Post by EmperorMyric on Dec 16, 2017 19:10:18 GMT
But all the clocks in the city
Began to whirr and chime:
‘O let not Time deceive you,
You cannot conquer Time.
--W.H. Auden, As I Walked Out One Evening
--oOo--
Pallam, that is to say General Pallam, operated strangely. Tasked with managing the impending progress of the Union of World’s eventual assault by Prime Admiral Dorin, the general did not begin by preparing armies. He did not order entrenchments for the soldiers in his command on any particular worlds, nor did he begin drawing up plans for a counteroffensive push into the Union. This was unnecessary by the very nature, design, and existence of the Flux. They were always prepared.
Instead, he made camp.
His headquarters was obsolete, and demilitarized. During the Nakai Wars, the Ascendancy had experimented with deep space artillery platforms, capable of projecting unfathomable payloads well beyond the meager distances between solar systems. They were the interstellar equivalents of those great and ancient cannons that primitive races would mount on railway tracks, and while immensely powerful, their lack of flexibility lead to their entire removal from the timeline.
Entire is not entirely accurate. Near total.
At the request of General Pallam, a lone deep space artillery platform was placed on the frontier of the Immortal Empire. It was introduced well before the empire in question discovered it, and it was duly disarmed and made incorrigible to their efforts at understanding it or otherwise comprehend its technologies. Thus, the Empire had no real qualms when Dalyth, at the request of Pallam, asked the Overlord that a peculiar backwater artifact be turned over to the Ascendancy.
It looked like a railway spike, surrounded by rings. Its scale was smaller, though to a degree comparable, to the monumental Hand of God class planetary transports, and located in deep space the station-the Immortal Empire had called the thing the Bolt-dominated the empty blackness of deep space with impersonal coldness much out of line with the nature of the rings surrounding it. Originally, these rings had served as cosmic cooling coils, but now with the station disarmed they supported atmospheres and, oddly enough, sentient life. The Bolt teemed with life. It was a noteworthy trading hub and port of call for species all across the galaxy, and this was why Pallam had placed his headquarters there. He wanted the universe to surround him. The Bolt was no secret, but the Flux’s presence on it was, as the Flux tends to have it, utterly undetected. They did not interact with the local adminstrators the Immortal Empire had appointed to managing the thriving starport. Pallam, distant and enigmatic, reigned unseen in the Bolt, and waited.
The irony in it was not irony to Pallam. By the very fact of its existence, the Bolt would stand out; it was likely that the Union of Worlds had even known of its existence if not it’s true origin since well before the war broke out. The Nakai would surely have recognized its architecture as those belonging to their old enemy, but if they had, they had not yet chosen to reveal to the outside world their relationship to it. The Nakai understood that as long as they did not attempt to tear down the Flux’s timeless masquerade, the Flux would be too restrained by their memories to take ill action against them.
Yet times were changing.
While I will not introduce Pallam as yet, he was different from her. He was of the old guard, yes, but despite their common experiences and shared age Pallam had something Dorin did not. At some level, Dorin did not want to burn life out of this universe; it was her garden, and she wanted to preserve it. She would turn the soil if she had to, but it would be out of necessity, not choice.
For Pallam, it was all about choices. The Bolt would be, in time, one of the ultimate choices anyone has ever made. Pallam was going to give everyone what they wanted, be they Ascendancy or otherwise.
Pallam was going to end these wars.
--oOo--
In Ambrosius, the Immortal Empire was sifting through the rubble, and they were finding things.
This didn’t matter to me all that much personally, as at the time I was having a very important conversation six feet underground, but it is worth mentioning. Tacitly, the Ascendancy had a degree of interest in the survivors of the Coalition‘s expedition, for at that time they were still feeling the mild sting of death from the Altman Incident. They wanted to understand just who the SSC were and quite what they wanted. Dorin had become convinced that they were not entirely fulfilling the threat paradigm that dictated the Ascendancy’s shadowy existence. She kept this opinion her own, however; the shipmasters held stronger respect for their opponents than Dorin did in that regard, and that suited her. It would build their confidence more to thwart a more formidable foe than one who had simply gotten lucky; or if she was wrong it would be wiser to expect more of this potential foe than they might actually me. Caution was key.
She made this decision based off of one key fact: while the Chaw’Sah’Vo class ship had been fully annihilated (and thus detected) the Fortunate Son had been well within the group before being detected visually by the Altman. She had eluded the detection of the escorts until being practically on top of them. She still gave more respect to them than she wished she had to, but it was evident that while they were perhaps more capable than the other factions in terms of detection skills, they were still not fully capable of appreciating the Ascendancy’s presence, or else the late mind of Shipmaster Irrus would not have managed the feat.
Still, all due respect was given to this new potential adversary. Guidelines had been issued to the shipmasters and the fleetmasters to this effect: as long as there was no sign of detection, no harm was to be directed expressly at these newcomers to the field. Further instructions were given for how to engage when opposition reared its ugly head.
But in Ambrosius, Dorin acted through Dalyth through petitions to the Overlord, who through the 51st Fleet sought out survivors from both sides. The survivors were scattering, but handfuls from here and there were sought out, and collected for questioning. Dorin had had no real interest in what became of the Coalition survivors, but Dalyth, being a diplomat more than a soldier, felt it unwarranted to wish any particular hardships upon them. They were to be treated as castaways, not as prisoners of war, and were to be repatriated if and when the opportunity presented itself.
As for the Dark City’s survivors, not even Dalyth thought to add anything in regards to how the Ascendancy wished they would be treated. It was not of any real concern to her.
--oOo--
Meanwhile, I was six feet underground, millions of lightyears away from my body, in a snowstorm, inside a palace, inside a strange girl’s mind, which was itself a snowstorm.
I must admit, my life is confusing even to me sometimes.
“I do not think you could.” The Sanctioned’s blurry form stated through the snow, and I shivered rather badly. There are times when at least a bit of hair on my head would be appreciated, though that would not be entirely morally feasible in my eyes; still, it was frigid, and I disliked the sensation of snowflakes pounding my bare head.
“If you have no name to give,” she continued firmly, “and you intend me no harm, then why are you here?”
Why was I here. What a question. How was I going to explain that I stole a part of a god’s mind after cutting his throat, only to be pursued by his minions across vast distances of space? Or why I had gone to the trouble of tracking down the Drake’s god of chaos? Not the simplest conversation, you know? Oh yes, I would say, well I’m being pursued by the forces of evil because I burgled a god’s mind, and he’s rather fond of getting it back, but that would be problematic because reality would suffer rather badly, so could I please leave it here with you for a spell?
I exhaled abruptly, and a cloud of mist expanded from my mouth, rapidly drifting away in the strong night breeze.
“I need your help.” I say as I feel the ground begin moving. No, not the ground here. The ground my body is buried in.
They’re digging me up.
“And why should I help you?” Her shape quips quickly. She is incredibly guarded I realize with some dismay; normally I would have anticipated a degree of curiosity accompanying a strange visitor petitioning your soul for aide. Not really her thing, apparently.
Gods damn it, I think privately to myself-or so I believe, at least-this is going to be harder than I imagined.
“I’m being chased, and I need a place to hide something.” I say as I realize that the ice crystals are beginning to dance. It’s the vibration of whatever is extracting my coffin, and the little particles of frozen water around me are beginning to hop and bounce like jumping beans. I don’t know if she notices this, but I feel a great deal of alarm beginning to grow inside me. If they get me out of that coffin before I can place Naga’s Hopes’ somewhere secure, I lose everything. I lose my chance at Shaw, at keeping his master bedridden, at saving the Flux from the Ascendancy, at saving the galaxy from Dorin’s fears…
“You choose a strange place to hide,” the Sanctioned responds coldly, and I wonder if a look of panic has escaped my face yet. This is not going as I’ve planned.
“Beggers can’t be chosers.” I answer shakily; my voice is shaking, and I am shivering, and gods be damned the ground is shaking and I am shaking and my voice is shaking and this is it. This has to be it.
“They’re going to kill me if I can’t hide something with you.” The words don’t come with much calmness, because calmness was fleeting.
So would be my life, if I didn’t complete this.
Began to whirr and chime:
‘O let not Time deceive you,
You cannot conquer Time.
--W.H. Auden, As I Walked Out One Evening
--oOo--
Pallam, that is to say General Pallam, operated strangely. Tasked with managing the impending progress of the Union of World’s eventual assault by Prime Admiral Dorin, the general did not begin by preparing armies. He did not order entrenchments for the soldiers in his command on any particular worlds, nor did he begin drawing up plans for a counteroffensive push into the Union. This was unnecessary by the very nature, design, and existence of the Flux. They were always prepared.
Instead, he made camp.
His headquarters was obsolete, and demilitarized. During the Nakai Wars, the Ascendancy had experimented with deep space artillery platforms, capable of projecting unfathomable payloads well beyond the meager distances between solar systems. They were the interstellar equivalents of those great and ancient cannons that primitive races would mount on railway tracks, and while immensely powerful, their lack of flexibility lead to their entire removal from the timeline.
Entire is not entirely accurate. Near total.
At the request of General Pallam, a lone deep space artillery platform was placed on the frontier of the Immortal Empire. It was introduced well before the empire in question discovered it, and it was duly disarmed and made incorrigible to their efforts at understanding it or otherwise comprehend its technologies. Thus, the Empire had no real qualms when Dalyth, at the request of Pallam, asked the Overlord that a peculiar backwater artifact be turned over to the Ascendancy.
It looked like a railway spike, surrounded by rings. Its scale was smaller, though to a degree comparable, to the monumental Hand of God class planetary transports, and located in deep space the station-the Immortal Empire had called the thing the Bolt-dominated the empty blackness of deep space with impersonal coldness much out of line with the nature of the rings surrounding it. Originally, these rings had served as cosmic cooling coils, but now with the station disarmed they supported atmospheres and, oddly enough, sentient life. The Bolt teemed with life. It was a noteworthy trading hub and port of call for species all across the galaxy, and this was why Pallam had placed his headquarters there. He wanted the universe to surround him. The Bolt was no secret, but the Flux’s presence on it was, as the Flux tends to have it, utterly undetected. They did not interact with the local adminstrators the Immortal Empire had appointed to managing the thriving starport. Pallam, distant and enigmatic, reigned unseen in the Bolt, and waited.
The irony in it was not irony to Pallam. By the very fact of its existence, the Bolt would stand out; it was likely that the Union of Worlds had even known of its existence if not it’s true origin since well before the war broke out. The Nakai would surely have recognized its architecture as those belonging to their old enemy, but if they had, they had not yet chosen to reveal to the outside world their relationship to it. The Nakai understood that as long as they did not attempt to tear down the Flux’s timeless masquerade, the Flux would be too restrained by their memories to take ill action against them.
Yet times were changing.
While I will not introduce Pallam as yet, he was different from her. He was of the old guard, yes, but despite their common experiences and shared age Pallam had something Dorin did not. At some level, Dorin did not want to burn life out of this universe; it was her garden, and she wanted to preserve it. She would turn the soil if she had to, but it would be out of necessity, not choice.
For Pallam, it was all about choices. The Bolt would be, in time, one of the ultimate choices anyone has ever made. Pallam was going to give everyone what they wanted, be they Ascendancy or otherwise.
Pallam was going to end these wars.
--oOo--
In Ambrosius, the Immortal Empire was sifting through the rubble, and they were finding things.
This didn’t matter to me all that much personally, as at the time I was having a very important conversation six feet underground, but it is worth mentioning. Tacitly, the Ascendancy had a degree of interest in the survivors of the Coalition‘s expedition, for at that time they were still feeling the mild sting of death from the Altman Incident. They wanted to understand just who the SSC were and quite what they wanted. Dorin had become convinced that they were not entirely fulfilling the threat paradigm that dictated the Ascendancy’s shadowy existence. She kept this opinion her own, however; the shipmasters held stronger respect for their opponents than Dorin did in that regard, and that suited her. It would build their confidence more to thwart a more formidable foe than one who had simply gotten lucky; or if she was wrong it would be wiser to expect more of this potential foe than they might actually me. Caution was key.
She made this decision based off of one key fact: while the Chaw’Sah’Vo class ship had been fully annihilated (and thus detected) the Fortunate Son had been well within the group before being detected visually by the Altman. She had eluded the detection of the escorts until being practically on top of them. She still gave more respect to them than she wished she had to, but it was evident that while they were perhaps more capable than the other factions in terms of detection skills, they were still not fully capable of appreciating the Ascendancy’s presence, or else the late mind of Shipmaster Irrus would not have managed the feat.
Still, all due respect was given to this new potential adversary. Guidelines had been issued to the shipmasters and the fleetmasters to this effect: as long as there was no sign of detection, no harm was to be directed expressly at these newcomers to the field. Further instructions were given for how to engage when opposition reared its ugly head.
But in Ambrosius, Dorin acted through Dalyth through petitions to the Overlord, who through the 51st Fleet sought out survivors from both sides. The survivors were scattering, but handfuls from here and there were sought out, and collected for questioning. Dorin had had no real interest in what became of the Coalition survivors, but Dalyth, being a diplomat more than a soldier, felt it unwarranted to wish any particular hardships upon them. They were to be treated as castaways, not as prisoners of war, and were to be repatriated if and when the opportunity presented itself.
As for the Dark City’s survivors, not even Dalyth thought to add anything in regards to how the Ascendancy wished they would be treated. It was not of any real concern to her.
--oOo--
Meanwhile, I was six feet underground, millions of lightyears away from my body, in a snowstorm, inside a palace, inside a strange girl’s mind, which was itself a snowstorm.
I must admit, my life is confusing even to me sometimes.
“I do not think you could.” The Sanctioned’s blurry form stated through the snow, and I shivered rather badly. There are times when at least a bit of hair on my head would be appreciated, though that would not be entirely morally feasible in my eyes; still, it was frigid, and I disliked the sensation of snowflakes pounding my bare head.
“If you have no name to give,” she continued firmly, “and you intend me no harm, then why are you here?”
Why was I here. What a question. How was I going to explain that I stole a part of a god’s mind after cutting his throat, only to be pursued by his minions across vast distances of space? Or why I had gone to the trouble of tracking down the Drake’s god of chaos? Not the simplest conversation, you know? Oh yes, I would say, well I’m being pursued by the forces of evil because I burgled a god’s mind, and he’s rather fond of getting it back, but that would be problematic because reality would suffer rather badly, so could I please leave it here with you for a spell?
I exhaled abruptly, and a cloud of mist expanded from my mouth, rapidly drifting away in the strong night breeze.
“I need your help.” I say as I feel the ground begin moving. No, not the ground here. The ground my body is buried in.
They’re digging me up.
“And why should I help you?” Her shape quips quickly. She is incredibly guarded I realize with some dismay; normally I would have anticipated a degree of curiosity accompanying a strange visitor petitioning your soul for aide. Not really her thing, apparently.
Gods damn it, I think privately to myself-or so I believe, at least-this is going to be harder than I imagined.
“I’m being chased, and I need a place to hide something.” I say as I realize that the ice crystals are beginning to dance. It’s the vibration of whatever is extracting my coffin, and the little particles of frozen water around me are beginning to hop and bounce like jumping beans. I don’t know if she notices this, but I feel a great deal of alarm beginning to grow inside me. If they get me out of that coffin before I can place Naga’s Hopes’ somewhere secure, I lose everything. I lose my chance at Shaw, at keeping his master bedridden, at saving the Flux from the Ascendancy, at saving the galaxy from Dorin’s fears…
“You choose a strange place to hide,” the Sanctioned responds coldly, and I wonder if a look of panic has escaped my face yet. This is not going as I’ve planned.
“Beggers can’t be chosers.” I answer shakily; my voice is shaking, and I am shivering, and gods be damned the ground is shaking and I am shaking and my voice is shaking and this is it. This has to be it.
“They’re going to kill me if I can’t hide something with you.” The words don’t come with much calmness, because calmness was fleeting.
So would be my life, if I didn’t complete this.