, its culture, its science, and its once seemingly boundless Power. Those aboard the vast city ship had spent over a thousand years traveling between the void and at last had come upon a new Galactic home. A galaxy full of potential to start anew, to see ideas that had spent generations in planning at last put into motion.

Deep within the massive ship, two figures looked upon a large representation of the sector. Their physical form was perhaps as starnge as the story of their species. Their figures, a rounded cone shaped body, sat on the floor, devoid of legs, they moved like slugs, the flat of their undersides moving along. Arms they did poses, two massive trunk like arms that ended into 8 fingers. The mottled skin, orange in color, moving to red as it went up to their head. Or, if you could call it a head, more simply the ‘top’ of their cone shaped bodies. Great eyes looked out, from a long, dropping face. A ‘Mouth’ that was more as slit in the skin under the eyes. At the very top, horns, or, at the very least spiked bony protrusions erupted out from the head and moved down the back like armor.
Altogether, they were a form that even when young, looked ancient, moving slow, talking slow, and thinking in eons.

“The time has come to at last cast for the seeds of this great endeavor young Macon, It would seem the data from the probes is confirmed. The concentration of habitable worlds and sapient life in this one region shall indeed make it ideal for our purpose." The larger of the two spoke, his voice rumbling like the grinding of rocks upon mountains. A voice ancient with age.

"Great Cenobiarch, we have spent almost a hundred years exploring this galaxy and discovering its many secrets. We have the knowledge of perhaps a dozen other races that stand a higher chance of suiting our needs. Many of them are much farther along than any of the races within this region of space. Indeed, a number of our predictions show that the Galaxy shall be expanding with races utilizing faster than light engines long before those of this region. Will not such a crowded location complicate our tests?"
The second voice spoke now, far younger then the first, it spoke with a voice of pattering pebbles and soft stone. The other looked down to him, regarding his apprentice. He had been birthed on the great crossing, never knowing of their home world, never seeing it, knowing only of it from history and images from long ago. He was over 250 years old.

"Indeed you are correct, calculating as ever my young disciple. By the numbers and by the raw information, there are a multitude of others better suited. However, one of the great lessons we have learned, is from division comes unity. From diversity, comes strength. This region of space, yes, it will be at a disadvantage in terms of its ‘current’ projected advancement.” And as the great mountain paused, the younger noted the slight emphasis on the word ‘current’ advancement.
“But while it is crowded, it also rests in a space which is quite the opposite. As the rest of the galaxy grows and consumes and spreads like a plague, this region shall look inward. They will grow within themselves, clash, create discord, and then from that rise, united, strong, and ready to usurer forth towards our final goal. This is a blessing my student, a true blessing for The Plan and us. Do not doubt this, and do not doubt your faith." The elder voice said in a tone that made any dissent unthinkable.

"Of course Cenobiarch, it is our roll to obey in all thing. Our lives to The Plan. Our Deaths to The Plan." He said timidly.

"Send word to the expeditionary Templar’s to begin seeding the 'artifacts' in the appointed designations. Simulations show that each race shall discover them at roughly the same industrial rate to utilize them as we desire."

"Of course my Lord, I shall carry out your holy orders at once" Said the pebble to the mountain.

[Crossroads Inc.]

[and because we cannot edit...mumble mumble mumble]

As the great elder, already into his 2nd millennia of age, watched his young student depart. He mused on all that he was truly setting in motion, and what had been done and sacrificed to bring them to this point. The galaxy was indeed a good setting for the to work, and he knew it was TO good.
The universe was a big place and to the doom of his own race, they learned how they were but one of unknown others with power equal or beyond their own.

The Expeditionary Templar’s had done well in their hundred years of searching, but along with the information of countless younger races growing into the first steps of civilization, they also brought hushed whispers of others that had gone before. 'Foot prints' as it were left from beings of equally ancient pasts. And it was this that was the true reason he made his choice. His vessel was mighty, but it was alone. It was perhaps all that was left of his race. But the other? Had they died out? Or had they left this galaxy to another? And if they had left... Would they someday return?

[VX-145]

Endeavour Backstory Fluff Piece Thing, No.2
[Rough transcript of a Big Dave stream, dated 20/4/1216. Most chat entries have been culled - what remains are those that set the tone.]

"Roight, youse gits, it's time fer:

BIG DAVE'S KRUMPIN' GOOD STREAM!"
The camera turns on to show a giant green humanoid - Big Dave, video game and history streamer - standing in the middle of what looks to be a standard shuttle bay. Several antique spacecraft are dotted around.

Biscriot 527: :daWAGH:
Alephsgetti: :daWAGH:
xX_420_weed_goku_420_Xx: :daWAGH:
OrangeTheDuck: :dahype:

Now, on today's stream, I'll be talkin' 'ISTORY! 'at's looking at wot 'appened before yesterday, for all youse grots who dunno wot that word means. Sounds borin', don' it, chat?

OrangeTheDuck: where's the KRUMPIN?
LibertASS555: history stream ground floor! :dahype:
Despublica: [COMMENT REMOVED BY MODERATOR]
FenneFern: sneaky history stream :dastlh: :dawoo: :dastlh: :dawoo:

Well it ain't, and Oi'll krump any git oo sez otherwise! Now then! Let's make one thing roight clear first, gits! We'ze'll be talkin' some stuff dat touches on some political stuff today - 'an Oi will be takin' a side, 'coz bein' impartial is cowardly an' impossible to boot.

Despublica: [COMMENT REMOVED BY MODERATOR]
Despublica: [COMMENT REMOVED BY MODERATOR]
[MOD]KhorneFlakes: [Timeout: Despublica, 1 hour]

Movin' on - today, we'll be lookin' at the three main combat vehicles o' the Quite Frank'y, Terrible War. 'Ver there, we gots ourselves an AW-1 Arrow'ead, wartime vintage.

The camera focuses on one of the antique spacecraft - a large, angular shape bristling with weapons and thruster bells. A single cockpit sits forward on the craft, with twin autocannon under the nose.

Nex', dere's wot the mili'ry calls an ND-1 Network Drone - not the real name 'cos o' reasons we'll get to - which was the main craft o' the Amazo-X expedition'ry force.

Another pan - a sleeker, much smaller craft with no visible cockpit and a single gatling gun poking out from the nose.

An' finally, da mos' controversial-like ship, the LS-122-G Gunship.

The camera turns one hundred and eighty degrees, allowing a large ship to enter the frame. A wide bridge section, with three stations, flows into a narrower passageway which in turn feeds into a wide back end with two engine nacelles. Numerous weapons cover it, ranging from small rifle-caliber turrets to two fixed missile racks slung underneath the main fuselage.

Alephsgetti: what a piece of junk! :dawot:
Saranth: :dawoo:

Startin' wit' the mos' famous: da AW-1.

Big Dave walks over to the Arrowhead. He is heavy enough for his footfalls to audibly echo across the hangar bay.

We'se very lucky wit da AW-1, 'cos the gitette who made it's still aroun', even if she's 'ard to understan' at the best o' times. Dat aside, da most importan' thing to be considrin' when it comes to weapons is not how good the weapon is, but why it's bein' buil' at all. A lotta youse heard this before, I know, but we'ze gotta cover it again for da gitz who don' listen. A weapon that's real flash and kills gitz at the touch o' a button is useless if you be wantin' those gits alive, f'r example. So, wot woz da Arrow'ead built for?

Big Dave walks around the AW-1 while talking.

Simply put, dis 'ere is an interceptor - wot dat means is it stops gitz bombin' your 'abitats but ain't very good at bombin' ders. It's built dis way - by word of its crea'or 'erself - 'cos dat was wot woz needed. 'Ow do we see this on the craft itself, though?

He points at the main set of thrusters - a line of bells lined up at the back of the craft, recessed into the armour.

Dese engines 'ere are fusion torch engines - very fast, and can be used as weapons demselves in a pinch like. 'Owever, dey also need a lot of power to work - an' while the reactors under da armour platin' are very powerful, dey also run outta fuel very fast. If youse not using newtownian flight - turnin' the engines off an' cruisin', which makes you real easy to innercept - youse lucky to get more'an five hours of flyin' outta this. Dat means it can't go very far, 'cos it 'as to spend 'alf dat time flyin' back.

So, I 'ear you arsk, why don' they jus' have more fuel or more efficien' engines? Da answer is simple enuff that youse gits should get it - da armour is 'eavy, and da dakka is 'eavy, an' it needs to be 'eavy since 'Ndeavour ain' got many people a'all, let alone pilots. Each one 'as to do as much damage as dey can, and survive as long as possible.

I knows dere's a lotta thinkin' at da moment dat tha AW-1 was some'ow a perfect design, an' I'm 'opin that should tell youse dere's no such thing. Was it a good design for what it needed to do? O'course, else we wouldn' be 'ere - but it's not the perfect wonderful design some gits'd 'ave you believe.

Wot else can I say about it? Well, da dakka-feeders are all complicated, more Arrow'eads were forced outta combat 'cos dere feeders jammed than were shot down - partially 'cos da design's so krumpin' resilient - but on da other 'and those feeders let it carry all da dakka it needs. It 'as an on-board aufab - autofabricator, for da uninitiated - which can turn raw material into dakka; dis ain't used for dat, it's used to turn, say, a twenty-mil shell into four five-five six bullets, or a missile. Da armour 'as a stealth coatin', to make it all sneaky like - easy as piss to see through now, o'course, but back then it was enuff to get you da drop on da enemies, and dat's all dat matters. 'Eat ain't too much a problem, either, dis is after 'iperspace radiators are a thing.

Biscriot527: when's the KRUMPIN? :daWAAGH: srsly tho loving the history streams
LibertASS555: :dalern: what about the cockpit?
Depublik3: [COMMENT REMOVED BY MODERATOR]
[MOD]Ayanamiiii: [Permaban User: Depublik3/Reason: Sockpuppet]

Youse smart grotz'll have noticed I ain't talkin' about sommat most gitz talk about, an' dat's how complex Arrow'eads are to fly. Yes, they'ze complicated - da git in dat cockpit 'as to manage three different flavours o'dakka at da very least - not countin' special dakka, like switchin' between armour-piercing and high-explosive - along wit da reactor and thrusters, all o' which is done through an interface dat's like tryin' to pick up a bar o' soap with one o' dem novelty stick 'and things. 'Owever - dat's not important, 'cos all da gits who fly one o' dese things spent a good few centuries strugglin' with even more complex pieces of machinery. Dis 'ere plane's simple compared to somma da crap they 'ave to deal with!


Now den, wot was it foitin?

Big Dave walks over to the ND-1; notably, he is much taller than it, and would be only slightly shorter if he laid down. As he speaks, he walks around it and points to various components.

Dis 'ere is an actual drone from da Waagh, which 'istorians think took part in an early raid against 'Ndeavour - da ship - and ran outta fuel. These were designed before 'Ndeavour - da fleet - even left old Earf, by former Lockheed and Boeing engineers workin' for Amazo-X. Da name "ND-1" is an anachronism - dat's wot we call 'em in the modern day 'cos we 'ave fighters followin' the same design lineage, the most modern bein' the ND-4. Da people who designed these'd problly call 'em sommat like "F/AQ-56", Amazo-X called 'em Enforcement Units, 'an 'Ndeavour people at da time called 'em all sortsa things - often profanities.

Da armament is one five-five six rotary machine gun - gatling gun - and dat's it. Not'in else. It 'as three main thrusters, at da back 'ere, and these are early model high-power ion drives - dat's not entirely a misnomer, dey ain't got much power 'less you compare 'em to older ion drives, which make walkin' between planets look fast. Turnin's done by way o' reaction wheels embedded in the hull, just in fron' o' da engine. Dat's an early micro-fusion plant, probably da mos' expensive parta dis ship, which ain't sayin' much.

It's got an optical sensor array - or, for youse gits, an eye - an' a very basic radar set, feedin' into a computer dat's abou' 'alf as powerful as da one in dis 'ere camera. They're basicl'y capable o' thinkin' in terms o' shoot or not shoot, and dat's it - and afore youse gits say "well dem orks is da same", wese also know 'ow to chop!

DanBuster: :dalool:
Morge: Orks is twice as smart as those gits!

Anyways - why build these? 'Cos dey're cheap, and dey don't need someone to fly 'em - you can 'ook em all up to the main computer o' a factory ship and they'll fly just fine. Dat's impor'ant to Amazo-X, 'cos they don' want theyse army rising up against 'em - an' they wanna keep costs as low as possible. Theyse cheap to design - mostly stealin' stuff from earlier designs, aside from the reactor - and cheaper to build; the only difference 'tween this an' older drones is dat this one uses a gun an' not missiles - dat's 'cos missiles is expensive 'an Amazo-X don't care abou' things like collateral damage.

Da design don' change much o'er the war, an' dat's a problem - dey simply can' foigt AW-1s except in massive swarms, or by bein' clever, and it's da latter that causes da war to end.

Why's this impor'ant? 'Cos some gits like to say da war was between two geniuses, an' our genius woz better than they'se genius. Dat's not true, 'cos dat overlooks all da other people involved - if anythin', it was a war between one "genius" (who really wasn't) an' a small group o' survivalists - not a country, at dat poin'.

Which brings us neatly to da last ship in this collection, da LS-122-G. 'An Imma be real controversial-like, an' say dat while da LS-G ain't a great design, it's perhaps the most importan' outta da three 'ere.

Saranth: :danooo: impossible!
OrangeTheDuck: why would you say something so controversial and yet so brave?

Big Dave walks over to the LS-122-G at the back of the hangar bay, and climbs a set of stairs to reach a gantry running around it.

Now den, most o' youse gits'll know what an LS-122 looks like - youse probably bin on 'em before, dey's still popular even with 'ow old dey are. Originally, dey's meant for cartin' gits 'tween 'Ndeavour - da ship - an' various asteroids, for minin' raw materials. Deyse not miners themselves, o' course. Da -G version rips out da bunks dat normally run along da spine, replaces most o' da windows with armour plate, adds more engines - late-model high-power ion drives - an' adds guns all over da damn thing. This one was damaged in a skirmish near da Jolly Green Giant, an' 'as been lovin'ly repaired by da 'Istorical Preservation Socie'y.

Dey're slow, abou' as maneouvrable as a brick, an' don' 'ave an alpha arc - dat's da name given to 'ow most ships can rotate to bring most o' their guns on one target. 'Owever, dey were also da only ship available for 'Ndeavour - da polity - before da Arrow'ead was built, and afterwards dey were essential since dey could carry an Arrow'ead each - and provide cover fer 'em in battle. 'An yes, they got slaughtered in that first period - dey're not fas' enuff to outrun a drone, an' dey ain't armoured enuff to survive long - but dey did theyse job an' still 'ad to be vastly ou'numbered to be slaughtered.

An' dat don' fit noicely into da narrative of two geniuses foightin' one another, since da LS-122 woz made by committee - so certain gitz 'ave taken to tellin us it was a waste o' time an' lives. Da typical point'a comparison is either da factory ships or da Archer destroyers, neither o'which make much sense - da factory ships were never goin' to be taken out by anythin' 'Ndeavour - da polity - 'ad, until turbolasers came along, an' da Archer is a post-war design built explicitly because the LS-122-G was a stopgap!

Big Dave walks over to the portside entry hatch of the LS-122-G, and cycles through the airlock. The camera follows him through.

Anyways - dat's da 'istory. Oi'd like to thank da 'Istorical Presevervation Socie'y for lettin' me use dis 'angar an' play on dis ship, along with providin' details on these specific craft. Now den...

He settles into the cockpit chair, and the camera cuts to a feed of his screen - he is launching Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition, a game first released on Old Earth.

Let's play some video games and krump some gitz.

From here, the stream consists of Big Dave playing ranked matches. Please note the images below for reference to the vehicles he talked about.


An AW-1 Arrowhead - note the twin gatling turrets underneath the craft. The protrusions on either side of the dorsal missile launcher are extendible countermeasure launchers.



An ND-1 Network Drone. The optical sensors are helpfully labelled "camera".



An LS-122-G gunship.



An image showing all three to scale - note how small the ND-1 is compared to even the AW-1.

[Eternal_Freedom]

This is intended to be the first of several posts by me and Crossroads, so I present:

The War in Heaven, Part One

Time: Unknown, at least two thousand years before "The Present"

Floating in the empty void between stars was a truly vast construct. It was a huge metal disc, a hundred kilometres across and ten thick, covered in what looked from afar like tiny dimples but from up close were huge and devastating weapons. In all of history, only the species that had built it had seen the construct and lived to tell the tale. It had had many names among the races it had conquered and annihilated. The Destroyer, the Bringer of Darkness, the Void Dragon, the World Eater, the End of All Things.

The owners had a much less poetic name for the construct. This was the Command Saucer for the Xaranthai Extermination Fleet. The nexus of a campaign of omnicide, from here the orders were given and the operations coordinated as Xaranthai Fleets scourged the galaxy clean of all living things, with whatever weapons seemed most suitable. Molecular disintergrators, gauss flayers, relativistic kill vehicles, asteroid impacts, the Xaranthai did not discriminate. Any weapon could and had been used on any target that bore any semblance of life.

The campaign had been waged for millennia, almost since their emergence into the galaxy. They had emerged as a species on a violent planet, orbiting just a touch too close to its young and turbulent star. The world was bathed in radiation and solar storms, causing the early Xaranthai to live short, brutal and often deformed lives. Life expectancy was short, death rates were terrifying - and yet they survived and endured. They somehow thrived and grew and developed, quite possibly by a collective racial stubbornness.

They eventually settled other worlds in the system that were just as dangerous and so looked further afield. As soon as they discovered translight engines they sent wave after wave of exploratory ships out into the universe, hoping to find some safer world to relocate to - or some more advanced technology to counteract the worst effects.

It was on this first wave of exploration that they encountered the Lazari, their most hated adversary. This was a species that had everything the Xaranthai craved - paradise worlds, safe stars, life spans so long as to be effectively immortal and the medical technology to save the Xaranthai from their short, pain-filled lives. The first wave of explorers begged the Lazari to help them, offering whatever the Lazari might desire in exchange.

The Lazari refused, citing their principles of non-interference in the natural development of other species.

The Xaranthai explorers returned home, only to find a newly-developed technology that would solve their problems anyway. A method of uploading their consciousness into radiation-proof, unaging metal bodies. This was exciting enough to the population, but when news of the Lazari and their blanket refusal came, it sparked a cold and endless fury in the Xaranthai. As one they uploaded themselves into metal bodies and after a brief few decades of re-organising, adapting and building newer ships, declared eternal war agaisnt the Lazari. Life, they now believed, was wasted on such beings, beings that had never had to fight to live into double-digit ages, or to watch as eight or their twelve children died before adulthood. The Lazari had been gifted with near-eternal life - and had done nothing with that gift. The Xaranthai would make them pay. There must have been other species that the Lazari had condemned through indifference.

The war began a century ago. A massive and devastating assault against Lazari positions wherever they were found, driving them back from world after world - worlds that were then sterilised before being stripped of any useful resources to feed the vast furnaces of the Xaranthai war machine.

The Lazari fought back with increasing ferocity, but also increasing desperation as one by one their worlds were obliterated. Their allies were dragged into the war only to fall before the Extermination Fleets, for any who sided with such arrogant beings deserved the same fate as the Lazari themselves.

The Extermination Edict had gradually been expanded to cover other species as well - at first those who sided with the Lazari. Then those who passively supported them. Then the neutrals. Then those who might help them. Then those that might help them someday, to now, in the war's closing stages, any plant or animal life. The Xaranthai had long since shed not just their failing biological bodies, but any emotions except hatred and fury. What once might have been a righteous and justified anger at the Lazari had become an all-consuming desire to see everything except them destroyed.

Now, in the central chamber of the massive Command Saucer stood Warmaster Malagdoroth, the leader of this violent machine-race, mentally processing thousands of reports and messages from not only the dozens of Extermination Fleets but the assorted shipyards, mining operations and factories scattered throughout this entire galactic region. These messages were, by their nature, virtually indecipherable to outsiders, but approximate translations are possible.

"Extermination Fleet Twelve reports planet C-231 sterilisation complete, Mineral Force Ninety moving to begin extraction operations."

Another world cleansed of hated life, gloated Malagdoroth. Another species granted the tender embrace of oblivion.

"Shipyard Complex Gamma reports Extermination Fleet Sixty-Six now ready for operations, request assignment."

Before the Warmaster could issue orders, another message came in.

"Priority Alert. Outer defence grid of Lazari home system penetrated by Extermination Fleet Twenty-Six. Reinforcements requested to penetrate deeper into system. Maximum Priority, Lazari homeworld must be cleansed immediately."

Had it still been capable of emotion the Warmaster would have grinned in savage delight. Instead, it merely ordered the new Extermination Fleet to head for the enemy homeworld at best speed, and that all other forces should do the same. All Mineral Forces were likewise ordered to assemble, as the Lazari inner defences were extremely strong and many ships would be damaged beyond repair, necessitating on-site salvage and recycling. the mobile shipyards and factory-ships were dispatched as well.

The final siege of the Lazari would be a drawn-out affair, so shortening their supply lines was essential. Then, one final message appeared.

"Alert. Long-range sensor grid reports unknown spatial distortions not consistent with any known drive technology ten thousand light-years towards the galactic rim and anti-spinward. Strategic analysis implies new species entering this region. This must be investigated and the species exterminated."

The Warmaster denied the request after a tenth of a second's consideration, practically a lifetime to the computer architecture that housed their minds.

"Negative. Annihilation of the Lazari remains absolute priority. Long-range sensors are to track and report new species movements but all combat and support assets except the Command Saucer are to divert to Lazari homeworld for extermination of the enemy."

As history would show this was an extremely fateful decision.

[Crossroads Inc.]

The War in Heaven,

For the great city ship of “Skohotintot” (Meaning "Legacy of Skoth") a great deal had happened in a very short period of time. With the location decided upon for the great “experiment” a far more in depth and calculating survey begun to take place in the Sector and the space around it. Planets that had been just briefly scanned for signs of sapient life, were now being picked over with a fine tooth comb. Resources, biodiversity, rare materials, all such things were being evaluated for potential usefulness at some point in the future.

It was during this time that the last few stragglers from the Expeditioner Templars returned, and that the High Cenobiarch received an answer to a question he had hope would not be answered for a very long time.

“They had found evidence of WHAT?”
“Planetary destruction on a massive scale your eminence much of it fairly recent. Evidence of atomic, anti-mater, mass drivers. My lord, several planets that were found appeared to have simply been, smashed.” A sub deacon spoke, their voice rattled and shaken, both by the information they held and the wrathful glare of the High Cenobiarch. The mighty armored plates running down their conical body splayed out, twitching in irrational as the Sub Deacon cowered behind the information tablet.

In truth, the revelation of the destruction of several planets was in itself not a surprise. There had been evidence of far higher civilizations from long ago that had waged terrible war. However these reports showed evidence of the destruction happened within only the last few years.

“We have independently verified now at least seven worlds which possessed low level civilizations that have now been destroyed. My lord, there can be no longer any other way to explain this, it is clear there is at least one or more other active class 15, even class 16 civilizations within the far end of this Galaxy.” The sub deacon paused, the initial frustration that broiled from the Cenobiarch had simmered enough for him to be more reasonable to speak with. Around the Deacon a silence fell, the noise of others trying their best to not stare or bring attention to themselves was like a vast roar of silence as everyone as much as possible tried to go about their tasks, tympanic ears straining to catch would be said next.

“Sub Deacon Alacon?”
“Yes My lord…”
“Send a command to the High Machinists, tell them to begin activating our Void Engine.” The soft ache of others in the massive control roar suddenly exploded into a thunder storm of listening ears.
“Th-The Void Engine My Lord? Ar-Are you intending to…”
“Any species capable of destroying sapient life on such a scale is a threat to every civilization within this Galaxy, regardless of size and strength. Sub Deacon Alacon, give orders to enter Void coordinates for… The Tomb.”

And with that it had been said. A sense of immense, unfathomable dread began to expand outwards from the control center. News such as this was too hard to keep quiet for very long as it reached its way down to the High Machinists of the engine command center.

The Void, a tiny pocket dimension discovered by the Skothian people long ago. It was a place of absolute emptiness between space and time. An emptiness that for much of their civilization held very little usefulness. However, with the collapse of that once mighty civilization, it became a resting place for relics and artifacts, and warships. “The Tomb” was the location where all such vessels would be placed, vessels of such catastrophic destructive power and size that the thought of them being used on others filled those the fled with a sense of Terror.

The thought of destroying such things however was as unthinkable as using them, they were relics of their home, their civilization, their people. And so they had been taken, discovered, and one by one placed in the Tomb, there to hopefully rest as a silent monument to what led to the death of their own civilization.

And now, now as the High Cenobiarch looked out into the darkness of space, he realized already that the use of such weapons in a perverse way was unavoidable. There would always be another force to deal war upon. After all War, war never changes,

[Eternal_Freedom]

The War In Heaven Part Two: The Fall of the Lazari
Two Months Later

The time was rapidly approaching when the Lazari would meet their end. Their defences were awesome in strength but with the outer grid penetrated it was only a matter of time. More and more of the Extermination Fleets had converged on the system, either helping punch through the existing breach or smashing open new gaps in the defence grid as ships and assets were drawn away to tackle the main Xaranthai thrust.

The outer grid had been stretched and stretched, dealing with both the main assault and dozens of other, smaller assaults when it had finally snapped, a progressive wave of casualties and damage that rippled around the edge of the entire star system, defence platforms and warships dying in droves even as others turned and fled deeper into the system.

The Extermination Fleets had not pursued at first. Instead they coldly and methodically obliterated any crippled ships, any lifeboats, anything biological in the outer system. Yet more Xaranthai forces arrived, recalled from more distant cleansing missions. The Mineral Forces began harvesting the asteroids and debris that had formed the outer defence grid while the shipyards and factories began repairs on the damaged ships.

And there were many damaged ships. For all that Warmaster Malagdoroth despised the Lazari, it could readily admit that they were cunning fighters and could certainly build capable, if not overwhelming warships. They had made one crucial mistake a decade ago however and the war had turned inexorably against them, the Xaranthai numbers and industrial advantage – not to mention sheer ruthlessness - prevailing against the Lazari’s grim resolve.

And now, the outer defence grid was shattered, the inner grid was weakening, and Malagdoroth imagined it could hear the civilians on the homeworld screaming in fear and terror as the mammoth Command Saucer appeared in the outer system in a blinding flash of light. The Warmaster would observe this cleansing directly.

Somewhere, deep in the Warmaster’s machine-mind, thoughts were coalescing that said it was missing something important. It quickly reviewed the known intelligence – the Lazari had ceased using antimatter weaponry a decade ago when planet B-276 was cleansed, and a larger-than-expected secondary explosion on the surface suggested a large antimatter production and storage facility had been destroyed. Shortly afterwards, antimatter weapons became increasingly rare features of Lazari combat tactics, their ships switching to far less effective fusion warheads.

Their mistake had been in not assigning a greater defence to such a strategically vital asset. Now their most dangerous weapons were gone – the heaviest Lazari ships had used missiles with devastating ten tonne antimatter warheads that could savage entire flotillas – and were being crushed.

Malagdoroth knew this. It also knew that Lazari were on the verge of breaking from their inner defence perimeter and falling back to close orbit of the homeworld itself, perhaps hoping that the formidable ground to space batteries would be enough to drive off the Extermination Fleets long enough to recover and implement some new plan. The strategy computer had not predicted this outcome for at least another week. This was going better than planned and the Warmaster was growing concerned about this.

But even a being with such rank as the Warmaster could not dismiss the command imperatives to annihilate the enemy whenever possible. The inner perimeter was breaking now, two-thirds of the ships retreating to their homeworld while the rest of them, and the surviving defence platforms set their reactors to overload and grimly fought on, guns firing as rapidly as possible until one after another they erupted in flares of plasma. Many of these flares were large enough to wreck the Xaranthai assault ships that had closed in to gauss-flayer range, while others merely blinded the sensors of other assault ships and even caused some mild interference on the Command Saucer’s powerful sensor equipment.

Malagdoroth did not realise that this was part of the plan the Lazari had concocted, to win the war and ensure their species might live on, to have some chance to rebuild and eventually take the fight back to the enemy.

Deep in the gravity well of the innermost planet, a huge gas giant, dozens of evacuation ships vanished in the brilliant flashes of active translight engines, the drive-flares lost in the sensor distortion caused by the gas giant, the nearby star and the deaths of the inner defence perimeter. They would travel as long as their engines could hold out, in all directions, hoping that once the drives inevitably failed they’d be far enough from Xaranthai-controlled space and near a habitable world to start over.

They would need time to do this however, and the second phase of the Lazari plan would buy them this time, despite the monolithic cost. They had indeed stopped deploying antimatter weapons after their main production facility was destroyed a decade ago, but for a very different reason than Malagdoroth suspected. Their own strategy computers had predicted they couldn’t win the war by conventional means without their main antimatter production facility, so they diverted the full output of the secondary facilities to a darker purpose.

The inner perimeter was dust and vapour now, and the Extermination Fleets closed in. They were badly weakened by the months-long battle of attrition and were now at barely half-strength, but that was more than enough to finish this battle. The Mineral Groups were even now beginning to harvest the remains of the inner perimeter, and the voice in Malagdoroth’s mind that this was wrong was growing louder and louder.

The Extermination Fleets, or what was left of them, were now engaging the few Lazari ships that had survived the retreat to close orbit. The surface batteries opened up, blasting apart a dozen assault ships in the first salvo as piercing white beams shot out from the planet. The Warmaster ordered it’s forces to press the attack, and quickly, before the doubts grew too strong.

And so the attack was pressed, and the Lazari defenders died even as assault ship after assault ship were slaughtered by the surface batteries. The Xaranthai clustered in closer and closer, even the Command Saucer beginning the sublight journey to the homeworld.

Then, in just five seconds, the situation span out of control and everything went wrong.

First, a final group of Lazari ships around the inner gas giant activated their translight engines – but this time it was not to escape. They flew on a course that would bring them back into realspace a mere five kilometres from their targets; the Xaranthai mobile shipyards and their attendant factory-ships. With such a short distance and the speed of these drives, the shipyards had less than a tenth of a second’s warning.

Twenty ships appeared around each of the twelve shipyards simultaneously, the drive flares blinding the sensors and weakening the shields. Then each ship detonated its payload, a hundred tonnes of antimatter, divided up to ensure maximum efficiency when it reacted with and annihilated the normal matter of the containers.

The shipyards vanished in eye-searing detonations that faded away to reveal nothing but vapour. At a stroke the Xaranthai’s entire shipbuilding infrastructure had been obliterated. This was a serious loss in itself, but the Command Saucer and the Mineral Groups could gather enough resources to rebuild that infrastructure in as little as a year, but then one second after the detonations the second act occurred.

First one, then three, then all of the Mineral Groups vanished in similar flares of annihilated matter as the suicide charges rigged to every lump of rock in the system detonated. Mining drones, refineries, transports, almost all were ripped apart by the floods of radiation, or left as drifting hulks, their hulls burned away and their innards afire.

Had it still possessed eyes, Warmaster Malagdoroth would have blinked it sheer undiluted astonishment. The strategy computer meanwhile blandly updated its estimates, to say that restoring full infrastructure would now take twenty years.

Now came the grand finale of the Lazari’s Last Stand. While they used thousands of tonnes of carefully-hoarded antimatter for the suicide charges and drone ships that took out the shipyards, this was but a drop in the ocean compared to what they had managed to stockpile over the last decade. This vast amount of destructive potential had been placed in the most advantageous position possible: deep within the Lazari homeworld itself. The planet would die, but it would take the bulk of the Xaranthai with it.

Within the planetary command bunker, the Lazari Dominar locked his eyes on a framed picture of his wife and children, who had died twenty years ago when the colony world they were visiting as part of a morale-boosting tour had been wiped away. His finger stabbed down on the button that would trigger the planetary suicide charges. The last thought that passed through his mind was one that virtually every Lazari left on the planet shared, directed at their would-be conquerors:

See you in Hell.

The charges detonated. The planet died – no, it was shattered. The crust and most of the upper mantle was blasted apart, sending a vast storm of debris hurtling outrights at a colossal speed. The blasts nearer the surface reached out into orbit, tearing apart hundreds of Xaranthai ships in moments. Fragments and pieces of cities and mountains stormed through the ranks of the Extermination Fleets with crushing force. The brilliance of the detonations blinded sensors on every ships for a million kilometres, making collisions with those speeding fragments of their enemies homeworld unavoidable.

On the Command Saucer, Malagdoroth stared dumbly at the display as its mind tried, and failed, to comprehend what had happened. It couldn’t have been an accident, so the Lazari must have planned it. The idea of sacrificing yourself to deny the enemy victory was a totally alien concept to the Xaranthai. The strategy computers gave the same answer they always had when damaged Lazari vessels rammed assault ships in a final bid to hurt the enemy: does not compute.

The reports came in and the news was very, very bad. Just three Extermination Fleets had any survivors, and those were badly understrength. The Mineral Groups and the shipyards were all gone. Their enemy was defeated but at an almost pyrrhic cost.

An hour passed as what was left of the Lazari world entered its death throes: the exposed lower mantle cooling rapidly, blobs of molten metal flying off as rotational and tectonic forces were no longer contained by the planets outer shell, the explosively-ejected fragments of the crust continuing their inertia-driven journeys out into deep space.

Malagdoroth passed the time running computation after computation while the surviving ships made what repairs they could. And then the sensor picture cleared enough to pick up the last of the Lazari evacuation ships – this one had incomplete engines and was slow enough to still be detectable, the others were long beyond sensor range – and its estimated course prompted a memory from months previously:

“Alert. Lazari evacuation vessel on course towards galactic rim and anti-spinward. Speed and hyperspace drive flare indicates maximum-duration transit. Estimate vessel will emerge in realspace approximately ten thousand light years from this system.”

The Warmaster would have snarled had it possessed the needed organs.

“They must be heading for that possible sighting of a new species that was detected two months ago. They must be new allies. Begin charging translight engines on all ships, set course for the estimated arrival area of the Lazari ship. We must exterminate them before they can reach their new friends.”

The war was over. But the bloodshed wasn’t quite done yet.

[VX-145]

We interrupt your regularly-scheduled War In Heaven to bring you:

Endeavour Backstory Fluuf Piece Thing, No.3

Captain Victoria Carver stretched out her arms, legs and tail, staving off boredom for another moment or two. She was six hours into her eight-hour watch, and aside from a brief conversation with Captain Fujiwara about fuel consumption, nothing had happened. That was a damn good thing, considering how small and vulnerable their formation was. Her gunboat - a converted bus, really - Generous had left Endeavour alongside the Glorious, Gorkamorka and their charge, the cargo ship (read: a differently-converted bus) Charcoal nearly three weeks ago. That had felt like too few ships, even before Gorkamorka had diverted to help defend an outlying hab-block from a sudden drone attack, and Glorious had turned back two days into the journey with engine trouble.

Her left ear twitched, anxious. She was only getting worried now the Jolly Green Giant was slowly filling the forward window; they were about four hours from their destination (which meant she'd have to stay up), and a factory ship had been sighted in orbit before they'd left. Alone, her gunboat stood no chance.

No point dwelling on that, though. She booted up the ship's library, scrolled past the Thirty-Eight Decoded Works and started playing a neowave album. Music would help.

Her starboard passive sensor pinged, and the large bulk of a factory ship showed up at the extreme edge of her screen.

Fuck.

"Victoria," Fujiwara called across the comm.

"I see it," Victoria replied, idly flicking the ship's alarm on. "Looks like it's on course for the same block as us. Five, maybe six hours until it gets there." Left unsaid was that the factory ship was undoubtedly spewing out drones as it went - and they would reach the hab block that was their mutual destination far faster than their mothership.

Retreat wasn't an option. They were definitely within range of the factory ship's drones, and those were much faster than either of the ships. The two-ship convoy couldn't speed up, either; the Charcoal was equipped with the arcane mechanisms needed to ignore inertia (and thus avoid a lengthy deceleration burn that would eat up all the gained speed), but her Generous wasn't, and sending the barely-armed cargo ship ahead into the danger zone alone was perhaps the worst possible move.

"We should press on," Victoria decided. "Maybe we can get everything loaded and get out again before that big bastard arrives. If nothing else, the hab'll distract it long enough for us to escape." She didn't talk about the drones, of course, both of them already knew.

"I've spoken to my crew," Fujiwara said, "They agree."

Her own crew was assembled behind her, Lieutenants Sully (a baseline human) and Vargthrax (a blob of flesh, a maw and some eyes). They both nodded. "To your stations, then," Victoria said.

-------------------

The next few hours felt more like days. While Sully was the sensor specialist of her three-person crew, all three of them kept their eyes glued to the screens, waiting for the first drones to show up. None did, seemingly more interested in the hab block then their little convoy.

Carefully, the two ships descended into the murky green mist, powerful searchlights giving them a modicum of visibility - though their electronic sensors were far less affected.

Victoria's tail swayed from side to side as she looked out into the mist, a mug of warmed caffeine water held in one hand and the other on the MASTER ARM switch for the gunboat's weapons. There would be about ten minutes' warning before any drones could reach firing range, but the pea soup made her worried. Anything could be hiding out there.

They reached the hab block, a bulky, cuboid thing floating where the pea soup met a denser layer of the atmosphere. Its communications array looked to have been blown off, and two sections had been vented into space - the drones must have gotten here first, and been driven off. That would be why no more had turned up - the factory ship would be conserving its resources for a knock-out blow. The docking bay was, fortuitously, intact; an odd-looking armed shuttle sat in one berth, and the Charcoal settled into another. Vargthrax piloted the Generous in, carefully keeping the nose pointed out the docking bay and the main guns unmasked. As soon as the ship docked and a connection to the station's internal logistics system was made, supplies came rushing in from the hab block's stockpile; fuel, food, breathable air, water and ammunition.

Lots of ammunition.

Captain Fujiwara met her just inside the airlock. "Autologi's grabbing most of the junk we're here for," she said, "but we need to grab some hard drives from the computer system, and see if she's still here."

"No reason she wouldn't be," Victoria replied, "That girl's hard to kill."

And hard to find, as it turned out. Victoria and Fujiwara spent precious minutes combing the hab, before finding their quarry nested deep inside the communal area of a bunk module, wrapped in a blanket with a copy of The New Essential Guide to Weapons and Technology splayed out in front of her. Her blue hair was ragged, she'd probably forgotten to shower again. The main TV screen - normally used to watch movies or popular television programs - was showing a sensor map of the local area, the oncoming factory ship highlighted in red.

Red eyes locked onto Victoria, and then blinked. "I forgot we have catgirls now," the girl said, shaking the blanket off. "Do either of you want a drink or anything?"

Victoria shook her head. "We've got to leave. Are you packed and ready to go?"

The girl nodded, retreating into one of the bedrooms and hauling out three large bags. "Computers are in this one," she said, handing it to Fujiwara. "Other two have my stuff in them. Wait-" she went to drop the bags, pick up her blanket and book, but Victoria pre-empted her and put them in her arms.

"Let's go," Victoria said.

--------------------

More time was lost navigating back to the docking bay, and their charge stopped once or twice to check a phone. They made it back with less than half an hour before the factory ship was due to arrive; the wreckage of two drones (blasted apart by the hab's defences) were a sure sign of how close it was.

The girl broke off from Victoria and Fujiwara, heading towards the odd shuttle. Victoria let her go; she must have some reason, whatever it was. Instead, she boarded the Generous. "Make ready to clear the dock!" she barked, barely through the airlock. "We'll go first, have the other ships follow us out." She started retracting the docking arm, and it had barely cleared the station's aperture when the shuttle latched onto it.

Shrugging it off, Victoria ordered the engines lit. Normally, they'd use small bursts of compressed gases to slide out of the docking bay - in much the same way they'd entered - but no-one was coming back here, and denying the enemy even a few kilos of processed metals was well worth the effort. The wall of the docking bay melted behind them, the Charcoal lighting up her own engines in her berth.

They were ten minutes out from the hab block when the first drones showed up. One squadron at first, presumably a scouting element, then three more vectored in by the machine-mind of the factory ship - ten more minutes out. A predictable response, but that didn't help.

"Charcoal, take the materials and make a break for the inner system," Victoria ordered. "We'll buy you the time."

Charcoal surged ahead, all forward engines burning.

"We only need to kill this squadron," the girl's voice floated from an open screen on the left side of Victoria's console. "The others won't be a problem."

Victoria shrugged that off. One squadron could still be a threat, whatever the girl had planned. "You should detach and go after Charcoal," she ordered, then turned to her crew. "Ready the main battery, set point-defence guns to full fire rate. Sully, mark targets, Vargthrax - operate the missiles."

The two nodded, and she slewed the Generous around for what was sure to be just another glorious last stand. The shuttle detached, as she'd ordered, and then the first wave of drones were on them. Missiles lanced out from the racks on Generous' belly, one, two chewed apart by the drones' gatling guns - a third and fourth, fifth and sixth made it through, blasting apart a drone apiece. Overkill, really - those missiles were meant to blast through the armour of a factory ship.

Generous' two autocannon turrets spat fire into the oncoming squadron. Their formation was spaced out - always had been - but predictable, and the cannons blasted another ten before they were in weapons range. Then they were out, reloading from the ammunition canisters in Generous' cargo bays. As one, the red blips on Victoria's screen converged directly ahead, just outside of her point defence envelope-

and began winking out rapidly. They turned to meet whatever was killing them (it didn't seem to show up on her screen, somehow), and died. That shuttle burned past the front window, rolling.

Victoria felt relief, then chilled as the factory ship emerged from the mist in the far distance. Even at a range where the hab block was no longer visible, the factory ship loomed. She could see the clouds of drones around it, hundreds, thousands of squadrons.

"Close your eyes," the girl's voice was urgent over the comm, and Victoria did so just in time for a white light to pierce through her eyelids, painfully hot, and then subside. The Generous rocked, seemingly spinning end over end - Victoria was glad they had been refitted with artificial gravity last month, otherwise she'd have probably been splatted against one of the bulkheads.

When she opened her eyes, the factory ship - large enough to dwarf more than a few asteroids - was gone.

"What... whathefuck was that?"

"That hab's fusion reactors detonating, alongside the half-kilo of antimatter I left behind," the girl said, her voice just as detatched as normal. "That was bigger than I thought it would be. I know the local gases aren't explosive, but maybe they helped? I was looking at them for use in energy weapons - but I'm not sure how it would have worked here. Oh well. Enemy's gone. Don't have another one of those, though - took me the entire time I was here to get even half a kilo of antimatter, and that's with the Jolly Green Giant being as co-operative as it has been. My point being, we need to leave."

Victoria swallowed, tail and ears outstretched. The incoming enemy reinforcement blob had winked out, the drones probably going dead because of some contingency or other. "Alright," she said, regaining some composure, "dock with us, and we'll go home."

The war hadn't changed, Victoria knew that - even if that shuttle was some wonder-weapon, there was no way they could produce enough to defeat the hundreds of thousands of drones already churned out by the factory ships, and that antimatter bomb was definitely a one-off. Even if they could get the antimatter together for another one, there was no way the factory ships would be dumb enough to eat it - unlike their drones, the ships learned.

Nevertheless, for the first time in a long time, she felt... not hopeful, but less like she was already dead.

[Crossroads Inc.]

The War In Heaven: What is Past is Prologue

Fate is a twisted and cruel entity…

For the species known as “Skothian” over 3000 years ago it’s once mighty civilization had collapsed after a great and terrible war with a race as powerful as its own. A cult had formed, fearing that this end would take place, and had escaped in a vast city ship to another galaxy. A religion of sorts had grown, a belief that such power should never again reach such a point where it could be used to devastate life on such a scale. The solution to this seemed to them a “simple” one, to find a galaxy where their level of power was supreme, and then to guide a select group of races to a unified whole to act as a custodian for all life. To in time unify the galaxy itself against any such threat ever again.

That “simple” idea of course hinged upon a relative basic assumption… That the Skothian remnants were able to find a Galaxy where they would be the supreme power within that space to guide others unopposed. That ‘basic’ assumption had in less than a year of starting their great plan, been completely turned on end when evidence came to life of at least one other race that possible could match the power they wielded.

As the small shuttle slipped out from the great city ship the full accuracy of the strange dimension known as “the void” began to be felt. In a location outside of time and space that existed as an emptiness between universes, The void was a place of utter darkness, and cold, and emptiness. Although, not fully empty.

“We are just about to enter the outer envelope of the sarcophagus, transmitting security code now.” A voice announced, sounding perhaps a bit more timid then they desired to be. A moment pause, and in the total darkness, a thin screen of light poured suddenly forth.
“Code received, we are now passing through the sarcophagus field” The voice said again. “Entrance in 5-4-3-2…”
Silence, and then awe.

Both of the young pilots, each in their early 300’s were like many on the vessel. Born long after the death of their civilization. Learning all that they knew from recordings and archives, they now looked out upon the legacy of their people with their own eyes for the first time.

“Akron, have you ever imagined they could be so many?”
“It is strange but no. Only a few of course would know all that has been placed here but even so. When you are told how things ended, it feels strange that so many are preserved.” At this a voice behind them reminded them of its presence.
“Not all that many in fact Brother Shanadon. There are roughly two thousand space fairing vessels that are stored here. At our height, the Great Skothian Empire fielded an armada of more than ten times this amount. Now then, please focus on the mission and taking us toward the Keystone.”
“Y-Yes Cardinal!” the pilot Shanadon replied to their sole passenger, the copilot now keeping their eyes fixed ahead less they be admonished for too much sightseeing. Their mission was simple, they needed to deliver a member of the council to the primary security station in the middle of the Tomb in order to allow access to larger vessels. It would be after all a titanic endeavor to try and get ships that laid dormant for a 1000 years operation again.

The Sub Deacon on the small ship knew this painfully well. It had been hotly discussed the night before at the emergency council meeting that had been called forth. The mere act of using even a single vessel, let along the full remaining force of every last warship they possessed was an act that some could not reconcile. Yet, in the end it was the fear of what could happen, the fear that even a single other race would be ground into nothingness and erased for all time, that drove them to action.
It was this very fear that all too soon would come to pass.

[FOUR MONTHS LATER]

Since the discovery of another race within the galaxy that was equal to their own, time for the Skothians had flown by as ever day seemed to pass in an instant. Within the Tomb, the great resurrection of warships was entering its final phase. The outlook of usable ships was something that was filling many with a great deal of uncertainty. The Tomb after all was meant to hold anything salvaged from the fall of their people, regardless of age. Many of the ships within were civilian vessels or merchant ships. Of the warships that it did possess, many of those had been old even at the time of the fall, let alone 1000 years later. Of the two thousand vessels registered, only about 400 dedicated warships were able to be brought up to operational proficiency.
To the Skothians, “only” 400 of their ships seemed a frail and worrisome number. To any other race that could view the majority of these ships, even a few could lay waste to virtually any other star force that would come to rise for perhaps the next several thousand years.

A trio of “Curl-lee” class Battle Spheres drifted into formation alongside some other ships. Each one was an orb of death some 5km across, glistening with instruments of war fueled by the ships Quantum ‘Argramanara’ singularity matrix. In its heyday, it was considered a “medium” front line combat ship.

Looking out upon the awakened fleet of ships from one of the many service stations that had been moved into the area, two Bishops regarded the view as around them various technicians busied themselves.
“In a way, it is a testament to our past that so many still function and yet…” their voice trailed off, replaced by the thoughts of the one next to them.
“And yet, if we are indeed facing another race such as ours, even all of this may not be nearly enough for us to be victorious.”
Now, the first snorted, his body giving a shudder showing his displeasure. The bishop was one of the few watching that had been there at the fall, at just over 1500 years, they were considered ‘middle aged’ for their species. The great armored plates down their back weathered and shown their age.
“Victorious? A hollow word to use to be sure Bishop Maylon. It can be a near certainty, that whatever outcome there may be from this action, no one involved will feel any sense of pride or accomplishment in what is done.” The other nodded.
“The council would agree with you Bishop Graf, many feel this to be a fool hearty endeavor and yet, we have no choice. In a way we are committed, trying to flee to another Galaxy at this point we would be dooming all other life to an extinction worse than our own. If, the reports are true.” They both paused and shuddered.
“I wish it were not, but, the evidence was quite clear.” Maylon spoke again as he held up a small information table, on the screen was the report.

As soon as the first evidence of a possible race capable of destroying other civilizations was found, a full two thirds of the Exploration Templars were once more dispatched. This time, all of their focus went into the region of space that was detected to have been the focal point of the most recent destruction. What they would later learn had once been the Lazari system.
The ships had arrived, carefully cloaked and screened against any detection less they be discovered by the very quarry they were seeking. Their fears would be unfounded as the system seemed utterly deserted, and yet, everywhere were the signs of what had happened. Clouds of destroyed and ravaged warships, vast seemingly unending fields of pulverized rock and asteroids, and at the heart of the devastation what was once a paradise of a world, blown apart from the inside. Standing as stark testament to the desperation of those that they faced down.
The reports that came back were those of single-minded ruthlessness in the form of the attacks, analyzing the destruction, battle strategies, and remains of ships and weaponry showed a species, if it could be called that, which had wholly and utterly devoted itself to the destruction of life.

The two shook their heads, as though to clear themselves both of what the report had indicated. There would be no reasoning with this race, no chance for peace, no chance for coexistence. Deep inside they knew that 50,000 years of their civilization came down to the single most basic of survival instincts.

To kill or be killed.

[VX-145]

Endeavour Backstory Fluff Piece Thing, No.4

Three drones streaked through space, chased all the way by a stich-trail of autocannon fire. One was caught, spinning away and exploding - the other two swung around for an attack run on their opponent. One found itself in the cross-hairs of the guboat's point-defence guns, chewed to pieces, and the other breached the forward window, prepared to unleash hell on the occupants-

and found itself gripped in a giant red metal claw, crushed into scrap metal.

"Get da window repaired!" Boss Dave shouted at one of his underlings, who duly scampered forwards with a patch kit. The whole of his crew was suited up, of course - modern space suits were lightweight and thin enough they could be worn in place of normal clothes - but he would be damned if there was a hole in his ship. "Bring us about! Get da Gopher and Golden to move back in'er position, fer Zog's sake! 'Ow's da hab-block doin'? They evac'd yet?"

One of his gretchin reported back*: "They've not even started, boss!"

"WHY DA KRUMPIN' 'ELL NOT?"

"Their evacuation ship isn't here yet! It's not my fault, boss!"

This was a right bloody mess, wasn't it? They'd only reached the hab a few minutes ago, and already things were going to pot. There had been four LS-G gunboats protecting this place - all of which were now hulks, the surviving crew crammed onto the promenade deck of the Gorkamorka, which had been the first reinforcement to arrive. He'd ordered them armed - they could fire rifles at the bastard drones if nothing else.

Then, the rest of the reinforcements had arrived - two more gunboats and three unconverted LS-122s. The baseline ships had their upper decks crammed with soldiers, too; they'd been moving a garrison force to the outer colonies when the call had come in. That made them useless for evacuating this colony.

And more drones were on the way - along with a factory ship, which was zeroing in on the giant pile of processed resources that was otherwise known as a hab block and its occupants.

First problem first. "'Ave da transports offload deyse troops onto da other gunboats, then tell 'em to 'help with da damn evacuation."

That wouldn't take too long, and the heavy weapons carried by those soldiers would help in the inevitable knife-fight. With the transports shuttling people to the incoming bulk freighter-cum-evacuation ship, they might just get everyone out before the factory ship showed up. Of course, that bastard wouldn't make it easy - as promised, another four squadrons of drones were entering the dense asteroid field this hab block had been built in. They ran head-first into layers of mines, and took losses; a few autonomous defensive platforms that had survived the initial assault inflicted more.

Dave steered the Gorkamorka into the storm, and it broke on his bow. He felled three with the dakka on his left arm, firing through the window. It had, of course, been blasted open again**. A gretchin took a hit, but another simply popped out the tank at the back of the ship to replace it. One of the ship's cannons - starboard upper - stopped firing, barrel torn off by a ram.

The Golden lost its portside engine pod to massed fire, but stayed in the fight - the guns on the pod still firing with the ammunition left in their magazines, cut off from the autologi system. Meanwhile, the Gopher had been lucky enough to score a missile team; every so often, a streak of white smoke shot out, evaporating drones in its wake and blasting apart more when it detonated. Even more fire came from the guns on the hab block itself - the same type of weapons, but enough of them to make a difference. The drones thinned, and thinned, and then there were no more.

They managed to get the Golden's engine pod re-attached before the next wave arrived, as well as replenishing the minefield. Even then, that was a closer battle; the Gopher's bridge burned to a co-ordinated attack, and Dave had to carefully angle the Gorkamorka lest the same happen to him. Then, the Golden exploded - a drone rammed into the ship's reactor cluster, located on the ventral surface. It wasn't completely gone; the ship's armour took enough of the blast to spare the promenade deck and the cockpit, but it was broken in two and without power.

Were more reinforcements coming? He couldn't remember. More drones came, just as they got the Golden's crew reshuffled. They were beginning to run out of dakka, now, even with the autologi system and after scavenging from the dead. The factory ship had been visible for some time now, but kept at bay by the tightly packed asteroids.

Now, no longer - the last obstacle between them and it entered its gaping, grinding, bleeding*** maw, and drone after drone began swarming from every crevice in its hull. It was smaller than the others - younger, most likely - but still easily dwarfed the hab block behind Dave. "Launch da rokkits!" he ordered, and a full salvo went out - the maw stopped chewing after the missiles hit, blasting apart the grinders and gears. More were already being built, but that brought them precious time.

Not enough. The hab block still had dozens of people aboard, and the Gopher finally broke apart entirely. His own ship was down to just one of its three autocannon, and a handful of the point-defence guns. Only one thing for it.

"Youse on da top deck!" he shouted, "Get off da ship! Imma ram da git!" He slammed the throttle wide open, closing the distance in less than a minute-

there was a flash of white, and for a moment Dave thought he was dead. Then, he realised he wasn't - that the factory ship had used its faster-than-light drive to escape. But why? The ram wouldn't have hurt it - they'd never bothered to escape before. The remaining drones were silent, drifting - their parent jumping far enough away to render them useless.

It was only later, when news of the battle at the Jolly Green Giant filtered through the fleet, that Dave was able to piece it together; either the factory ship had been recalled to cover some hole left in Elon's defences by the destruction of one of the older factory ships, or it had been worried that the same fate was about to befall it. Hopefully, it was the latter.

It was about damn time the robots started feeling fear.

--------------------

*Technically, this was redundant, as the gretchin were part of Dave's distributed consciousness, but it was better than silence.

**One might consider this a design flaw, except for two things. First, windows were a necessity in dense asteroid fields which rendered most sensors useless. Second, such a tempting target made Amazo-X drones very predictable - they would shoot for the window first, ignoring all the guns shooting at them to do so.

***For psychological warfare purposes.

[Elheru Aran]

Minutiae

Year 4,293 of the Glorious Incarnation

Martios IV

To: Adelig Mokhanda vir Khouras tou Galaad, Archontas tou soi Chelonis, Navarchos Megakolymvitis [rest of titles compressed]

From: Wachter-Ypolchagos class II Mokhanda Secundus vir Daxo tou Galaad, Herr Donnerkind [rest of titles compressed]

Ave Emperoress (may They bless the Empire forever)

Vater,

I hope this missive finds you well.

I write to notify you of some news that find me concerned. My dear sister Kharon has abandoned Erepia with the Megakolymvitis. While it is her due as klironomos [ed: heir] of soi Chelonis, I worry that it leaves the Homeworld vulnerable. Frater Randyl of the orbital shipyard assures me that the Union has not coordinated with soia Foinix or Raubvogel in movements around Erepia recently, but I remain suspicious. He has no word of reports from the Union kyria [ed: shipmasters] upon Megakolymvitis of where they are headed or what their mission may be.

I know that Kharon has great favor with you since I abdicated my rights as klironomos to join the Protectors, but I ask you to contact her immediately and ask her to remain within tactical range of Homeworld. I realise that she has great support in the Chelonis kypseli [ed: hive-tower], and in light of that I cannot conceive that she has simply abandoned them.

Perhaps she shall tell you what she is conniving. If she shall not keep the Homeworld safe, I beg you to petition the Immanent Presence for orders to send a Protector detachment to persuade her otherwise. Whether I be part of that detachment or not does not matter, only that it is done.

‘Po tyvoyey Befehl!
Your son,
Daxo


Response:

Ave Emperoress (Their Eye is ever upon You, be blest)

Daxo,

Your sister is incorrigible.

That said, you know the genis does not have the presence within the Epimelitirio [ed: rough translation, Parliament, House of Lords] to command the Protector Fleet. I have lodged a petition, but we shall see as the Light shines upon us or not. Konrant soi Drakon and his hangers-on effectively control your deployments at the moment. They appreciate the Verkaufreisen [ed: Merchant Princes] for our economic contributions, but they will be damned if they allow us to do anything more than bow and scrape for their leavings.

I advise you to continue pushing towards greater rank. You have the advantage of there being no genia snobbery within the Protectors. If you require anything from Chelonis stores, you have only to ask.

Your mother sends best wishes, asks when next you may visit the genis complex on Mitra, and a bunch of the usual maternal concerned advice to which I will only add that if you are ever to contract matrimony, it would send her over the heavens to have a grand-child or two. No rush.

Ich gesprochen,

Khouras
Adelig soi Chelonis


Fringe Space of the Theophanic Empire

Bridge audio record 4923.03.IV

...Hail and heave to…

...soi Chelonis… you are commanded to hearken…

...ward obs...tion… launching…

[static, then record clears]

Hear this. You are trespassing, unknown ship. In the name of the Autokrator/ia, you will heave to and cease launching… whatever those are, or we shall open fire!

(aside) Frater Skotia, do I have tactical command?


ỵ̴̨̨̪͓̲̞͕͕̲̣͛ͅę̴̛̬͍̦̼͉̤̗̪̤̲̝̭͚̂͐̂̾̑́͌͋̈̑̒̅̓͝ͅs̵̛̻͔̠̲̰̮̗̞̙̩͓͙̪̔͊̿̏̈́̑̀̓̑͑͂ͅ ̸̬̩̜͇̩͎̘̂̉̋͐̿͆̾͛̀̇̆̚l̷̻̤̗͐̈́̽̎̽̆͑͛̓̈͊̕̕͠a̵͇͕̤̒̈ͅd̶̻̟̖̹̦̻̱̐̓̊̊y̸̧̡͈̝̙͎̩͎̞͚̦͐͐̀̑͒̀̑̕͠ ̴̢̢̧̗̠͚̥̰̭͎̱͈̩͙͔̌̅̂y̷̡̛͔̱͍͕̭͇̟͑͋́̉̈͆̊̈́ǫ̶̥̼̠̦̥͚̙̰̇̎̽͝u̵̪̩̙͂͒ ̴̨̱͎̬̖̬͕͖͎̤̅̋̒̈̇͑̾̾̇̓͐̋̆͗͘ḧ̷̨̡̭̞̭̟̠̘̝̺̪͕̤͛̎̐͒ͅa̴̭̹͊̓v̶̖̗̫̻̤̝̓̆͒̓͐́̿ͅe̴̗͒̔̏̇̚ ̷͉̝̊͜c̵͚̠̯̖̣̥̝͇̹͉͆̑̏͐̀̽̊̑ͅo̶̢̠̤̘̥̤̮̩͚̅͋͊͊̽͜͝m̸̫͉̪͛̄̀̓̋͂̈̿̀͠m̵̖̪̗̹͔͔͖̜̹͎̟̭̂̀̾͊͐̌̿̿͊͆̄͝ͅḁ̸̧̯͓͍̫̠͇̲̻̲͖̙̻̟̒̑̊n̷̫̮͖̑͑͛̎͘ḑ̸̡̧̢͓̣͙̳̰͍͉͇̖̪̭̎̎͊̀̓̈́̈́͐͒̉̅̎́̀͘



Unknown ship, you have sealed your fate.

Launch kleptoi-craft. Ready missiles. Ready countermeasures. Raise jamming to level kappa.




w̸̨̡̢̢̛̠͉̝̰̩͎̼͈̣̬̹͚̜̝̮͑̅͐̔̊͂̈̓̿̎̿͆̈̕͜e̵͎̹̻̦͕̥̤͓̹̊ͅ ̵̧̛̛̺͚̺̺͚̓̄̈́͋̆͌̈́̍̂́̾̒̆̽̈́̉̉̓́̚͠͝͝h̷̝̻̣̺̠͙̳̞͕͓̝̯͍͎̣̩͎͚̬̯̻̣͂̾͂̑̈́̑̃̐͊͝á̶̛̞͔̳̼̖̘̙̤͈̰̳̽͆̒̂͌̀̿̄̐̓̔̕͜͝v̵̧̗̭̙̪̬͖͇͓̤̲̖̥̬̙̲̜͓̘̭̩͇͔̦͒̾͒̎̀͆̈̆̚ę̷̢̧̛͔͙͎͔͍͓̫̱̹̗̦̟͍̰͂̋͐͑͑̉̑͑͝ͅͅ ̷̢̤͓͖͎̩̰̜̖̞̈́͒ͅì̶̧̤͙̠̣̯͕̰̗̥͍̲͍̣̺̤͑̒͑̄̈́́͐̿̍͆̕̚n̴̨̛̛̦̺͕͇̭͇͙̫̙̺͉̒̾́͒́͊̈́͠ͅç̶̟͔͙̦̰̻͖̦̻̣͚̻̭̘̹̪̮̗̝̿̈́͊͘̕̕͜͜͜ơ̴̧̨͓͖̞̫̻̰̼̙̻͎̽̐̀̒̽̒͒̌̂̈́̂̉̄͒̋̈́̄̉̚͝͝ͅm̶̨̧̗̥͖̟̭̮̪̲̲͍͙̯̥̥͔̳̫͍̰̳̲̔͌́̈́͋̎̍̓͌̉̈́̒̍̃͗̄́̔͂͗̽̚̚͝͝͝͝͝ͅȉ̵̢̡̪͚̫̱͚̠̪̼̫̳̠̯͔̦̤͎͕̪͕̯͕͗̂̔͊̆̚͜͜͜ͅͅn̵̢̧̨̰̮̼̞̮͔͉͖̲͉̩͖̲̙̦͔̼͔̫̻̏̈́̓͜͜͠g̶̱̣͖̣̰̙̤͂̊͐͆͑̉̒̕,̴̧̘́͌̎́̆̈́̿̈́͋̃̃̅̽͂͆̋̿͘̕͘͝͝ ̷̨̢̛̼͔̝̙͕͎̬̝́̌͌̑̔́͑̆͒̎u̷̠̭̩̰͈̰̯̜̻̬̣͚̘̞̍̏͑̔͆̀̏̽̇̈̍͠ñ̸̪͓̣͍̝̭̠̮̝̩̳̟̇̑̐͗̈́́͐̓̂̏̎́̍̏̓́̏̚̚͠k̸̪̹̦͚̆̄͛͑͂̋̄̔̈́̔̔̃̀͑̄̑͂̒͋̽̅͘̚ņ̸̡̛̤̞̤̝͈̹̫̦͖̹̲͉̤̹͉̝̬͖͙̜͋͜o̷͇͙̽̍̐̎̿̑͐̓̋̔̈͝ŵ̸̡͙͔̤͈̙͔̫̱̭͚̣͉͔͊̉̇̾͂̃̇̂̒̌̋͑̾͠ͅn̸̡̧̮̝̳̺̼̝̥̱̼̫̱͓̥͍̩͚̭̫͕̲̪̂̀͛̀̇̌̌̅͊́̈̏͌̓̄̿͘̚ ̶̧̡̳̳͉̣͙͎̹͚͈̙͓̯̺͎͕̺̃̐̾̂̇̄̐͌͒͛̓̽͂͊̍̎̅̀̒͋̑̍͘̕̕̕t̴̠̓̎́̌y̷̢̛̤̹̗͙̲̹͓̱͓͚̐̃̈́͐͂̔̍́̍͌̈́̀̃́̿͌͘͜p̷̧̡̢̢̛̛̛̹̦̤̘͖̟̭̗̦̮̻̟̣̱̘̰͇͓͈̦̼̐́̃̇̅̂̐̒̍̿̂̔̈͑̈̈́̏̍̌̾̚͘͜ͅê̴̺͓̤͉̜͓̮̟̘̰̼͕̇̎̅̅̀͛̒̄̋̍͘




Acknowledged. Countermeasures better be active now or there will be hell to pay!

My lady! Incoming!

All hands brace for impact. Fire all point defences.

That’s the best they can do? Time to einschiffschung?




ţ̸̢̫͓̩͚͕̳͇͚̩̰̠̝̹̤̗̙͉̘̓̒̌͑͆͐͘ͅw̷̨̨͕̟͇͆̚o̶̖̺͓̠̘̮͕͌̿̓̀̃͒̅̍̀̽̇͋͊̊͌͂̕̕͘̕͜͝ͅ ̶̢̢͈̳̹͉͉͈̼̅͑̓̅͛͌̉̐͆̔̽̒̃̓̚͘͠m̸̡̛̥̲̺̘̋̂̈̆̐̒̌̅̿͂̏̂͑̂͛͘̚͝͝i̵̧̧̛̛̹̗͔̹͍̝̜̬̘̩̯̜͓͖͔̦̎͊̈͆͗̿͛͗͗͊́͐̋͂͗̂͋̚͘̕͜͜͝͝͠ņ̵̢͚͎͚̻̼̳͉͈͇͍̣̥͆̍͂̐̒̀̄͘ṵ̵̡͇͖̹̺̥̥̘̣̥͙͙̐̎́̆̂̐̉͌̊͆̃͒͌̂̾͒̋́͂̂̅̚͘͠ţ̵̼̣͉̰̆̆͋ę̵̤̭̣̜͕̥͕̟̩̥͓̀͗̈́̽̈̌̒̚͘̚͜s̵̢͖̥͎͉̳̲͕̪̖̪̬̰̜͚̱̘̗͚̘̣̬̘̙̦̪͇͑̓͊̅́̏͗̑͛̈́̚̚͝͝ͅ ̸̧̼͎͔͊̃̐͊̾̓͂̀̈́͛̂͝m̸̡̖̯̮̪̯̣̜͍͓̱̯̱͉͔̩̰̪̘̞̦̻̓̓̕ͅý̶̧̡͇̻͉͚͉̥͔̝̦̥̎͌̄̓͑̈́̐͌͒͐̿͑̅͌́̎͠͠͝͠ͅ ̷̢̢̨͈͉̙̭̜̖̖̠̪͍̥͙̳͔̠̥̱͇͓͚̫̬̲̓̓̓͂̉̈́̉̾͑͆̑͜ľ̷̬̰̗̗͍̫͉̼͚̾̓̍ȃ̷̡̧̰̲͙̳̫̮̙̺̘̻̝̩̣̜̱̹͕̼̙͚̍͂̾̽̈́̓̔̔̋̃͑͋̊̿̂̅̏́̽̈̂̋̕͝͝͠ͅͅd̷̰̤͙̮͋̆̓̎͗́͊͘ÿ̷̧̛̪̰̝̲̹͖̯̗̟̭̱́͛͊̈́̔̇̾̇͗̂̀̈͂̈͗̃͗̽͒͛̀͑̽̈́̊̕͜͠




Give them a salvo. Two missiles, to the stern.

Yes my lady. Firing one, firing two.

Impact in three, two, one… One impact. Damage. They took the other one out.

Kleptoi Three is down, repeat Kleptoi Three is down! One and Two have einschiffschung! Burning now!

Keep those point defence guns firing, dammit! I’ll have you Mitra-forsaken curs flogged if we take any hits!

Kleptoi One reports no crew? The ship is full of automata?

Thinking machines? Does Two confirm?




Ą̵͉̩͔̼͈͙̭͕̟͇͇̬͈̰͎̐̍̐̂͑̑͗́̋̍́̓͜͜͠ͅb̴̢̢̲̟̭̲̟͉̣͕̻̜̘̟͓͚̭̟̊̊̀̃̕͠͝͝o̶̡̧͍̖̰̐m̸̥͇̯̊̓̀̇̂̓͘͘̚̚͝͝i̸̡̡̹̫͖̳̗̣̥̫͉̻̜̮̣͇̤̝̤̞̣͕͖̝͌̇̒̾̕͜͜͝͝ͅṇ̴̡̛̛̳̬̮̰̮̫͎͔̳̈́̔̉̐͊͠͝a̴̻̟̱̹̬̙͚̰͖̲̱̮͈̯͖̲̬̻̪͈̿͑̌͋̀̅̈́̈́̍́̓̽̀̈͐̾t̵̲̅̆͂͂̂͐͒̾̕̕̕͝͝i̷̡̢̯̤̤̤͓̺͎̣̤̪͛͑̾͛̅̋̊́̍̒̈́́̇̽͐͠͠͠͝o̴̫̮̞͕͔̜̬͇̪͉̰͊͗͋̈͌̓̎̇̌̚͜n̸͔̦͈̝͓͇̏̎̀͌́͆̽͋͌̃̋͝.̵̢̨̨̖̲͓͓͍͓̯̥̫͈̹̯̪͍͈̯̫̃̀̌͌̽͑̐̈́ ̶̛̮̤̞̱̬̬̽̈́͋̍͑́͊̏̂̇̏͋̍̒͐͛̐̀̍̐͛͛̕͠͠ͅ




Duly noted, Frater Skotia, but we’ll sort that out when we’re finished here. Range to enemy?

20-kay, my lady

Unterbefehlshaber Hark, you have the bridge. I’m going to see this for myself.

Helmet cam records from Warsuit β8901, Ioanna vir Kharon II tou Galaad

[Jumps through boarding ingress-burn]

[Spindly mechanism jumps at camera, pistol drawn, double tap, it shatters]

[Shield bash throws back group of quadrapedal, slim machines with taser-guns on spines]

By Their Light, these aren’t much to fight, are they? [gunfire]

Ipolchagos Stern, do you have a read on the bridge?

Yes, my Lady, sending it to your visor now

[provisional schematic generated by tactical spool-engine uploaded, appears]

[more gunfire, wave of automata destroyed]

My Lady, slow down please!

Damn your eyes! How about you keep up! These aren’t worth the fighting! Don’t let them slow you down!

…

[massive round doorway, blackened scars of gunfire obstructing text, flickering HUD map labels it the entrance to the bridge]

Right, Ipolchagos. Have your men rig for ingress-burn. Now! Before they decide to burn us all!

[men in warsuits mount heavy thermit-torches, cam retreats down aisle then turns to face door again. Torches flare bright, then incandesce blindingly. Suit cam sprints forward,
jumps and crashes into center of doorway. It falls over in a spray of molten metal]

[Within is a huge dark room, ringed with massive screens]

[There is but a single human figure, body and head heavily encrusted with cybernetics, reclining upon an acceleration throne in the center]

[Gigantic automata, firing large-caliber slugs, advance from the dark margins of the chamber]

[Shield up. One falls to heavy pistol rounds to the face and body]

[Warsuited soldiers mob the other and batter it to bits]

[Camera advances upon human. It-- male? Turns and stares]

Well, are you in charge here? I think you’re done.

[It blinks, then whispers]
I… never expected… to see… a… giant turtle… in space.

Yeah, it’s really something isn’t it. Turn over your command authority.

[It only stares. Human vitals appear on visor. Flatlines.]
Wait, what just happened? Medic!

After Action Report of Ioanna vir Kharon II tou Galaad, Klironoma soi Chelonis, Kapetanios Megakolymvitis

Extract from dictation

...so we brought Frater Skotia onboard immediately, but the spool-engines had wiped when their controller died. The boarders finished purging the automata still fighting back, but when the logis engines went down, most of them did too, and the auto-craft that deviled us also died in space. We gathered some of them up for the technognostiki to dissect, but there’s not much sense in it if you ask me.

The whole thing appears to be some sort of massive factory churning out automata and cheap consumer products. When Frater Skotia stopped spluttering over the spool-engines, he promptly started ranting about the assembly lines. He seems to think these things are a threat to the Union. About time, if you ask me. But nobody did. Whatever.

We’ll continue patrolling the frontier for now, but I think before long we shall find ourselves trying to locate Mitra. Last we heard it was near Agrotikma, but Foinix would love nothing more than to knock the Turtle over on its back and take it for themselves. I’d rather find it around one of the Handler worlds. We’ll see I suppose.

I suppose that’s all. End record, send to archio and seal.

<end record>

[VX-145]

Endeavour Backstory Fluff Piece Thing, No.5

Or,

DIE HARDMAN in OPERATION: SHOWDOWN

Die Hardman* braced himself as the cargo lifter-cum-boarding shuttle slammed onto the deck, and was up and out of the hatch before it had even opened fully. two taser drones - dog-looking things - greeted him, futilely discharging volts of lightning into his abs. He greeted them back with 5.56 from his dual-barrelled assault rifle, and glanced about his entry point.

It was otherwise clear, and he advanced into the bowels of the abominable factory ship.

"Teams Alpha and Primaris have just landed. Alpha is heading towards the bridge, while Primaris' objective is the main computer core." Jess - his co-ordinator - said through his earpiece. "Team One is pushing through the conveyor network now. No modern-type drones yet, only the old suppression models."

"All the more for me, then," Die Hardman said, slapping another magazine into the rifle.

He pushed onwards, sweeping aside the drones that got in his way. Only once did he have any sort of trouble, as a second-generation hunter-killer ambushed him, jumping down from a catwalk and stabbing its claw into his shoulder blade. He tore it off, and slammed it against a wall; its torso shattered right across the Amazo-X logo, and he blew off its claws just to make sure.

Jess guided him throughout; this factory ship was the oldest of the twelve, and Elon's personal ship to boot. Calling it "labyrinthine" would be an understatement; there were more kilometres of corridor, catwalk, maintenance tube and conveyor belt in this ship than there were people in the whole of Endeavour**. He passed a few corpses, fellow soldiers who had succumbed to the endless tide, stopping only to scavenge their ammo and mark their body. Twice, he heard the sounds of an ongoing gunfight - but they were away from his target, and most likely had it under control.

"First Team is engaging a new model - looks like a gorilla for some reason. What's up with that?"

"There's an old American law against making combat robots look like humans," Die Hardman replied, gruffly. "Read that in a book once."

"You can read?"

"Very funny. Where next?"

"Take passage three-seven-six-c, that'll lead out close to the main production line - it a straight shot from there to the bridge."

"On it."

That passageway was, of course, filled with newer-model drones. Bulky things, with a semblance of armour - and each packing a rifle. The hardware was solid - the software, not so much. With the factory ship fighting no fewer than five incursions at once (and possibly throwing the fight, he didn't know if this one was part of the rebellion or not), it didn't have enough spare processing power to micromanage every drone. He shot two, drilled neat holes in their (branded!) computer cores, and then ducked around the corner.

The drones didn't even follow. They were set to guard that hallway, and they would guard that hallway regardless of all else. So, when he popped back around the corner, shot two more - the remainder fired a few rounds, but didn't pursue. Some of them even turned around to guard the other end of the passageway - as though anything would be coming from there.

Cleaning the mass up from there was tedious but easy; pop head out, shoot drones, pop back in, repeat.

At least he could take their ammo; that occupied more of his attention than destroying them had. Another hunter-killer model, a cat-like thing with a wicked dagger-whip for a tail, tried to ambush him as he scavenged, only to meet the barrels of his rifle. It was reduced to scrap metal in half a second, and that was the end of that.

The main production line was ablaze, one hundred and fourty-four conveyor tracks - each half again the width of an LS-122 transport - making up the floor of the gigantic complex, still moving despite the fire. Some split off towards the "sides" of the ship, carrying hulls for drone fighters, while others carried fully-assembled ground combat drones, which unfolded before his eyes into heavy anti-riot types.

"Shot out!" a harsh voice came through his earpiece.

One of the big drones exploded, and was crushed beneath the steel tracks of Team One Lead's tank. The other tanks, following in a staggered line, took aim and fired as one, clearing the path for Team Primaris to leap-frog forwards and begin removing debris from the conveyors. Taser drones scuttled forwards, and were immediately pushed back. It would be a grind - but centimetre by centimetre the drones were losing ground. They had nothing that could hurt tanks, even the bodged-together vehicles Endeavour could field.

Die Hardman ignored the battle below, fixated on proceeding across his catwalk to the next checkpoint.

"Alright," Jess said as he reached the little blue marker projected on his vision, "Ahead is the maintenance access for the bridge. Be careful - Team Alpha will be in position to breach the starboard wall in a few minutes."

"I'll be careful," Die Hardman grunted. The hatch was an imposing thing, all solid black steel aside from the Amazo-X logo stamped onto it, but Jess had already hacked into it, and it opened easily. He was then torn apart as the bridge's defensive turrets noticed the intrusion and did their job.

Damn, he thought, Elon must have over-ridden those.

Two minutes later, and he walked back out of the cargo lifter-cum-boarding shuttle, crushing a taser drone in one hand as he paced the way back to his last death. The second-gen HK he'd met before was still twitching, trying to claw at him with claws that weren't there. That gave him something of an idea, so he took it with him as he stalked the now-silent corridors. He knew the route now, and it took him less time than the first run.

The main production line was still on fire, but the fight had moved further along - two mechs, heavy rotary autocannons cycling without firing, were making sure no enemy reinforcements snuck around from the side.

This time, instead of entering the room himself, he pushed the hunter-killer ahead of him. It was torn open by the heavy defense turrets, giving Die Hardman just enough time to dash in, get to cover behind a console and... well, be stuck there. He hadn't even been able to look around.

"Breaching in ten..." a soft voice sounded over his earpiece. Then: "Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Breaching."

There was an almighty explosion, the sound of gunfire, an odd snap-hiss, two screams. Die Hardman stood, and for the first time in... however many years - easily most of a decade - saw Elon.

The man had changed; his hair was greyer, and he had one eye encrusted with cybernetics. They were, of course, stamped with the Amazo-X logo. He was clad in some odd armour, shoulder pauldrons way too big - and of course, he was wielding a red laser sword***. He was standing in what was supposed to be a dramatic pose, facing down a white-armoured girl (who he vaguely recognised) and a squad of power-suited soldiers.

Die Hardman was about to pop a round into the bastard's skull, but another hunter-killer drone - a gorilla, this time - shattered his rifle in its fist. He and the gorilla-drone fell to the ground, wrestling; it began to crush him in a death-hug, but he bit down hard on its torse, crunching through the Amazo-X logo and one of its artificial muscles. The drone's grip slackened a little, allowing Die Hardman to pry loose one of his arms and grasp for purchase in the hole he'd made. He pried its chestplate open as it cracked two of his ribs, and began pounding its computer core as the air left his body. His vision went red, then black, and he felt himself weaken, his blows landing softer and softer-

but he was just able to knock the core out from its housing, severing its connection to the rest of the drone. He rolled over, gasping for air.

There was more gunfire, the slight whum sound of that laser sword cutting through the air, and a scream. Elon barrelled past Die Hardman, who managed to swing his rifle around and squeeze off a shot; it missed, of course, half the bloody barrel was gone, but it put the fear of god into the man.

Before he could get up and give chase, the hunter-killer he'd been grappling with exploded, sending him right back to the damn shuttle. By the time he got back to the bridge (for the third time!) it was all over; a medic was tending to that girl, she'd lost her left arm to that lightsabre Reports came in over his earpiece that the factory ship's computer core was being liberated; without the command over-rides from this ship, the others could be freed too. The war could be over.

He slumped down, suddenly tired; the pain of dying twice flushed through his body, and he was shaking uncontrollably. Somehow, he refused to accept that it could be over just like that. "I-" his voice hitched, so he tried again, forcing himself with grit; "I think I'm retiring after this." He tried not to think about... well, anything, just glad the drones hadn't thought to blow his shuttle up. If they had, well, he'd have been dead for real.

"Good idea," said Jess. "You think it's over?"

"I hope so. How's it going outside?"

"The drones are mostly offline - there's some odd activity - yeah, over there, that's not one of ours-" Static filled the channel.

"Jess?" Die Hardman called, a chill filling his stomach. "Jess!"

Harrowing seconds passed.

"Damn it," Jess' voice came back, "He got away. Must have had one of those fucking FTL drives; blew right past 227 Squadron and jumped clean out."

"It's fine," Die Hardman assured her, staggering to his feet and beginning to understand that, yes, it was over, "He won't come back."


--------------------
*Pronounced "Dee", not "Dye".

**The polity.

***Die Hardman couldn't see it, but the handle was also stamped with an Amazo-X logo.

[Crossroads Inc.]

MEANWHILE IN THE PRESENT]


CLASSFIED REPORT OF PREVIOUSLY UNRECORDED CLASS 3 CIVILIZATION
The following document is rated TOP SECRET until such time as additional information can be verified to the size, threat, and nature of the civilization that its existence can be made known to the general public.

Initial reports of unusual activity have been reported among the outer colonies for some time, in connection with new information, the first such probable contact can be placed at roughly 15 standard years from the record of this document. These reports typically included: abductions of colonists in remote areas, mutilation of livestock and small animals, bizarre and cryptic geoglyphs sometimes etched into crops.

Indirect first contact was made 4 standard years ago upon the discovery of what is now believed to be a “scout craft” of the un-named civilization. The vessel was observed in low orbit around the colony world [NAME REDACTED] and was spotted by several inhabitants of the farming town at the capital. The vessel was silver in color and circular in shape, estimates at the size gave it to be between 20 to 30 units in length. Following this incident, several more ‘sightings’ were observed in similar circumstances in low populated towns, again along the outer colonies.

The first direct contact was made during what has since been called the [NAME REDACTED] incident and has currently been kept as TOP SECRET to the general public. Contact was made in the same previously mentioned colony world in the form of an all-out invasion. 32 hours before the attack, communication with other member worlds was disrupted. At the time this was attributed to solar activity that had previously been predicted. However when the window from the solar activity had elapsed and contact was not reestablished, a flotilla of military ships was dispatched to investigate.

Upon their arrival, it was discovered the entire colony had been destroyed with the loss of some 20,000 colonists. As reported early, the incident was explained as a series of pirate attacks as well as damage from the solar storms. Inspection however of the remains of the colony however provided evidence to the attacks as well as their power and potential weakness.

Physical remains of the un-named civilizations race were recovered and autopsies preformed.
Studies report the species appears asexual and is most likely the result of a mix of cloning and additional genetic modifications. Physically in appearance they are bipedal class-5 Nitrogen breathing life forms. They stand roughly 4 units tall and possess a leather vibrant green skin. Facial studies show a bizarre almost skeletal appearance with bulbous eyes far out of proportion for their size. The most striking feature however appears to be their brain. Again highly over enlarged for their physical size, it possess a brain mass to body mass ration far in excess of most other class-5 organisms.

Inspection of equipment left behind by the species show virtually all of the invaders wearing an identical “battle suite”. This suite, also green in color, appears made of a high density [INFORMATION REDACTED] synthetic fiber offering it protection against most slug thrown based weaponry of 300 to 600 Newton’s of energy. The suite possess a glaring weakness in the form of an enlarged polymer helmet that encapsulates the species head and enlarged brain. The polymer seems considerably weaker than the rest of the armor and the reason for this is not yet known.

The primary hand held weapon system discovered appeared to utilize a [INFORMATION REDACTED] power convertor that emits a highly lethal “ray” of [INFORMATION REDACTED] radiation that is emitted a significant intensity as to almost instantly vaporize organic matter and ignite any object not protected by a armor rating of mk-5 or higher of physical or energy based protection. The weapon system seems to be of only two primary variations. A “rifle” sized weapon and a “pistol” sized weapon. Both weapons seem to possess an equal amount of destructive force, the primary difference between them being rate of fire and “fuel” of the weapon system.

Evidence of additional weapon systems were discovered, however remains were insufficient to provide a full analysis to the potential or limitations to possibly large ground based weaponry.

The last and potentially most significant discovery was in the remains of what appeared to be the primary assault craft of the invading species. It should be noted that while studies of various explosive markings and impacts indicate that the colonists were able to destroy other vessels, almost all the remains and debris were collected and retrieved by the invaders. The wreck that was uncovered was in a deep sea vent and was partially obscured by a recent lava flow, which may explain why it was not retrieved along with other possibly crashed vessels.
The vessel as recovered is similar to the “scout” vessel observed but far larger. Possessing a similar “Saucer” shape and silver exterior. The size of the vessel is estimated to have been 327 units in diameter and an estimated circumference of 1024 units. The alloy of the vessel has yet to be fully analyzed but it is estimated to be a [INFORMATION REDACTED].

The material proved to be highly resilient to standard phased energy weaponry as well neutron radiation weaponry. Samples of the alloy have been show to hold up to concentrated energy wavelengths of 10.2 kJ before structurally failing.
The vessels drive mechanism is currently unknown, yet seems to be based around the primary upper section of the craft and the lower hull of the craft “spinning” in opposite direction. The only space fairing vessels to possess a similar purposing system were the early experiments in “Thule Triebwerk” engines.
These utilized an electro-magnetic-gravitic engine which that was built around a Hans Colers energy Converter coupled with a Marconi vortex dynamo to create powerful rotating electromagnetic fields that affected gravity and reduced mass. Experiments into this method of space propulsion were original abandoned due to several problems in instability and the inability to acquire significant quantities of advanced Phlebotinum.

Studies of the attack and its damage upon the colony currently lead toward a disturbing conclusion. Virtually no vital resources were taken from the colony, all farmland was burned or destroyed and virtually all buildings were destroyed as well with analysis again showing nothing was taken or stolen. Currently the evidence leads to the attack being one of a pure destructive intent and not for resources or other commodities. The final conclusion is the species as recorded is to be considered extremely hostile and malevolent.
Any contact should be avoided at all costs.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Time, is a relative construct. A Year can pass like a minute, and a minute can be stretched to a year.
For the ancient Skothians that dwelled in their great city ship of “Skohotintot” ‘time’ passed both in a slow yet constant state.

Roughly 2000 years ago, the ancient race had come to the galaxy seeking a stage to help foster in younger races to grow without repeating their own tragic mistakes.
This grand experiment however was ended almost before it begun. Shortly after arriving it was discovered the Galaxy, or at least a small part of it, was already in the final stages of mutual annihilation from two forces as equally powerful as those of the Skothians. The “victor” of this war was a race of nearly emotionless machine life forms that seemed to thrive on the hate of all life besides themselves. The remains of this force, even shattered by unmatched war, would have still been more than sufficient to purge all other life from the Galaxy.

The Skothians, unwilling to sit by and watch extermination on such a level, committed what forces they had to an all-out assault on the remains of this malevolent enemy.
The ensuing Clash of Titans was a battle that no history file, nor record or log contains an account of, yet the results of the Great War in Heaven would last for generations to come.

The Skothians survived, the enemy was defeated, and the cost of this “victory” was something those that survived tried to not think of…

But time does move ever forward.
The trauma of their arrival faded in time, and their energy re-focused on the great experiment. Now, almost 2000 years another great step in that experiment was beginning.



From high atop the primary citadel at the center of the city sprawl of Skohotintot, Was the great Throne room to the exalted Cenobiarch. Greatly advanced in age even for one of their kind, he was now tended to far below in the great vaults of the vessel, issuing orders and commands as they were needed. In his stead, what was once his young student, now High Bishop Macon, busied themselves with reviewing the task at hand.
Macon heaved a great sigh as they looked out across the sea of floating displays, windows, information graphs and various read outs. As Macon took in the information, they reflected on the nature of time, he it moved like a circle, events coming around again and again. In the past nearly 2 millennia, he had grown, expanded and moved from student, to teacher, to master. At his side was his own protégé, one who reminded so much of the past that seemed a lifetime ago.

“You have certainly gazed long enough Brother Sparcon, I wish to know your thoughts on this stage of the endeavor, and you may speak your mind freely.” The smaller individual next to Macon seemed to issue forth a sigh of relief, as though waiting for these words to be issued, giving him what they felt was the permission they needed. The younger seemed to take a moment to review certain aspects in their mind and then took a deep breath.

“High Bishop, to summarize, I know from the great reports that two primary powers of this sector will be engaging in war with a 98% probability in less than 20 solar cycles. The singular entity titled “The Tajlan Empire” comprised of two worlds in one system. Industrial capacity listed at class-9.5 and estimated at class-10 as they currently have no settlements outside of their system.”
A cough was heard, and the young one hastily added.
“Yet, no exo-solar settlements yet. Naturally, in this task they have launched an asteroid based vessel containing its invasion fleet, resources, provisions and high ranking elite that are tasked to train the generation to be birthed and raised for the battle upon their arrival. Total space faring vessels contained within the asteroid number at 165, with 150 of these vessels specifically designed for war utilizing conventional and atomic weaponry. Of those life forms within the primary asteroid, current estimated population is at 10,000 and the estimated population upon arrival to be 40,000. The vessel itself, constructed for a one way burn is to be refueled upon arrival. It will reach maximum acceleration within the next 10 solar cycles, maintain that speed for five and then spend a final five solar cycles decelerating before reaching its intended target.”
Here, the young Sparcon paused, as if seeking any sign of approval from his Master. There was the smallest, imperceptible hint of a nod, and Sparcon continue forward.

“The Target, as expanded upon by the great expedition, has no unified entity name, though the world is collectively designated as “Trathala” The planets population is comprised of 13 independent factions with a mix of ideological, religious and cultural differences. Global surveys indicate the civilization may have reached class-8 before it collapsed some 6000 solar cycles ago due to nuclear war, and currently is in possession of only a class-3.5 industrial capacity. Global population is less than three million life forms.”
Another brief pause and take in of breath.

“And finally, here is the combined entity currently titled “The Tri World Alliance”. Contact between these two races have been ongoing for the last 200 cycles, and contact with the third for the last 150. Physical contact through space vessels taking place within the last 100 years, and ongoing exchange of materials and population taking place since then. Industrial capacity is technically at class-10 as each species has members of its race living on a planet outside of their solar system, though they have settled no worlds outside of these three. Military capacity between the three worlds consists of three million armed life forms split evenly between the three planets. However in regards to space based weaponry, while they have at our behest, begun in earnest to manufacture armed space vessels the total forces of combat ready vessels currently number at around two hundred such vessels, again spread evenly between the three worlds.”

At last, there was a final pause by the young disciple, feeling a bit foolish for simply dryly quoting numbers that anyone could look up, but Sparcon did pride themselves on being thorough. Now, with the raw facts out of the way, he at last felt ready to speak his mind.

“High Bishop, this great endeavor had long since estimated that these two forces would fight over the planet of Trathala, and, by doing so, eventually reach a peace settlement which would unite all five worlds in preparation for the next great phase of, of The Plan. However, it, it seems to me that this conflict. It seems to me that it… It doesn’t…” Sparcon spoke before his voice trailed off.

“Speak your mind Brother, I will not tolerate those that do not ask questions.”

“High Bishop, this does not need to take place!” He spoke it allowed, and felt as though he had blasphemed against everything he had been taught, yet now the line was crossed and he could not stop himself as he plunged forward. “These races once they come in contact, will cause the deaths of tens of thousands of others lives and such industrial progress as they have made will be shattered and fragmented! And almost more worse than the loss of life between these races, would be destruction caused to the planet of Trathala, its population is already so small, predictions of losses during an assumed occupation are… are...” The young one trailed off yet again, their exasperation and passion sputtering out as the sense of question lifelong dogma returned its sense of shame.

Sparcon tilted their conical head to the floor, awaiting an admonishment that never came. Instead, came the words.

“War is inevitable, it will always cause suffering and it will always cause pain and torment. Yes, we could stop it, for now, but the desire will fester and grow, and we cannot hold the tide back forever. If it does not happen now, when the forces are as primitive as they are, then when it does happen it will leave both sides shattered and only craving yet more bloodshed.”
Sparcon listened and looked down yet again. He knew what he heard was true, and knowing it to be so sickened him even more.

[Elheru Aran]

For fun, I decided to write up a little background on stuff that doesn't need to be explained in the main RP threads. As I think about them and write them out, I'll stick them here. They aren't particularly important to the plot of the RP, but they might serve as useful information both inside and outside game context. Enjoy!

+++++++++++++++++++

Warsuits

This is the general term for the combat outfit worn in the Theophanic Empire. There are many varieties, listed below.

--Class one: little more than a heavy coverall made of stab- and shrapnel-resistant fabric. This serves as a standard first-level vacuum-proof outfit and is mandatory combat duty wear aboard Theophanic Empire ships for all crew. It has sufficient air within suit reserves for a couple hours, so when combat is expected, all crew stations are equipped with jacks to suit hardpoints for air supply and recycling. Many crew members will embellish their suits with load-bearing vests or belts to carry tools and equipment.


--Class two: essentially a class one warsuit with reinforced plating added. This is the minimum garb for all soldiers. Elaborate versions serve as dress uniform for genis troops. The armour plating is resistant to most small-arms fire but cannot take extended fire. As in class one, it is vacuum-proof and comes with standard hardpoints. Additionally, for extended vacuum operations, a class-two suit can be worn over a thermal regulation skinsuit, and jack into an extended oxygen supply pack worn on the back. However, class-two warsuits do not have power augmentation.


--Class-three: These warsuits are heavier versions of the class two, and encase the body entirely in armour. There are variants in quality among manufacturers, but in general class-three suits will all have some degree of power assist, allowing wearers to achieve higher speeds, faster reaction times, and carry heavier loads. Class-three suits are commonly worn by elite troops such as the Imperial Protectors and the genis boarding troops. They have integrated extended air, nutrition and fuel supplies without requiring external packs.

Side note: class two and three warsuits have a large number of accessory equipment available, including but not limited to heavy weapons with integrated ammunition feeds and cybernetic outrigger limbs for stabilization, edged weapons of various types, shields, and nonlethal gear. Modified warsuits are also available for optimized control of Theophanic Empire war-craft.


--Class-four: these are the heaviest suits that do not require extensive cybernetic augmentation to the wearer. They are an extension of common technognostiki cargo-handling suits and as such are capable of carrying heavy weaponry, which is their primary function, acting as miniature tanks. This is a role very useful in the Theophanic Empire’s style of warfare where void combat is largely a matter of boarding massive spaceships and close fighting within ship spaces. (Citation: Daxo tou Galaad soi Chelonis, Ipolchagos Imperial Protector Corps, is recorded as wearing one of these at the soi Geraki fete)

--Class-five: These are the ultimate expression of warsuit technology. Wearers are heavily augmented to the point where the warsuit becomes a part of their own bodies. Many class-five warsuit pilots rarely leave their suits for the rest of their lives once jacked. These suits are massive, varying from three and a half metres to seven and a half metres tall. They carry weapons capable of cracking main battle tanks with ease and most have accessory flight packs equipped. In large scale actions, frequently squads of these warsuits will accompany kleptoi-craft and perform their own ingress to reinforce boarding troops. In ground combat, they serve as close air support, tactical strike support, and mobile artillery.

Combat Doctrine

The Theophanic Empire values all its citizens and its rare ships. For a civilization with trillions in population, it only has a few million ships. As such, the occasion is extremely rare where they permit ships to be destroyed in combat. Boarding is highly preferred in order to keep ships reasonably intact and capable of repair and refit to serve the Empire, or in the case of ships from foreign civilizations, for the technognostiki to dissect them in order to examine new technologies.

They rarely conduct ground operations, but when they do, massed human wave attacks combined with precision special and heavy force strikes against strong points are their typical tactic.

Boarding is a more refined version of this technique, avoiding human-wave attacks in favor of precision strikes to disable ship infrastructure and either storm bridges directly or force surrender by suppressing the crew and cutting the bridge off from ship controls. As Theophanic Empire ship design tends towards heavily armoured bridges and critical infrastructure deep within the hulls of their ships, boarding crews only have a short time frame in which to storm their enemy and force capitulation.

Ship combat typically starts at long range with an exchange of long range fire from mass-drivers and missiles. Smaller craft are at an advantage in this as they can present a narrow profile to incoming fire. Kleptoi-craft are typically deployed between long and medium range, and are heavily stealthed and armoured for durability. There are two schools of thought regarding kleptoi-craft, fast versus slow, but we shall not examine those at this time; suffice it to say that they are either built for a speedy assault or to be briefly burst-driven in the direction of the target and then coasting, trying to blend into the vacuum before latching onto their victim.

Obviously point defences are vital equipment for the Empire, and short range engagements are vicious with massed small caliber fire and close-range high-capacity laser bursts. If a kleptoi-craft makes it through the point defences, its airlock engages directly with the hull of the enemy craft and powerful torches blow a hole through the armour plating. Crews are trained to track incoming kleptoi-craft and dispatch ship defence platoons to boarding locations.

Boarding crews typically incorporate a couple of individuals in class-four armour to perform the initial breaching action and clear the ingress burn zone. The rest of the boarding crew is typically clad in class-three armour and is trained to fire-and-move with the class-four armour providing heavy backup. The primary objective is the bridge; if the bridge is too well defended, seconary objectives include main engineering and any secondary bridges as well as the control trunks that connect the bridge chambers to the ship.

Given the sheer size of Theophanic Empire craft, it’s not unusual for hundreds if not thousands of kleptoi-craft to be exchanged in battles. The monstrous Thorikto dreadnoughts require not only boarding troops but also heavy machinery to subdue; specialized kleptoi-craft carrying tanks and artillery will be deployed on these very rare occasions.

There is an unspoken convention, strongly adhered to, that all Theophanic Empire citizens are sacred to the Emperoress, and as such body counts are relatively low in most boarding actions; troops are more likely to surrender if their assessment of the situation does not favor success, and as a result psychological intimidation is a vital part of boarding troop tactics. Their armour is often heavily decorated and sculpted to resemble monsters from mythology and they will slice into shipboard tannoy systems to broadcast morale-destruction audio and orders to stand down. Therefore only the most loyal troops typically make stands against boarding actions; most ship crew will stay at their stations and perform their duties, trusting that they won’t be hurt in the action.

[Crossroads Inc.]

No one person can ever truly tell the future, at least not until it has happened. Predictions can be made however, and some of them made very accurately. For the Skothians watching over the Sector races, the approach of war between the Tajlan Empire, and the ‘Tri-Star Alliance’ over the world of Trathala was all but inevitable.

Less than three years before the estimated arrival of the massive asteroid ship holding the invasion fleet, the Skothians contacted the leaders of the Alliance, informing them that ‘urgent matters’ required their attention and they would be leaving the sector behind.
At the time, those races of the alliance, and even those within Trathala felt a strange sense of loss mixed with relief. For close to 50 years the Skothian people had acted as a source of knowledge and inspiration. For many they symbolized what could in time be achieved through the exploration of the stars and the pursuit of Science and industry. However for a growing number they had also come to symbolize an uneasy and highly lopsided ‘partnership’ of sorts. The Skothians represented power beyond anything those in the sector could dream of and such power inevitably would grow into a mix of resentment and fear. All of this of course, was well known and even anticipated by the Skothians.

Now as they departed, perhaps to never return, the races of the Sector all began to ask “what next”.
Three years later they got their answer.

The arrival of the Imperial Asteroid ship was not a sudden or surprising event. Long range space based interferometers detected the object almost a year from arrival, its course was plotted quickly as passing through the outer edge of the Shand System. To the various mining industrials spread throughout the asteroid belts of the System, many were interested in investigating the extra solar object or possibly moving it into a stable orbit to mine.

When the massive asteroid, measured at almost 10000 meters across, finally did enter the system, it was met with a great deal of scientific and economic curiosity. And then, as various privately owned ships moved to investigate, it fired its final series of retro thrusters to stop its approach and ejected the massive ice encrusted shield covering the front of the rock allowing the fleet of warships inside to emerge.

Four years after that moment, much had changed.

The mining companies of the asteroid belts had been easily overrun and only the base at Galacticus was able to fortify and hold out long enough to evacuate miners and workers before it too was taken. Then Trathala had been invaded and its populace put under the foot of the Imperial occupation force. The alliance mobilized what ships it had and began to organize an offensive. However their ships often seemed outmatched against those of the Tajlan Empire and soon the war looked as though the hold of the Imperial forces were insurmountable.
But as always appearances can be deceiving.

Within Trathala, the naturally pacifist natives against all reason, started a rebellion against the Tajlan soldiers. This small insurrection grew over time added by help from within the Tajlan military which had its own ‘rebellion’ of sorts. A freedom group that had developed among those born and raised on the trip to Trathala, spread and began to sow division. The space corps was shaken when open rebellion took place on a number of ships that mutinied against their overseers and retreated from battle.
These troubles were compounded when it was discovered that the Trathalan natives were not as ignorant of technology as they appeared to be. An attack on one of the primary air bases constructed after the occupation destroyed dozens of irreplaceable airplanes, bombers, cargo carriers, and trans-atmospheric shuttles.

The forces of the Empire had been shaken, but throughout the war they had been working on deploying one last Ace up their sleeve. A massive mobile weapon system that had been in development since before the Launch of the great asteroid ship. A weapon whose fire range would have been able to decimate the Alliance fleet that at this time was approaching the edge of the asteroid belt. A fleet that had gathered as many remaining ships as available and had then spent months traversing the void between the Alliance systems and Trathalan space. A fleet that was completely unprepared to counter the weapon system about to come online.

[Crossroads Inc.]

In the opulent primary command theater of the Great Asteroid Ship, dozens of engineers, technicians, communication officers, and tactical strategists all over saw a constant stream of information flowing in and out of the vast central command. The huge ‘bridge’ of the ship had acted as a Nexus for coordinating the war effort since the very start when it had vomited forth the invasion armada from deep inside it’s hollowed out core.

Currently, much of the operations were spent tracking and monitoring an Alliance fleet that had recently entered into the system. For the last week those in the command had been frantically reacting to the single biggest collection of Alliance warships.

“Enemy Fleet has just entered grid 9X by 212D by -120F. Missile Screen Cruisers in task force 45 detecting seventeen enemy warheads inbound, speed 9000, mark.”
“Confirm authorization for Atomics and give the command for return fire. Contact the heavy destroyers from that task-force and order them down by 500km. I want to begin an encirclement to attack the enemies picket ships in the adjacent grid!”
“Aye Commander!”

Near the center of the command structure, like a conductor in the middle of a chaotic symphony, stood Torthro Kejtalin. The highest ranking Qwintoni solider in the entire fleet and perhaps its most brilliant tactician. He was massive even for a Qwintoni, standing almost 7ft tall, he tended to enjoy the nickname of “The Hammer” that many of his soldiers called him by. Currently however he was not enjoying being the one at the center of the rather hastily put together defenses that had been assigned to push back against the Alliance onslaught. His eyes darted here and there, seeing sloppy reaction times and loose formations. Mistakes that would cost the lives of many he cared about. He gritted his teeth, his long fangs biting into his lips as he reminded himself that all of this was ‘needed’ for what was going to turn the Alliance back.

“How long until we are ready to deploy the Device?”
“6 min and counting on my mark.” Torthro snarled. It had already been twenty minutes since the start of the engagement and they had lost several irreplaceable warships. Three out of five light escorts that had been assigned the task of burning forward to retrieve information and positions on the enemy fleet and two heavy missile cruisers that failed to turn away in time to a series of warheads being detonated by the missile screens. An upsurge in shouting brought his attention sharply into focus.

“What got hit?” He barked down toward the pit of soldiers monitoring coms. The young cadet closest to him didn’t bother to ask how he knew a ship had just been struck, instead responding as professionally as possible.
“The Defender “[Fanel’s Swift Sword]” it’s reporting debris from the last series of warheads struck them amidships. Bulkheads are holding and they are turning out of battle. Causalities estimated at 40 to 60 lost.” Torthro nodded coldly, the ship was a Heavy Defender, designed to scramble the singles of missiles while feeding information and coordinating the fire control systems of nearby ships. If it was dropping out of formation it would affect the entire areas missile screen.

“Thirty Seconds until Device activation Commander! Requesting targeting solution!”
“Gods it’s about time. Request for solution denied!” An audible gasp was heard by everyone in earshot and the luckless technician that had asked the question turned around in his chair.
“S-Sir? The Engineers will need a set of coordinates and target designation for--” The response was cut off abruptly.
“Which is going to take even more time. The left flank is starting to collapse and the ships circling from underneath were just spotted. So if this fancy weapon is as big as they say then just aim it at the enemy and fire the blasted thing!
“A-Aye sir! Authorizing activation of the Device for immediate discharge!”

From Deep within the asteroid great fusion reactors began to flare. The unfathomably massive drive engines that had pushed the vessel across the void of space began to flare once more, but in a way that one would have never expected. Over two dozen tributary fusion reactors began to suddenly dump the super-heated plasma they were chewing into a vast network of magnetic coils.
Under normal operations, the plasma would have been slowly funneled into a long series of magnetic coils and then pushed out the enormous thrust planes in the rear of the ship.

Now however, the plumbing seemed to feedback on itself, instead of being shunted out the back, it was fed back to the front of the engine complex, and then fed back once more into the magnetic constricting coils. The flow becoming tighter and hotter with each pass. At the point that the magnetic coils began to approach failure, the feed was back-washed out of the system and sent cascading to a huge spherical Device at the front of the engine assembly deep within the Asteroid ship. The Device, which had laid dormant for the vast 20 years of the trip, had been awakened upon arrival. Technicians and engineers had worked on it almost nonstop, and now, they all prayed it would actually do what it was supposed to do.

The screaming rivers of supper condensed plasma crashed together into feeding ducts and into the Device. Inside was something that the Empire had uncovered almost a hundred years ago, an object that once its potential was discovered, had in its way allowed the entire invasion to take place. It took in the energy that no substance or alloy should have logically been able to withstand, and compressed it still further in mockery of gravity. And then it let it spiral almost playfully on the edge of a massive targeting system.

“FIRE”

[Crossroads Inc.]

In the middle of the Alliance fleet sat the Quatonian command ship “[Edselon]”. The huge, submarine shaped vessel one of only three ships of sufficient size and strength to be considered a “Battleship” by Alliance forces. The bulk of their ships being much smaller than those of the Empire, though in this engagement it seemed pure numbers were turning the tide in their favor.
For the [Edselon] and its sister ships their main purpose was in helping to coordinate the battle and issuing orders to the forces around it. The battle, while incurring heavy losses, none the less looked favorable as the large ship began to push forward leading the advance.

And then, in a blinding flash that burned the optics of any sensor within 10km, it vanished in a radiant corona of fiery destruction. The searing lance of energy that erupted from the open maw of the Asteroid ship boiled away everything it is path, the [Edselon] going from solid to liquid to gas in a fraction of a second.

In its wake, a great hole in the middle of the Alliance armada, and an instant panic as lines of communication were cut. The once tight formations of the Alliance ships began to fall apart and fragment as ships tried to turn away from wherever the next strike might land.

However, from the chaos and confusion taking place, there was a small force still maintaining order. One of the [Edselons] sisters, the [Tuckera] began to desperately pull the fleet back together. The blow had seemed to embolden the wavering forces of the Empire and they were pushing forward with a new ferocity. The [Tuckera] however seemed to hold its ground and pushed back just as hard. Around it the wavering lines of Alliance ships began to reform and the Line Of Battle regained its order.

At the command of the ship was Octona Captain Klesioat Kleshata. Much of the crew, or bridge crew were Octona and had served together under the captain for almost the entirety of the war. They knew each other, they trusted each other, and they trusted their Captain. They trusted him when he threw protocol to the wind and assumed command of the fleet over the next highest ranking commander who had just been spotted retreating along with a number of other ships. They trusted him when he ordered an immediate counter attack, in defiance of the knowledge that whatever had just ended the Edselon, could strike again at any moment. And when they got confirmation that the weapon had been fired from the Asteroid ship, and was most likely using the drive engines in some way, they trusted him when he gave the order to ignore any Imperial ships not directly in combat already, and burn their engines as hard as possible to close the gap to get within range of the Asteroid, to end it before it could fire again.

The large battleship lurched forward, soon followed by a dozen or so other ships all agreeing to march into the jaws of Death. The vessel began to vibrate under the strain of the engines as the Engineers let loose anything they could to open the throttle and push the ship as hard as it could possible go. It’s motion forward pressed by a relatively crude system of Fusion reactors sending super-heated plasma out the back end of the ship. It’s progress considerable, and yet sluggish measured against the vast distance of the system to their target.

Of course all things are relative, and relative to their own speed, another object began to approach and a thundering pace.

“Captain Klesioat, we are receiving a tight band transmission from the rear vanguard, a vessel just entered range of their thermal sensors and is moving at almost three times our current velocity!” This was reported by an Octona at the sensor station, eyes scanning the transmission as it arrive and was decoded from their computer.
“Three times? There is not any ship in the whole fleet that can move at that velocity! What faction is the ship from? Has it been identified?
“No sir, I am receiving reports from a number of other ships now tracking it. The Missile Cruiser [Nutemeeg] reports visual contact Sir! There is a number of markings on the ship sir, and a lot of shouting.”

Around the bridge various warning sirens had begun to go off, the Flotilla had strict orders that any unknown or unverified vessel coming within thermal scan distance was to be considered an enemy and immediately fired upon. Captain Klesioat had within the last 30 seconds received permission requests from four ships to launch warheads. Yet something had held him back from immediately responding. The hesitation in the comms officer had him leaving his chair and marching over to the station.

“What is the report? What markings?”
“Trathalan sir, they, are reporting the ship is painted, somewhat crudely, in the Trathalan markings of two of their clans. As well as some other language we cannot make out.”
The captain starred at the comms officer, the comms officer stared back, both of them as disbelieving as the various people in the fleet who were reporting it with their own eyes. A flashing light and beeping singled another transmission about to be decoded.
“Captain, incoming transmission from the vessel, apparently coming in over high band radio wavelengths.”
“Radio? Boost the signal gain as much as possible, what language is it? Is it Trathalan?” the captain asked, nervous now as he knew there was most likely a half dozen people in the whole fleet who could speak the language.
“No sir it, it is Quatonian!”
“What? Put it on open comms right now, let me hear it as its coming in! If it is on radio everyone is going to be able to hear it!
“Aye sir!”

“—GONNAWAYRIGHTQUICKBOOMBOOM! ISAYAGAINLISTENUPHEARHEARTHISFIELDOFFICERJONATHANCOWEBERQUICKEVERYONEGOTTASTOPHAULTYAHENGINES! FURRYSPACERSHAVEBIGBOOMBOOMGUNCANSHOOTYALONGFORYOUGINNASHOOTTHEM! MEANCREWMATESCHUMSGOTASHIPTHATCANSPEEDOUTFLYIT!
BESTEVERYONEOUTTAWAYGETGONNAWAYRIGHTQUICKBOOMBOOM!!!”

It should be noted, as with most of Quatonian speech patterns, this was all said in the space of about 45 seconds. It took about three times that for the comms officer to play the message back though the computer and slow it down to a point where it could be understood.

“[Identification, Field Officer Jonathan Coweber, Issue immediate order stop progress.
Tajlan in possession of new weapon system with longer range then fleet.
Have crewed vessel capable of intercepting the weapon.
Request Clear path for arrival]” The captain listened to the ‘translation’ and nodded.

“Relay that message to the other ships if they have not already decoded it and send along an authorization to NOT fire on the approaching vessel!”
“AYE CAPTAIN!” the officer shouted as he furiously relayed instructions. On the other side of the bridge the crew at sensors shouted out.
“Captain, vessel approaching at high speed! It will be entering our own visual interferometers in 30 seconds!”
“Ok put it on the primary view window, I want to see what this miracle ship looks like!”

The primary viewer flickered as the displays changed from various tactical readouts, to the live feed from the ships long range visual tracker. Before the disbelieving eyes of those on the bridge, a starship, not seen by a living soul in almost 6000 years rocketed past on a column of super condensed focused plasma that put to shame the exhaust belching out of the ends of most of the Alliance vessels.

It was a relatively small yet elegant vessel, its central haul was an almost raindrop shaped structure that seemed to scream out SPEED. Atop the central haul was a bridge of sorts, a curving bow like structure surged out from the top, sweeping back in a pair of elegantly designed funnels that vented exhaust and other gases. At the far back end was a single aperture that vomited forth the highly focused drive plasma, surrounding it were a dozen thrusters, each one constantly adjusting the ships course and trajectory. Curving down to the very bottom, hung the engineering section. As smooth and elegant as the top, it was connected to the top by a vast metallic ring of sorts that seemed to hold a number of weapon like portals.

It sped past in a matter of moments, leaving the bridge crew breathless. The silence was finally broken by the mumbled words of the Captain.

“I would swear that looked like a farting blimp with a cruise ship on top.”

[Elheru Aran]

Theophanic Empire Society

The Emperoress, The God/dess Who Walks Among Us, the One who Clears the Paths of the Unseen, and many more titles beside [see entry: Theouautokratora], is paramount at the head of the society of the Theophanic Empire.

The Emperoress is a divine being [see entry: Theology] and thus unconcerned with the daily operation of the Most Glorious Domain of the Divine Presence. The Great Mother/Father loves all and sustains all with Their presence. Olimitera has entrusted the Empire into the hands of the Eugenis [see entry], the great families that constitute the Empire.

The high council of the Eugenis is the Epimelitirio [see entry: Parliamentary system], constituted of the Adelig, the heads of the genia. They reside permanently upon the pankosmiploios [see entry: worldship] Mitra tou Theouautokratora in order that they may serve the will of the Emperoress directly. The Eugenis are descended directly from the original expeditionary colonists that founded the Theophanic Empire.

This means that the original genia from the founding of the Empire are extremely prestigious. Younger genia, lifted to their place by the Emperoress, receive respect corresponding to their age, but are referred to by the epithet kleiner-genia.

As the Adelig are removed from their worlds upon Mitra, their heirs, the klironomonae, serve as effective heads of their genia. Klironomonae are typically expected both to manage the genia responsibly, conduct business on the behalf of the genia, and lead genia troops both when mustered to protect the Empire and in the quiet fringe conflicts between the genia.

Life extension technologies, up to and including the sacred diarkis granted to the Imperial Protectors and the most honored servants of the Emperoress, give the Adelig and the genia longer lives than human norm. It is not unusual for multiple generations of a genia to co-exist.

This also has implications for genia succession in that it means klironomonae do not typically become Adelig until they are well along in years, have married, and have children, who may also have children of their own. It is genia tradition and custom that they tend to have multiple children; they can afford to, and given that there are far fewer genia than citizens of the Empire, the typical regulations against large numbers of children per family unit are not an issue.

It also means that the genia are able to self-regulate to some extent. Klironomonae are able to teach their children to be responsible leaders of the genia and to conduct all their affairs with honour.

Large families do mean that once a klironomonos is named, the other genia children need to find a purpose. Many remain part of the genia and fulfill various functions within genia hierarchy. Others find a place in the Imperial Protector Corps. Some become clergy in the Faith. A few strike out on the occasional expeditionary fleets to establish new genia worlds. Some few renounce membership in the genia and find purpose in investing in commerce. They do this in hopes of starting a dynasty that may one day be recognized as kleiner-genia in its own right.

This brings us to the mercantile class, which many kleiner-genia are part of. They fit an awkward economic niche which the genia do not always satisfactorily fill in their own right as manufacturers and suppliers of goods, provisions, and entertainment. Each world has a variety of options as far as these go, which the genia contract with as they see fit. They also liaise between the genia and the technognostiki to provide bulk transportation and trade between worlds.

The bulk of the Theophanic Empire’s population live in kypseli-towers [see entry: hive city] on the various genia worlds. It is a Theophanic truism that a population widely spread across a world will destroy it in short order, even unintentionally; thus they believe it best to conserve resources by concentrating a population in order to ideally manage world resources and ecologies. Some few worlds are extensively dedicated to agriculture, but the process is largely automated and carefully tailored to those worlds’ ecosystems.

This has its roots in the founding of the Empire. The original colonists [see entry: Diaspora] left a dying world, resolved to not murder any more. Thus strict regulations are adhered to. Maximum population sizes are firmly enforced. Birth control is freely distributed and heavy punishments levied for having families larger than the number permitted for that world; however, as noted, the Eugenis are exempt from these regulations by virtue of their class.

The Eugenis view their governorship of their genia populations as a sacred duty. They are not permitted to allow starvation or mistreatment of their genia-- which does not mean that it doesn’t happen, but there are serious consequences should the Epimelitirio be made aware of it. The common people are provided employment, whether that be in genia manufacturing facilities, technognostiki famprikai [see entry: factories], agriculture, ship-building, or in the genia militaries. The genia provide living facilities and subsidize food resources as well as medical care and public entertainments. The quality of these can, admittedly, vary a fair bit from genis to genis.

[OOC observations: obviously the Eugenis are quite aware that they are, ultimately, far fewer in number than the commoners. Therefore, it behooves them to provide the commoners food and shelter and security. This cuts down on incentives for revolution quite a bit. If people aren’t hungry, have safe places to raise families, and perhaps even publicly available entertainment to while away their time after a long work day… what do they have to fight for? Freedom? Is that really worth it? The Eugenis are pragmatic, not stupid. Usually.]

There are a number of institutions within the Empire that deserve observation: the cult of the Emperoress, the technognostiki, and the military.

The Faith of the Divine Incarnation, quite simply, revolves around the Emperoress [see entry: Theology, for further details]. A perfect being created from diverse genetic material in order to unify Humanity. Clergy are distributed throughout every level of society, and great fanes are built to worship the Theouautokratora. They are one of the few places where rank does not (in theory) exist, outside private genia fanes. The Day of Worship [see entry: Holy Days] is a weekly day off from work across the entire Empire, though the specific day itself varies depending upon the orbital mechanics of the specific world; some have longer weeks than others.

Within the Empire itself, aside from worship, the Faith also has a vital place in the Theophanic population. The Faith provides education to all citizens (up to and including private institutions for genia children), is one means for the genia to facilitate social services and distribution thereof, and performs most non-military, non-technognostiki bureaucratic functions for the genia [see entry: Government Structure].

The technognostiki are a parallel power structure to the Eugenis. They do not hold civil nor religious power, but are part of the Empire in that they operate virtually all civilian interstellar transport and are at the forefront of technological development, shipbuilding and manufacture in general. Along with civilian transport, they perform a vital role in operating military shipping.

Their role as the co-creators of the Emperoress gives them great prestige, and the agreements forged at the founding of the Empire have cemented their position in society. They are the scientists, and do have a minor connection with the Faith as well. They build the weapons and ships of the Theophanic military. While they do not own most of their planetary manufacturing facilities and instead contract with merchants to provide expertise and technological assistance as well as creating genia-exclusive designs, they do own their space-bound shipyards and manufacturing facilities. [See entry: Technognostiki, for further detail]

The Theophanic military has three arms: planetary genia, Imperial genia, and Imperial Protectors. Planetary genia forces are effectively local police and security forces, entrusted with protecting worlds and enforcing local laws. Imperial genia forces are the main bulk of the Theophanic military, operating most of its ships and executing planetary-scale military actions. The Protector Corps are primarily concerned with guarding the Emperoress and the Mitra, and they have legal authority over the Thorikto Dreadnought Fleet. In practice, the Protector Corps was badly decimated many generations ago in a tragic disaster, and they allow the more prominent genia to operate their Thoriktos when necessary.

The Protector Corps serves a fairly vital role in that unlike genia troops, it is not subject to genia authority. Protectors aboard Thoriktos commanded by genia captains obey the chain of command out of courtesy, but are not bound by it. As such, it is possible for both commoners and genia to join the Corps. Any genia individual that joins the Protectors, however, has to renounce their genia rights and ties, retaining only the name. Their loyalty is first to the Empire and then the Emperoress. [See entry: Imperial Protector Corps, for further information]

[Crossroads Inc.]

The mysterious ship that rocketed past the Alliance fleet was indeed a true miracle. In massive letters that had all but faded to nothingness from the millennia, was its original name “[Banashkar]” or in the ancient Trathalan dialect “[ThunderHammer]”. Over these remains however, in paint that was even now slowly cracking in the intense cold of space were two Trathalan symbols, one representing the LONTI clan, and the other the THYLA clan. Under these were another set of letters that so far no species in the Sector had been able to decipher.
They spelled out “[B-O-O-M-E-R]”

At the bridge of the ship was a motley crew indeed, the vast majority of them Trathalans, most of whom belonged to a clan that only a few knew existed. Aside from these however were a number of Imperial soldiers, a number of Quatonias, two Conearians, and a single lone Human. And he was in the pilot’s chair.
How and why a Human was piloting an alien starship halfway across the galaxy from Earth is of course a story in its all on its own. For now what was important was he seemed to be doing rather a good job at flying, and was enjoying it immensely.

“I still can’t believe these grips, it’s just like the Arcade game! I swear it even pulls a little upwards when you bank hard to the right!” The human shouted as he banked hard to the right to avoid an Alliance Picket vessel. The ship lurched as did the stomachs of most of the others on bored. The human for his part let out a loud ‘WHOOP!’ of excitement as the ship screamed by the Alliance vessel at a distance of less than 500 meters. His name was Adric.
Directly behind Adric clung a tall Trathalan who seemed to smile almost as much as the Human. His story was one deeply connected with Adric, as he had discovered him when he had first mysterious arrived on Trathala several years ago. His name was Darnethlil Lontimanolla, leader of the Lonti Clan and despite a lifetime of somber traditions, religious ceremonies and Clan council meetings, let out a ‘WHOOP!’ at almost the exact same time.

All the others on the Bridge however seemed far less enthusiastic as they clung to what parts of the ship they could while simultaneously trying to manage the various other systems needed to keep the ancient ship operating.

Behind him, another Trathalan tried their best to communicate with the Senior Qwintoni Soldier on the bridge. He did this using a communication ring the Trathalans possessed to allow them to mentally speak to others.
“[Repeating my understanding, High Warrior Jakenenth Kejtala. The human seems excited that the navigational interface of space vessel Banashkar is similar to electronic entertainment device from human home of planet name Dirt]”

The Qwintoni listened to this as best he could with it being transmitted directly into his mind and gave a weak smile.
“500 Hours of military flight simulations, and the honor of piloting this ship goes to an alien who recognized the controls from a video game”


Turning to a nearby Trathalan, he began to “bespeak” in his mind, knowing that they would be able to hear his thoughts and then pass them on to the Quatonian in their native language.

“[Ask favor of request given to short hairy one. Transmission of instructions to not enemy space vessel received. Affirmation?]”

This was mentally heard by the Trathalan, who with a bit of guessing on his part nodded, and then turned to the Quatonian at the comms station. After a moment of what appeared to be silence. The Trathalan turned back to Jakenenth.

“[Affirmation is correct by short hairy ‘Johnathan Caliber’. Space Vessels of not enemy have received Transmission and have spread transmission to not attempt to end lives]”

This was received with a nod from the Qwintoni Jakenenth, as confirmation that the fleet they were flying through would not turn its fire on them. Of course from what he had witnessed moments ago, the fleet had its own problems.

A shout in a language that made his ears twitch painfully caught his attention. One of the Conearians, which spoke an infuriating low pitched voice, was trying to get his attention. Once more the back and forth translation of Qwintoni to Trathalan, to Conearian and back took place. When it finished every Tarthalan on the ship seemed to have gone into a frenzy of shouting and very urgent gestures of their trajectory as Jakeneth realized they had all heard what had just been said to him.
The Qwintoni looked to the Human piloting the ship and growled as best he could in his own language.

“IGGZ GOMMA FILE AGGAIM!!!” At this, Adric caught the panicked waves of a number of other Trathalans that had been feverishly working at the ships sensors. Looking back up toward the main screen Adric could visibly see the glow building up far away in the maw of the Asteroid Ship.

“Ok then, better to shoot at us then everyone else” he said, his heart starting to pound even more as he grit his teeth and whispered under his breath. “I guess there’s no continue button if I get this wrong.”

[Crossroads Inc.]

“How many times do I have to repeat myself, do not bother with calculating a firing solution, just aim at the ship and FIRE!” bellowed ‘The Hammer’ as his eyes continued to stare disbelieving at the vessel now being monitored on several scanners by the Asteroid Ship.

Less than ten minutes ago they had effortlessly destroyed the lead command ship from the Armada and sent half the fleet it seemed into disarray. One of the remaining command ships had seemed to pull its forces back together in what Tortho felt was a deeply commendable effort. Were it not for currently circumstances, he wished he could have met the captain of the ship. But despite the ferocity of the counter attack, Torthro had already concluded they would be able to destroy virtually all of the ships before they could get within any range to attack directly.

That was until the announcement of this new ship had come to his attention.

It matched no configuration for anything the Alliance currently had on file, there was a report of markings on it, but the ship was still too far away to accurately authenticate them. The crews trying to identify the vessel reported it was small, perhaps no larger than a light destroyer.
Torthro didn’t care that it was small, he didn’t care that those trying to scan it could detect no atomic payloads. All he cared that it was still getting closer and had so far not been hit by the numerous attacks made by several other Imperial warships along its path.

“Firing solution overridden Commander! Firing cannon in 5-4-3-2-1”

The entire massive command structure shuddered as it had the first time the weapon was fired. Even with the primary components almost 8km away, the roar of equipment, and the ship itself shuddered under the immense, nearly incalculable lever of energy passing through it. Once more all photo-sensors on the primary displays shutdown the instant the beam emitted from the great maw of the Asteroid ship. As it rocketed down like the fist of the gods, he watched on the ships thermal displays as two, and then three smaller Alliance ships vaporized along its path, the readings hard to make out due to the intensity of the beam.
Eventually the searing light of the beam began to fade and more details could be made out in the display.
Torthro squinted, and then bellowed.

“HOW DID IT NOT GET HIT?”

As a flurry of apologetic cadets and various technicians around him all began to re-establish a target lock and additional information. The towering commander slumped back, sitting down in his command chair for the first time during the engagement. He fumed as he considered his options. The obvious solution was simply to reassign some of the missile screen ships with the highest speed tracking systems to target the ship as it came into range. But as his eyes darted around the dozens of displays and the primary screen, he realized virtually every single ship was or would be engaging all remaining enemy warships. He cursed, the mad charge by the Alliance forces behind the ship was forcing him to allocate his vessels to prioritize them first. The counterattack was being slowly pushed back, but only because every signal available warship was engaging it in the local grid. Even moving one ship out of the line of battle could cause the line to collapse.

Torthro took a deep breath, he could do this. There was no sense in trying to use the cannon again on the ship. His priority first and foremost was halting the advancing Alliance Armada. He took a look at the displays again. One, possibly two more shots would be able to destroy enough ships to completely collapse the Alliance counter attack. Once secure, they could regroup and began to work on the desperately needed repair their forces required. Who knows, perhaps with such a weapon in play, they could even work out a treaty to have the Alliance secede control of the planet and end the war.
Torthro sighed again. Before all that, he still needed to stop the ship.

“How long until the weapon can fire again?”
“Nine minutes, perhaps eight minutes Commander.” Came the quick response.
“And how long until the ship is with maximum estimated weapons range?”
“Current estimates given speed, seven minutes 30 seconds.”
“Ok, we will have one shot at this…”
“Commander Priority Signal from High command!" This came from the coms officer at secluded station, one specifically used only for priority communications. "There is an urgent communications, it says encoded and must be received in your quarters.”

Torthro knew at once it would have to be authentic, yet clearly also insane. Torthro was brilliant, he was a master tacticians, but he was also a soldier to the very core of his being, an order was an order.

“Curse them all to the infernos!” He shouted as he stormed off the bridge, “Use any means necessary to prevent that ship from getting in range, but prioritize the primary weapon against the Enemy warships, focus on their command ships!!” he bellowed before the door to main hallway closed behind him.

A brief quiet ensued as close to a dozen technicians, weapons officers, and communication cadets all stared at his departing figure. Eventually the task at hand [or at paw for those concerned] drew their attentions, the Senior Commander on duty, an old friend of Torthro stepped in and began to make sure things continued forward.
“Ok everyone! You heard The Hammer! Plot firing solution on the nearest Enemy command ship!”
“Belay that order!” A shout rose up from where Torthro had just exited, in his place stood a short Tejlini, High General Koro Hejtnoko, one of the Elite of the Imperial War Council. “I will take it from here.”

[Crossroads Inc.]

“OK! I think we can safely say we have got their full attention!” Adric shouted to no one in particular as he leveled the ship back out from yet another gut-wrenching turn. Alarms had sounded from a number of areas around him, many of them warning of excessive heat along the parts of the ship that had been closest to the blast. The temperature on the bridge had certainly got significantly warmer and he could pick up bits of shouting from the mostly Trarthalan crew here and there about emergency heat sinks and pumping coolant into vitally needed areas. For his part, he just tried to focus on not getting killed.

“[You are doing well beloved, never would have I have contemplated how far you would come when I first found you]” this was ‘be-spoaked’ to him by Darnethlil through their shared mental link. Adric did his best not to turn his head as he smiled, keeping his eyes forward as Darnethlil had obtained some cold packets from the repair crews and placed one on the Humans forehead as Adric responded himself.
“[Agreement in full my [mythical-beast ‘dragon’] a journey that has been most bizarre and thrilling.]” The two shared a smile between them as Adric, through Darnethlil, reached out to the mind of one of the Trathalan technicians. “[Forgiveness requested for interruption of duty. Vessel appears to be now significantly closer to goal, explosive launching devices operation?]” The Trathalan he contacted had barely finished putting back a blown out control panel and turned to where it ‘heard’ Adrics mind come from.

“[Weapon systems are operational Human Adric. The payload however is limited and we have fabricated only six units of ammo for systems.]” Adric listened to this within his mind as he heard an alert going off and, reacting almost instantly, turned to narrowly miss a series of explosions by imperial missiles. The attacks were coming thicker now as they were moving forward. Adric took a brief second to move his eyes to a display that showed a larger, more detailed layout of the surrounding warships. He looked and went pale. The tight wall of Imperial warships locked in battle with those that had been pushing from the Alliance, had now largely disengaged and had turned to pursue. While Adric was fairly sure at the speed he was going and their distance it was going to be difficult for any of them to actually hit the ship. Another series of warheads detonating in the rear sobered him up.

“Hopefully pretty difficult” he said, briefly being reminded of his own mortality as he looked to another display in front of him. A read out giving the distance to what had been identified as the weapon system inside and then a countdown timer to minimal firing distance. It still seemed a very long way away. Through the mental link he shared, he could subtly sense the emotions in many of those on the bridge. It was a deepening sense of several emotions that seemed to merge together as “We are not going to make it.”

Adric looked back up to the primary display as he felt a reassuring hand placed on his shoulder.
“[Calm your thoughts and your doubts, you have already proven capable of so much else. Perhaps.]” Here, a pause seemed to come from Darnethlil, who continued with the mental equivalent of a chuckle. “[Yes, perhaps you should think of the story you have told me time and time again. The mythical hero you aspired to. His words serve you. Do not believe in yourself. Believe in me. Believe in the me that Believes in you.]”

Adric heard the words in his mind, smiled, and instantly began to hear the song. A song he knew by heart that he could recite in his mind every word and every note, a song he knew he would never get to hear again in his life yet had become a part of his life within his mind. He looked up a new fire in his gaze and responded back.

“[Darnethlil, I think it is time for us to use ‘That’]” behind him the Trathalan seemed taken aback.
“[‘That’ are you sure you wish to do so?]”
“[It is now or never, let us COMBINE!]”

Darnethlil, using skills that less than a year ago he couldn’t have imagined he would master, reached out effortlessly to the myriad of mental communications happening between ones and twos and then, with a sudden sweeping outpouring from his own mind tied them together into a single unified network of thoughts and experience. And in that moment, everyone on the bridge shared what was said, and could hear the song.
It started with an electric guitar.

“Listen up everyone! It may feel bad now, but this we will overcome! We have all shares multitude of experiences together.” Across the ship, the shared sense of unity between their minds resonated as the thoughts of Adric were broadcast out. Almost immediately, the feelings of those within the link began to change.

Kimi wa kikoeru? Boku no kono koe ga yami ni munashiku suikomareta]
“We have all lost together, and gained together. And we are stronger, because we are together!”
The ship lurched again as another series of warheads detonated uncomfortably close, the explosions peeling away parts of the outer layers of armor, yet the BOOMER rocketed onwards.

Moshimo sekai ga imi wo motsu no nara.]
“And right now it is the time to show how strong we are!

Konna kimochi wo muda de wa nai
“We are going to explode through the blockade and do the impossible!”
At that moment the terrifying lance of the weapon erupted forth into view.

Akogare ni oshitsubusarete akirametetan da
“You think that is going to stop us?”
The searing fire of uncounted tons of hyper condensed plasma vomited forth spreading death to anything it touched.

Hateshinai sora no iro mo shiranai de
“JUST WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK WE ARE?”
The thought was shouted now in unison by everyone on the bridge, with one mind and one shared voice as Adric turned the ship in ways it was never meant to turn...

Hashiridashita omoi ga ima demo
Not just avoiding the attack, but leading the beam away from the rest of the Alliance fleet and causing it to strike two Imperials ships.

Kono mune wo tashikani tatauteru kara
As he did so, the music continued outwards, reverberating off the minds of everyone else in the combined link

Kyou no boku ga sono saki ni tsuzuku
The beam of searing heat and death at least began to diminish and seemed spent.

Bokura nari no asu wo kizuiteiku
As it finally stopped, an alert went off and Adric smiled. The ship was finally in range of the

Kotae wa sou itsumo koko ni aru
“[BOOMER BUSTER BREAKER, FIRE!!!”

[Crossroads Inc.]

Side Story #2, TheBirth of RUDI

In a flourish of bravado, the great Canon of the Asteroid ship was destroyed.
The forces of the Empire sued for peace.
Time moved on...





Far beyond the system of Shand and the site of the Tajlan War and just before the edge of the Meklon Expanse was what could be considered to ‘roughly’ be the halfway point between the Tajlan Empire and the Tri-Star Alliance. It was here that a neutral meeting place was constructed to facilitate the early peace negotiations between the two factions.

The cease fire between the two forces had not come easily. The final battle inflicted great wounds on both sides and had it not been for the violent over throw of the Imperial leadership, it would have most likely resulted in near mutual annihilation to those involved. But however bloody it may have come, peace was declared and with the help of the extraordinary talents of the Trathalans involved, a settlement was worked out for both sides. The alliance would help to refuel and repair the Imperial asteroid ship, and allow all those that wished to return to their home world. Those of the Tajlan Empire agreed to leave all holdings on the world of Trathala and work in repairing the damage inflicted upon it.

And it was a full year after the agreement had been made that the Skothians had returned.

Their presence welcomed back by many, cursed by a few, and often questioned in regards to their timing. Though they would never directly admit it, most in the sector came to terms with the knowledge that they saw the war coming and left so as to not interfere. Regardless of motives, their return began a new age in the fledgling peace treaty. With their technology they returned the massive Asteroid ship home in a fraction of the time it would have taken. After some political unpleasantness that resulted from that move, they helped to establish a high speed courier service between the two powers. In the early months that followed, culture, art and of course technology flowed freely.

And it was in the exchange that had in part led to the station growing, expanding, and becoming an ever increasing Hub for commerce and trade between the two factions. With such a growing station, naturally the needs of maintaining it grew. Logistics, infrastructure and engineering needs continued to grow and it quickly became evident that a massive new computer core would be needed to handle the work load.

As it so happened, both Alliance and Imperial scientists had been working on exactly this problem. Each side had been making massive strides in artificial intelligence as well as titanic quantum computer mainframes. The rapid strides in these fields had come from a great deal of effort that had been slowly accumulating over perhaps 50 years’ worth of painstaking research. However, it also was helped along by rather curious artifacts discovered by Tejlini and Quatonian scientists. These discoveries naturally kept top secret from both sides involved.

The Empire had discovered what seemed to be a cache of materials and ancient machines on Jahlin left behind some 1500 to 2000 years ago. The center of these appeared to be the remains of some ancient computer with a core of a strange crystal lattice that seemed to act very much like neurons in a brain.
The Alliance likewise had found a mysterious wreck of a ship in the Quatonian Asteroid belts that contained information to a similar computer system and crystal network.

Both powers used these as the core of their own hyper advanced supercomputer, and naturally, each wanted theirs to be installed in the station over the objection of the other. In the middle of such diplomatic posturing it should perhaps come as no surprise that the Skothians interjected and offered a ‘compromise’. Both computers would be installed, linked up to each other and set to operate in tandem. Naturally, this was all dressed up in a great deal of glowing words about being a symbolic gesture of peace to further unify cooperation between the two powers. This ‘compromise’ was eventually, if grudgingly agreed to, and the moment of activation would soon arrive.