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Volmarias
Dec 31, 2002

EMAIL... THE INTERNET... SEARCH ENGINES...
He died as he lived, gibbering and making strange, erratic movements.

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LLSix
Jan 20, 2010

The real power behind countless overlords

Well done Senator Warcrimes. Well done.

Tythas
Oct 3, 2013

Never felt at home in reality
Always hiding behind avatars


:black101: Triton Fleet

Saros
Dec 29, 2009

Its almost like we're a Bureaucracy, in space!

I set sail for the Planet of Lab Requisitions!!

Unknown system, Unknown time

What had once been HannibalBarca, Colonel of the Martian Federal Navy and proud Martian patriot is now little more than a quivering bundle of nerves acting purely on instinct. What powers him is unknown for by now he has reached far past the accepted limits of human endurance. Over a month without food or drink and somehow he still lives, collapsed against his terminal and barely moving other than the necessary motions to command his ship but, somehow, onward he presses. Tharsis too still speeds through space - impossibly so - her fuel tanks long since drained of the last drop of refined Sorium.

Jump point after jump point passes, HannibalBarca guiding the Tharsis through them with no regard to his instruments and even less for the outside world. The bridge is as silent as a tomb for week after week until one jump, no different at first than any other the others but suddenly he is not alone.

A soft waft of air brushes his face and slowly, blearily he opens an eye. All his wavery vision can make out is a grey blur on the console before him and a slight rustling as the greyness spreads gentle wings to encompass him.

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


Entirgane System, May 2054


“You have come to ask for my help.”

The man, once somebody important but now nobody at all smiled wryly at the projection before him.

“Of course you won’t help us, I never thought you would” he replied. “How many times before have you ignored species coming, begging for help to stop their annihilation?”

“Then why the long trip here! In such an unusual craft too, why it must be almost as old as me!”


“Curiosity partly, I wanted to meet the ship who brought it all down. Thirty thousand years of empire ended by a single decision is no light thing.”

He smiled at the projection hovering in front of him and dismissively waved his hand.

“Oh don’t worry I know your little secret, why you’ve squatted here for five million years.”

A flash of anger crossed the projections face “I don’t think you know anything at all little thing. Your courier has records from the downfall but you could never understand the choice I made.”

“And now you scuttle away like the vermin you are, leading refugees the sunskimmer? To fall into eternity in the hope of what, survival?”

“Do you have an alternative suggestion?” The man shrugged, “We must save at least a portion of humanity even if we lose control over our own fate.”

He leaned in, “What do you know of the Sunskimmer, you must know something, anything.”

The projection laughed and laughed and laughed.

“Nothing at all little human, nothing at all save that it was old when your mother star was young and will still be there when it is dust.”

The man sat down heavily, he had hidden it well but somewhere inside him he had hoped for something, a miracle perhaps. To be told that the end they had feared for so long was not upon them.

“Then there is nothing you can tell me, and nothing you will do to help us?”

The projection shook its head,

“What little I can do I have done in restoring your pet facility to herself. Maybe the Governor has fallen into senility or simply no longer cares and you can fight his slaves to a standstill.”

“Maybe this time will be different.”


They stood in silence for some minutes, little remaining to say.



The man believed the construct, it had no reason to lie and he contemplated an eternity frozen within that mysterious tube of space-time. Maybe one day they would emerge somewhere or somewhen else or perhaps they would simply be preserved forever. Specimens in some cosmic zoo whose caretakers had long vanished.

He was about to give the order to depart when the projection looked sharply at him, a frown creasing its stonelike face.

“Is that one of yours?”

He opened his mouth to ask what it was speaking of but it cut him off, yelling before he could form the words.

“What the HELL IS THAT little human! What have you done!?”

Saros fucked around with this message at 16:56 on Jul 4, 2018

GunnerJ
Aug 1, 2005

Do you think this is funny?
This is fine.

Cathode Raymond
Dec 30, 2015

My antenna is telling me that you're probably wrong about this.
Soiled Meat
We’re going to be fine, this is the Good ending.

Dirt5o8
Nov 6, 2008

EUGENE? Where's my fuckin' money, Eugene?
Surrender to Cthulhu?

Dr. Snark
Oct 15, 2012

I'M SORRY, OK!? I admit I've made some mistakes, and Jones has clearly paid for them.
...
But ma'am! Jones' only crime was looking at the wrong files!
...
I beg of you, don't ship away Jones, he has a wife and kids!

-United Nations Intelligence Service

Dirt5o8 posted:

Surrender to Cthulhu?

I think Barca actually surrendered to Tango. May he fly forever with his new dimension-hopping parrot friend.

Mikl
Nov 8, 2009

Vote shit sandwich or the shit sandwich gets it!
:tif:

Can't wait to see how this ends :f5:

Cathode Raymond
Dec 30, 2015

My antenna is telling me that you're probably wrong about this.
Soiled Meat

Dr. Snark posted:

I think Barca actually surrendered to Tango. May he fly forever with his new dimension-hopping parrot friend.

Barca has become dimensionable like Tango?

I am so jealous...

POOL IS CLOSED
Jul 14, 2011

I'm just exploding with mackerel. This is the aji wo kutta of my discontent.
Pillbug
Uncle sucks.

winterwerefox
Apr 23, 2010

The next movie better not make me shave anything :(

Dr. Snark
Oct 15, 2012

I'M SORRY, OK!? I admit I've made some mistakes, and Jones has clearly paid for them.
...
But ma'am! Jones' only crime was looking at the wrong files!
...
I beg of you, don't ship away Jones, he has a wife and kids!

-United Nations Intelligence Service

Cathode Raymond posted:

Barca has become dimensionable like Tango?

I am so jealous...

Well his mind has completely shattered and he's basically a walking corpse at this point so I wouldn't feel too jealous.

Doodmons
Jan 17, 2009
:piss:

Cathode Raymond
Dec 30, 2015

My antenna is telling me that you're probably wrong about this.
Soiled Meat

Dr. Snark posted:

Well his mind has completely shattered and he's basically a walking corpse at this point so I wouldn't feel too jealous.

Still though. All those dimensions.

oystertoadfish
Jun 17, 2003

I forget if I said that I really loved this as both an lp of a cool game and as a work of fiction. not sure if it's over yet, if not I suppose this is a humble bump

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









I think there are just a couple of fiction posts to go.

Pash
Sep 10, 2009

The First of the Adorable Dead
I wonder if we will get an answer as to why there was an extra planet in the Collaboration system... that still bugs me...

Saros
Dec 29, 2009

Its almost like we're a Bureaucracy, in space!

I set sail for the Planet of Lab Requisitions!!

Pit System, 19 May 2054

Gen. Tythas looked down at the huge bulk of the Kasag shipyard hanging in orbit over the third planet of the Pit.

The space battle had been short and brutal despite the enormity of the shattered enemy hulks before him. His brand new cruisers had simply clustered protectively around the three carriers containing the thirty-six collaboration Drones. Taking their lumps from the railguns and plasma lances of the enemy’s Shiva dreadnoughts (and giving as good as we got he mentally added) before the two fleets roared past each other and the Drones spilled out of the carriers directly into the wake of the Shivas.

The battle was over fourteen seconds later.

Every time he watched the tactical report it seemed unreal. In perfect synchronicity the Drones fell in behind their targets and fired. The only sign of weapons fire the sudden shake and twinkle of the background stars between them and their targets, well that and the massive plumes of debris suddenly ejecting from the Kasag dreadnoughts. Gravity lances the scientists were calling them and no they had no inkling how they functioned other than whatever was in their path - even the hardest hull armor - simply tore apart.

Constrained by close range weapons and limited operational range the drones were no wonder weapon but they gave the Martian forces a tactical edge they desperately needed while they and they alone maintained a presence outside of Sol. Terra was riven by internal strife, her fleet bickering or defected to the Jovian Corporates. The Corporates were disinterested in doing more than maintaining a watch on the jump points and seeing to their own defence and too distrusting of Mars to send an expeditionary force. The Titan Free State was only now producing her own modern ships but promised to join the battle as soon as possible. But for now, Mars stood alone.

The huge torrent of new innovations and technology pouring from the Pluto Facility was giving rise to what had been dubbed third or “C” generation warships. Fusion powered, wrapped in powerful shields and incredibly tough TN armor with weapons of powers that would have been almost inconceivable five years before they were a match technologically for the Kasag ships and Martian commanders were confident in their superior designs. Shipyards steadily expanding for years now despite the destructive setbacks during the Corporate war a new model Dreadnought and four ten thousand ton cruisers rolled off the slips every single month. Old ships were being rapidly decommissioned as Mars’s need for experienced crew grew and grew. To the veterans of the fleet the influx of green crews as well as the incentive programmes designed to scoop up experienced crew from the Belt, Jovians and Terrans was regarded with ever increasing skepticism but nobody had a better answer to fill their ever thinning ranks.

Powering this furnace of industry was the freedom of the belt. No longer bound to sell their TNE’s to Terra at artificially depressed prices the belters settlements had largely declared independence but the lure of Martian technology and credit was hard to resist. Bit by bit they were falling under the sway of Mars and some like Ceres had already chosen to join the Martian Colonial Federation outright.



With the Pit system secured "automated" drones were dispatched through the ‘Fortress’ jump point but none returned. The Kasag obviously had some sort of force guarding the far side of the jump point but beyond that little was known. Word from Sol was a massive force was assembling. Nearly all of the 2nd and 3rd generation warships with an initial wave of uncrewed and obsolete first generation ships would force the jump point and forge onwards until they found the route to Kasag territory. Lumbering troop transports were already en-route from Mars to accompany the fleet as her Marine complement was exhausted from securing the enormous Kasag mobile shipyard in the Pit. Nearly sixty thousand Kasag workers were dead - slaughtered really - as from Marine reports not a single one had attempted to surrender, their hastily improvised explosives and weapons were no match for Marines in power armor and their squadrons of drones.

Brigadier Hostergaard, Autoshades replacement had directed the massacre, marines going compartment by compartment throughout the enormous station tracking and killing every alien until not a single one remained. Some hundreds had been subdued and forced into the thousands of cryopods scattered throughout the station but the interior spaces of the shipyards now resembled a charnel house, daubed purple with Kasag ichor and scarred by weapons fire.

Morale amongst the fleet was soaring, long held down by the reports from the Internationale of the hundreds of Kasag warships destroyed by the Speedy it was buoyed by Mars’s new status as the sole human superpower, the influx of new technologies and the successes of the fleet after being on the defensive for so long. It felt to many like a new era was dawning and the time had come to take the fight to the Kasag.

Saros fucked around with this message at 10:50 on Aug 31, 2018

Pharnakes
Aug 14, 2009
And they said Dominion of So would never work :smug:

Crazyeyes24
Sep 14, 2014

Your good vision is your fatal weakness!
Looks like krab is back on the menu, boys.

POOL IS CLOSED
Jul 14, 2011

I'm just exploding with mackerel. This is the aji wo kutta of my discontent.
Pillbug
Our faith in each other and hard work pays off, comrades...

Jack2142
Jul 17, 2014

Shitposting in Seattle

I did nothing wrong.

HiHo ChiRho
Oct 23, 2010

:bisonyes:

ChaseSP
Mar 25, 2013



Jack2142 posted:

I did nothing wrong.

You did nothing wrong.

Z the IVth
Jan 28, 2009

The trouble with your "expendable machines"
Fun Shoe

Saros posted:

Some hundreds had been subdued and forced into the thousands of cryopods

Provisions?

Or for the celebratory banquet.

Dr. Snark
Oct 15, 2012

I'M SORRY, OK!? I admit I've made some mistakes, and Jones has clearly paid for them.
...
But ma'am! Jones' only crime was looking at the wrong files!
...
I beg of you, don't ship away Jones, he has a wife and kids!

-United Nations Intelligence Service

Z the IVth posted:

Provisions?

Or for the celebratory banquet.

Yes.

Also I'm becoming increasingly optimistic about humanity's future, which is both exciting and worrying given what we're up against. That and our crazy plan to take over the human race actually worked and gave us everything we could have wanted from it.

Synthbuttrange
May 6, 2007

Soooo about space madness.

Is there actually an elder space god or is it just the effect of shoving an organic brain into weird space?

HiHo ChiRho
Oct 23, 2010

Yes.

Veloxyll
May 3, 2011

Fuck you say?!

Synthbuttrange posted:

Soooo about space madness.

Is there actually an elder space god or is it just the effect of shoving an organic brain into weird space?

It's all fun and games until someone summons C'Thulhu

Volmarias
Dec 31, 2002

EMAIL... THE INTERNET... SEARCH ENGINES...
If anyone else has played AI War I think we know what's coming next.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









There is definitely an implied 'unfortunately, just then...' coming down the line

Dr. Snark
Oct 15, 2012

I'M SORRY, OK!? I admit I've made some mistakes, and Jones has clearly paid for them.
...
But ma'am! Jones' only crime was looking at the wrong files!
...
I beg of you, don't ship away Jones, he has a wife and kids!

-United Nations Intelligence Service

Volmarias posted:

If anyone else has played AI War I think we know what's coming next.

To be fair I think we made the AI War jokes when we saw the response to Speedy...

Jack2142
Jul 17, 2014

Shitposting in Seattle

sebmojo posted:

There is definitely an implied 'unfortunately, just then...' coming down the line

But for one brief shining moment at the end of human history the Dominion of Sol endured as a beacon of enlightenment. Ushered in by those with the foresight to stab their fellow man in the back while the aliens were at the gates.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









Jack2142 posted:

But for one brief shining moment at the end of human history the Dominion of Sol endured as a beacon of enlightenment. Ushered in by those with the foresight to stab their fellow man in the back while the aliens were at the gates.

:swanlake:

Saros
Dec 29, 2009

Its almost like we're a Bureaucracy, in space!

I set sail for the Planet of Lab Requisitions!!

The Fortress and the Pit, 22 May 2054

It was time.

Hauptmann General Tythas took a moment to meet the eyes of Dr. Lafever, secured in the combat restraints on the roomy bridge on his brand new command Dreadnought Daughter of the Sands. Beneath his feet the gentle vibration of the ships jump drive signaled readiness as much as any of the myriad displays before him.

The doctor simply nodded, eyes hard as flint and full of buried sorrow. Tythas didn't remember her smiling once in the past months as the Martian fleet occupied the Pit system and made its preparations to push forward.

What a fleet it was. Nine Dreadnoughts, nearly thirty cruisers and twice that number of smaller ships it represented the single most powerful concentration of force humanity had ever put together. Hanging in transit formation around the jump point from the Pit to the unknown system dubbed the Fortress, crews alert and on-edge as they prepared for the Martian Fleet’s first ever opposed jump transit.

"Oh well" he thought, no sense in drawing it out.

He reached out and pressed the flashing icon on his command display.







He groggily fought his way back to consciousness, awareness returning as something slammed into the Dreadnought and the characteristic triple-jolt of a fusion engine letting go threw him against his restraints.

Chatter from his bridge crew filled his ears and he realised he was recovering from jump shock slower than he ever had before, the battle was joined without him. With a supreme effort of will he brought himself back into the present, banishing the horror gnawing at his spine and attempting to regain his focus on the command display before him.

“... Hellas is drifting, McLay signals Hot Rod moving to cover…”

“... Enuma Elis signals particle density is too high for torpedoes, closing with lasers…”

“... King in Yellow is GONE! ...”

“... platform count one-eighty-four and dropping…”

“... Broken Sky signals engaged with a Shiva, get her some support! …”



The display before his was awash with red. The Martian fleet had jumped into an extremely dense nebula system in the center of a concentric rings of over two hundred destroyer sized stationary platforms. Immediately they came under intense fire from particle beams and the dangerous shield and armor bypassing weapons of the enemy - now dubbed ‘Meson cannons.’ The fleet was charging through the layers of enemy weapons platforms and engaging the -now crippled and burning- single Shiva class dreadnought that had been sitting on the jump point. Further out eighteen enormous Kasag dreadnoughts had immediately turned and moved to engage the fleet at 2000kps. The slow speed confused Tythas before he saw the outrageous particle count in the top of his display. The Nebula was so thick even his fastest ships would be able to make no more than the 2000kps the Kasag were making.

With the running battle de-escalating as the fleet passed the outer line of platforms and their pursuers were unable to close the distance he turned his attention to the rest of the system.

A burned out white dwarf star provided the rationale for the particle count, this deep in a nebula and no star to sweep clear a zone with its solar wind would mean TN space operations would be severely restricted. However on the second planet was the most important feature of the system, the unmistakable chatter and electromagnetic noise of an inhabited settlement. Fleet Intel put initial estimates of at least twenty million inhabitants across a series domed structures and a series of large orbital platforms strung around the world like a bracelet.

The fleet had got off quite lightly considering the sheer number of enemy platforms. Only three total losses - unfortunately including the dreadnought Hellas and the rest of the ships had gotten off with no more than moderate damage. Daughter of the Sands his own ship had lost an engine but with the systems particle densities it had been no more than a redundancy anyway.

As the Martians sped further away the Kasag ships pursued… beyond the outer globe of jump point platforms. A quick mental calculation gave the Martian fleet at over twice the combined tonnage of the Kasag ships and a smile curled on Tythas’s face as he gave the order.

“All ships come about and reform.”


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


Far away and to his own great surprise, HannibalBarca woke up.

Saros fucked around with this message at 17:04 on Nov 9, 2018

LLSix
Jan 20, 2010

The real power behind countless overlords

It lives!

Crazyeyes24
Sep 14, 2014

Your good vision is your fatal weakness!
Ah shiiiiiiiit

Post made my day.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









Crazyeyes24 posted:

Ah shiiiiiiiit

Post made my day.

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sloshmonger
Mar 21, 2013
See if you see my corpse floating around out there...

Posting from a year ago

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