Post by veronw on Jan 29, 2024 18:18:21 GMT
Varen (Meta-Sax) — 08/13/2023 12:53 PM
Construction of The Great Sea has finally reached another milestone of completion. The vast rivers and oceans that weave their path through the manifestation of Saxheelian desire are at last set upon their eternal paths.
As such, a celebration has been announced, a grand display of connection, potential and dynamis. Ladon Himself sends out the Beckoning to any and all who would wish to participate in the celebration. For Absu nears its state of completion, and when it is done, the Saxheelians shall again have a Home to share with any and all who wish it.
The Terms are simple: the celebration shall be in the form of a great Proving - a contest of ability both technological and personal - to determine whom among those invited is most adroit. Unusual, for the self-avowed pacifist clade, but a key cultural component of all Saxheelian clades.
Kelgehay shall represent the Clade in this respect.
The Rules are equally simple:
The Shemeshi will install teleportation glyphs for pilots, to whisk them out of danger should their lives be in imminent threat.
Technological parity will be considered in each match up.
Anything and everything is allowed outside of killing the opponent. WMDs and the like are permitted.
The victor of the tournament will fight alongside all the defeated against the champion standing - Kelgehay and their biosuit and the Shemeshi. As the most technological powerful entities present, they'll serve as the "final boss" that all previous challengers must cooperate to defeat.
All are welcome, and all are invited, regardless of their innate relations to the Saxheelians. Friend or Foe, ally or hated enemy, all can participate in The Great Proving of STEEL RUSH MAXIMUM! steel_rush_brackets.png
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The combat map represents a small portion of Absu.
Each area (star ocean, star river, planetary system, gravity anchor, oceanic confluence) represent a combat arena that can be chosen. The one who chooses the combat arena will be determined by the winner of a coin toss.
In the event that a participatant of the Proving does not have a space-capable mech, the arena will be held on either the star ocean or star river system continental reefs.
Each battle will be 1 on 1 - depending on the nature of the participant.
The bracket will be developed and provided shortly.
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Doomrider(Shemesh/Unbroken) — 08/17/2023 10:51 AM
The Little Light - Hmitras, outskirts
It must be perfect. It must be an exaltation of Yeled's fractal glory, of Its endless complexity and recursive glory. The design is divine, transcendent, pure with purpose and function. It was, after all, granted in a moment of holy communion. Passed down from the infinities of Yeled's inner mechanism to the mortal Glyph of a chosen Arkiyonai.
Yet if It was destined to be made, if the Duty had been assigned without error.
Why did it betray completion?
Why had hundreds of attempts ended in arcane cataclysms and mistakes?
Why had Silver-of-Clarity-and-Reason failed?
The Arkiyonai Glyphsmith had isolated Themselves after the first attempt failed spectacularly, detonating with the power of an imbued transcendent name and saturating nearby workshops preparing their tools for Corona. Once They had been one of the most respected in Their order, one of the fastest and most precise, one of those who could be relied upon to fulfil any request.
It was not so anymore. Across Their private sanctuary, far from the glorious Temple-Spires of inner Hmitras. Hundreds of broken designs lay strewn about. Each destroyed by a different, seemingly impossible fault. Some burned with azure fires, and would continue to do so long after the very stars stopped blazing. Some had been distorted like a shattered reflection, broken between dimensions. Some had simply become glowing ash.
None should have failed! The mechanisms were perfectly aligned. The runes and glyphs inscribed with atomic precision. The blood spilled in the exact amounts required. It was all done according to the Divine Mechanisms, so within so without, as above so below, Yet it had failed, both within and without. Across every metric the destruction was complete and irrecoverable.
Silver-of-Clarity-and-Reason had thousands of arcane mechanisms to Their name, and each was more complex than some simple humanoid construct!
Why, why were They failing? Were They corrupted? Like the Lokhem of Corona, whose very glyphs seeped with a foreign rot?
Impossible.
Yet the seed of doubt began gnawing at the core of Their Glyph.
Perhaps if They took hold of the Mechanism if They linked It to Hmitras, then the--
A memetic intrusion replaces the heretical idea brewing in Arkiyonai's mind, a note from an old friend, far away from home.
{A new Duty calls You . Our kin seek to enact the ritual of prooving, and thus They seek an Arcanist. While I understand that You are engaged in Yeled's Divine Machinations, this matter is just as important. I foresee a great darkness befalling our people in the future, the destiny of Corona is shrouded in death and destruction. We will need ties stronger than petty morality, and allies that will fight with us even in the darkest of times. Depart for Absu, prove Our potential to Our Kin and those they Call Upon. In time the just will be rewarded. As it is written, so shall it be. }
Though there was no real choice, (after all, Ihagen held seniority over all but the most ancient of the Ayur), Silver-of-Clarity-and-Reason considered the proposal. They once again glanced at the scattered wrecks of failed attempts, at the diagrams of chalk and purified mercury written on every flat surface, at the volumes of coronan blood in sacrificial urns.
Yes, a break would do them well.
---
A few days after the ritual of proving was announced, a single Shemeshi Temple-Ship ascended from underneath the material plane into real space. Despite its immense size and the megatonnes of arcane material it carried, the vessel was crewed by a single Arkiyonai Glyphsmith who had chosen (or been forced ) to answer the call of the Meta-Sax and support them in this holy endeavour.
Gose {CES, CHET} — 08/22/2023 8:24 PM
12 hours had passed.
The being took into its hands the work, clawing at the edges of unknown material and breaking it apart with the raw strength - yet procuring to produce the least amount of sound in the process, it would be something to give its position away after all. Slowly, the cocoon was ripped apart, and thin penumbral rays of light leaked into the interior of the location, and revealed the external as well, to the careful remaining eyes of the headless entity.
It was rubble, in varied forms and everywhere. Underneath and behind him, a cocoon of a collapsed building, slabs from the third, tenth, and thirtieth floor formed ill-fitting pillars, constructing a ragged cone of safety in the interior, amidst the carcass of exposed metal ribs and fractured cementitious flesh. A thin gash upon the stone titan was where the beast had reared itself from within, its pilot had acquired a much needed rest, he reckoned.
The being was an extension of the pilot, one of intricate and almost magical connections. The skies above were a roaring and dancing formation of clouds pierced periodically by frail twilight, it was an air filled with the ethereal beauty of a funeral, and as silent as the funeral house.
The being crouched, it enacted a refined formed of plantar flexion, the hamstring and gluteus maximus artificial muscles contracted, the motion was elevated further by a series of posterior contractions and relaxations of artificial musculature upon the vertical body, the stress of which was offloaded within the core frame of the body. And in a moment, it gathered enough speed to reach the top of a tall building nearby.
Piloting was an art, and extension of the body, the vectorisation of the flexing of muscles, the artificial evaluation of the orientation and speed which each contracting artificial fiber would impart upon the mechanical body, the soft addition of the blowback of each projectile that left the barrel of the 50mm degradation cannon.
These principles were enacted at once. Sensors picked the soft glimpse of reflection upon the black-matte body of another Superheavy PA. iT jumped buildings, and he took to chase in intercepting it. A careful forward lunge propelled the hulking body forward at a hundred kilometers per hour, seeking the intercept between their two movement vectors. It opened fire with a hail of autocannon projectiles.
A bullet connected, the leg of the enemy disconnecting from the framework and flying wildly into the concrete jungle underneath. The enemy returned fire with its own autocannon, tracing a path to intercept. There was no avoiding the salvo, the suit contorted until the main cannon lined simultaneously with the enemy and the desirable vector, and it fired.
An eardrum-shattering detonation occurred, a round as speedy as gigantic leaving the chamber and blowing off whatever windows were left of the nearby buildings. The knockback spun the suit wildly, the rotational momentum was used to escape the enemy projectiles, which filled the space overhead. The suit was left unscathed, the enemy was swallowed in a detonation that lit up the darkened city, obscuring the moon’s eerie brightness.
BEEEP BEEEP BEEEP
An alarm? Had he been hit?
BEEEP BEEEP BEEEP
His eyes searched wildly across the mostly obscured hud. Haptic feedback indicated nothing to him, inquiry was made towards the local Panoptes instance: had anything happened?
BEEEP BEEEP BEEEP
The suit made a course for ground, he was distracted. Panoptes said there was no significant damaged to the suit, where could he have been hit? He had done all the due processes, his dance was perfect, he-
BEEEP BEEEP BEEEP
He stopped spinning, standing frozen within the air, as his body pulled to the ground with increasing speed. He looked, not at the hud, but to his side… A holographic tablet?
BEEEP BEEEP BEEEP
He was engulfed by light.
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“Uuggghhhh….”
Lhargem instinctively took his hands to the air, obscuring the attack upon the large eyes characteristic of the musmus. The right hand took the job of procuring the other assault, the one upon his ears. He felt nothing but the hotness of what bathed him and the ringing of the incessant. fucking. beeping.
He mustered strength, strength more colossal than the one the mech he drove could exert, opening his eyes slightly: A greater achievement than winning the corpo’s competition. His hand tugged on something metallic-glassy which produced the hellish noise enough to split the world asunder.
His fingers softly ran through the projector screen and turned the alarm off. What followed next was a true battle: Awakening. The call for duty and probably fun fought the laziness that occupied his body like mana fills up the hardlight skinbag that are the guardians. The promise of some nice time tasted sweet in his mind, sweet like a memetics-ridden sodalyte drink. (Of which he avoided)
He stretched his arms and legs outwards with all his mind, his joints producing crackling at the measure that they produced the delightful joy of a good stretch. At last, he managed to open his eyes.
He was upon a beach, resting upon a reclining chair with a big umbrella that had been blown over no less than 500 meters away, making somersaults into a whole nother life, reminding him of his ex. In front of him was an infinity of water, no lesser than his desire for a drink, which he had sadly exhausted before his eventual slumber. Above him, another infinity of water, dancing like a thin blue-white line reflecting the light of a nearby star.
Oh yes, he remembered. This was no usual beach. He looked beside him and saw a large and dense tropical forest, its limits were the top of its trees, the infinity to the right which disappeared at the horizon, and the water to the left, forming a series of small beaches until it too disappeared under the curvature. To his other beside stretched an endless beach, as far as his eye could index, the top of a small coral-like formation setting in the hazy distance. It was small for him, but he remembered that it was actually where all of this was supported. So in fact, it was quite massive, far greater than the cities of the CES. It was no wonder his engineer friends liked those lizards from the Sax so much. He too liked them, but for completely different reasons.
He looked up and saw a pinprick upon the tumultuous sky, and remembered the whole reason for his presence: Tournament, Mechs, Fight, Kaboom, but first, Ladon. Right. He got up and folded his chair, leaving the umbrella to pursue its own career in the distance. He walked away from the water as soft winds caressed his baby blue scales with a pleasant warmth, almost prompting him back to his bygone slumber. He reached the ship, and soon took to space.
Lhargem was the first to arrive. The CES were good friends with the Meta-Sax Clade Ladon, and as such, they were one of the first that got wind of this friendly competition. The soft-yet-deadly lizard in particular took upon himself to come here, a whole three days before the scheduled day of the competition. Three days of which had been wisely spent sunbathing in the pleasant warmth of artificial beaches, admiring the sight of the construction of one of the largest engineering projects, having drinks with whatever locals wished to, and of course, sunbathing in the pleasant warmth of artificial beaches.
It was a new design, one borne out of CES-Sax cooperation. The ship was as if a small eel, segments folded into themselves, radiators extended outwards like the crescent bones of a stegosaurus, thrusters borne out of the sides of each of the composing modules, as it softly undulated in space in impressive agility and speed. The CES ship docked.
Out of it came a small lizard, dressed in a simple floral-stamped shirt, shorts and flip-flops. He patiently awaited for someone to greet him, quietly appreciating the sight of all things Saxheelian.
Dokky | Mentshn & Sodalytes — 08/23/2023 2:06 PM
The stress-testing for the prototype was barely comparable to the standard process.
It was closer to torture.
The electrothermal-chemical cannons were abortions from a Jittai. The recoilless mechanism was unnecessary: overcomplicated, even. The reduced size was impressive, but the mechanical considerations had been too much. Spinal-class for a ship. Main armaments for a Jittai-Killer.
The levitation system was custom-configured. It straddled the lines between ground-effect aircraft, sprayed-maglev system, plasmatic jet, and ballet dancer. The fact that it was even capable of flight was the product of dozens of systems being pushed to the extreme - achieving its maddening maximum speed demanded an entire transformation mechanism.
The sensors were full-spectrum optics. The muscles were as much of a material invention as they were mechanical, biological, and hydraulic. The frame had been so psychotically souped-up that the entire inner structure had to be completely overhauled: it demanded revolutionary tension-strength networks made of metamaterials that couldn’t even be mass-produced yet just to flex its fingers without self-annihilating. Chain-fusion-fission reactions. Bose-einstein propellant. A fucking full-body endoframe filled with non-newtonian gel was the only way they could keep their pilots from collapsing into ruined paste, and the entire Oboete-system had been augmented with a rudimentary fiber-optic network just to keep up with the damn thing’s AI demands.
The abomination had been nicknamed “Jimetsu.” The name meant ‘Self-Destruction:’ the overwhelming list of replacement parts the frame demanded often exceeded its kill-count by an order of magnitude.
. . .
As Lhargem touched down, a second voice echoed among the atmosphere. The dull air-splash and sizzle of a distant SSTO making landing rippled upon the beach and waters like thunder, and in the distance, a flying-wing descended from space. Fire tore away from its belly and was reduced to a mere comet's-tail of wind and clouds as it airbraked. Its cargo became clear: A single enormous sphere, suspended beneath the machine where normally six would make their place. It and its wing looked entirely unlike a machine, let alone a spacecraft; with the light and color of the sea and sky and clouds and sand rippling upon its skin like a warped mirror.
It set down upon the water with a torrent, flowing to a stop in a gown of rippling waves. The water around it soon boiled and rose in a whispering cloud, the heat dissipating from its liquid armor into the sea around it.
It seemed the Sodalytes had finally arrived, but with what?
Brank — 08/23/2023 3:55 PM
It laid dormant in the confines of an overweight transport vessel. Stolen from the Kel'thulian military during the battle of Þan'tuv, the Neprops N-Type Combat Titan was being shipped from Þhan'tuv to absu, in preparation for the Steel Rush Tournament. If they win this, or even get close to winning this, the Kel'thulian Reformist Movement might be able to source more support for their rebellion, and garner attention for themselves.
The Neprops itself was a marvel of Kel'thulian engineering, and is one of the three originals taken from the kelthulians, rather than the modified mock-ups the rebels had been constructing since it's discovery. It's name was Ta'ae-Phet, or "The Whisper of the Wind", in galactic basic. From tail to head, it was as long as a naval warship, not even including the two massive claws and arms attached to it's shoulders. The largest claw was rounded, curving in on it'self, and the arm was thick and required fluid-hydraulics to move around- giving it an insane crushing ability. At the same time, the claw hid a trio of deep holes that housed hybrid torpedo-missiles, each one carrying a dangerous hydrogen-bomb payload. The tubes led further into the arm, which had an autoloader system, allowing the Ta'ae-Phet to fire multiple salvoes of the missile-torpedoes.
The Smaller claw was, thin, spindly, and sharp; but it was suped up with mechanical hydraulics supplemented by internal musculature and fluid-hydraulics, giving it a powerful, biting snap that was fast and strong enough to create a shockwave and a supercavitating bubble. Not only could it push away anything smaller nearby it, but it could cut through metal and armour- or meat and bone- like it wasn't even there; Instantaneously.
Farther down it's smooth, cerulean hull- it's face. From an outside perspective, it was smooth pieces of blue armour plating, with various antennae and sensors poking out. But if it were to open up- using disjointed, disembodied armour plating floating atop the thing's internal layer of fluid-gel- it would reveal the Neprops' most dangerous underwater weapon.
It's SONAR system.
Not only is it just a normal, if extremely powerful Sonar system, but it was quite easy for the Arms Fort to weaponize. In it's normal function, it could easily map-out the ocean around it, with the side effect of liquefying any wildlife or smaller submersibles in it's way, up to a certain distance. But when focused down, it can unleash a sonic shockwave of focused sound, which remained deadly at far longer ranges, and- when employed at close, visual ranes- can easily tear apart a ship of smaller size, allowing it to terrorize frigates and cruisers from below without firing a single shot; or turning boarders and divers into a disgusting, mushy paste.
On it's back, the Neprops held what gave it the classification of "Armament Fortress", or colossi. Eight battleship-grade gravitic-kinetic "railguns", firing supercavitative shells with enough force to tear holes in it's targets- four per side. Surrounding these cannons lay normal CIWS guns in the dozens, all across the top and bottom of the craft, as well as sixteen thin weapons, able to use induction heating on thin metallic filaments, as well as the Neprop's inbuilt magnetic field to wrap around nearby targets- or simply cut through them with superheated, fast moving metal. Lastly in the way of weaponry, it sported dozens of launchers for missile-torpedo hybrids, both of larger anti-ship and smaller micro-payloads.
Visually, it was of similar build to a Lobster or some other decapodic crustacean, ten heavy, yet thin legs; able to carry it slowly across dry land, or much quicker across the ocean-bed. It had a long tail with propellers and water-jet propulsion systems underneath; the tail itself studded with projectile tubes and CIWS guns. It's body is coated in interlocking composite armour, with vents for propulsion, and small openings where the underneath fluid-gel layer could pull in or release water for the internal ballast tanks. The entire thing's armour could move and shift as needed like a physical, kinetic shield thanks to that gel-layer; developed from extensive live-testing of Sodalytes subjects from Jesta. The face is smooth, and rounded; allowing for it to cut through the water, so long as the face isn't opened up for the SONAR to ping.
All that advancement from the first-generation Neprops would soon be tested, as the Kel'thulian transport began to break 'atmosphere' in Absu.
Justin466 (FoM) — 08/29/2023 9:41 AM
Paradise was an abstraction.
From Old Earth to modern Vermillia, the idea of paradise has been eschewed as a final reward for man’s good deeds. From bustling capital to quiet village, people dreamed of it, imagined it, heard it, but they could never touch paradise. Paradise eluded all who dreamt of it, but Campbell could feel it, and in a moment, he was going to step foot on it.
The last few days for him had been a blur. The Meta-Sax had sent their invitations to commemorate some kind of construction project. Then that information had condensed into some kind of vehicle fight, which was relayed from the Federation high commissioner before finally, somehow, ending up in the hands of the airborne troops. Campbell had no idea how any of it worked; all he knew was he signed up at some point. A few lotteries and sparring contests later, here he was, feet dangling outside the gunship door, just waiting to land.
As the gunship approached, Campbell hopped out with the same juvenile excitement as a kid going to a fast food joint. To everyone else at the tournament, Campbell looked like nothing. He was barely 5’4, wore a black T-shirt adorned with sneakers, and was skinny enough it looked like a gust of wind would blow him away. Behind him trailed an army of engineers, half of which departed to do final checks on the new mech prototype the Federation was here to test. The other half marched off to perform a far more critical task: constructing their tent-based concession stand.
To the Federation engineers who now found themselves on Absu, the event was more a paid vacation than an extension of their job.
To those in the know, the Federation mech seemed similar to one of their more traditional airborne fire-support walkers. The mech was almost as long as a tank, and to those who paid attention at all, it was clear that it was armed like one as well. It was an unpainted, metallic grey, which meant that to those who had seen the Federation in action, like the Technocracy, it was one of those newer designs that mounted an optical cloak to hide it from prying eyes. Instead of grasping arms, the mech mounted a long-barrelled plasma railgun, perforated with four-bladed fan-like appendages near the weapon's base. The other arm was empty for now, clearly a modular mount.
Even if Absu had been a vacation to the engineers, the Federation had come with its best. While the mech was no starship-killer, it could certainly give any vehicle a run for their money.
MLGDerp989 (Svarthan Trust) — 08/29/2023 1:00 PM
Of all the contestants in the Sax's mech combat event the Svarthan were an anomaly. Mainly for the fact that they were never officially invited, or if they were, word never reached the main Trust. However, despite this, the Svarthan still found their way into the event, thanks to the capabilities of the Guawyi which was still in the system not only to further aid in construction, but keep it away from prying eyes during a period of such high tensions.
As soon as the other ships began to arrive and deploy their war machines to the surface, the Svarthan aboard the huge mining device began to inquire as to what was going on, and following a brief exchange with their hosts committed to participate, before warping out of the system entirely, only to return hours later and proudly announce their entry for the contest.
Unlike the other competitors which were experimental designs, or the veteran machines of elite pilots, it appears the crabs have gone for a more "improvised" approach to their entry. One of their huge earth moving machines, shaped vaguely like its crustacean pilots, with a rounded teardrop shaped body and many legs, was fitted out with not only additional heavy armor and a magnetic shield based upon the magnetic technology of the Guawyi, but also weaponry although seemingly most of it is still repurposed industrial equipment. It is a stereotypical Svarthan design, being quite slow, but armored to an extreme degree capable of withstanding absurd punishment.
Despite its refit, the machine actually still retains its constructive capabilities, even if they have been retooled, and should a fight drag on, the machine actually has the facilities to make combat drones inside its body to augment its own armament. On its back are not only its point defense lasers and thermate beams, but also banks of seismic warhead missiles, which produce massive shockwaves great for blasting apart ground or sending foes staggering, along with a payload of nuclear, and magnetic pulse explosives.
Its huge digging claws remain unaltered, their magneto hydraulics, rotating cutting elements, and plasma sheathing being more than sufficient to not only bore tunnels in minutes, but cut apart enemy armor if given the chance. Its smaller limbs house yet more cutting gear, but this time far more precise implements. Huge arc gouging electrodes and thermal lances that can slice through even battleship grade armor in minutes, perfect for dicing apart foes that get to close. However those weapons all pale in comparison to the magnum opus of the design.
Adorning the front of the machine, rests what would have been its primary excavation tool, but is now its most powerful weapon, a relativistic plasma beam. Fed by a particle accelerator and tokamak combination, the device blasts out a magnetically confined beam of super heated transuranic nuclei blending the effects of a super powered plasma railgun and proton beam into one terrifying weapon that not only lets it bore its way through solid rock or metal at full speed, but melt down entire tank columns if used in anger.
Despite all these upgrades however, the Svarthan machine is still a modified industrial tool. How it will stack up against actual weapons of war is yet to be seen.
Notapplicable (ARM) — 08/30/2023 10:19 PM
Varda Grisl 88031 shuddered as his excised bundle of neurological tissue was fitted into the body of the customized Caltross morph. A hunched, slim thing, it flexed with demibiological muscles under layered superceramic plating, bodyguns whirring and alien hand pawing at the grip of the railgun assigned to it, the micromissile pods affixed to its shoulders flicking this way and that. It moved like an animal as Varda settled in, the jets on its back and legs whirring to life as its ocular system came online.
A voice on the comms.
"Are you prepared?"
"Yes. Gran Rembarl Metacity will represent itself well, I shall hope."
"You are liking your loadout?"
Pilot Grisl looked to the swollen left forearm, a bulge of superceramic concealing a boser particle blade.
"It should be acceptable."
"It is strange, the Peerage not volunteering one of thier own. Their morphs are superior." Varda added after a pause.
"Secrecy no doubt." The voice replied. "And a test. The Caltross is our workhorse, we should know how it compares."
"Indeed."
"Good luck."
"Appreciated.
The pilot prepared for battle.
Varen (Meta-Sax) — 09/04/2023 6:07 PM
steel_rush_brackets.png
Round 1: CES vs Huron Technocracy
Round 2: Sodalytes vs Kelthulians
Round 3: ARM vs Federation of Man
Round 4: Svarthan Trust vs losers of rounds 2 and 3
The first round begins with gose {CES, CHET} @stalkertech (Huron Technocracy) !
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Gose {CES, CHET} — 09/13/2023 11:58 AM
O V E R K I L L
Ladon was a bizarre being. Lhargem had never met someone so big, quite literally so, big enough to house others. The concept, initially, was quite baffling: He imagined as if the Iguana mech that he was tasked to pilot was alive as well how would it feel as Lhargem pushed the very boundary of its operational ranges and beyond to flex and contort the muscular body into the shapes which would save their lives and maximize the vectors of death and destruction? Was it love, like an intimate dance? Or torture?
He stomped his feet upon the endless docking area, softly as to not be noticed by others. Could Ladon feel that? He had never been so “inside” a being before, it must certainly be a bizarre feeling for him, perhaps a feeling he’d consider, if only a little bit, the next time he was immersed in the amniotic tub that connected his body to the mech he piloted.
Lhargem’s mind wondered what it must be like to be the Saxheelian godling, as he observed the movement amidst the docking areas. He eventually moved inwards to intermingle with the other participants, if casual flirting can be called intermingling, avoiding the Svarthans because they weren’t his type (obviously). During this time of conversation and interaction there was not a singular thought of strategy running through his mind, he was simply there, and simply having fun.
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The CES Mech did not exist to the eyes of the public yet. What existed was a 50 meters tall hexagon jutting out from the sand vertically, splashed idly by the small waves as it peered over the shelf of a titanic coral, erecting its pale blue spiky reaches towards the sky, and the thin blue line of water far, far away. The hexagon shifted with a large clang. The six facets that made it lazily dropped sideways, wafting away sand and water alike from their tremendous size as they undid themselves like petals from a carbonic flower, painted in the iconic metallic blues of the CES.
It revealed a behemoth underneath.
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The Huron’s culture was a stark difference from the carefree nature of Lhargem. Whilst the womanizing lizard hit on Saxheelians twice his size, the Huron Magtek Teknomancer, of the Magistri Machina, hit the books and the AncNet, researching about their soon-to-be enemies diligently, carefully dissecting the calm eyes of the lizardman as to peer into his past accomplishments.
They soon got their due: The platform he used was experimental, never seen before, its capabilities were never truly seen before either, its munitions were never seen before. Even the Technocracy’s informational superiority could not predict something that simply had no data available to begin with: They had to go in blind, or about as blind as they could be knowing of the previous techniques of the CES, so they prepared.
the HK-63 Heavy Crawler Tank had an ethereal beauty to it, blue painted hull streaking across the glistening sun of that eternal beach, the phase-bladed claws pulsed with energy which parted sunshined upon it, creating a distorted haze on the front scorpion-like construct. Autocannons programmed themselves with the knowledge gathered from data pulled from the Ancnet. In a few minutes, the vehicle gathered a deep relationship with the available data on CES ballistics.The metallic critter seemed almost to blend into the sunburnt lands of the large coral continent, perched atop a large corrugated purple shelf overlooking the far distance.
There, 15km away as agreed by the pilots, was the Iguana Mech. Its musculature pulsed into life and its external coolant veins thrummed with energy as it lazily dragged itself upwards to perch upon a large rock. Far away, Larghem took a last deep breath before the silky suit pressed against his scales, and he quietly let go of complete consciousness to immerse himself in piloting, his eyes transitioned towards the multitude of cameras of the colossi, and the air was filled with anticipation.
A small warning went out, it marked the start of the match.
The hoverpad of the HK-63 glowed, and it darted forward, seeking to close the gap to target the behemoth in front of them, creating a trail of water and sand.
The Iguana teetered forwards, and in an instant, it was airborne. Sound cracked like an astound whip, the jump buckled the coral shelf and made waves as the construct jumped with tremendously impressive speed. It reduced itself, almost crouching mid-air, and two bursts emanated from its oversized main cannon, sealing the fate of the match.
The first was a thin and instant blue tunnel that trailed a straight path from the barrel of the colossi, far above the HK-63 craft. The beam rarefacted the air, and prepared a tunnel where the shell could run through. The cannon pulsed with egregious amounts of energy as electromagnetic mechanisms strained, firing a massive ICBM-like Hyperdiamond tipped shell.
Even through the rarefacted tunnel, the shell burnt like a small star as it tore through the thin atmosphere. Shockwaves emanated from the front of the gigantic mech, which was shoved backwards with impressive strength. It flexed even more, a careful combination of musculature movements made it slide gently into the nearby deep ocean and it… started to swim away, producing a trail of bubbling steam as it did.
The star dawned upon the scorpion-like construct with speed. Autocannons aimed at the object punching its way through the skies as if ripping it asunder, and the whole Crawler Tank swerved sideways to maximize the distance between it and the shell. 5km out from the Crawler the energy bursts from the autocannons intercepted the Iguana’s projectile, it broke apart, spraying the skies with pink, glittery content, glistening against the quiet backdrop of the isles.
Then, the universe was pink.
Each small crystal cracked, dumping its contents with an impossibly strong shockwave. The erratic distribution rebounded from eachother, crashing the atmosphere around it and pushing it into secondary fusion detonations. Faster than sensors could detect, a bright pink star formed where the projectile once was, turning the whole coral continent into a literal boiling sea of light.
First, was the radiation. All of the corals bleached, the blue paint of the crawler tank was vaporized, the thermal radiation pushed the tank down into the ground with physical force. The radiation traveled outwards, boiling hundreds of kilometers of the seas in secondary steam detonations which pushed outwards in tremendous shockwaves all across the surrounding star ocean. All life in hundreds of kilometers was instantly extinguished.
Then, the shockwave. The initial expanding bubble pushed at the characteristic speed with enough strength that the atmosphere itself did not know how to properly react, forming a wall of pure white material turned into plasma from the impact against the shockwave. It touched the ground, consuming it in its expansion as if it weren’t there, yet rebounding at the expanding edge and creating a literal wall of plasma, a vortex of fusing material stretching dozens of kilometers on all sides. It swept over the HK-63 Crawler Tank as if it did not even exist.
The Iguana, on the other hand, exercised its best ability to escape its own weapon’s destructive capabilities. It swam with strength, then was carried with even greater strength by a continental-sized steam detonation caused by the thermal output of its shell, flattening the lower torso of the mech into its upper torso as it was pushed against the erratic currents, seeking to dissipate the immense energy.
The bright pink star lasted for almost 6 minutes before dissipating, leaving behind a lazy large pink cloud. The coral continent’s size had physically almost been halved, a significant portion of the junction of the rivers turned into large vagarous clouds of steam, already pouring torrential oceans back into the nascent lack.
The Huron Technocracy thanked the others for their presence, and promptly left the event.
@dokky | Mentshn & Sodalytes brank
Varen (Meta-Sax) — 09/17/2023 9:01 PM
The oceans of Absu were vast.
From great bands of water where one could lose whole planets in to smaller rivers that a modest asteroid would skim across, Absu was full of water. Even space itself had droplets of it; the ambient temperatures of the nebula that housed Absu were too hot for ice to form, leaving liquid water in a zero-g environment to wobble and wibble all about.
Clouds of the stuff bunched up near the Roche-limits of the great Star-Oceans; the pinching of them allowing travel between the concurrent zones through the bending of the waves into mountains of water - climbing higher into the sky until its twin peaked from across clouds unseen to kiss and meet for a brief time.
Nearby, a monitoring station had been assembled from the coral-like organisms that were being spread all across the star system. Floating in the sky, the coral island glittered like pearl in the light of the false-star that warmed the Roche-side of the oceans.
At a few hundred kilometers up in the air, it gave a great view of the flat horizon of water that corralled it in this strange place. Columns of ocean split up and into the sky, trying desperately to reach for its twin on the other side, but lacking in space or thickness. Maelstroms and waterspouts dotted the oceanscape all around the island.
On the island itself was what may well be called a city. To the Saxheelians, it was little more than a tiny research outpost, something to stop by once every great while to check in on things. To anothers eyes, it was the beginnings of an arcology: a central spire sat in the core, and from it sprouted lilypad-like appendages. Each from there was docked with sponges that rivaled skyscrapers, blending into the corals that chased up their sides like tides all their own.
Purples, blues, greens and yellows hued against the endless blue seas of Absu, defying its monotony with vibrancy.
This was the place - the chosen location for the next Great Bout. They would begin on the island.
@dokky | Mentshn & Sodalytes brank
Dokky | Mentshn & Sodalytes — 09/26/2023 11:04 AM
"Check-one."
Thruster-bells spattered across the behemoth lurking in the shadows. They illuminated chrome panels and iridescent muscle-lines, hidden under brilliantly-colored blowout panels shimmering in the gold-silver-blue spectra normally reserved for welded tungsten.
"Check-two."
Every muscle contracted at once. The frame of the machine went stiff, splaying out and rearing its head as if tortured by a limb-stretcher. It fell limply back into an idle-pose not a moment later, though its body seethed with something deep and hateful as its subsystems calculated stress-damage and made microadjustments and repairs.
"Check-three."
Something deep inside the machine made a bass hum, deep enough to quiver bones and organs. It rose in volume and intensity, first with a baritone chord joining it, then a tenor, then a soprano. The sheer noise was lethal to most forms of life: it made the Sodalyte technicians' bodies quiver dangerously. The noise then cut to its lowest hum as the panels of the mecha split open, revealing flowing, ribbon-like reticula glowing with searing, broiling heat in a gown of fire. A shower of sizzling sparks flooded the air, then cooled and became glittery as they returned to it in circling halos. As the heat died down, its radiator-ribbons drew themselves back into their shells, hissing and crackling where they immersed in their thermal-transfer fluid.
"All checks red," said the Happosei curled inside the spherical head of the huge Standing Weapon. She probed the air with the Jimetsu's face-papillae, blobbing out of the pelican-bill-like sensor block on the front in a series of thick, gooey whiskers to smell the air, and read the currents and temperature. "No aberrant chemical reactions. Fragrance system operational. Sensor suite at 99.9% capacity, latency within tolerances. Substrate is agitated, but responsive."
The Jimetsu twitched in response, as if insulted. The pilot turned its head up automatically as she recieved a transmission from the bridge, the insect's-wing-like wave-sensors tucked against its cheeks splaying sideways and downwards as if to better hear the tightbeam.
"Copy. Standby for deployment."
Seconds passed.
Then a minute.
The silence was broken with a startling rush of water as the Jimetsu was spewed from the dorsal bay of the Sodalyte submarine, rocketing up towards the surface of the water under its own power. With a final transmission, Happosei Tosatsu-0001's crew left her in the dark with a simple message.
Don't lose face.
Construction of The Great Sea has finally reached another milestone of completion. The vast rivers and oceans that weave their path through the manifestation of Saxheelian desire are at last set upon their eternal paths.
As such, a celebration has been announced, a grand display of connection, potential and dynamis. Ladon Himself sends out the Beckoning to any and all who would wish to participate in the celebration. For Absu nears its state of completion, and when it is done, the Saxheelians shall again have a Home to share with any and all who wish it.
The Terms are simple: the celebration shall be in the form of a great Proving - a contest of ability both technological and personal - to determine whom among those invited is most adroit. Unusual, for the self-avowed pacifist clade, but a key cultural component of all Saxheelian clades.
Kelgehay shall represent the Clade in this respect.
The Rules are equally simple:
The Shemeshi will install teleportation glyphs for pilots, to whisk them out of danger should their lives be in imminent threat.
Technological parity will be considered in each match up.
Anything and everything is allowed outside of killing the opponent. WMDs and the like are permitted.
The victor of the tournament will fight alongside all the defeated against the champion standing - Kelgehay and their biosuit and the Shemeshi. As the most technological powerful entities present, they'll serve as the "final boss" that all previous challengers must cooperate to defeat.
All are welcome, and all are invited, regardless of their innate relations to the Saxheelians. Friend or Foe, ally or hated enemy, all can participate in The Great Proving of STEEL RUSH MAXIMUM! steel_rush_brackets.png
Image
The combat map represents a small portion of Absu.
Each area (star ocean, star river, planetary system, gravity anchor, oceanic confluence) represent a combat arena that can be chosen. The one who chooses the combat arena will be determined by the winner of a coin toss.
In the event that a participatant of the Proving does not have a space-capable mech, the arena will be held on either the star ocean or star river system continental reefs.
Each battle will be 1 on 1 - depending on the nature of the participant.
The bracket will be developed and provided shortly.
Image
Doomrider(Shemesh/Unbroken) — 08/17/2023 10:51 AM
The Little Light - Hmitras, outskirts
It must be perfect. It must be an exaltation of Yeled's fractal glory, of Its endless complexity and recursive glory. The design is divine, transcendent, pure with purpose and function. It was, after all, granted in a moment of holy communion. Passed down from the infinities of Yeled's inner mechanism to the mortal Glyph of a chosen Arkiyonai.
Yet if It was destined to be made, if the Duty had been assigned without error.
Why did it betray completion?
Why had hundreds of attempts ended in arcane cataclysms and mistakes?
Why had Silver-of-Clarity-and-Reason failed?
The Arkiyonai Glyphsmith had isolated Themselves after the first attempt failed spectacularly, detonating with the power of an imbued transcendent name and saturating nearby workshops preparing their tools for Corona. Once They had been one of the most respected in Their order, one of the fastest and most precise, one of those who could be relied upon to fulfil any request.
It was not so anymore. Across Their private sanctuary, far from the glorious Temple-Spires of inner Hmitras. Hundreds of broken designs lay strewn about. Each destroyed by a different, seemingly impossible fault. Some burned with azure fires, and would continue to do so long after the very stars stopped blazing. Some had been distorted like a shattered reflection, broken between dimensions. Some had simply become glowing ash.
None should have failed! The mechanisms were perfectly aligned. The runes and glyphs inscribed with atomic precision. The blood spilled in the exact amounts required. It was all done according to the Divine Mechanisms, so within so without, as above so below, Yet it had failed, both within and without. Across every metric the destruction was complete and irrecoverable.
Silver-of-Clarity-and-Reason had thousands of arcane mechanisms to Their name, and each was more complex than some simple humanoid construct!
Why, why were They failing? Were They corrupted? Like the Lokhem of Corona, whose very glyphs seeped with a foreign rot?
Impossible.
Yet the seed of doubt began gnawing at the core of Their Glyph.
Perhaps if They took hold of the Mechanism if They linked It to Hmitras, then the--
A memetic intrusion replaces the heretical idea brewing in Arkiyonai's mind, a note from an old friend, far away from home.
{A new Duty calls You . Our kin seek to enact the ritual of prooving, and thus They seek an Arcanist. While I understand that You are engaged in Yeled's Divine Machinations, this matter is just as important. I foresee a great darkness befalling our people in the future, the destiny of Corona is shrouded in death and destruction. We will need ties stronger than petty morality, and allies that will fight with us even in the darkest of times. Depart for Absu, prove Our potential to Our Kin and those they Call Upon. In time the just will be rewarded. As it is written, so shall it be. }
Though there was no real choice, (after all, Ihagen held seniority over all but the most ancient of the Ayur), Silver-of-Clarity-and-Reason considered the proposal. They once again glanced at the scattered wrecks of failed attempts, at the diagrams of chalk and purified mercury written on every flat surface, at the volumes of coronan blood in sacrificial urns.
Yes, a break would do them well.
---
A few days after the ritual of proving was announced, a single Shemeshi Temple-Ship ascended from underneath the material plane into real space. Despite its immense size and the megatonnes of arcane material it carried, the vessel was crewed by a single Arkiyonai Glyphsmith who had chosen (or been forced ) to answer the call of the Meta-Sax and support them in this holy endeavour.
Gose {CES, CHET} — 08/22/2023 8:24 PM
12 hours had passed.
The being took into its hands the work, clawing at the edges of unknown material and breaking it apart with the raw strength - yet procuring to produce the least amount of sound in the process, it would be something to give its position away after all. Slowly, the cocoon was ripped apart, and thin penumbral rays of light leaked into the interior of the location, and revealed the external as well, to the careful remaining eyes of the headless entity.
It was rubble, in varied forms and everywhere. Underneath and behind him, a cocoon of a collapsed building, slabs from the third, tenth, and thirtieth floor formed ill-fitting pillars, constructing a ragged cone of safety in the interior, amidst the carcass of exposed metal ribs and fractured cementitious flesh. A thin gash upon the stone titan was where the beast had reared itself from within, its pilot had acquired a much needed rest, he reckoned.
The being was an extension of the pilot, one of intricate and almost magical connections. The skies above were a roaring and dancing formation of clouds pierced periodically by frail twilight, it was an air filled with the ethereal beauty of a funeral, and as silent as the funeral house.
The being crouched, it enacted a refined formed of plantar flexion, the hamstring and gluteus maximus artificial muscles contracted, the motion was elevated further by a series of posterior contractions and relaxations of artificial musculature upon the vertical body, the stress of which was offloaded within the core frame of the body. And in a moment, it gathered enough speed to reach the top of a tall building nearby.
Piloting was an art, and extension of the body, the vectorisation of the flexing of muscles, the artificial evaluation of the orientation and speed which each contracting artificial fiber would impart upon the mechanical body, the soft addition of the blowback of each projectile that left the barrel of the 50mm degradation cannon.
These principles were enacted at once. Sensors picked the soft glimpse of reflection upon the black-matte body of another Superheavy PA. iT jumped buildings, and he took to chase in intercepting it. A careful forward lunge propelled the hulking body forward at a hundred kilometers per hour, seeking the intercept between their two movement vectors. It opened fire with a hail of autocannon projectiles.
A bullet connected, the leg of the enemy disconnecting from the framework and flying wildly into the concrete jungle underneath. The enemy returned fire with its own autocannon, tracing a path to intercept. There was no avoiding the salvo, the suit contorted until the main cannon lined simultaneously with the enemy and the desirable vector, and it fired.
An eardrum-shattering detonation occurred, a round as speedy as gigantic leaving the chamber and blowing off whatever windows were left of the nearby buildings. The knockback spun the suit wildly, the rotational momentum was used to escape the enemy projectiles, which filled the space overhead. The suit was left unscathed, the enemy was swallowed in a detonation that lit up the darkened city, obscuring the moon’s eerie brightness.
BEEEP BEEEP BEEEP
An alarm? Had he been hit?
BEEEP BEEEP BEEEP
His eyes searched wildly across the mostly obscured hud. Haptic feedback indicated nothing to him, inquiry was made towards the local Panoptes instance: had anything happened?
BEEEP BEEEP BEEEP
The suit made a course for ground, he was distracted. Panoptes said there was no significant damaged to the suit, where could he have been hit? He had done all the due processes, his dance was perfect, he-
BEEEP BEEEP BEEEP
He stopped spinning, standing frozen within the air, as his body pulled to the ground with increasing speed. He looked, not at the hud, but to his side… A holographic tablet?
BEEEP BEEEP BEEEP
He was engulfed by light.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Uuggghhhh….”
Lhargem instinctively took his hands to the air, obscuring the attack upon the large eyes characteristic of the musmus. The right hand took the job of procuring the other assault, the one upon his ears. He felt nothing but the hotness of what bathed him and the ringing of the incessant. fucking. beeping.
He mustered strength, strength more colossal than the one the mech he drove could exert, opening his eyes slightly: A greater achievement than winning the corpo’s competition. His hand tugged on something metallic-glassy which produced the hellish noise enough to split the world asunder.
His fingers softly ran through the projector screen and turned the alarm off. What followed next was a true battle: Awakening. The call for duty and probably fun fought the laziness that occupied his body like mana fills up the hardlight skinbag that are the guardians. The promise of some nice time tasted sweet in his mind, sweet like a memetics-ridden sodalyte drink. (Of which he avoided)
He stretched his arms and legs outwards with all his mind, his joints producing crackling at the measure that they produced the delightful joy of a good stretch. At last, he managed to open his eyes.
He was upon a beach, resting upon a reclining chair with a big umbrella that had been blown over no less than 500 meters away, making somersaults into a whole nother life, reminding him of his ex. In front of him was an infinity of water, no lesser than his desire for a drink, which he had sadly exhausted before his eventual slumber. Above him, another infinity of water, dancing like a thin blue-white line reflecting the light of a nearby star.
Oh yes, he remembered. This was no usual beach. He looked beside him and saw a large and dense tropical forest, its limits were the top of its trees, the infinity to the right which disappeared at the horizon, and the water to the left, forming a series of small beaches until it too disappeared under the curvature. To his other beside stretched an endless beach, as far as his eye could index, the top of a small coral-like formation setting in the hazy distance. It was small for him, but he remembered that it was actually where all of this was supported. So in fact, it was quite massive, far greater than the cities of the CES. It was no wonder his engineer friends liked those lizards from the Sax so much. He too liked them, but for completely different reasons.
He looked up and saw a pinprick upon the tumultuous sky, and remembered the whole reason for his presence: Tournament, Mechs, Fight, Kaboom, but first, Ladon. Right. He got up and folded his chair, leaving the umbrella to pursue its own career in the distance. He walked away from the water as soft winds caressed his baby blue scales with a pleasant warmth, almost prompting him back to his bygone slumber. He reached the ship, and soon took to space.
Lhargem was the first to arrive. The CES were good friends with the Meta-Sax Clade Ladon, and as such, they were one of the first that got wind of this friendly competition. The soft-yet-deadly lizard in particular took upon himself to come here, a whole three days before the scheduled day of the competition. Three days of which had been wisely spent sunbathing in the pleasant warmth of artificial beaches, admiring the sight of the construction of one of the largest engineering projects, having drinks with whatever locals wished to, and of course, sunbathing in the pleasant warmth of artificial beaches.
It was a new design, one borne out of CES-Sax cooperation. The ship was as if a small eel, segments folded into themselves, radiators extended outwards like the crescent bones of a stegosaurus, thrusters borne out of the sides of each of the composing modules, as it softly undulated in space in impressive agility and speed. The CES ship docked.
Out of it came a small lizard, dressed in a simple floral-stamped shirt, shorts and flip-flops. He patiently awaited for someone to greet him, quietly appreciating the sight of all things Saxheelian.
Dokky | Mentshn & Sodalytes — 08/23/2023 2:06 PM
The stress-testing for the prototype was barely comparable to the standard process.
It was closer to torture.
The electrothermal-chemical cannons were abortions from a Jittai. The recoilless mechanism was unnecessary: overcomplicated, even. The reduced size was impressive, but the mechanical considerations had been too much. Spinal-class for a ship. Main armaments for a Jittai-Killer.
The levitation system was custom-configured. It straddled the lines between ground-effect aircraft, sprayed-maglev system, plasmatic jet, and ballet dancer. The fact that it was even capable of flight was the product of dozens of systems being pushed to the extreme - achieving its maddening maximum speed demanded an entire transformation mechanism.
The sensors were full-spectrum optics. The muscles were as much of a material invention as they were mechanical, biological, and hydraulic. The frame had been so psychotically souped-up that the entire inner structure had to be completely overhauled: it demanded revolutionary tension-strength networks made of metamaterials that couldn’t even be mass-produced yet just to flex its fingers without self-annihilating. Chain-fusion-fission reactions. Bose-einstein propellant. A fucking full-body endoframe filled with non-newtonian gel was the only way they could keep their pilots from collapsing into ruined paste, and the entire Oboete-system had been augmented with a rudimentary fiber-optic network just to keep up with the damn thing’s AI demands.
The abomination had been nicknamed “Jimetsu.” The name meant ‘Self-Destruction:’ the overwhelming list of replacement parts the frame demanded often exceeded its kill-count by an order of magnitude.
. . .
As Lhargem touched down, a second voice echoed among the atmosphere. The dull air-splash and sizzle of a distant SSTO making landing rippled upon the beach and waters like thunder, and in the distance, a flying-wing descended from space. Fire tore away from its belly and was reduced to a mere comet's-tail of wind and clouds as it airbraked. Its cargo became clear: A single enormous sphere, suspended beneath the machine where normally six would make their place. It and its wing looked entirely unlike a machine, let alone a spacecraft; with the light and color of the sea and sky and clouds and sand rippling upon its skin like a warped mirror.
It set down upon the water with a torrent, flowing to a stop in a gown of rippling waves. The water around it soon boiled and rose in a whispering cloud, the heat dissipating from its liquid armor into the sea around it.
It seemed the Sodalytes had finally arrived, but with what?
Brank — 08/23/2023 3:55 PM
It laid dormant in the confines of an overweight transport vessel. Stolen from the Kel'thulian military during the battle of Þan'tuv, the Neprops N-Type Combat Titan was being shipped from Þhan'tuv to absu, in preparation for the Steel Rush Tournament. If they win this, or even get close to winning this, the Kel'thulian Reformist Movement might be able to source more support for their rebellion, and garner attention for themselves.
The Neprops itself was a marvel of Kel'thulian engineering, and is one of the three originals taken from the kelthulians, rather than the modified mock-ups the rebels had been constructing since it's discovery. It's name was Ta'ae-Phet, or "The Whisper of the Wind", in galactic basic. From tail to head, it was as long as a naval warship, not even including the two massive claws and arms attached to it's shoulders. The largest claw was rounded, curving in on it'self, and the arm was thick and required fluid-hydraulics to move around- giving it an insane crushing ability. At the same time, the claw hid a trio of deep holes that housed hybrid torpedo-missiles, each one carrying a dangerous hydrogen-bomb payload. The tubes led further into the arm, which had an autoloader system, allowing the Ta'ae-Phet to fire multiple salvoes of the missile-torpedoes.
The Smaller claw was, thin, spindly, and sharp; but it was suped up with mechanical hydraulics supplemented by internal musculature and fluid-hydraulics, giving it a powerful, biting snap that was fast and strong enough to create a shockwave and a supercavitating bubble. Not only could it push away anything smaller nearby it, but it could cut through metal and armour- or meat and bone- like it wasn't even there; Instantaneously.
Farther down it's smooth, cerulean hull- it's face. From an outside perspective, it was smooth pieces of blue armour plating, with various antennae and sensors poking out. But if it were to open up- using disjointed, disembodied armour plating floating atop the thing's internal layer of fluid-gel- it would reveal the Neprops' most dangerous underwater weapon.
It's SONAR system.
Not only is it just a normal, if extremely powerful Sonar system, but it was quite easy for the Arms Fort to weaponize. In it's normal function, it could easily map-out the ocean around it, with the side effect of liquefying any wildlife or smaller submersibles in it's way, up to a certain distance. But when focused down, it can unleash a sonic shockwave of focused sound, which remained deadly at far longer ranges, and- when employed at close, visual ranes- can easily tear apart a ship of smaller size, allowing it to terrorize frigates and cruisers from below without firing a single shot; or turning boarders and divers into a disgusting, mushy paste.
On it's back, the Neprops held what gave it the classification of "Armament Fortress", or colossi. Eight battleship-grade gravitic-kinetic "railguns", firing supercavitative shells with enough force to tear holes in it's targets- four per side. Surrounding these cannons lay normal CIWS guns in the dozens, all across the top and bottom of the craft, as well as sixteen thin weapons, able to use induction heating on thin metallic filaments, as well as the Neprop's inbuilt magnetic field to wrap around nearby targets- or simply cut through them with superheated, fast moving metal. Lastly in the way of weaponry, it sported dozens of launchers for missile-torpedo hybrids, both of larger anti-ship and smaller micro-payloads.
Visually, it was of similar build to a Lobster or some other decapodic crustacean, ten heavy, yet thin legs; able to carry it slowly across dry land, or much quicker across the ocean-bed. It had a long tail with propellers and water-jet propulsion systems underneath; the tail itself studded with projectile tubes and CIWS guns. It's body is coated in interlocking composite armour, with vents for propulsion, and small openings where the underneath fluid-gel layer could pull in or release water for the internal ballast tanks. The entire thing's armour could move and shift as needed like a physical, kinetic shield thanks to that gel-layer; developed from extensive live-testing of Sodalytes subjects from Jesta. The face is smooth, and rounded; allowing for it to cut through the water, so long as the face isn't opened up for the SONAR to ping.
All that advancement from the first-generation Neprops would soon be tested, as the Kel'thulian transport began to break 'atmosphere' in Absu.
Justin466 (FoM) — 08/29/2023 9:41 AM
Paradise was an abstraction.
From Old Earth to modern Vermillia, the idea of paradise has been eschewed as a final reward for man’s good deeds. From bustling capital to quiet village, people dreamed of it, imagined it, heard it, but they could never touch paradise. Paradise eluded all who dreamt of it, but Campbell could feel it, and in a moment, he was going to step foot on it.
The last few days for him had been a blur. The Meta-Sax had sent their invitations to commemorate some kind of construction project. Then that information had condensed into some kind of vehicle fight, which was relayed from the Federation high commissioner before finally, somehow, ending up in the hands of the airborne troops. Campbell had no idea how any of it worked; all he knew was he signed up at some point. A few lotteries and sparring contests later, here he was, feet dangling outside the gunship door, just waiting to land.
As the gunship approached, Campbell hopped out with the same juvenile excitement as a kid going to a fast food joint. To everyone else at the tournament, Campbell looked like nothing. He was barely 5’4, wore a black T-shirt adorned with sneakers, and was skinny enough it looked like a gust of wind would blow him away. Behind him trailed an army of engineers, half of which departed to do final checks on the new mech prototype the Federation was here to test. The other half marched off to perform a far more critical task: constructing their tent-based concession stand.
To the Federation engineers who now found themselves on Absu, the event was more a paid vacation than an extension of their job.
To those in the know, the Federation mech seemed similar to one of their more traditional airborne fire-support walkers. The mech was almost as long as a tank, and to those who paid attention at all, it was clear that it was armed like one as well. It was an unpainted, metallic grey, which meant that to those who had seen the Federation in action, like the Technocracy, it was one of those newer designs that mounted an optical cloak to hide it from prying eyes. Instead of grasping arms, the mech mounted a long-barrelled plasma railgun, perforated with four-bladed fan-like appendages near the weapon's base. The other arm was empty for now, clearly a modular mount.
Even if Absu had been a vacation to the engineers, the Federation had come with its best. While the mech was no starship-killer, it could certainly give any vehicle a run for their money.
MLGDerp989 (Svarthan Trust) — 08/29/2023 1:00 PM
Of all the contestants in the Sax's mech combat event the Svarthan were an anomaly. Mainly for the fact that they were never officially invited, or if they were, word never reached the main Trust. However, despite this, the Svarthan still found their way into the event, thanks to the capabilities of the Guawyi which was still in the system not only to further aid in construction, but keep it away from prying eyes during a period of such high tensions.
As soon as the other ships began to arrive and deploy their war machines to the surface, the Svarthan aboard the huge mining device began to inquire as to what was going on, and following a brief exchange with their hosts committed to participate, before warping out of the system entirely, only to return hours later and proudly announce their entry for the contest.
Unlike the other competitors which were experimental designs, or the veteran machines of elite pilots, it appears the crabs have gone for a more "improvised" approach to their entry. One of their huge earth moving machines, shaped vaguely like its crustacean pilots, with a rounded teardrop shaped body and many legs, was fitted out with not only additional heavy armor and a magnetic shield based upon the magnetic technology of the Guawyi, but also weaponry although seemingly most of it is still repurposed industrial equipment. It is a stereotypical Svarthan design, being quite slow, but armored to an extreme degree capable of withstanding absurd punishment.
Despite its refit, the machine actually still retains its constructive capabilities, even if they have been retooled, and should a fight drag on, the machine actually has the facilities to make combat drones inside its body to augment its own armament. On its back are not only its point defense lasers and thermate beams, but also banks of seismic warhead missiles, which produce massive shockwaves great for blasting apart ground or sending foes staggering, along with a payload of nuclear, and magnetic pulse explosives.
Its huge digging claws remain unaltered, their magneto hydraulics, rotating cutting elements, and plasma sheathing being more than sufficient to not only bore tunnels in minutes, but cut apart enemy armor if given the chance. Its smaller limbs house yet more cutting gear, but this time far more precise implements. Huge arc gouging electrodes and thermal lances that can slice through even battleship grade armor in minutes, perfect for dicing apart foes that get to close. However those weapons all pale in comparison to the magnum opus of the design.
Adorning the front of the machine, rests what would have been its primary excavation tool, but is now its most powerful weapon, a relativistic plasma beam. Fed by a particle accelerator and tokamak combination, the device blasts out a magnetically confined beam of super heated transuranic nuclei blending the effects of a super powered plasma railgun and proton beam into one terrifying weapon that not only lets it bore its way through solid rock or metal at full speed, but melt down entire tank columns if used in anger.
Despite all these upgrades however, the Svarthan machine is still a modified industrial tool. How it will stack up against actual weapons of war is yet to be seen.
Notapplicable (ARM) — 08/30/2023 10:19 PM
Varda Grisl 88031 shuddered as his excised bundle of neurological tissue was fitted into the body of the customized Caltross morph. A hunched, slim thing, it flexed with demibiological muscles under layered superceramic plating, bodyguns whirring and alien hand pawing at the grip of the railgun assigned to it, the micromissile pods affixed to its shoulders flicking this way and that. It moved like an animal as Varda settled in, the jets on its back and legs whirring to life as its ocular system came online.
A voice on the comms.
"Are you prepared?"
"Yes. Gran Rembarl Metacity will represent itself well, I shall hope."
"You are liking your loadout?"
Pilot Grisl looked to the swollen left forearm, a bulge of superceramic concealing a boser particle blade.
"It should be acceptable."
"It is strange, the Peerage not volunteering one of thier own. Their morphs are superior." Varda added after a pause.
"Secrecy no doubt." The voice replied. "And a test. The Caltross is our workhorse, we should know how it compares."
"Indeed."
"Good luck."
"Appreciated.
The pilot prepared for battle.
Varen (Meta-Sax) — 09/04/2023 6:07 PM
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Round 1: CES vs Huron Technocracy
Round 2: Sodalytes vs Kelthulians
Round 3: ARM vs Federation of Man
Round 4: Svarthan Trust vs losers of rounds 2 and 3
The first round begins with gose {CES, CHET} @stalkertech (Huron Technocracy) !
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Gose {CES, CHET} — 09/13/2023 11:58 AM
O V E R K I L L
Ladon was a bizarre being. Lhargem had never met someone so big, quite literally so, big enough to house others. The concept, initially, was quite baffling: He imagined as if the Iguana mech that he was tasked to pilot was alive as well how would it feel as Lhargem pushed the very boundary of its operational ranges and beyond to flex and contort the muscular body into the shapes which would save their lives and maximize the vectors of death and destruction? Was it love, like an intimate dance? Or torture?
He stomped his feet upon the endless docking area, softly as to not be noticed by others. Could Ladon feel that? He had never been so “inside” a being before, it must certainly be a bizarre feeling for him, perhaps a feeling he’d consider, if only a little bit, the next time he was immersed in the amniotic tub that connected his body to the mech he piloted.
Lhargem’s mind wondered what it must be like to be the Saxheelian godling, as he observed the movement amidst the docking areas. He eventually moved inwards to intermingle with the other participants, if casual flirting can be called intermingling, avoiding the Svarthans because they weren’t his type (obviously). During this time of conversation and interaction there was not a singular thought of strategy running through his mind, he was simply there, and simply having fun.
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The CES Mech did not exist to the eyes of the public yet. What existed was a 50 meters tall hexagon jutting out from the sand vertically, splashed idly by the small waves as it peered over the shelf of a titanic coral, erecting its pale blue spiky reaches towards the sky, and the thin blue line of water far, far away. The hexagon shifted with a large clang. The six facets that made it lazily dropped sideways, wafting away sand and water alike from their tremendous size as they undid themselves like petals from a carbonic flower, painted in the iconic metallic blues of the CES.
It revealed a behemoth underneath.
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The Huron’s culture was a stark difference from the carefree nature of Lhargem. Whilst the womanizing lizard hit on Saxheelians twice his size, the Huron Magtek Teknomancer, of the Magistri Machina, hit the books and the AncNet, researching about their soon-to-be enemies diligently, carefully dissecting the calm eyes of the lizardman as to peer into his past accomplishments.
They soon got their due: The platform he used was experimental, never seen before, its capabilities were never truly seen before either, its munitions were never seen before. Even the Technocracy’s informational superiority could not predict something that simply had no data available to begin with: They had to go in blind, or about as blind as they could be knowing of the previous techniques of the CES, so they prepared.
the HK-63 Heavy Crawler Tank had an ethereal beauty to it, blue painted hull streaking across the glistening sun of that eternal beach, the phase-bladed claws pulsed with energy which parted sunshined upon it, creating a distorted haze on the front scorpion-like construct. Autocannons programmed themselves with the knowledge gathered from data pulled from the Ancnet. In a few minutes, the vehicle gathered a deep relationship with the available data on CES ballistics.The metallic critter seemed almost to blend into the sunburnt lands of the large coral continent, perched atop a large corrugated purple shelf overlooking the far distance.
There, 15km away as agreed by the pilots, was the Iguana Mech. Its musculature pulsed into life and its external coolant veins thrummed with energy as it lazily dragged itself upwards to perch upon a large rock. Far away, Larghem took a last deep breath before the silky suit pressed against his scales, and he quietly let go of complete consciousness to immerse himself in piloting, his eyes transitioned towards the multitude of cameras of the colossi, and the air was filled with anticipation.
A small warning went out, it marked the start of the match.
The hoverpad of the HK-63 glowed, and it darted forward, seeking to close the gap to target the behemoth in front of them, creating a trail of water and sand.
The Iguana teetered forwards, and in an instant, it was airborne. Sound cracked like an astound whip, the jump buckled the coral shelf and made waves as the construct jumped with tremendously impressive speed. It reduced itself, almost crouching mid-air, and two bursts emanated from its oversized main cannon, sealing the fate of the match.
The first was a thin and instant blue tunnel that trailed a straight path from the barrel of the colossi, far above the HK-63 craft. The beam rarefacted the air, and prepared a tunnel where the shell could run through. The cannon pulsed with egregious amounts of energy as electromagnetic mechanisms strained, firing a massive ICBM-like Hyperdiamond tipped shell.
Even through the rarefacted tunnel, the shell burnt like a small star as it tore through the thin atmosphere. Shockwaves emanated from the front of the gigantic mech, which was shoved backwards with impressive strength. It flexed even more, a careful combination of musculature movements made it slide gently into the nearby deep ocean and it… started to swim away, producing a trail of bubbling steam as it did.
The star dawned upon the scorpion-like construct with speed. Autocannons aimed at the object punching its way through the skies as if ripping it asunder, and the whole Crawler Tank swerved sideways to maximize the distance between it and the shell. 5km out from the Crawler the energy bursts from the autocannons intercepted the Iguana’s projectile, it broke apart, spraying the skies with pink, glittery content, glistening against the quiet backdrop of the isles.
Then, the universe was pink.
Each small crystal cracked, dumping its contents with an impossibly strong shockwave. The erratic distribution rebounded from eachother, crashing the atmosphere around it and pushing it into secondary fusion detonations. Faster than sensors could detect, a bright pink star formed where the projectile once was, turning the whole coral continent into a literal boiling sea of light.
First, was the radiation. All of the corals bleached, the blue paint of the crawler tank was vaporized, the thermal radiation pushed the tank down into the ground with physical force. The radiation traveled outwards, boiling hundreds of kilometers of the seas in secondary steam detonations which pushed outwards in tremendous shockwaves all across the surrounding star ocean. All life in hundreds of kilometers was instantly extinguished.
Then, the shockwave. The initial expanding bubble pushed at the characteristic speed with enough strength that the atmosphere itself did not know how to properly react, forming a wall of pure white material turned into plasma from the impact against the shockwave. It touched the ground, consuming it in its expansion as if it weren’t there, yet rebounding at the expanding edge and creating a literal wall of plasma, a vortex of fusing material stretching dozens of kilometers on all sides. It swept over the HK-63 Crawler Tank as if it did not even exist.
The Iguana, on the other hand, exercised its best ability to escape its own weapon’s destructive capabilities. It swam with strength, then was carried with even greater strength by a continental-sized steam detonation caused by the thermal output of its shell, flattening the lower torso of the mech into its upper torso as it was pushed against the erratic currents, seeking to dissipate the immense energy.
The bright pink star lasted for almost 6 minutes before dissipating, leaving behind a lazy large pink cloud. The coral continent’s size had physically almost been halved, a significant portion of the junction of the rivers turned into large vagarous clouds of steam, already pouring torrential oceans back into the nascent lack.
The Huron Technocracy thanked the others for their presence, and promptly left the event.
@dokky | Mentshn & Sodalytes brank
Varen (Meta-Sax) — 09/17/2023 9:01 PM
The oceans of Absu were vast.
From great bands of water where one could lose whole planets in to smaller rivers that a modest asteroid would skim across, Absu was full of water. Even space itself had droplets of it; the ambient temperatures of the nebula that housed Absu were too hot for ice to form, leaving liquid water in a zero-g environment to wobble and wibble all about.
Clouds of the stuff bunched up near the Roche-limits of the great Star-Oceans; the pinching of them allowing travel between the concurrent zones through the bending of the waves into mountains of water - climbing higher into the sky until its twin peaked from across clouds unseen to kiss and meet for a brief time.
Nearby, a monitoring station had been assembled from the coral-like organisms that were being spread all across the star system. Floating in the sky, the coral island glittered like pearl in the light of the false-star that warmed the Roche-side of the oceans.
At a few hundred kilometers up in the air, it gave a great view of the flat horizon of water that corralled it in this strange place. Columns of ocean split up and into the sky, trying desperately to reach for its twin on the other side, but lacking in space or thickness. Maelstroms and waterspouts dotted the oceanscape all around the island.
On the island itself was what may well be called a city. To the Saxheelians, it was little more than a tiny research outpost, something to stop by once every great while to check in on things. To anothers eyes, it was the beginnings of an arcology: a central spire sat in the core, and from it sprouted lilypad-like appendages. Each from there was docked with sponges that rivaled skyscrapers, blending into the corals that chased up their sides like tides all their own.
Purples, blues, greens and yellows hued against the endless blue seas of Absu, defying its monotony with vibrancy.
This was the place - the chosen location for the next Great Bout. They would begin on the island.
@dokky | Mentshn & Sodalytes brank
Dokky | Mentshn & Sodalytes — 09/26/2023 11:04 AM
"Check-one."
Thruster-bells spattered across the behemoth lurking in the shadows. They illuminated chrome panels and iridescent muscle-lines, hidden under brilliantly-colored blowout panels shimmering in the gold-silver-blue spectra normally reserved for welded tungsten.
"Check-two."
Every muscle contracted at once. The frame of the machine went stiff, splaying out and rearing its head as if tortured by a limb-stretcher. It fell limply back into an idle-pose not a moment later, though its body seethed with something deep and hateful as its subsystems calculated stress-damage and made microadjustments and repairs.
"Check-three."
Something deep inside the machine made a bass hum, deep enough to quiver bones and organs. It rose in volume and intensity, first with a baritone chord joining it, then a tenor, then a soprano. The sheer noise was lethal to most forms of life: it made the Sodalyte technicians' bodies quiver dangerously. The noise then cut to its lowest hum as the panels of the mecha split open, revealing flowing, ribbon-like reticula glowing with searing, broiling heat in a gown of fire. A shower of sizzling sparks flooded the air, then cooled and became glittery as they returned to it in circling halos. As the heat died down, its radiator-ribbons drew themselves back into their shells, hissing and crackling where they immersed in their thermal-transfer fluid.
"All checks red," said the Happosei curled inside the spherical head of the huge Standing Weapon. She probed the air with the Jimetsu's face-papillae, blobbing out of the pelican-bill-like sensor block on the front in a series of thick, gooey whiskers to smell the air, and read the currents and temperature. "No aberrant chemical reactions. Fragrance system operational. Sensor suite at 99.9% capacity, latency within tolerances. Substrate is agitated, but responsive."
The Jimetsu twitched in response, as if insulted. The pilot turned its head up automatically as she recieved a transmission from the bridge, the insect's-wing-like wave-sensors tucked against its cheeks splaying sideways and downwards as if to better hear the tightbeam.
"Copy. Standby for deployment."
Seconds passed.
Then a minute.
The silence was broken with a startling rush of water as the Jimetsu was spewed from the dorsal bay of the Sodalyte submarine, rocketing up towards the surface of the water under its own power. With a final transmission, Happosei Tosatsu-0001's crew left her in the dark with a simple message.
Don't lose face.