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We will work with her in public.
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Jun 26, 2015 11:35
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As if you fuckers weren't already making a deal with the ruinous powers when when you were squeeing about Athena in her obviously damaged state.
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Jun 26, 2015 12:00
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I'm confused by the swelling confidence posters have that Kiera is Dark Mechanicus and has fallen to the Great Enemy. She just seems to be using her dangerous and forbidden tech for executing a masterful attempt at a power play, which is kind of standard for the long running contest between trader, church, and magos on the Beast, no?
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Jun 26, 2015 13:03
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JT Jag posted:Now that we're at the final boss fight for this segment, I'd like to talk about what, exactly, needs to be done after this. The ship is completely hosed up. Even if it survives the trip to Titan, it'll need to spend years in drydock being repaired. This is unfortunate, but if we put in the time and effort it could be a boon. We could take the time to make major retrofits to the ship. As for what we do while the ship is in drydock... well, most of the ship's populace is dead. We need to find people who can run the various areas of the ship. A major concern, I think, should be making sure no single entity has too much control. As useful as any group might seem, they're all prone to revolt eventually. Our profit factor has taken a beating, too, gotta build that up. Repopulating the ship is the easy part, scoop up half a million people from some crummy hive world, and, bob's your uncle, we've got a new crew/cannon fodder/captive market. Things were already pretty well split up before hand, what we've got to do is make sure the new major faction centers are still loyal to us. The new Mechanicus contingent especially. The new church is in our pocket, thanks to Saint Fabiyan, and surviving Kriegers and Subsixers can be the nucleus of the new Greycloaks. No, I'd say we're in a pretty good position to rebuild a ship that's loyal to us. If we survive. I've said it before and I've said it again, let's hack our way out of this. Presumably Matthias's fleshy brain is hooked up to his techie bits with some form of tech that can be hacked, let's try and hack into them like they were a government database. Shut them down and he'll be stuck relying solely on his monstrous fleshy bits. Big, but not augmented.
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Jun 26, 2015 13:59
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My waifuuuiuuuuuuu
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Jun 26, 2015 14:11
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When did the head Magos on the ship become a lady? Thought it was a dude at the beginning of the story.
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Jun 26, 2015 14:28
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We have a hurricane bolter in bedded in our chest? Holy crap that means we are a vehicle. That's a vehicle grade weapon! How the hell could we possible carry such a thing without being Astartes or a Dreadnaught?
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Jun 26, 2015 14:35
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Deadmeat5150 posted:We have a hurricane bolter in bedded in our chest? With faith in the emperor, all things are possible 
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Jun 26, 2015 14:38
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It's not real. The darts nicked us with some sort of hallucinogen. Begin system purge for poisons and ignore taunting. Order troops to detain the Magos while we kill this monster. E: oh also say "It wasn't luck I got this far, it was fate (points)." Arkanomen fucked around with this message at 15:01 on Jun 26, 2015 |
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Jun 26, 2015 14:53
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Deadmeat5150 posted:We have a hurricane bolter in bedded in our chest? Came with the armor 
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Jun 26, 2015 14:59
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Althair posted:I'm confused by the swelling confidence posters have that Kiera is Dark Mechanicus and has fallen to the Great Enemy. She just seems to be using her dangerous and forbidden tech for executing a masterful attempt at a power play, which is kind of standard for the long running contest between trader, church, and magos on the Beast, no? Aren't Dark Mechanicus the only people who can get at the Obliterator Virus, which I'm assuming Matthias is now?
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Jun 26, 2015 15:31
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LowellDND posted:Came with the armor No wonder it's a little loose in the spine.
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Jun 26, 2015 15:35
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I'm dubious that Matt has a data port labeled "HACK ME LIKE A NAUGHTY SCHOOLGIRL" but we can give it a try.
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Jun 26, 2015 16:11
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Lowell, whyyy?! Matthias was my original vote for who we were supposed to end up with, pre-Fabiyan! </3
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Jun 26, 2015 16:21
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mepstein73 posted:Lowell, whyyy?! Matthias was my original vote for who we were supposed to end up with, pre-Fabiyan! </3 
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Jun 26, 2015 16:22
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Happy SCOTUS ruling, everyone! All the readers are now gay married Even as the torn limb was knitting itself, augmented blood clotting with a speed that would have astonished the uninitiated, your mind was leaping forward, a dagger of binary. <You forget yourself, Tech-Priest. I killed her with the Sacred Binary, and you will die the same. It was not luck, it was fate.> You slapped aside his defenses with a hundred different programs, hacks and cracks and ice (black). You and Kiera had been cautious, testing each other, masters of your trade, but this was a jumped-up little Mech-Wright who was in way over his head. Even as in the physical world he was swinging for another attack, ever so slowly, you were tearing through his brain. Augmented strength, servo-motors and electro-musculature? All gone now, self-destructing and overloading and igniting in fire. Disappointingly, he didn’t fall over as you had expected - his organics had tremendous strength and speed, but you hoped this would level the playing field a bit. Still, while you were here… you began ripping through his brain in the same way you would treasure hunt with mortars. Aspects of his organic memory, personality, emotions, all obliterated in moments as you tore through his memory banks, stealing anything that looked interesting. He would never be human again, lobotomized into just another powerful beast. Memories of him being subverted by the other Magos. His pride, his happiness at doing what he loved. He might have been a decent Tech-Priest someday, if he hadn’t turned to heresy. Memories of him and Tanya trading stories between days of work. You erased them in millions of lines of corrupt code. The slow corruption, as Keira spent months finding out what happened to her sister. The sudden shock, as he revealed how you and he had killed her. His death warrant was signed, then. She decided to twist the knife, turn your apprentice into a weapon against you. Investigated more of what he had seen in her labs. Her sister had never told her all she did, and finding out about the Olympus was everything. Your blood ran cold. Ice cold, the void of space cold. The remaining memories - his volunteering to be her finest creation, her weapon, were irrelevant. Time stopped. Item: Athena was the only prize that mattered. Item: She could plausibly remake the Imperium - the galaxy - given time. Item: Everyone else who knew about her was dead. Item: Except Matthias. And now Kiera. Item: Kiera was a heretek of the most vile sort. Item: She and her sister had participated in equally vile heresies. Item: They were almost certainly Dark Mechanicus. . Item: The Dark Mechanicus knew about Athena. . . . . The significance of your betrayal - your failure - overwhelmed you. . . .
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Jun 26, 2015 17:08
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Eh, it wasn't really our fault, there wasn't much we could have done about it short of murdering Matthias for something he might do in the future. Assuming the Magos told someone else, we either need to contact someone in the Imperium telling them about a piece of Heretek that might fall into the hands of Chaos, or (the more likely given this thread) tell Athena about all of this.
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Jun 26, 2015 17:23
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Time to send a message to Athena, then. I doubt even a Black Crusade could get her if she was forewarned.
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Jun 26, 2015 17:25
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We absolutely need to inform both Athena and the Adeptus Mechanicus, and should probably discuss the matter with our closest people, like Fabiyan.
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Jun 26, 2015 17:26
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I would not immediately assume the Magos told someone else. If that were the deal then the Sisters would have already told someone else, long before we ever met Athena. It was either already fait accompli or has not happened. There is no betrayal and failure. The Dark Mechanicus either knew about it before we did or still doesn't know.
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Jun 26, 2015 17:27
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Unless Kiera is closer to her allies than her sister was.
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Jun 26, 2015 17:28
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Sogol posted:The Dark Mechanicus either knew about it before we did or still doesn't know. Wait, if the Dark Mechanicus DOES know... why hadn't they put this amazing piece of tech to use? What if Athena's actually just a trap, or bait? Maybe it's not actually as cleaned-out as we thought... Strange that they'd let a pretty awful Magos infest it with Tyrannid goop, when they could just as easily have stripped it for weaponry and whatnot and then gone to war? They're chaos, but that doesn't mean stupid necessarily, right? Either way, we need to get logs of all communication Kiera has had going off the Beast. Or even within the Beast, in case there's a Dark Mechanicus sect on board...
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Jun 26, 2015 17:35
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Give Athena a heads up (she's probably been listening in anyway) and move on to other business unless she specifically requests something. I doubt Athena wants anything to do with the schmucks who decked her out in xeno filth and who want to bind demons to her that will override or enslave her AI. Given that she's been busy this entire time recovering and building a fleet, I think she can handle things involving Dark Mechanicus. Suggest to her that if she wants to keep laying low, she should pick a different planet. Meanwhile, we search through the Magos' stuff to find out as much about Dark Mechanicus as we possibly can. That way we might get a pat on the back from regular Mechanicus, especially when we tell them the next target appears to be Golgotha. With any luck, they'll send a fleet to wreck some poo poo. Also, hand over all tech priests on board for suspected Dark Mechanicus taint. Restock, repair, resupply Mechanicus can repair our stuff and we can switch to being a primarily Mechanicus vessel, with our own contingent of tech priests, skitarii, myrmidons, and whatnot. If we want some troops for Fabiyan, we can requisition some, but most of his skills commanding Kriegers are easily transferable to skitarii. mepstein73 posted:Wait, if the Dark Mechanicus DOES know... why hadn't they put this amazing piece of tech to use? What if Athena's actually just a trap, or bait? Maybe it's not actually as cleaned-out as we thought... Strange that they'd let a pretty awful Magos infest it with Tyrannid goop, when they could just as easily have stripped it for weaponry and whatnot and then gone to war? They're chaos, but that doesn't mean stupid necessarily, right? They haven't arrived yet. Sending messages, receiving messages, and travel take time. Kiera only recently found out about Athena. The other Magos was keeping things a secret.
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Jun 26, 2015 17:39
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mepstein73 posted:Wait, if the Dark Mechanicus DOES know... why hadn't they put this amazing piece of tech to use? What if Athena's actually just a trap, or bait? Maybe it's not actually as cleaned-out as we thought... Strange that they'd let a pretty awful Magos infest it with Tyrannid goop, when they could just as easily have stripped it for weaponry and whatnot and then gone to war? They're chaos, but that doesn't mean stupid necessarily, right? My understanding is that if they know, they have only known for a month or two, long after we helped Athena. The Magos who was messing with Athena wasn't necessarily Dark Mechanicus.
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Jun 26, 2015 17:40
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Wasn't there foreshadowing that a Tyranid Hive Mind was targeting Athena on Golgotha? That place is bad loving news and she should really move to a nicer neighborhood.
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Jun 26, 2015 17:45
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Athena knows the Dark Mechs know of her. She felt the great evil eye turning towards her. As for Matt, not all creations bear fruit. He failed and after learning from a failure you cast it away. The same for the Magos. She too will be dissected, analyzed, cleansed and then purged. We must warn Athena but we are no use to her without a functioning ship and a solid crew. We are bleeding now, even the Kreiger are weakened. Warm Athena. Collect, analyze and purge the remaining heretics and xenos. Get the ship functioning again. Restock the crew and kriegers, then get our rear end to Mars
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Jun 26, 2015 17:47
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Hasn't Athena turned ~50% of Golgotha's core mass into weapons factories? When that egg hatches she could eat Black crusades for breakfast. When we have time let Athena know that a training simulation of Mars traitors may be inbound.
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Jun 26, 2015 17:59
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Black Cauldron by Audiomachine Slice of Life LI You were an old man. Old soldier, really. Born on a planet whose name you couldn’t really recall, drafted into the endless wars there. Sent as a member of the Tithes. Had a talent for war. A knack, really. You weren’t good at most things, and you preferred the company of your Kriegs. They understood the comfort of amiable silence. But war, you were pretty good at. Decades of combat, on and off. From squad size to Fronts and back again. And the High Command thought you were something special, made you a general. Usually a political position, but they made space for someone who could manage the Krieg. Krieg were good at dying, but you could use them like a doctor uses a scalpel. Krieg were your opus, your symphony. You’d seen a lot of them die. Millions, really. Killed the enemies of the God-Emperor by the planetful. You’d probably seen every way someone could die, and every way an alien could die. Swords, bayonets, helmets, grenades, lasguns, plasma, artillery, tank treads, chemical and nuclear weapons, orbital bombardment. Seen them all. Why did it hurt when you saw that monster take off her arm? The battle was happening so fast. They had moved across fifty meters of space in seconds, exchanging blows of drill and claw, firing thousands of rounds of ammo, rockets, grenades. You couldn’t hear the weight of their movement for all the explosions. You were running towards them, and time was slowing down as it had many times before. Your brain filling with adrenaline, preparing for the intensity of violence. She seemed to recover quickly enough. Made that expression she does when she is weaving code. You could hear the monster’s servomotors pop as they failed. You thought that would be that then; she was like code like you were with war. But then her face had changed. Horror. Such horror that you couldn’t meet her eyes. A despair, a self-loathing that couldn’t be expressed. She stalled where she stood. The monster swung again, neatly cleaving her head from her body. Old soldier. Old soldiers never die, young ones do. You were kind of surprised when your thunder hammer hit the monster hard enough to launch it across the room. It seemed startled too, the way it landed. You could hear bones crunch under the weight of it. Casually, almost effortlessly, you walked over to the monster. Began - well, hammering it, with your hammer. A hundred impacts in seconds. Your surviving Krieg hadn’t even caught up to where you hit it across the room. It was turning to paste under your blows, even the metal and cybernetics bending and twisting. The traitor Magos, sitting on her throne. Watching you, like some predator. “She did good work making you, old man.” You hefted the hammer, began a slow jog towards her. “Her best creation was always herself.” The Magos blocked your attack, barely. You were stronger than her. Faster. But she was older. You had to be careful. Not let emotions get you. Remember the Krieg. People die. “Did she mean something to you then? I thought they took your parts when you joined the Krieg.” Another clang of weapons. “They are more human than you ever were.” She swung at you. “I would think that a perk.” You stepped aside, smashed into her flank. She grunted at the impact. You followed up. “What traitors like you never understand…” Parry, dodge, swing. She backed away, you pursued. “Is that Humanity is loyalty. To each other, to our homes.” She laughed, a strange sound, feinted. You parried, she came in hard. “Fool, there is only conflict. Competition is how we thrive. How we always have.” Parry, dodge, swing. The simple movements that could break mountains. “Humanity is Faith, traitor. Faith in ourselves, our friends, and our God-Emperor.” She grunted with the effort of stopping all your attacks. Was trying to dodge more. You were faster, getting more hits in. “Your God-Emperor hasn’t spoken in ten thousand years.” ”Perhaps he speaks now.” Your impact smashed through her defending arm, her luminen shield, her face. Her skull crumpled, even as the hammer went deeper, burying itself in her metal chest. The implants whirred, died. Was this what victory felt like? A dead ship, a dead crew. A dead captain, dead wife. You walked over to her body. You didn’t cry. Didn’t know how. The dozen surviving Kriegers stood with you, around her. ”Kriegers don’t emotions like you or I” you remember telling her. You hadn’t seen them do this. They weren’t stripping her of gear. They were just… watching. You knelt next to her, placed her head back on her shoulders. All that talent, all those preparations. Gone in a moment. You sighed softly, too tired to even grind your teeth. It was all for nothing in the end, after all. The most Krieg of responses. There was nothing. Awkwardly, the Kriegers reached out. Touched your gloves, her neck. What was that? What emotion could that be? What did Krieg believe in, if not nothing? White light flared out of your hands.
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Jun 26, 2015 18:12
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Fighting that war could kinda reveal her to the Imperium, xenos, and heretics at large. As troublesome as dealing with the Athena situation is at present, it'll get much worse with eldar, inquisitors, mechanicus, the high lords of terra, the ruinous powers, a sassy AI and everyone else getting into the biggest dick waving contest in the history of ever (unless you count the time the Eldar literally dick waved Slaanesh into existence).
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Jun 26, 2015 18:14
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Jun 26, 2015 18:18
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 Yesssssssss.
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Jun 26, 2015 18:19
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Fate point spent
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Jun 26, 2015 18:21
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...By the Emperor. Guess we really DID make him a saint.
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Jun 26, 2015 18:21
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This is why you beatify your husband, girls.
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Jun 26, 2015 18:23
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Blessed be the God-Emperor! Blessed be his Saint, Fabiyan the Reborn! Fabiyan the Savior! Fabiyan the Slayer!
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Jun 26, 2015 18:24
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A Darker Porpoise posted:
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Jun 26, 2015 18:25
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Jun 26, 2015 18:25
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Mr Apollo posted:Blessed be the God-Emperor! Blessed be his Saint, Fabiyan the Reborn! Fabiyan the Savior! Fabiyan the Slayer! Also those cerebral implants are probably....non-recoverable. 
sniper4625 fucked around with this message at 18:32 on Jun 26, 2015 |
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Jun 26, 2015 18:27
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Waci posted:This is why you beatify your husband, girls. I died for the Emperor and by his will ROSE AGAIN
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Jun 26, 2015 18:27
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LowellDND posted:The monster swung again, neatly cleaving her head from her body. God drat it Lowell, you are killing me! 
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Jun 26, 2015 18:28
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