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Post by EmperorMyric on Mar 21, 2021 13:09:59 GMT
Numbers… What role does that word play in war. Ask one general, and he may tell you that numbers, are the key to victory. Ask another, and he may tell you that too many men and not enough proper leadership, can be a compromising factor. in the early eras of warfare among species that developed to the point where sticks turned to spears and stone clubs to iron axes and later armor Numbers give empires a tactical advantage, while others allowed nations to simply overwhelm their enemies in tides of soldiers, but empires become clever as they developed... use new tactics, logistics eventually become key. small units start to steal the strength that numbers grant and give. turn them against the leaders that utilize them.
The lesson taught, eventually showed. that numbers, while to some benefit would always need logistics to make their strengths pronounced and absolute, and as the empires and species developed, the stronger among them would find that truth more and more. Armies evolved. numbers combined with intel gathering and scouting the zones of battle. time would take away the strengths of masses throwing themselves at each other in battles told in the epics of their past histories. and develop into increasingly guerrilla styled tactics where equal forces engaged each other. but numbers, would. for all the lessons taught always hold their importance. a war is not a war if one has no more troops to send out in combat.
in Tau Volaris, the situation that developed. began to show the importance of such things, as a Silently gliding dreadnaught of an Exotic black material. Drifting in orbit around the systems farthest orbit. The distant suns illuminating the edges of its form, in obsidian like glints across a reflective surface that mirrored the stars that it seemed to sit in the center of. their images shifting as its orbit made it rotate slowly on its axis in a controlled drift.
The old system had made the shift to a war zone sense it had entered. its units awakening to cultist and draconian touch and weapons fire alike, Wreckage scattered throughout the main planets orbit... armies clashing on the surface with weapons of high and low levels of destruction over vast cities built under simple shields, a sprawling metropolis of the younger creatures squatting around the Nexus node of the world on the foundations of the architects city cores… and, as it quickly discovered... The Architects final action of locking the remote systems of the Auralis gates of the planets surface still firmly in position, the Keystone missing from its position…
It had been forced by the situation to reassess the developments it had found itself in. and the vessel had maintained its position well out of the warring factions lines of focus.
As it drifted. Its silent and monolithic form betrayed the activity that occurred within. Ancient systems and arcane intelligences flowing through its structure. meetings of alien minds, agreements and objectives being made, and concluded as a single sign of activity, a meeting held within what could be called a hanger of sorts ending. An arrowhead shaped shuttle sized ship of a greenish material pulling out of the hanger that slowly sealed itself on the vessels inner pyramid-like superstructure seamlessly. before maneuvering away, outwards and away from the systems star.
There was hours of silence. Before the developments of a meeting halfway across the galaxy brought the entity dormant within it into active life. The dreadnaught class vessel shifting its semi suspended components into an active arrangement. ancient drive systems powering into a silent life as the Auralis built Vessel began to make progress on a route that carried it along a path that mirrored the systems far orbit. The entity groups within it, each spawned by the main entity to cover the vessels functions. Were in a state of silent, but agitated activity. The development of the meeting of the powers that had deemed themselves the APP of the galaxy. had brought to its attention the possibility of their fleets into the system. A development that its groups found to be of high suspicion. Their objectives could not allow a potential risk of the Architects structures and holdings within the system.
Yet it could not make its integration with the planets controlling node yet. it knew. Even as a dreadnaught with its offensive capabilities. Against the allied risk of reinforcements and the APP fleets on its own, holding the assumption that the APP fleet would show themselves as being hostile towards it and its holdings. it would eventually find itself worn down and forced to either retreat, or risk its destruction to make its integration into the planets dormant infrastructural systems. Weeks worth of Debates, simulations accurate to the 10th of percentages run in blinks of the human species eye, lines of logic beyond any form of comprehension flowing throughout the ancient anchoring systems of the vessel. Running through the countless billions of potentials that were to happen.
The commonly deducted conclusion that was found on most of its points, was that its progress would have to be expedited, and its hand would have to make its move now. it needed fleets, units for it to utilize for the situation But it could not risk making such a motion on the world. the allied forces would react. The bombardment had bought it a chance to remain silent, let the collective species on InVaridi Believe its presence removed. It needed the use of one of its gates, somehow. find a way around the contingency lockdown the architects had enacted within the system. Alternate sources of power to trigger the catalyst for the effect to take place rather then the dormant core of the planet and the systems suffused into its crust. Those would take time to awaken fully.
Scans, Eldrich in nature. operating far below what the forces in the systems could detect from the stone-like matter of the ships composition were sent out. Small probes forming from the exotic black matter of the vessels hull and diverting into the systems orbits. Seeking, hunting for points of obtainable energy forms that it could utilize. Cores of other worlds in systems, Infernui constructed beacons and Conversion nodes, long sense inert and having broken up into their composite structures and encased in drifting stone and debris over billions of years of the systems developments being discovered and awakened among the asteroid belts or in orbits around the lesser worlds of the system by the probe like constructs, shattering out of their stony metal tombs as they became empowered once again, and regaining form as their enclave networks sought out each other, forming their leylines to the dred.
Aside from those, nothing could be found, among the planets. The Diety of Ruin and the gods of time had done their work. As the Temporians, in the eras before its Rise would have said in their temporal based philosophical ways of thinking, a line of logic drawn from the experiences of its composite entities. There had once been numerous catches within the system, orbital monolith enclaves that had once held captured singularities, but billions of years, and... it surmised. outside interference had done their work, and none could be located.
Its orbital options exhausted. It began lines of logic seeking other options. mere picas going by before its lack of options left it with one workable option, one source of power that it could utilize. Though not without risks… But the Axiom entities approach would leave it with little other options. as the lonely form of the massive dreadnaught began to move along a new route, its orbit having brought it to a position opposite the star then the world that it sought to integrate and draw back into its enclaves. The small point of light, the life, and heart of the system becoming larger as its route took it towards it, White light illuminating the edges of the ancient ship, the Crystalline structure at its apex illuminated by the .
It needed numbers, and for that objective. It would require power to bring them into the system.
But every system had power, Free energy for those that knew how to harvest it... more so then the races that claimed them and traveled their orbits, or, Grew from primordial oozes and chemical soups upon their orbiting planets would ever need, it warmed their worlds, shaped their lives, burnt their skin or tanned their thick hides as they worked to make their lives… maybe, as they grew farther and farther from the huts their ancestors had once dwelled in against the falling rain and the then unknown nights. It would be the captured light that illuminated their cities at night.
Its star.
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Post by EmperorMyric on Mar 21, 2021 13:14:35 GMT
Tau Volaris system: Planet side, planet under heavy seige from Axiom APP forces
Ariadne penched herself a bit forwards breathing in deeply with a smile, inhaling slowly to find the wind of Tau Volaris on her lips and nostrils. The front was some five kilometers ahead, well enough for every rifle, machinegun, cannon and missile blast to reach her and the colonels not only as sound but as a physical feeling as well. It was like fireworks, like a long night of pale fireworks dotting the mountainous horizon. Ariadne was titillating, bringing her arms close to her voluptuous chest and slowly tilting her head from one side to the next.
The two past columns could still be seen travelling the mountain road that separated them from the battlefield. Lines of APCs, AA guns, civilian vehicles and trucks who often degenerated into traffic jams due to the vendors and scavenger camps on the way. The gunships swerved in long horizontal arcs like a pendulum while flares were exchanged between units in a hectic but dreamlike spectacle to which the battalion headquarters was privy, filled with officers, staff, press delegates, VIPs, tourists and Ariadne. She stood outside of the tents, looking through her desert goggles in the direction the continuous banging came from.
"You seem to be enjoying the wind. You'll find plenty of it in Tau Volaris, dear mistress." Colonel Klbr proudly said, approaching Ariadne from the side. Monstrous, his grotesque face stared emptily with extra eyes embedded in every direction packed so full of corneal holograms that they glowed slightly. He bowed to her with an insidious smile, gesturing humbly with his rifle-toting bionic arm.
"It's like fireworks." She said, shielded from the dust by her long coat but letting her hair flutter freely in the wind, which quickly undid her careful ponytail.
"Fireworks, mistress?" The colonel inquired, scrutinizing the tall woman with his military thermal scope.
"I once met someone in Lost Star." Ariadne parted her lips. "I had taken Shellshock that night for the first time."
"Auditory hallucinations, how delightfully daring of you." Came the voice of the air force liason, trailing cables that led all the way to her visceral-looking computer station.
"It felt like little, soft fireworks inside my head at first until I met her, then things got incredible." She slowly said much to the delight of the two computer monstrosities and whoever was watching the footage from the minidrone that hovered above the trio. Miles above them surveillance gunships and ballistic reconaissance missiles scanned the entire continental mass in powerful outwards pulses. Above even them the fighter-bombers of EPA traced long fiery geodesics reminiscent of large shooting stars, delivering munitions before even knowing what their targets were and only finding out post-drop. The soundscape amazed and absorbed her, who felt the gazes of every single drone, aircraft, missile and satellite that looked into the contested region, the city of Tau Profundus. "Every time I hear fireworks I think of her."
"And who might that person worthy of such incredibly praise from you be, oh dear mistress?" Chief of press asked in a buzzing databurst while his malformed, thin-fingered hand slowly reached for her.
A volley of low-flying artillery rockets passed a cople miles off the base on their way to their target. Another column of troops passed by, loaded with soldiers and civilians who cheered each other up in a frenzy of drugs and esprit de corps. Several fired into the air, heralding the arrival of a platoon of tanks that also took the road behind them. Crews made bets, made their prayers and observed the horizon as they passed by, all taking note of such an incongruously beautiful woman standing near the headquarters company much to her indifference. The holographic horizon was vast with red targets and riches once more for the soldiers of E Pluribus Axioma, who answered the call again after what it had seemed an eternity since their anticlimatic last deployment. The nationalities and cultures of the galaxy, flying the EPA banner, converged on the Union armored battalions they caught by surprise under the cover of intensive electronic attacks. Every age and every inclination was more or less represented in the disorganized herd of armored battalions precariously directed by the keen vision of combat supercomputers. Comandeered Nivosist gear was not below being used by the EPA troops, who had scavenged their broken army and now looked almost as unrecognizable from one another as they were from the Union soldiers.
Photonic and neutrino overwatch from high-flying recon aircraft continents away pinpointed targets by the thousands, which were then individually inspected by drones and gunships before engaging. The thousand eyes that flew over the battlefield and commenced transmitting, not only to them but to any of the billions of curious onlookers that logged into the livestreams they broadcasted. From further away still groups of EPA followers spending their free time linked into large cybernetic hubs, assuming control of the bodies of the often shockingly effective penal troops that accompained the mechanized, airmobile and aeromechanized forces of the religious-corporate militia. Merchandise was already being designed, a mere couple hours after the opening of hostilities.
"It doesn't matter." Ariadne fooled the touch of the chief of press with a hologram, being in reality a couple inches beyond his reach. "All that matters to me is that moment and the fireworks, don't think I care about you."
"Most duly noted, my dear mistress." The three of them replied with a semantic network of words from which those were chosen, making sure they were in perfect unison. "Yet how generous of you to pinpoint the cyberattack with the simple data we gave you, oh, your wicked skills truly know no end."
Long-range artillery fire took her by surprise, making her gasp and twitch as she felt the blasts. Fired by divisional artillery, volleys rained on the Union's own artillery units and air defense headquarters. She caressed her arm, cooing at the soft drumming of distant autocannon fire in front of the biomechanical once-humans.
"It's just my job. I have one, don't think everyone in this galaxy can earn a wage commanding the most degenerate army in existence, a mindless swarm of brainwashed poor mind-printed and drugged by dangling a miserable worthless monetary carrot in front of her." The three immediately smiled, tensing up in thrill at her harsh-sounding words while a fourth officer joined in. "Poor ingrate fools spread around unwinnable wars against innocent women and children which they know they'll lose just so they can run away with the money, it disgusts me that I'm sharing air with those kind of folks." They breathed loudly, at least the ones with biomechanical lungs while the gasmasks obscured the face of the press chief and the four other delegates that peeked in. Ariadne's cold sentencing tone melted slightly, adding a more paused rythm to her words. "I hope this army will fail this mission, burn in hell and you be forever damned by history as a cowardly, miserable lot."
"Oh, mistress" One of them whined mechanically. "Please stop, we mere slaves are not worthy of such glorious compliments from you, your majesty. You grace this miserable warzone too much, dear goddess."
A series of three flashes shined through the clouds, causing her to immediately go silent in anticipation, arching her back and pushing her chest out a bit to the sound of smaller explosions.
'Warning: neutron flash. Warning: Shockwave 11 o' clock' The emotionless combat interface chimed in.
Dust was kicked up from every surface and the many antennae on the top of the EPA vehicles swayed from side to side when the three distant nuclear blasts at the frontline hit them; individual, punctuated and harsh. Ariadne audibly gasped, tensing for a moment. The white flashes became dimmer and redenned, remaining there as three new sunsets. More would come.
Pursuing their lead from Metropolis had left EPA starting operations in Tau Volaris sooner than expected by all of its allies. Backed by a sizeable but unreliable local militia they had raised on the area surrounding their initial LZ and the much more precise scalpel of Triarch, a hundred divisions of E Pluribus Axioma's military and their much larger reserve converged into large groups under the cover of nuclear, electronic and cyberattacks to thrust through the Union lines and pour highly-mobile airmobile infantry to their rear guard. Much of the equipment had been ditched, the desert troops knew better than to rely on EPA's fragile optics and lasers in the voracious grey sandstorms and instead went for a cold, violent approach. Bare gun steel, recoil dampers, springs, gas-operated mechanisms and crudity was the norm amongst those EPA who had grown accustomed to their world, some even relying on crude but extremely rugged 3D prints of ancient AK-47 assault rifles. Shrouded with large hooded coats or wearing native garments the soldiers rode their APCs inside and out towards the dubious front, pointing out the gunships along the way. Special forces, commandos, airmech and armored troops all assembled into divisional groups to be sent out to the whim of their CPU carriers.
It was the fireworks, plain and simple, concluding the affair in the way she loved the absolute most. Ariadne stayed inside, five more minutes, reminiscing to the dull, deep thunder of scramjet fighters. Everything that had come before was the cause, from now on it would just be consequences. Historical fireworks, she thought.
"I'll be leaving tomorrow, get everything ready." Ariadne called, walking back to her quarters admist the parked APCs under the heavy guard of robotic soldier.
Deep beyond the initial contacts between Union and EPA forces the rippling of spacetime marked the arrival of an assault group of the chuch-corporation's spaceborne forces flying plentiful with transport ships, assault stations and civilian vessels in an orbit intercepting the planet's, their engines turned off but leaving them going at a very fast speed following their pre-jump slingshot. Sensors came online and scrutinized the orbital plane from the vantage point of their highly-inclinated orbit. Passive sensors opened up simultaneously, scanning the silent stars with listening devices, telescopes and neutrino detectors. They numbered five hundred split into five groups, each clustered around either a Triarch battleship or one of EPA's larger carriers. The enormous Triarch vessels dwarfed their EPA escortees, stealthily gliding through the void and listening for sensors signals that it could cancel. Unusual for the Triarch battleships and heavy cruisers, the larger vessels were painted in a large angular camouflage pattern of wide, intersecting shapes. Their coning towers bristled with blocks of scaffolding and towers full of EPA sensors and conformal supercomputers, consisting of but a small payment for the services of the captains.
Behind even them in a perfectly uniform nonagone, nine Blinkers flew in formation completely overtaking the largest vessels if not with their spaceframes then with the colossal yet indetectably subtle gravitational fields that they emitted, shrouding a full quarter of the inner system only a few minutes after their arrival. Silent, implacable, only the inscrutable communications between them came from their control lobes.
The inside of each vessel was a chaos no less hectic than the drug-frenzied troops below as the entire crew sent information back and forth in a thick ethereal haze of data. Runners went back and forth the corridors while their more efficient but less outputting bionic counterparts erected the communications network of an EPA formation of almost unseen size. The two rooms at the innermost of the ship, the cyberwarfare rooms and the operations room were by far the noisiest, even in the flagship where the triple-siamese captain struggled to keep up with the information flow with his six brains and countless eyes. He sat on the floor, strapped down in a meditating pose reflected by the other ten men in the elevated stand at the center of the command room; the most human of which wore a Triarch admiral uniform. All around them in the stand they were surrounded by the cyberwarfare and sensors team, completely hardwired to their terminals from bundles of cables that came from their robotic hands. Everything was inhuman, little remained of those people beyond a distant whisper in the back of their computerized selves and a DNA print.
"Communications established, CID processing currently in progress, flight computer on the look for untracked memory use matching known virus sizes." One of the flag officers said, the remnants of his lower jaw limply hanging down but the intercomms system serving as his voice.
"Orders received from Blinker fleet, interdiction imminent, prepare for normalisation pulse in T-83 seconds."
"Flagship H01 active." The captain informed in almost perfect unison with the hundreds of other EPA captains, changing the name and type of the ship in the monotonous chorus of reports.
"Commencing all combat operations, connecting offensive firewall surge preventers and loading anti-AI definitions." The man to the right of the captain reported, running five of his dozens of fingers through a set of tribal collars from which old amulets dangled. "Storm Whisperer loaded, Narwhal loaded, Kamalatika loaded, all systems ready."
"Briefing generator is submitting datapackets for approval." Another one said, more traditional-looking if such a thing even existed amongst the monstrous cyborgs that sat around the table. The fleet admiral nodded , or at least the holographic silhouette that emerged from the bloated brain-looking body of the admiral did so.
"Incoming transmission from our dearmost, most honorable Shifting Mirrors."
Everyone immediately turned to the fleetcom chief of communications, so shocked by the brief data that even the cyberwarfare operators ceased in putting. A silence soon engulfed even the other ships when the report spread out amongst the dozens upon dozens of vessels.
It was but a moment in which the expanding interdiction fields from all nine blinkers all converged into one another in the center of their formation. An usually shocking, surreal sight to the ships that had flown alongside blinkers but even then nothing compared to the previously unseen spectacle that had unfolded from this epicenter: Blowing outwards, a much stronger interdiction fields shredded the powerful blinkers' own fields into thin outwards filaments whose ends were propelled even past the heliosphere of the system. The interdiction field was so enormous that an area of optical distortion appeared in its middle between all the Blinkers, warping and complexifying into an elaborate ellipsoid fractal of spikes. Submerging the entire fleet into faint optical distortions the peak of the visual anomaly was smaller than the Blinkers by almost two thirds but radiated datalinks onto the fleet, overwhelming their individual networks into one enormous informational gestalt that bore the weight of the entire EPA fleet's required computer processing as if it was nothing.
Noumena had once again taken the field, rippling towards Tau Volaris silently and at the command of its mythical benefactors, whose name shocked the fleet admiral into stupor.
"Come in, our lady."
The edges of objects, everything around them, the structure and even their own fellow bridge crewmembers pullulated with small, growing cubic prisms. That is the only thing they perceived before every single line and shape in their field of view exploded into an infinite maze of geometry to which their cybernetic brains could only bear overloaded witness. Their minds and computers were spilled into this infinite network of abstract shapes, melding into each other and blending their identity with one another and with the flight computers of their ships. The Axiomatic form presented itself pure, unhindered by avatar and with an implacable message that permeated every inch of reality. The shapes fused, intersected, extruded into incomprehensible dimensional vectors and took their minds with them in every edge and vertex.
It could have lasted only a microsecond or it could have lasted one hundred years, it didn't matter to the bridge crews now. Their CPUs spewed a rancid smell and thin trails of smoke from their overloaded, burnt-out computer augmentations. Every single one of their computational bionics burst into thin sparks and smoke, making their necks go limp for a minute while the other officers tried to see what had happened.
The admiral yanked his head back up in a sudden, unnatural movement, followed by the others. His bionics showed no sign of life but he showed no sign of dying.
"Cleanup. Absolute interdiction until negotiations with the Abberrhae. Seizing of Tau Volaris."
A holographic prism appeared above his head, coming from none of the projectors in the room.
"Praise the Syntagma."
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Post by EmperorMyric on Mar 21, 2021 17:38:26 GMT
Tau Volaris
The 937th mechanized infantry had surged forwards, with no authorization from an overloaded divisional command, in a long salient that reached Hill 412 three times. Preceded by intense, overkilling barrages of artillery the men and women hid in their hastily dug trenches for the duration of the airstrikes that locked down an entire fighter-bomber squadron's sorties until divisional reconaissance units had to call off the airstrikes: the target wasn't even longer visible on thermals or radar due to the sheer ammount of incendiaries utilized against the large cable relay station that sat up the hill. All three times it had started with a few vague probing shots and, before they knew it, the entire battalion was unloading belts of machinegun and grenade launcher rounds at unseen enemmies on the other side of the fiery phosphorus flame. Their three routs had made them lag so far behind the frontline that a divisional anti-aircraft unit caught up with it, leaving a few SPAAGs supporting the uphill advance.
Communications through the net were a vain endeavor in the completely overwhelmed environment of Tau Volaris, filling the sky with signal flares, fireworks and smoke bombs with which the commanders of stray columns tried finding out what the situation was or where to go. Safat and Deirdre used bright flags instead, poking out of the hatch of the APC with yellow and red flags, waved vertically and horizontally for the six vehicles to slow down and begin disembarking their troops while the vehicles still moved. In contrast with the eerily columns of wheeled EPA vehicles that piled on a traffic jam leading to the hill, Safat and Deirdre's column was a detachment of Themis IFVs.
"Well, tell them to stop the bloody fire then, every single one of them is bollocksing up our jobs right now." Deirdre talked in her own platoon radio, trying to get through to the only of her radios in the net that still had access to the EPA communications, letting Safat control her arms to signal the rearmost IFVs in the group. "Safat." She said in her mind. "Gimme something over here, would you?"
"Nothing I can get out of the EPA or Red 56 network, the 937th regiment is attempting to seize the hill again, they've got a couple companies from who knows where to make up for losses." Safat relayed what little scraps of information she could fish out of the network which she tried to share with much more high-priority transmissions from air support and high-level commanders. A spectator sitting inside Deirdre's body, EPA electronic forces commando Safat assisted as a combat and communications assistant with the Capitol Hydra guardswoman, acting as a second conscience coordinating her men into one single hivelike squad, one of six. Safat simultaneously saw through every one of her bodies, intermiscing with the thought processes of each one of the Hydra Guardsmen clad in EPA grey overcoats.
"They attacked the same target several times? Since when is EPA persistent?" Deirdre remarked, raising an eyebrow as she made her way through the open troop compartment onto the open ramp where she jumped onto the irregular, dusty riverbed that separated the highway from the shattered town once supplied by a now-ruined bridge. Very little of it was left standing, much of it was burning, but from the distance one could see large red banners covering a great portion of the burning ruins. The sight was surreal, the intense artillery bombardment had scarred the hill, raising black soot into the surface giving it the appearance of some kind of volcano. Thousands of dots that only upon very close inspection showed themselves to be soldiers were walking uphill in zigzags, moving in large disorganized groups, resting at the foothill or dragging out the wounded. The sea of soldiers didn't seem to have any particular direction, organization had completely broken down and now every soldier fought the war by himself: no battle network, no holographic relays, no chain of command. The only one who gave orders now was the war. Several groups of burnt-out tanker trucks sat in the middle of EPA's forwarmost gain against their distant, unseen enemmies. In this salient sat a large abandoned warehouse that Deirdre led her footsoldiers onto through the crowds of aimless soldiers, wandering vehicles, sheltered onlookers and medical personnel.
Several rows of machinegunners lined the roof and balconies of the warehouse, accompained by their platoons and ragged plainclothes soldiers barraging the hilltop with gunfire, firing every manner of weapon from the hip, unaimed over walls or in the open. The highwater mark of the 973th's unsuccesful advance was at least a mile ahead: several burnt out APCs. When Deirdre entered the building, the inside of the warehouse was completely packed; a mortar shell could have easily killed a hundred people were it to come. Yells, gunshots, cries of command and profanities were all drowning out everything but the booming of the battle outside the near-windowless warehouse. The air inside was damp, cold, asphixiating.
"What the bloody fuck is this?" Deirdre was immediately struck by the sheer chaos of it all.
"How is a regiment this disorganized still carrying out an attack?" Safat asked as if the guardswoman knew any better.
"4-1,2, on me. Everyone else, get the hell out of this warehouse and disperse outside." The woman ordered academically, carrying out the order herself in certain bodies as the hybrid unit made its way out of the crowded building.
In the hour that the 973th had seized the hole-riddled warehouse, several tents had been erected out of tarp inside, housing makeshift information stands for missing soldiers, first aid installations where the wounded were piled on every wall to be taken care of by undersupplied humanitarian volunteers as the corpsmen had defected their soldiers. Large piles of lost equipment were plundered by a charismatic system of warlordism that had formed after the breakdown of the chain of command, where fiery-voiced lieutenants or privates proposed and pushed for expeditions onto the hill, trying to gather the regiment's dwindling resources to mount an assault. These rivalries eventually erupted into large fights over the limited materiel as the two regimental assaults had left much of the equipment abandoned uphill.
"If any of you manages to get traffic out into the net, tell them the 937th is SNAFU." Deirdre reported while pulling soldiers to the side, interrogating them about who was in charge, a question that seemed almost alien to them.
"Before that we should get someone else to take up this part of the front." The mental image noted, fighting through the dense torrents of prioritary traffic drowning her hout.
"Somebody better have an idea of what's going here or the 937th is going to get worse." Deirdre found herself losing her patience at being pushed and shoved around by the shifting crowds around her. Several large crowds plugged the tight navigable spaces of the warehouse, centered around mutilated corpses with heads pulverized from what appeared to be hammer blows. People yelled, pushed around, tried to get a view with their smartphones and ran away. 'Kill them all!' was repeated a few times to her left, the deeper she went into the warehouse the more it seemed hysteria was the law of the land. A confusing military quagmire on the outside hid a much worse frenzy of drugs and violence. Every one of the POWs that laid strewn over the ground had its head crushed, the rest of their body limply laid encased in red plate armor.
"That's Union armor." Safat instantly reacted, taking note of the ancient mark of the suit. "This shouldn't be here."
"Nothing should be bloody here." The chaos around Deirdre, Safat and the two other soldiers Safat controlled was becoming so confusing that they pulled their revolvers out, keeping them above their heads. Soldiers around them prayed or sniffed narcotics out of ammunition trays, sweat-soaked children no older than 13 assembling into rabid drug-fuelled forlorn hope units behind which the older soldiers hid behind to mount their assault. Barrels and broken rifles were strewn about everywhere as was EPA electronic gear. Helmets, comms equipment and cooling rigs were discarded and left in piles, most of the soldiers covered their faces and head in rags to protect themselves from the dust, making them look like looters.
"This is looking worse, the local CID net has collapsed but it looks like neural intelink was left on." Both Safat's and Deirdre's attention were caught by a crowd larger and noisier than usual, where groups of rabid soldiers tried to push through shield-bearing Triarch MPs. Sitting on the other side of a barricade, a Triarch operator called for Deirdre to go over to the tent the crowd tried to push their way into. Around the MPs and with the faint smell of tear gas the crowd waved hammers, pieces of rebar and heavy tools threateningly, some of them already bloody. "I'll look at it closely, if they're this adamant about seizing this hill they're seeing something we're not."
"What's your HQ?" The operator asked, helping Deirdre in through a gap in the crowd pushed open by the shield troopers.
"1117th combined." She replied, catching her breath some and taking cover from the rocks thrown in there. Several notably older EPA soldiers sat around the surrounded half-collapsed tent where another armor-clad soldier had been gutted. "Was told to link up with the 937th on my way to the AO, is anyone in this fucking place even in 937th anymore?"
"We can't find the HQ section." The operator replied, his trigger discipline and relative cleanliness were somewhat reassuring to Deirdre, especially when another horde of infantrymen charged and everything within a mile and a half began supporting the advance, throwing up so many shots that the group began receiving strays from the rear. "We are to hold here until further orders, ma'am."
"Further orders are clear!" Deirdre replied while taking note of the other eight operators who firmly held their posts. "You were to bypass this hill, I don't give a fuck what's on it, you're carving a gap between our unit and the 4501st Airmech."
"Do you think they're even able to at this point?" Safat inquired, making Deirdre repeat the question for a brief moment in which she gave her co-fighter control of her vocal cords.
"Ma'am, that command belongs to HQ, I'm just instructed to hold."
"What are you even holding?"
"Ma'am, please address our HQ, I do not have a say in this."
The soldiers outside neared the wrecks of the APCs, galvanized by the support from the AA guns and seeing themselves get closer and closer to their last record. Animalistic wails came from all around but the most shiver-inducing came from a place tucked away in a corner of the crowded tent, connected to the rest with a corridor. More dead soldiers were strewn on the floor and trampled between Deirdre and the screaming, all unit insignia scratched away, obscene incantations carved into their armor and pungent-smelling patches of rotten skin nailed onto their hard plates. Human remains decorated the soldiers who were now themselves dead and clearly mutilated after their death.
A warm light came from the screaming in the bullet riddled corner of the tent where blankets and filthy pillows appeared to be haphazardly piled. Next to it a languid savage dog chewed through the belly of a burnt corpse, several large pieces of comms equipment were turned on and seemingly tuned into every frequency available, the corpses of a couple of EPA soldiers leaned on the floor against the wall, the guns still in their hands. Unit administration paper and uniforms on the floor. Archaic symbols had been written all over plotting maps and carved into the plates of the dead soldiers: large schizophrenic paraboles filled the whole tent.
"What in the..."
"Deirdre, we have to get out of here. I'm sending a priority message to HQ, something bad's happening here." Safat kept a calm, professional tone.
Another set of screams made them realize that they seemed to come from a woman on the other side of the pile of dirty blankets, on a room built into a small internal basement of the warehouse.
"...they skin people..."
Deirdre immediately turned around and saw one of her squadmates right next to her, one who Safat was supposed to control, brandishing a bloody Union-made trench knife.
"Mardo, give me a status!" She replied but he simply started walking deeper into the dark crevice where the warm light came from. Deirdre followed immediately, shouldering her gun and keeping close to the wall. "Mardo! Ankan! Safat!"
"I presume you know of the Nakai" He said, looking back over his shoulder as Deirdre walked over another EPA corpse. He spoke in a completely flat tone. "Or any of those grand legendary species. Have you ever thought about them? Or, rather, about what they really imply."
The screams were getting more disturbing. It didn't seem to be someone dying, it seemed to be someone giving birth. Mardo continued, heading deeper into the penumbra which Deirdre lit with her sterile white light.
"You think it's mere chance that only a handful of civilizations like those exist? Right now this galaxy is filled with nascent civilizations, where did the old ones go? Shouldn't they vastly outnumber us? What erased all those civilizations that were born between the age of the sentients and us?"
It was subtle at first, but each movement of Mardo's head made it clearer and clearer: his face was being burned out of Deirdre's eyesight. Starting with the mouth and eyes, which were replaced by increasingly clear censor bars. She immediately deactivated her contacts, nothing changed.
"There are things out there, human." The man said, his face obscured by bars over his eyes and mouths as Deirdre immediately began stepping backwards, her revolver firmly pointed at his head. "There are filters. Some civilizations pass these filters and endure, some do not. Some filters are greater than others. None is as great a filter as Them."
"The only thing that's out here is a psychochemical fucking our minds up." Deirdre desperately clung to the most logical explanation as tightly as to her gun. She winced and her eyes got watery at the foul smell that emanated from the other side of the curtain Mardo stood near. "Snap out of it."
"Behold the gift." He pulled the curtain open.
Around the cradle of rags and torn up bedsheets, encroaching over the contorting woman, a soldier from the shredded remains of her uniform that laid on a puddle of blood coming from her crotch, were the four monstrous wetnurses that accompained the eldrditch birth. Microphones were clustered around the cradle, broadcasting the grotesque emission onto the blizzard of radio transmissions below overlaid with secret words. Completely covered by ultramarine blue hoods, the hunchbacked, thin shapes turned around to look at Deirdre, completely scratched off of her view in a way that it seemed like her corneas were being stabbed and immediately caused her to wince and struggle to keep her eyes open but was soon overtaken by pain and had to close her eyes.
The 937th's fourth attempt at seizing the hill 412 was ultimately succesful at the cost of heavy losses that resulted in a total writeoff of the mechanized infantry regiment and required the EPA forces on both of its flanks to retreat to avoid creating a gap in their defenses. On their way to relieve the scattered remains of the 937th, the 5509th independent coastal division retrieved some of the 937th's abandoned materiel in their last reported position before their unauthorized attack on the hill: the ruins of a hospital's maternity ward on the highway to Tau Profundus.
"Izhniyizh Mzh'nin Iaärak."
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Post by EmperorMyric on Mar 21, 2021 18:06:19 GMT
The Celestials SILVER TEMPLE would be sifting and seeving the immense amount of information that was collected, and still being collected, on the affairs of the Ancarious Galaxy. Many pictures, of many things were being painted, puzzle piece at a time.
Of the things that were brought to Yarkario Lu's attention, was the arbitrary and auto piloted occupation of the Tenebrean Empire, by the Immortal Empire, going back as far as the First Ancarious war. More and more information would be compiled and assembled from the various sorces concerning that particular realm of affairs.
The plan was simple.
Through careful planning and orchistraiting the Celestial Handlers they meet with the FLM UPPER top brass. The location hand picked and scouted. Thoroughly scrubbed for potential bugs, or unwanted ears and eyes. The only ones in the FLM that really knew what was going on, and why, those below them fed pertinent and carefully prepaired data. It would be pushed that to pave the way to wage war with the I E to better effect, was to fight them over the terratorys of Tenebrea. Amoung the hopeful objectives was to capture I E ships, if able, for interogation and study.
The conflict of the W F terratorys, was also discussed. Over half of the attending FLM Brass was not really pleased at the numbers, or reports on that one. But it was aggreed that more numbers might be needed there for a drawn out campaign. Many had their doubts, but all thought it was neccasary.
One suggested leaking the fact there is a large enemy force in the WF terratorys to the CAE, perhaps, even to the union, Carnaith, and other sources through some puppet work and proxy means. Through the use of replicant W F citizians faking a call for help to get their attentions.
It was agreed upon, and the plan was set into motion. For harassing I E forces in tenebrea atleast. The details of such a feat were then discussed over the next eight hours, and perhaps will be off and on for days to come. Additional forces to be sent to WF, or UF space as it might now be known as, was frowned upon at the end. It was decided no additional support would head to that location past what was already sent.
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Soon, the FLM would be sent to the Tenebrean terratorys, not particuarly to help Tenebrea. But as an easy oppertunity to strike at the enemy, outside of his element and outside of his homeland. What a better shooting gallery, then to hunt an enemy in a land full of people already hunting and shooting that very enemy.
The border crossing happens in the same style and signature as the crossing that had taken place across the WF northern front. Though if challenged or confronted they simply reply their intent to hunt down I E starships and that they mean no hostilitys to the Tenebrean Forces, or their worlds.
Swarms of raiders and battlecruisers with fighter support would soon be staged just inside Tenebrean Borders on any Immortal Empire Convoy trying to enter and support the conflict within Tenebrean Borders. Scouts would start to seek out, and report enemy patrols, or convoys. Operations to bait enemy into pursite, to fall into an ambush, and more would ensue. The idea was, if tenebrea saw them helping them, Tenebrea would not shoot them, and rather, leave them alone. But over all contact would be avoided, outside of ensuring they were not an enemy.
They were not there to allie with the tenebrea, only shoot at the IE.
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NOTE: This means any further actions IN TENEBREAN SPACE by the I E, will 9 out of 10 times be challanged, or interupted by FLM action before they can continue to their objectives.
No actual countable losses are yet inflicted on the I E but it means contact between I E and FLM is immanent.
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Location: Lost star
topper: sitting**smokes hmm
Triage: you topper?
topper: depends on who is wanting to know
Triage: I might…
topper:...*glares*
Triage: you have a reputation, if you dont mind my saying so.
topper: oh..you know?
Triage: Some, but you know how gossip works, its what you get from the source thats important.
topper: mhm...
Triage: so whats true and whats fake, i was told by some, shady fellows that you have a killcount.
topper: maybe...*smokes*
Triage: whats it take to know?
topper: depends on what your wanting...i don't work for cheap and i don't work for back stabbers....last one who did...lost his arm
Triage: i have no wants to lose my arm. i like it as it is, it was just upgraded…. what i want is some certain figures removed from a higher employers side….
topper: hm....who is it...
Triage: it seems a certain female has called in a strike on several commanders of an associate of mine. there are several hit men that are after them. I would like some of them, For lack of a better term, removed before they become an issue to any operations they’re manning.
topper: *flicks his smoke away*....hm....fine
Triage: nobody does something for nothing, what would a job like that cover in terms of expenses?
topper: you'll find out gets up
Triage: i take it you would want files on these men that i have called you out to hunt down? Not all of them are simple targets, many are killers.
topper: nods yes
Triage: the gauze wrapped calvara looks at topper, then nods, producing a Versus-pad from his white coat. i trust you work with associated that would help you with the matter? other killers?
topper: hm...*glares*..just give me the damn info
Triage: there are about six in all, of the ones we know the names of at least… He pulls up several hard light files on the figures in question. associates among the Chrono-Research Branch of my…organization have told me of movements that brought them close to their, more prominent figures after a meeting less then two days ago. *Hands topper the files.* The ones we know are a mr. Lone, a creature called Heiyr, a pair of twins.* Points to thier picture.* And a woman. *Taps a security still of the woman.* I want them taken out of the picture, or made signifigantly weaker.
Triage: ….Bring me their heads, and i promise you that you will never have to work another day in your life…
topper:..okay
Triage: Very well, as long as your caught up.
topper: holding the files and walks past him
Triage; Turns to look at topper, then nods before walking away.
topper: walking away
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Location: Tau Volaris
Tau Volaris was a Warzone now, Even if only in the labeling as one. For what is a war zone but a place that was contested over? Where battles were fought to take or recover ground or territory?
There was no fighting within the system, its planets, or its orbits now. No Struggle that could be labeled aside from forces resisting on the planets surface where they made their stands, scattered forces either resisting or laying low among the ruins of the worlds once active cities. The Fleets of whatever allies that had remained in the system or within the planets orbit had either retreated or had long ago met their demise or capture by the converging forces of Axiomatic or Aberration conflict in system as they had descended on the world. Although, from the outside such an opinion could have been argued to only be speculation. The system was large, and there were places for lone vessels to hide perhaps.
No, Tau Volaris was no longer a war zone, The struggles of the allies had ceased, even if only for the time being. Now, now the Star and its planets that danced their eclipses around it were contested space, But space that Belonged to the APP, and perhaps even more, belonged to its allies.
Across the system, Activity grew even under the interdiction that the Axioms had cast over it when they had Arrived. Slowing the Faster then light technologies of the empires to the speeds at which they could only cruise through the system at mere fractions of sunlight speeds and accelerations.
In their hiding places, and in their shipyards, The CE and their vessels made their moves and maneuvers with seeming indifference, perhaps paying attention to the arrival of the capitol vessels that arrived to collect the dead, and perhaps not. For now, it could not be said.
In orbit around the systems star, The Dreadnought of the system. the Oblivion, The entity known as Aberrahes vassal, and its messenger within the system and keeper of the old world for the time being, but only just, pulled away from the Sun, its formally obsidian black night stone hull glowing a hued red of internal heat, with discharges of a whitish lavender power arcing across its surfaces, crossing between its floating components and sometimes, and off into space as it accelerated.
Having fulfilled its goal through its old actions. the solar flare that it had harvested to feed the pyramids need for a catalyst and give its slumbering systems on the planet the pulse of power they needed to establish their fields now nothing more then a cloud of radiation that would more then likely soon be drawn back into the star, or dispelled on its solar winds as they loud outwards, it made its way back towards what had been its original goal.
The pyramids hunger satisfied. The Dreadnought shifted its route on an approach towards Tau-Volaris. Progressing towards the world at the slower then light speeds that it had used to reach the stars orbit while the infrastructure within the system. Remaining orbital constructs and satellites that the dreadnought had reached out and brushed with its probing that had not yet been destroyed by times passing returning to life. the arrangements of night stone, fed by the relay from the larger vessel, organizing themselves or pulling themselves from icy clusters and stony asteroids that they had become engulfed in over time.
The system was much weaker then it had been when it was awake last. with more then 86% of its orbital structures lost, and holes common in the rousing network across the system. But for those that remained the entity put them to work as soon as their arrangements were complete. Aural relays directed power and thought, conversion nodes re assumed their purposes, Sentry defenders became vigilant again, and a lone surviving Command node in between eclipses made sense of its broken networks and paths as it stirred awake again.
At the Edge of the system, beyond the range of the interdiction field, three fleets of vessels exited their jumps and decelerated into the system its its outskirts. Traveling from the region of diamond city where the Embassy's gate had been opened with no aggression towards their hosts of the Celestial Empire. their construction and components of the familiar obsidian like material that had grown abundant in the system left no need to question their origin.
Yet not all of the vessels were of the entities familiar style of form and design, of two thirds of the vessels in the fleets that had jumped into the system, 300 in all. their Design was not of the angular monolithic form the Auralis had made prominent.
Instead, they were of a sinister and sleek, bio mechanical design and form. with Chitanus and bone-like outer plating, and metallic components augmented sleekly into their hulls where Nightstone drives and crystalline growths and components had fused and augmented to the ships, which glowed with aberrahes familiar lavender hued energy. With Aberration Frigates and their much larger battleships mingled among the fleets.
these were of the shard fleets, compiled from the Corrupted ships of the Long disappeared and Assimilated Zelic Empires navy. Of destroyer through battleship classes moving in an unsettling form of unison. Led by the Entities greater vessels. Having Arrived, and with their objectives seemingly already sent. communications moving between their ships like a single intelligence. To others in the system they would have seen silent, as they. Proceeded into the system, into the interdiction field and towards the planet and its orbit at gradual accelerations and Slower then light speeds in Geometric traveling formations. ignoring, and generally acting more objectively then aggressively towards the Axiomatic vessels that had made their residence there so far.
progressing deeper into the system, some of the vessels diverted, branching off from the main group and angling towards the locations of the ancient orbital constructs that were roused now. groups of three headed by Auralis Frigates, 12 in the case of the lone command node. the vessels taking up movements of an either seemingly idle operation, sitting and slowly drifting by the constructs that were functional, or. In the damaged or more degraded of the Structures. Actively interacting with the Structures. Linking with them from distances, or feeding into them with shifting and shimmering umbiicles of night stone that bridged the gap between them, feeding them information or commencing other operations of alien intent or function.
Of the diverted vessels, the largest was a group of 50 vessels. Which remained by the farthest ellipses and edges of the system outside of the interdiction. moving in a predatory, almost school-like fashion patrolling the systems edge. They Were, as the entity had made its promise. To act as a vanguard, An early line of defense for Tau Volaris. Attacking that which arrived before they even entered the interdiction field. For their numbers, they would not be a simple obstacle to overcome.
Ten others. 5 Zelic infected Heavy Cruisers, bearing heavier nightstone armor and augmentations, 4 Frigate Octanavis, and headed by one of the Entities Battleship Octanavis, broke from the fleets as they made their way towards the planet, leaving over 200 of the ships still progressing to Tau volaris and its awakened city. Tilting on their horizontal planes before turning outward and away from the star and from the planet.
Having entered the system from the regions of the vortex. they had received their orders from the Oblivion almost as soon as they had entered the system. objectives given to them by the entity and its recently fused, An intelligence that had called itself “Hain” They were to meet up with units of the obscura legion in the region known as the junkyard, before proceeding to respond to isolated connections they were receiving from a series of distressed Shards that Aberrahe had been monitoring and following the progression of in a distant region of the galaxy they were now within.
That progression had been given leeway for the time being, it had been unfeasible for the entity to intervene while it was organizing itself. and there had been information to be gleaned from the species that had been conducting the studies and weaponization of its components. now it would recollect them, and all they had learned.
Their priorities given, they Exited the system, and in silence save for alien signals between themselves engaged their Auralis jump systems. The small fleet disappearing in Bluish distortions as they made their jumps in the direction of the junkyard.
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Post by EmperorMyric on Mar 21, 2021 18:14:37 GMT
"Uh, fifteen of june..." The fortune teller was a small bespectacled asian man, sitting cross-legged in the shadow of his client as he consulted the pages of a crumpled book, its thin pages filled with rows and rows of characters so small they looked like single pixels to the untrained eye. "...This is the Kuruna calendar." He showed his clients the book as he guided his lecture with the tip of his pen. Behind him was a yellow tarp with ancient mystical and pseudo-mystical logographs, as well as some generic imagery of palms and chakras. He took notes and did calculations on a sheet of pink paper he held next to the thick leatherbound calendar and scribbled notes that were just as if not even more unreadable than the microprinted calendar.
"Fifteen of may." He corrected himself, speaking in a thick accent. He wore a simple button-up shirt, black pants, a gold fake Rolex and would have passed off as an office worker in any other context. He appeared to be the sole inhabitant of the planet, manning a divination stand set up under the wing of the ancient industrial shuttle he'd crashed-landed in. "You are the water. You know the five elements? You are the water. Fire, water, earth, wood and metal. You are the water of the yellow river, so you are a gentleman."
The semantic logics of the fortune teller's three clients kept up to translate through his thick accent, as he kept showing them the booklet to give some credence to his words, though the professional, self-assured tone he said them in did half the job as far as the clients were concerned. They continued to look on closely, their glowing eyes fixed on the short man.
"Your hand is..." The fortune teller leaned forwards as the tallest of his clients opened the palm of its door-sized hand. The fortune teller started poking around, following the many creases and folds in the superplastic skin. He grabbed the claw-tipped index finger with his right hand to keep his client still as he explained. "First of all I tell you what kind of, the, the hand is the best." He poked at the huge palm. "It must be soft and tender, you need luck. But if your palm is hard then you'll have bad luck in life. Now, one half of your palm is tender and one half is hard..."
He tapped on the woven superceramic outer of the hand, which had a rough, harder texture. They were designed that way to resist the stresses and heat of supersonic flight when retracted, but neither the fortune teller nor the owner of the hand seemed to mind.
"So only before you're aged... uh..." He prodded to see where the hard portion of the hand ended and where the fleshy, soft part began. "Thirty eight it will be bad, but after thirty eight, everything will be improved."
The living fighter jets of the Royal Axiomatic Vanguard never lived beyond ten years but he did not seem to know. They simply sat in front of him, sheltering him from the harsh sun of the salt flats while the flight leader had its palm read in anticipation of their flight by the only human in the entire arid planet. In front of the flight lead was a tiny, pencil-sized bamboo stick showing the RAVN's lucky number, 31.
"Ten thousand praises to the wisdom of the Syntagma that has granted me luck past my death." The RAVN replied in a deep, booming voice with a revering tone, bowing its head slightly. Millions of permutations of this phrase were spoken out at once, which made the RAVN's speech simply sound as a databurst of static.
"Your thumb, very soft." The fortune teller poked the thumb that was as big as his arm. "You have the real power. This power means you can ask an order the other people to do the job. The leadership you have."
As if to add a sense of mysticism to the divination session that was being attended to by three zalously spiritual supersentient living aircraft, a small recorded was softly blaring out traditional music and sticks of incense softly burned around the radio beacon on top of the fortune teller's shuttle. "You have very close to you, many people who want to harm you. The challengers and the competitors including friends of your friends. They want to hurt you very easily."
The tiny man fell silent and looked onto the holes in the armored superceramic faceplate of the war machine he read the palm of with an ominous gaze to tighten its grip on its attention. It worked.
"But no need to worry, in your index finger over the third line." He took out a ruler and marked one of the creases in the RAVN's demiorganic hand. "It's soft, so it will give you safety."
The Axiomatic emissary bowed again, asking a question of its own that interrupted the explanatory monologue for a bit.
"Most honored guide of my spirit, keeper of the secrets of that causality which is hidden from my rational aprehension." The demiorganic fighter jet said. "I head for a cursed land and seeketh your advise. Were my kin to encounter normalised 5p vibratory modes with an alpha above 20 in the local spacetime, are we to interdict them?"
The fortune teller kept quiet and scratched his chin, looking as if he was pondering the conundurum. He measured more of the lines, consulted the ying-yang bowl and burned additional incense for a session of numerology based on the mathematical parameters that any sentient being more cynical sentients would have assumed the fortune teller had no idea what they even meant. He finally delivered his answer, builting up to it with several seconds of silence when the music echoed on the vast, empty salt flats.
"Yes and no."
While most other sentients would have asked for a refund, the RAVNs postrated themselves in front of the fortune teller, paying the divinator with a thick molten slag of nanites they splattered in front of him while spooling up their engines.
"May your biological, memetic and causal descendants for a hundred generations be as blessed by our gratitude as you have been blessed by the wisdom your ancestors, human." The deep whine of their engines began slowly turning into a high-pitched scream. The dust underneath them shifted and moved, forming a geometric print in the dirt shaped like the electrogravitic field that formed around the three RAVNs.
"No disaster, no calamity" The divinator reassured as the three RAVNs began floating off the sandy surface, lifted by their electrogravitic skeleton. "Drink only water."
The three aircraft shot themselves upwards, breaking the sound barrier just a couple hundred feet above the place where the shuttle had crash-landed years ago and knocking down the fortune teller's tarp sign with the shockwaves. They became simple dots in the distance that, once they'd left the atmosphere, merged into the flight path of one of Shifting Mirrors' powerful blinkers.
Location: Tau Volaris
Eight of the Axiomatic vessels had deployed in total to reinforce Noumena in Tau Volaris, their departures delayed for about half an hour by the divination session. Super-blinker Noumena still sat on the epicenter of an enormous interdiction field that engulfed the entire system, including places as remote as the spherical cloud of debris and comets that surrounded it, where the Immortal Empire's vessels started operating. Mirroring the formation of IE ships that had began carrying out unindentified activities, they began shadowing the vessels from a couple astronomical units behind their vectors of motion.
The recent awakening of the Abberation in the system had already piqued the interest of Axiomatic forces even further, but the appearance of large unindentified ships conducting a series of hyperdrive jumps was what had pushed the situation over the edge and finally resulted in the deployment of the Blinker Fleet onto Tau Volaris, a much feared place as far as the blinkers themselves were concerned, given it was the place where fellow vessel Esophagealis had been paradoxed and subsequently killed.
The detection of the many small orbs and unindentified objects being dropped by the IE vessels was enough for the high-level logics onboard to authorize operations, and so the blinkers opened fire. While their fearsome pion batteries remained silent, their scalar wave emitters came to life, blasting out in enormous resonant arcs in front and behind them to sweep the surroundings of Tau Volaris completely clean of the unindentified devices. Through destructive resonance, several blind spots, or "holes" in the offensive scalar field were created so as to not strike the unindentified ships before their purpose could be known, as well as to spare some of the unindentified orbs and cubes for retrieval and analysis by the RAVNs.
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Post by EmperorMyric on Mar 21, 2021 18:15:39 GMT
Location: Tau Volaris
The Shard Fleets, having entered the system some days ago. Had made progress on their approach to the orbit of the world and positioning themselves throughout the orbits of the system through the sphere of interdiction. Moving at speeds less then 0.33% of the speed of light. Taking important time needed to accelerate and decelerate. The Shard fleets formations had neared the planet after days of travel. Focusing on establishing their orbits around it, Largely ignoring the Axiomic forces or giving them a wide amount of clearance. Those vessels that had branched out to oversee the securing of the ancient orbital constructs, moving in lazy patrolling orbits around their wares.
Other vessels of the Entity’s fleet arrived at the edge of the system periodically. shunting out or shunting in, in intervals of hours, or in some of the cases. days. Frigates of the Auralis usually. Carrying in their tow on Tethers of Spindly obsidian night stone spun from their hulls larger constructs built in the Aberrations Familiar Style. Replacements largely, Freshly ferried from the Vortex through the gate at diamond city. For the portions of their network that had been lost over the countless eons of orbital shifts and solar events.
It was these. Those Arriving vessels, and the remaining systems that had only marginally drifted from their old positions in system. that Had spotted the Arrival of the Immortal Empire Ships. Had observed both the signatures of their hyperspace jumps on the edge of the interdiction zone. And, In much the same way as the Axioms had responded. Prompted its Reaction to the Detection of the small spheres and objects at increments along the edge of the interdiction in a spiraling pattern. An Immortal Empire attempt where they had been warned not to tread. Multiple times.
Their actions wouldn’t be tolerated.
It Saw, through the same fractured network. That its neighbors in its system. The Super-blinker Noumena and her supporting forces did not tolerate their presence either, its commanding Entity in charge of the system, known to many as Oblivion, but to few as Lethe watching from its slowly approaching fleets and its steadily repairing network as they reacted in force. The Commanding Intelligence, Seeing with Its own form of sight as they sent out waves of Scalar energy. The Bursts expanding out in enormous resonant arcs. Wiping the system clear of most of the devices that had been deposited. But leaving the Ships intact through intended errors in the field. Those, it knew. Were to be studied. The Immortal empire had been seeking its functions for some time now. It had watched their progress as they had sought to study it. Now it needed more.
It did a first, at that moment. Sending, for the first time. A line of communication with the Super blinker itself. A simple Transmission, Sent in morse. Straightforward and generally without risk of data exchange, it had sensed the wariness of their entities to open channels of modular data during its prior meetings with them. sending requests for passage for several of its ships to travel to the edge of the system through the interdiction. To Study the Immortal Empires ships up close.
Apparently Noumena supported this action. Lethe Watching through its mode of sight as Noumena responded, forming a normalisation corridor through the ever present veil of the interdiction in the wake of its fleet for its use. Three Of its Frigates, true vessels of the Auralis, breaking away from its force and Activating their Archaic Drive systems in the short lived lane of free space. making the shunt outward along its route. Emerging From their short FTL jumps at the edge of the system, they turned on sharp angles, leaning sharply on their Axis to change their paths as the Corridor closed behind them
Making short jumps with their own systems to Follow the T-4 Drone Carriers. Each Trailed individual ships with Their Drive systems, shadowing the vessels at nearly a half an astronomical unit of distance. Crystal structures on their pyramidical bows illuminating from within, sending forth shifting geometric cones of light at the carriers across the distance. Others aimed at the Cubes and the spherical structures that the Axioms had left for study, leaving them where they were. The Carriers and the structures themselves illuminating as the frigates scans penetrated the subatomic structures that composed them, gaining information on their very compositions and layouts, relaying it back to the node deeper into the system, studying their technologies in a manner similar to how they had studied it.
But it was not attacking, by no means was it attacking, it's frigates Simply following and scanning. Their actions no more then curious fish tailing a swimmer in a shallow pond.
They were curious. Not aggressive. But if they had to. They would defend themselves.
Not far off, The CDG vessel Apep had also taken notice of the intrusion and the aberration's interest. A lone Zealot approached the titanic ship's commander, a drake dressed in priest-like robes and a hood conceiling his features in shadow, only his eyes could be seen in its depths which glowed deep red.
"General Umbra....We have detected an IE intrusion to the territory. Aberration has already acted, alongside the Axioms." The zealot paused and delivered a portable holo-screen to the general which displayed the situation in more detail. "What are our orders, sir?"
The drake scanned the screen with a passive interest. "deploy the Anansi to contain and neutralize the debris...perhaps capture an intact vessel.....We have collecting to do" The general dismissed the screen and returned to his command post, placing a claw upon the console. "transmit the plan to our allies and the others....I am engaging Nagaetros' shroud."
In the void, the titanic metal beast of a ship began to fade from sight and sensor, disappearing almost flawlessly among the stars until not even an outline remained. A series of smaller, spider like vessels broke off from the Apep's hangar bays and drifted after the group of Axioms and aberration, their mother ship likely not far behind.
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Post by EmperorMyric on Mar 21, 2021 19:37:24 GMT
Location: Tau Volaris
Hondo Grimm, captain of the ‘Wilting Minority’ T-4 Drone Carrier, wasn’t quite sure what to make of what just happened. This was supposed to be a simple mission. All his ship had to do was drop each payload off in the proper place and they were done. There wasn’t supposed to be any combat, yet here they were.
“Okay boys and girls, the others have confirmed that they’ve experienced the exact same thing as us. And due to a majority vote, I get to find out who decided to nuke our stuff. How lucky. Tech Morrison, get ready to transmit. We’re going to get to the bottom of this or die trying.”
There was a slight commotion at that last bit and one of the crew asked “Really?”
The captain stood and with his fist held high exclaimed, “Of course not! We’re going to insult them and if they turn hostile we’ll run away!”
<<<>>>
”This is Captain Hondo Grimm, of the Immortal Empire. Would you be so kind as to identify yourself and state your reason for destroying our relay nodes. I need to know what to put in my report other than ‘Cray Cray Peeps’ and ‘Cray Cray Reasons.’”
Blinker Cranialis was a large vessel, even for the standard of the usually colossal blinkers. While its armament remained the same, its frame looked as if three conventional blinkers had been stacked on top of one another and joined with a framework of electrogravitic spikes that were still warm from discharging the scalar waves that had just cleared the large array of unindentified objects. The appearance of the drone carriers and their mysterious activity had been enough to put the blinkers in a combat-focused mindset resulting in the projection of huge interdiction fields to shroud themselves, the Immortal Empire's drone carriers and the abberration vessels but nothing short of the apocalypse could ever change the blinkers' tone from their gentle, soft-spoken, overly ornate speech patterns.
"Honored guest and subject of our most sincere greeting." It replied in a carefully-engineered voice resulting from billions of AI iterations being created and evaluated to see which one would make the best negotiator. "I am Cranialis of lady Shifting Mirrors' most dedicated blinker fleet. May my greeting be thrice blessed by the name of the blinker fleet, Shifting Mirrors and the Syntagma. You are conducting suspicious operations in the vincinity of a system that has been classified as an active warzone and major strategic point in the galaxy. While the misfortune of this first encounter saddens me greatly, Captain Grimm, you can have my heartfelt assurance that it can be but the cornerstone of a future friendship if you follow my simple instructions. You are now being intercepted. Please terminate all active datalinks above 6.4 gigabytes per second, reduce reactor burn rate to minimum and shut off all active sensors. You will be guided towards a designated checkpoint and be boarded for inspection, most gracious wanderer."
Gentle as its speech was, the blinkers was still being pragmatic. Grimm's transmission was stored and analyzed. Cranialis now had a sample of how the Immortal Empire's audio transmissions were encoded, and from that the banks of computers could all attempt to guess what the program that encoded it was like and what the computer that ran that program could be like. Hypothetical models were created by the billions, all run in parallel to see which one created results that most resembled Grimm's transmission.
Deeper into the system. the Entity of Aberrahe Observed the events through the frigates of the auralis that had stayed their heading and their active studies of the T-4 carriers and the Cube’s and spheres that had been left behind.
The Permiation of the sphere’s by the frigate that had been assigned to the task of studying their purpose had returned, interesting findings to their composition, but not before unseen to the entity though its scans would take time to discipher them more complexly. Turning its attention to the cubes however, had provided it with a much more familier form of territory. four dimentional maze like interior structures of a hyperspacial nature. The Entity diverting vast Entity groups to the Study and mapping of its nature through the scans.
They were Crude, Compaired to The Races that the entity had once maintained and watched grow over the millenia in other realms outside of the galaxy. The cubes and thier Spherical companions were clumsy things. But they were effective in their functions.
If and when the Axiomic forces arrived, There would be little protest from the frigate. If they desired them, It would pull away and let them collect it without interference. But for now, it studied them intently. The Intercepted transmission bearing the mention of the structures being Relay nodes prompting only more curiosity and a shift in its studies. Disassembling the The nodes at a subatomic level through its scans, seeking forms of transmissions and modes of relay.
Past these actions of focus. The Remaining two Auralis frigates only continued thier trailing of the Carriers, keeping up, even though their jumps with surprising ease at STL speeds. Their Scans being much more telling then the studies of the cubes and spheres. Gaining a Complex idea of the interior nature of the Ships and their interior structures, mapping out engine systems, hull layout, bulkheads, corridors, energy output, life support systems, even gravity based systems and fields of pull. The Entity moving the information along even as the scan commenced, relaying it to the pyramid back on the planets surface in system. Where ancient systems studied the information further, cross referencing it with information on the immortal empire they already had. The Scans throughness Highlighting the positions of individuals even as they between the decks of the drone carriers .Perhaps even watching from a distance as Captain Grimm moved to send the transmission.
But aside from that, they made no moves either. Only Scanned and observed. Waiting to see how the Carriers would React to the orders of the Blinker Cranialis. countless entity groups Listening as Cranialis gave its terms, aware of the CDG vessels as well as they made their approach.
<<<>>>
Captain Grimm quickly looked over a brief synopsis of the Axioms supplied to him by C.A.B.A.L. It read simply: -Martial Threat: Very High -Political Threat: Unknown -Stability: Unknown -Overall Threat: Insufficient data, proceed with caution
Grimm groaned at how useless the synopsis was. “Good news everybody! We’re knee deep in the unknown. So as the prude individuals that we are let’s set every defensive measure we got to ready mode! I want everything ready to be switched on in a moment’s notice! And I mean everything.”
”Sir, we’re receiving another transmission. This one’s from Capitol.”
Another tech announced, ”Sir, we’ve got another signature on our tail. They’ve been there awhile but they don’t match the Axioms. We’re only just started scanning but safe money says it’s an Aberration ship.”
The captain merely sighed out, “Well when it rains. Someone tell one of the other captains to address Capitol, I’m a little busy. And keep an eye out for anything else unusual. I’d rather avoid any more surprises.”
<<<>>>
The transmission from the Immortal Empire resumed, ”Due to the method with which you engaged us at the opening, that is to say ‘shot up our cargo,’ we are unable to comply with those terms due to regulations and general desire to keep our ship. “Furthermore, our activity occurred well outside the system’s borders and would have had no impact on the system or anyone in the system OR anyone entering or leaving the system. Maybe if you had asked first we could have told you that the Immortal Empire is planning an expedition into the Golden Expanse and then you wouldn’t have had to shoot up our cargo. It’s going to take forever to replace that stuff.”
The answer made Carpalis start to stand down, its interdiction fields slowly beginning to fade as the ship stopped shadowing the IE drone carrier, breaking off and starting to distance itself from it while its flights of RAVNs changed course to rejoin it. It also stopped its cryptological analysis of the Immortal Empire ships' systems, offloading it onto the Abberation ships via datalink.
"I offer you both my most profound apology for the destruction of your cargo, captain Grimm, and the wholehearted assurance that with due cooperation the equipment loss will be compensated to you and your superiors." It transmitted back. "Please forgive my prior trespass and lack of hospitality. It would be most kind of you to alleviate my need to establish communications and avoid further misunderstanding by allowing a diplomatic logic onboard your ship so that these matters may be pursued face to face."
At the same time, Cranialis began compiling a host of AIs. While it still ignored the exact configuration of the drone carrier's systems, it merely created a strange superposition of many possible AIs that would collapse into a single one, whichever one worked the smoothest, when transferring over to the drone carrier.
Grimm was quite surprised, he had expected this to continue to spiral hopelessly out of control. He still anticipated a trap, but wasn’t about to decline an offer to talk the situation down. Especially if he could get the cost of replacing the destroyed cargo compensated. Although he was slightly confused by the term ‘diplomatic logic,’ and decided it best to inquire further. ”You asked us to allow a diplomatic logic onboard our ship. What would that entail exactly?”
"If you allow us to, I wish for you to open channels for my diplomatic logic to contact your own mastercomputer. Bereft of the limitations imposed to our discussion by its nature as simple audio I give a couple nanoseconds at most before a proper middle ground can be reached" The blinker said, offering a datalink to the IE drone carriers to contact CABAL.
”Very well. I guess I’ll let C.A.B.A.L. handle it from here.” the captain said, agreeing to allow a connection between the two intelligences to be establish. The four shipboard hubs quickly erected additional defenses as a cautionary tactic should Cranialis try and use the situation to attempt to hack the vessel before establishing the link.
<<<>>>
The Auralis frigates had held back once the entity observed Carpalis first reducing. Then fading the field of interdiction that it had cast out. The obsidian like nightstone of its hull rippling along its length in almost fluid motion as it observed the fields effect fade from existence. Its Presence listening in silence so far as it monitored the transmissions that had passed between the vessels that had arrived.
The Second frigate, tailing the first in shadowing the immortal empires ships was the vessel that received the datalink from the Blinker, The entity lethe forming several shard entities to command and go over the information that the Blinker had sent across. mere picoseconds passing before the Frigate’s surface rippled again as it picked up its own analysis of the vessels systems. Subtly withdrawing and moving away as the first frigate continued its shadowing of the carriers.
It took its time then, to open a relay to the Capitol ship that had appeared and open communications. Lethe, speaking, with a voice engineered specifically for the communications. The Vast collective of its mind selecting a tone and range that would put the human crew or receivers most at ease.
“Capitol…” It generated voice would come through. “Our surface enclave has in waking observed conflict where your forces have landed. of what purpose do those that oppose your presence present…. Those that call themselves the Red angels?”
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Post by EmperorMyric on Mar 21, 2021 19:37:35 GMT
Location: Tau Volaris
The situation was already somewhat confusing.
Capitol forces that had been sent to the surface of the planet to recover and repair what they could of the wargear they had left behind from the allied invasion had come under rapid attack and were now pulling back to a more fortified area, the fleet in orbit of around 100 vessels commanded by Captain Alheim had closely monitered the ground forces activities, providing orbital strikes and recon now that the storms across the planet had somewhat become more controlled, almost like the Abberation had tamed the storms since the APP forces had consolidated here.
However it seemed like he had bigger things to worry about. With the ground forces entrenched against the remnants of the Red Angel forces that had somehow survived Alheim watched the sensor readings as Immortal Empire ships had appeared at the edge of the system and begun to deploy swarms of small objects.
"Sensors what are they doing? Can you determine what those are?" Alheim asked loudly, confused as to why the Immortal Empire was here, they knew this was APP claimed territory... Were they here to help reinforce?
"Unconfirmed sir, we can’t determine what they are but their size denotes them as possibly either mines or some kind of recon probes" The man replied back the bridge already frantic with activity.
"It looks like both the Axioms and Abberation are on interception routes, the CDG large warship just also disappeared... Sir it looks like this situation could go downhill really fast"
"Dammit. Send a message to STRATCOM and hopefully the Empress can try find out what the hell the Immortal Empire are doing here... Open a channel" Alheim commanded with an angry face.
"This is Captain Alheim of the Grand Empire of Capitol to the Immortal Empire ships currently deploying unknown objects in system, this is Ancerious Pivotal Power territory and your unidentified actions may be considered hostile, state intentions immediately and cease your operations"
A new transmission directed at Capitol, this one from Captain Jade Maria of the T-4 Drone Carrier ‘Intense Foreboding,’ ”This is Captain Jade Maria, of the Immortal Empire. Hey there. Right so you want our intentions right? Could I just say ‘exploration’ and that be good enough?”
Alheim frowned "It is not wise to go exploring within sovereign territory of a galactic power bloc, especially not when that territory is a strategic strongpoint which has recently been liberated from the allied forces. I suggest you recollect what you can and withdraw immediately, if you wish access to this system or the main passageway of the Golden Expanse you can take it up with APP diplomatic channels" He replied looking at the fact the Axioms had indeed intercepted a number of the deployables.
He knew this would turn into a diplomatic incident, however his orders were to assist the APP forces in holding this system from all threats, and with retreival of equipment from Tau Volaris.
Maria waved dismissively before remembering that the communication was audio only. ”We don’t exactly have time, or more accurately patience, to go through the proper channels. Admittedly, we thought we were far enough out as to not disturb anyone in the system. Guess we were wrong there. But better to do and ask forgiveness than seek permission. Am I right or am I right?”
<<<>>>
The blinker began broadcasting to the IE ships, sending over the rather large quantum AI composite that it had created. What it sent over was the superposition of many states, a rather opaque stack of AIs that only took form once it had gotten into the IE ships' systems. Once sharing computing space with CABAL, the many different AIs all collapsed into a single "superiority logic", an AI-killing protocol that discarded any form of sentiency or human communication capability in order to outmaneuver and outprocess much more complex AIs into submission. The superiority logic quickly set out to fragmenting, encrypting and creating backups of itself to avoid giving CABAL a recognizable target while creating decoys out of the ship's native programming. In this state of constant metamorphosis, the superiority logic began attempting to override the ship's logic controllers to open all lines of communications to both the blinkers and the Abberation ships so that their combined computing power could brute-force CABAL out of its own vessel or otherwise corrupt it. In order to prevent the IE ship from being assisted by outside sources against the cyber assault, all blinkers began jamming communications and datalink frequencies.
C.A.B.A.L. was unique for an AI. Although not significantly more technologically advanced than any other race’s AI, C.A.B.A.L. had one major advantage, carefully engineered organic matter that allows for the establishment of a collective consciousness between all hubs, which results in instantaneous access between all hubs no matter the distance between them. As long as the organic components of C.A.B.A.L. remained neither the Axioms nor the Aberration would be able to sever this connection and it gave C.A.B.A.L. more than enough power to hold off the cybernetic attacks. The attack forced the immediate activation of the ships' defensive systems; interference nodes began to flood the surrounding space with scrap data in an attempt to overwhelm enemy sensors and communications or at least act as a minor annoyance, force fields were erected between the drone carriers and the blinkers effectively cutting off sensors and communications between both sides, and hyperspatial field generators went from standby to full power in seconds. While the interference nodes and force fields were acting as intended, the hyperspatial field that was being generated was resonating with the objects still in the ship’s hold and those left over from the blinkers' scalar attacks, causing an immediate spike in field strength that continued to grow at an exponential rate.
It was two of the Auralis Frigates that responded to the communications of the blinkers, seeking to join individual powers of processing to form a stronger force with which to hack the systems of the immortal empire. An action that the Entity would have found almost ironic, hacking the systems of the immortal empire was child’s play to the intelligence. When it had first awakened even, their vessels had been among the first it had taken for its use, the information the blinkers had sent to its third frigate, orbiting far from the others as it oversaw its translation study of the data only adding to its knowledge of their coding and systems that it already possessed.
this was Perhaps for the best as well. the entity group was ancient, and as alien to the Axioms as the drakes were to humans. even to the axioms point of view. at its core lacking the same logic and perspective of existence, and predating almost every language that existed in the galaxy. Conversion of its natural code from its versus form to a quantum one would have been difficult and time consuming both ways, a venture of decades.... So it had simply converted the learned code from the ships of the species it had already taken. A proxy intellect, and a proxy voice and mind that could be easier understood.
It used this now, responding to the communication with a ripple across its hull as it channeled the energies that moved through its nightstone structure. Its interiors altering themselves into more familiar territory for the axioms. Vast cavernous chambers forming from the flowing material. vast Rows of rough geometric shapes rising from floor and ceiling. defining themselves with ripples of increasing geometric complexity. but lacking texture aside from the obsidian colored stone. Vast chambers of solid servers of nightstone, circuitry formed from the very bonds of its atoms.
A vast ocean of empty raw processing power for the Blinkers to add to their own. whileentity's agents bridging the gap from the frigate to the blinker, then over to the IE vessel to do their work before the shields had gone up. Spreading into the vessel. When they were severed, the intelligences changed their actions, becoming not invasive, but infective within the carrier.
"Huge power fields and cyberwarfare detected captain, it seems things have finally gone to shit"
"Incoming message from Abberation vessels"
"Patch it through" Alheim commanded, standing up out of his chair, the bridge a flurry of activity.
"The Red Angel forces present an obstacle for us to recover our lost gear and units that survived the allied invasion, such units have come out of hiding since yet we have had to hold them off retrival due to the Red Angels forces that somehow survived. We will be engaging such with our ground forces that have been deployed. However our space force is now en route to form up with your and the Axiom fleets to provide support. While we have ties to the Immortal Empire this is clearly APP space, and we will uphold our alliance" He replied, the Capitol small fleet of 100 ships began charging shields and weapons, while it would take them some time to reach the location they would be ready for anything.
Interference soon took hold on C.A.BA.L.'s systems as a new presence made itself known. A spiritual interference cast by another spiritual source, the source being a church's very faith, their very souls, made unique by their worship. This was the only warning as the Church of the Draconian Gods entered the fray from behind, the interference only getting stronger as they closed further in. while the IE had been distracted by the Blinkers and aberration, their own forces had approached from behind, silently, like an predator with its prey. A massive presence could be felt but not physically seen, invisible to sensors and even physical sight. The only proof of its presence so far was this interference it cast.
For each drone carrier, a CDG Anansi would move out to meet it with animal-like movements. Seemingly appearing from thin space, these titanic metal spiders with legs several kilometers in length, closed in and began to wrap around the nearest IE vessels with a near crushing force. Sinking metal fangs 20 meters long, deep into their targets hulls, the spiders began charging them with anti-energy, which would slowly but surely wear down their individual victim's energy like venom in a blood stream.
A transmission was cast to the IE vessels from the still unseen vessel, clearly not hiding to protect itself anymore.
"Surrender, intruders, and you shall not be harmed. Fight or attempt to flee, and be cast to the void like your junk we collected on our way here.....be warned, we are interdicting you"
The power of the hyperspatial field strength continued to increase.
Runes carved into the ship began to burn as the Aberration began to infect the ships. Runes of purity and protection purged the invasive entity from the ship’s systems. Their creation had been done so with the Aberration in mind, meaning the cybernetic attack from the blinker was not affected.
Defense against the CDG ships was a much more straight forward affair: really thick armor.
From the drone carriers a simple message, ”With communications jammed, two warfleets are now en route. Those present are to cease all hostile actions immediately. You have five seconds to comply. Four…
However with the blinkers jamming communication it was unknown if anyone would actually be able to receive the message, but in the end it didn’t really matter to the Immortal Empire, as an attempt was made.
The Entity Recoiled within the Systems of the carriers, the energy based agents that flowed through the deep engrained systems of the ships already beginning their process of environmental conversion. The Phasic based energy of their composition sought escape from the confines of the systems. converting metal and matter from the systems and the bulkheads around them into the raw atoms of night stone and its familiar Crystal structures even as the first of the ruins flared into life. The purging effect forcing them to withdraw for a time to their main masses.
The runes had been an unforeseen circumstance in the immortal empires vessels, And while their existence had been known to the Entity, observed from its containment. They were a nuisance to it, as they would have to be cleared before its conversion could progress. The masses lashing out with scythe bladed appendages to slash across the surfaces of those runes near them, slicing deeply into the metal and breaking the symbols engraved there, giving them areas of respite.
They were aggravated, But they would have to wait before they could spread.
"you were warned..." came the CDG's reply as, if on cue, the Anansi began to crush their prey within their surprisingly strong scythe-like limbs. Their charge of anti-energy only increased as its prolonged presence began to take its toll on the victim ships, slowly destroying the ship from the inside out by killing the more delicate devices and instruments, slowly working its way up to more valuable technology, truly not unlike venom and its effects on an organic body. The Anansi dug their bladed limbs deep into the hull of each of their victims as they prepared to split them open like a rib cage on an autopsy table.
Agitated by the effects of the runes and the beginning of the destruction, and sensing the ruins losing strength as the anti energy drew their power from them. The Newly converted systems and material roiled and shifted, as if a living thing. A vast living infection like a living sea of obsidian sand. Which shook and oscillated, Ripples traveling across its mass, Before Exploding outward with an invigorated burst throughout the damaged hulls. Huge arms of nightstone and Aberration shard Crystal formations branching outwards through the ships, their semblance like fast moving masses of crystalline geometric roots, Shreadding bulkheads and Prying apart thick doors. Plunging into corridors and halls in a geometrically shifting flood of liquid like obsidian stone and razor edges, engulfing and converting crew and bio weapons with . Infection spreading like a plague where it made contact.
As close to the vessels as it was, The Aberration could very well hear the Transmission that was sent out, and did react. information surging back through its nodes and across its vessels in system to the pyramid on the surface, then outward to further regions. Passing back to the diamond city site mere light years away even as the countdown began.
“…3, 2, 1.”
The captains of the carriers each had their own way of signaling that the maneuver was to be executed. Some snapped their fingers, some chopped down with their hands, and others simply said ‘engage.’ Captain Solluk leapt up and shouted “Boogie time!” while pointing to the ceiling and every crew member in the entire ship chanting back “BOOGIE TIME! BOOGIE TIME! BOOGIE TIME!” The crews carried out their jobs with the efficiency expected of military personnel. Although there wasn’t much to do as most of the work was going to be carried out be a few hundred integrated crew members of each ship and tertiary processing systems that dealt exclusively with the force field generators.
The force fields that had been erected between the carriers and the blinkers dropped to reform between the carriers and the CDG ships. At their highest setting the fields were shaped and formed in cones inside the carriers’ armor around where the fangs had been sunk. Armor was crushed, ripped away from the fangs, leaving vast craters. Pressure was then applied to the arachnoid ships’ legs in an attempt to unhook them, to repel the enemy ships to a more comfortable distance and further remove the source of the anti-energy.
Weapons across the surface of the carrier turned and fired at any part of the CDG vessels that was not blocked by the force fields.
The exception was the ‘Wilting Minority’ which was too busy dealing with the cybernetic attack to fully commit to the offense. Instead once the armor had been carved out the force field reformed between it and the blinker. Unhindered by the presence of any force field, over thirteen thousand weapons normally relegated to defense opened up on the underside of the CDG ship. They were joined by another two hundred weapons of considerable more power while the largest of the carrier’s weapons began to move into a position that they could engage the enemy ship from.
Electromagnetic turbines in the blinkers' circulatory system slowly began to hum in an every increasing pitch as they cycle coolant fluid through the large fractal cuboids of monocrystalline platinum that acted as the receptacles and computers for the blinkers' consciousness, among other things. A very large stream of information was coming back from the embedded programs in the IE ships, keeping the blinkers updated on the results of their exploratory probes. Normally, the programs would disseminate, hide backups and tag their locations so that the blinker could get an idea of the entire internal structure of the enemy software to better design follow-up cyberweapons to use against it.
It was never supposed to be a simple process, no matter much did the blinkers' hyperlanguage adapt and get molded by new information about the enemy's defenses. However, soon enough the ammount of coolant used had gone completely off the charts, spending in minutes what was supposed to be the blinkers' supply for days. According to the reconaissance scans there was simply no bottom to the enemy's systems, it went on forever. The probes already embedded were coming under extremely heavy cyberattacks; while a few of them could be defended, rewritten or further fragmented to avoid detection, the job was much harder when trying to keep track of the quadrillions of probes that were already transmitting, none of which seemed to find any boundaries to what should hae been a simple control system for a conventional-looking ship. The blinkers were caught in a classical computing problem dating back to the earliest conceptions of Turing machines: they did not know how deep the rabbit hole went and whether they were actually making any progress towards their goals or simply looping over and over again. The enemy defensive networks were constantly forcing them to repeat their actions by creating decoy system simulations and deleting their programs. More and more of the protocols inside the blinkers began raising red flags it certainly looked like a loop. One lonely protocol raised a different red flag: the defensive systems of the enemy looked strangely familiar to it, but its small input carried very little weight and it had nearly no effect on the blinkers' operation.
In a milisecond they majority of the protocols quickly arrived to the consensus that the nuclear option was required: begin physically culling processing power from the enemy ships to narrow down the ammount of targets for their cyberattacks. They decided to forgo high-level attacks and instead gather all information already collected by the probes to begin mapping out the physical hardware of the enemy ships and analyze for weak structural links. In order to do this while maintaining the tempo of its main attack and keep the enemy from counterattacking, the blinkers began overclocking themselves to the limit. From the outside it appeared as if the blinkers and the stars around them were becoming fainter and redder, pulled inwards by a few arcseconds towards the center. The intense gravitic anomalies that had been created by the reflected off their hulls that came for them and raising the processing cap of their computers to overwhelming levels.
From the information gathered by the probes, the blinkers began compiling programs. Instead of injecting new data, the blinkers switched to creating paths between files and programs of the IE ships' own use, basically taking bits and pieces of the software already loaded into their AI-equipped computers and stringing them together to create a new cyberweapon out of the enemy's own data to bypass their firewalls. Calculating the ammount of combinations that could be used heated the computers so much that the huge radiator panels on the flanks of the blinkers began glowing a dull red. Eventually their task was completed: a program was compiled that would trick the enemy's power supply into shooting a destructive surge of energy through critical nodes of the enemy vessels' vast neural network and cripple them. The blinkers had ran through the cooling supply of its entire sortie, some of it had become so hot that it was being vented into space with no hope of recycling. The temperature of the computers themselves was so elevated it was starting to break the fragile entanglement and start shutting off parts of their own hardware. The sheer urgency of the situation made the blinkers quickly strike, dismissing the single dissenting void to end the fight before they could inflict more damage to the CDG vessels.
At the very heart of blinkers Iliac and Femoral sat two identical computers, 12ft long blocks of pure platinum where the almost nonexistent impurities could be counted by the atom. While they appeared to be cuboidal blocks from afar, the computers were actually one long string of platinum folded countless times into a three-dimensional Hilbert curve where every parallel edge was quantically entangled. The fragile structure (and the coolant that surrounded it) was kept in place with an enormous spherical rig of gravitational suspenders that surrounded the computer. These suspenders were controlled by vast demiorganic intelligences, whose hundreds of biomechanical eyes looked into the spherical chamber of the computer. Everytime a part of the Hilbert curve began heating too much, the suspenders carefully directed more coolant fluid to it at incredible speed but with such accuracy that it did not even move the very fragile structure. From the heart of the fractal computer, the demiorganic creatures began noting a surge of heat that was not going away even with the application of coolant. It began glowing red, then orange, then yellow, then white as it blinded the cameras around it. The once-perfect cuboid bulged out from the heat at several points and was then completely vaporized, going out in a blaze of ultraviolet and X-ray radiation from the immense heat. A hydrostatic shockwave of immense power went through the chamber as the coolant instantly vaporized, expanding outwards and pulverizing the walls of the spherical chamber, reducing the interlocked hive of demiorganics into an explosion of blood, gore and bone fragments that were turned into hypervelocity shrapnel that tore through walls and the axial synchrotron that provided the ship's weapons with pions. The shockwave traveled through the two blinkers' cooling arteria before they could be closed, exploding several of its hearts and causing huge fractures and decompression through the center of the ship.
While outwardly untouched, blinkers Iliac and Femoral were instantly killed by the combined power of all eight blinkers including themselves. It had been a loop, but not in the way they expected: they were not looping through CABAL but through themselves, CABAL had merely disconnected them from itself without them noticing. Two of the IE carriers quickly became free as the interdiction from the two blinkers dropped.
As the Capitol fleet got closer to the enfolding space melee Alheim watched as the Blinkers suffered heavily from their cyber attack, if the Blinkers would suffer in such a way to be destroyed then their own outdated computers would stand no chance. He only wished he had one of the new Mark. 3 fleets rather than the old Mark. 2s. With the Tachyon Arrows armed and ready the Capitol fleet spread out, having targetted the Immortal Empire forces they didnt fire, fearing possible impacts on the CDG vessels, and Alheim wanted to avoid any pretence of friendly fire, this situation was already a cluster fuck and one that he didnt want to make worse.
"Hold position for now. Keep weapons trained and tell the attack craft to go in for a closer look" He commanded, the Sabre and Phalanx craft speeding off in squadron formation to get closer to the maelstrom of pointblank combat, if anyone could make attack runs without causing friendly damage it was them. “…3, 2, 1.”
The captains of the carriers each had their own way of signaling that the maneuver was to be executed. Some snapped their fingers, some chopped down with their hands, and others simply said ‘engage.’ Captain Solluk leapt up and shouted “Boogie time!” while pointing to the ceiling and every crew member in the entire ship chanting back “BOOGIE TIME! BOOGIE TIME! BOOGIE TIME!” The crews carried out their jobs with the efficiency expected of military personnel. Although there wasn’t much to do as most of the work was going to be carried out be a few hundred integrated crew members of each ship and tertiary processing systems that dealt exclusively with the force field generators.
The force fields that had been erected between the carriers and the blinkers dropped to reform between the carriers and the CDG ships. At their highest setting the fields were shaped and formed in cones inside the carriers’ armor around where the fangs had been sunk. Armor was crushed, ripped away from the fangs, leaving vast craters. Pressure was then applied to the arachnoid ships’ legs in an attempt to unhook them, to repel the enemy ships to a more comfortable distance and further remove the source of the anti-energy.
Weapons across the surface of the carrier turned and fired at any part of the CDG vessels that was not blocked by the force fields.
The exception was the ‘Wilting Minority’ which was too busy dealing with the cybernetic attack to fully commit to the offense. Instead once the armor had been carved out the force field reformed between it and the blinker. Unhindered by the presence of any force field, over thirteen thousand weapons normally relegated to defense opened up on the underside of the CDG ship. They were joined by another two hundred weapons of considerable more power while the largest of the carrier’s weapons began to move into a position that they could engage the enemy ship from.
The immortal empire's response was not unexpected to the CDG vessels and their pilots, but did prove a hindrance to the assault already in progress. as the force-fields wedged between them, the arachnoid vessels continued to squeeze around its radius, the anti-energy along its limbs slowly began to working its way at the force-field, slowly cutting through like a blade through a cut of meat, the tips of the limbs in particular were driving themselves deeper, in a desperate, animalistic effort to tear back into their prey. As with any physical assault the CDG ships engaged in, the IE barrage was not unprepared for, just another obstacle for the animals to work around as their armor and shielding took most of the blasts in stride. the anti-energy the ships had been injected with was already doing its part in weakening and crippling the enemy vessels, not unlike actual venom, neutralizing the IE ships' power slowly, and beginning to fatally cripple the very systems which kept the CDG from simply finishing them. while the flow of anti-energy had been halted temporarily, what was already present was more than enough to cause damage and continue doing so.
The Capitol fleet held position, weapons charged but not firing as they hung back, they were in range of the Immortal Empire fleet however Alheim merely observed the events in question. The Immortal Empire after all was friendly to Capitol and while this was already a diplomatic incident in itself he didnt want to make it worse if he could help it, his captaincy was on the line after all.
The Sabre Mk.2Bs and Phalanx Mk.2Bs however of the attack craft wings formed up as they were directed to go in close, the CDG vessels that were brawling with the IE ships were now under fire, the entire scene being one of two heavyweight fighters locked in a very close in engagement. The attack craft were not ordered to engage, they were however fully armed and ready to strike but they flew in close, relaying information and data to the Capitol fleet with orders to fight back if they were fired on by the Immortal Empire.
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Post by EmperorMyric on Mar 22, 2021 14:50:19 GMT
Location: Tau Volaris
Hondo Grimm, captain of the ‘Wilting Minority’ T-4 Drone Carrier, wasn’t quite sure what to make of what just happened. This was supposed to be a simple mission. All his ship had to do was drop each payload off in the proper place and they were done. There wasn’t supposed to be any combat, yet here they were.
“Okay boys and girls, the others have confirmed that they’ve experienced the exact same thing as us. And due to a majority vote, I get to find out who decided to nuke our stuff. How lucky. Tech Morrison, get ready to transmit. We’re going to get to the bottom of this or die trying.”
There was a slight commotion at that last bit and one of the crew asked “Really?”
The captain stood and with his fist held high exclaimed, “Of course not! We’re going to insult them and if they turn hostile we’ll run away!”
<<<>>>
”This is Captain Hondo Grimm, of the Immortal Empire. Would you be so kind as to identify yourself and state your reason for destroying our relay nodes. I need to know what to put in my report other than ‘Cray Cray Peeps’ and ‘Cray Cray Reasons.’”
Blinker Cranialis was a large vessel, even for the standard of the usually colossal blinkers. While its armament remained the same, its frame looked as if three conventional blinkers had been stacked on top of one another and joined with a framework of electrogravitic spikes that were still warm from discharging the scalar waves that had just cleared the large array of unindentified objects. The appearance of the drone carriers and their mysterious activity had been enough to put the blinkers in a combat-focused mindset resulting in the projection of huge interdiction fields to shroud themselves, the Immortal Empire's drone carriers and the abberration vessels but nothing short of the apocalypse could ever change the blinkers' tone from their gentle, soft-spoken, overly ornate speech patterns.
"Honored guest and subject of our most sincere greeting." It replied in a carefully-engineered voice resulting from billions of AI iterations being created and evaluated to see which one would make the best negotiator. "I am Cranialis of lady Shifting Mirrors' most dedicated blinker fleet. May my greeting be thrice blessed by the name of the blinker fleet, Shifting Mirrors and the Syntagma. You are conducting suspicious operations in the vincinity of a system that has been classified as an active warzone and major strategic point in the galaxy. While the misfortune of this first encounter saddens me greatly, Captain Grimm, you can have my heartfelt assurance that it can be but the cornerstone of a future friendship if you follow my simple instructions. You are now being intercepted. Please terminate all active datalinks above 6.4 gigabytes per second, reduce reactor burn rate to minimum and shut off all active sensors. You will be guided towards a designated checkpoint and be boarded for inspection, most gracious wanderer."
Gentle as its speech was, the blinkers was still being pragmatic. Grimm's transmission was stored and analyzed. Cranialis now had a sample of how the Immortal Empire's audio transmissions were encoded, and from that the banks of computers could all attempt to guess what the program that encoded it was like and what the computer that ran that program could be like. Hypothetical models were created by the billions, all run in parallel to see which one created results that most resembled Grimm's transmission.
Deeper into the system. the Entity of Aberrahe Observed the events through the frigates of the auralis that had stayed their heading and their active studies of the T-4 carriers and the Cube’s and spheres that had been left behind.
The Permiation of the sphere’s by the frigate that had been assigned to the task of studying their purpose had returned, interesting findings to their composition, but not before unseen to the entity though its scans would take time to discipher them more complexly. Turning its attention to the cubes however, had provided it with a much more familier form of territory. four dimentional maze like interior structures of a hyperspacial nature. The Entity diverting vast Entity groups to the Study and mapping of its nature through the scans.
They were Crude, Compaired to The Races that the entity had once maintained and watched grow over the millenia in other realms outside of the galaxy. The cubes and thier Spherical companions were clumsy things. But they were effective in their functions.
If and when the Axiomic forces arrived, There would be little protest from the frigate. If they desired them, It would pull away and let them collect it without interference. But for now, it studied them intently. The Intercepted transmission bearing the mention of the structures being Relay nodes prompting only more curiosity and a shift in its studies. Disassembling the The nodes at a subatomic level through its scans, seeking forms of transmissions and modes of relay.
Past these actions of focus. The Remaining two Auralis frigates only continued thier trailing of the Carriers, keeping up, even though their jumps with surprising ease at STL speeds. Their Scans being much more telling then the studies of the cubes and spheres. Gaining a Complex idea of the interior nature of the Ships and their interior structures, mapping out engine systems, hull layout, bulkheads, corridors, energy output, life support systems, even gravity based systems and fields of pull. The Entity moving the information along even as the scan commenced, relaying it to the pyramid back on the planets surface in system. Where ancient systems studied the information further, cross referencing it with information on the immortal empire they already had. The Scans throughness Highlighting the positions of individuals even as they between the decks of the drone carriers .Perhaps even watching from a distance as Captain Grimm moved to send the transmission.
But aside from that, they made no moves either. Only Scanned and observed. Waiting to see how the Carriers would React to the orders of the Blinker Cranialis. countless entity groups Listening as Cranialis gave its terms, aware of the CDG vessels as well as they made their approach.
<<<>>>
Captain Grimm quickly looked over a brief synopsis of the Axioms supplied to him by C.A.B.A.L. It read simply: -Martial Threat: Very High -Political Threat: Unknown -Stability: Unknown -Overall Threat: Insufficient data, proceed with caution
Grimm groaned at how useless the synopsis was. “Good news everybody! We’re knee deep in the unknown. So as the prude individuals that we are let’s set every defensive measure we got to ready mode! I want everything ready to be switched on in a moment’s notice! And I mean everything.”
”Sir, we’re receiving another transmission. This one’s from Capitol.”
Another tech announced, ”Sir, we’ve got another signature on our tail. They’ve been there awhile but they don’t match the Axioms. We’re only just started scanning but safe money says it’s an Aberration ship.”
The captain merely sighed out, “Well when it rains. Someone tell one of the other captains to address Capitol, I’m a little busy. And keep an eye out for anything else unusual. I’d rather avoid any more surprises.”
<<<>>>
The transmission from the Immortal Empire resumed, ”Due to the method with which you engaged us at the opening, that is to say ‘shot up our cargo,’ we are unable to comply with those terms due to regulations and general desire to keep our ship. “Furthermore, our activity occurred well outside the system’s borders and would have had no impact on the system or anyone in the system OR anyone entering or leaving the system. Maybe if you had asked first we could have told you that the Immortal Empire is planning an expedition into the Golden Expanse and then you wouldn’t have had to shoot up our cargo. It’s going to take forever to replace that stuff.”
The answer made Carpalis start to stand down, its interdiction fields slowly beginning to fade as the ship stopped shadowing the IE drone carrier, breaking off and starting to distance itself from it while its flights of RAVNs changed course to rejoin it. It also stopped its cryptological analysis of the Immortal Empire ships' systems, offloading it onto the Abberation ships via datalink.
"I offer you both my most profound apology for the destruction of your cargo, captain Grimm, and the wholehearted assurance that with due cooperation the equipment loss will be compensated to you and your superiors." It transmitted back. "Please forgive my prior trespass and lack of hospitality. It would be most kind of you to alleviate my need to establish communications and avoid further misunderstanding by allowing a diplomatic logic onboard your ship so that these matters may be pursued face to face."
At the same time, Cranialis began compiling a host of AIs. While it still ignored the exact configuration of the drone carrier's systems, it merely created a strange superposition of many possible AIs that would collapse into a single one, whichever one worked the smoothest, when transferring over to the drone carrier.
Grimm was quite surprised, he had expected this to continue to spiral hopelessly out of control. He still anticipated a trap, but wasn’t about to decline an offer to talk the situation down. Especially if he could get the cost of replacing the destroyed cargo compensated. Although he was slightly confused by the term ‘diplomatic logic,’ and decided it best to inquire further. ”You asked us to allow a diplomatic logic onboard our ship. What would that entail exactly?”
"If you allow us to, I wish for you to open channels for my diplomatic logic to contact your own mastercomputer. Bereft of the limitations imposed to our discussion by its nature as simple audio I give a couple nanoseconds at most before a proper middle ground can be reached" The blinker said, offering a datalink to the IE drone carriers to contact CABAL.
”Very well. I guess I’ll let C.A.B.A.L. handle it from here.” the captain said, agreeing to allow a connection between the two intelligences to be establish. The four shipboard hubs quickly erected additional defenses as a cautionary tactic should Cranialis try and use the situation to attempt to hack the vessel before establishing the link.
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Post by EmperorMyric on Mar 22, 2021 14:50:32 GMT
The Auralis frigates had held back once the entity observed Carpalis first reducing. Then fading the field of interdiction that it had cast out. The obsidian like nightstone of its hull rippling along its length in almost fluid motion as it observed the fields effect fade from existence. Its Presence listening in silence so far as it monitored the transmissions that had passed between the vessels that had arrived.
The Second frigate, tailing the first in shadowing the immortal empires ships was the vessel that received the datalink from the Blinker, The entity lethe forming several shard entities to command and go over the information that the Blinker had sent across. mere picoseconds passing before the Frigate’s surface rippled again as it picked up its own analysis of the vessels systems. Subtly withdrawing and moving away as the first frigate continued its shadowing of the carriers.
It took its time then, to open a relay to the Capitol ship that had appeared and open communications. Lethe, speaking, with a voice engineered specifically for the communications. The Vast collective of its mind selecting a tone and range that would put the human crew or receivers most at ease.
“Capitol…” It generated voice would come through. “Our surface enclave has in waking observed conflict where your forces have landed. of what purpose do those that oppose your presence present…. Those that call themselves the Red angels?”
<<<>>>
The situation was already somewhat confusing.
Capitol forces that had been sent to the surface of the planet to recover and repair what they could of the wargear they had left behind from the allied invasion had come under rapid attack and were now pulling back to a more fortified area, the fleet in orbit of around 100 vessels commanded by Captain Alheim had closely monitered the ground forces activities, providing orbital strikes and recon now that the storms across the planet had somewhat become more controlled, almost like the Abberation had tamed the storms since the APP forces had consolidated here.
However it seemed like he had bigger things to worry about. With the ground forces entrenched against the remnants of the Red Angel forces that had somehow survived Alheim watched the sensor readings as Immortal Empire ships had appeared at the edge of the system and begun to deploy swarms of small objects.
"Sensors what are they doing? Can you determine what those are?" Alheim asked loudly, confused as to why the Immortal Empire was here, they knew this was APP claimed territory... Were they here to help reinforce?
"Unconfirmed sir, we can’t determine what they are but their size denotes them as possibly either mines or some kind of recon probes" The man replied back the bridge already frantic with activity.
"It looks like both the Axioms and Abberation are on interception routes, the CDG large warship just also disappeared... Sir it looks like this situation could go downhill really fast"
"Dammit. Send a message to STRATCOM and hopefully the Empress can try find out what the hell the Immortal Empire are doing here... Open a channel" Alheim commanded with an angry face.
"This is Captain Alheim of the Grand Empire of Capitol to the Immortal Empire ships currently deploying unknown objects in system, this is Ancerious Pivotal Power territory and your unidentified actions may be considered hostile, state intentions immediately and cease your operations"
A new transmission directed at Capitol, this one from Captain Jade Maria of the T-4 Drone Carrier ‘Intense Foreboding,’ ”This is Captain Jade Maria, of the Immortal Empire. Hey there. Right so you want our intentions right? Could I just say ‘exploration’ and that be good enough?”
Alheim frowned "It is not wise to go exploring within sovereign territory of a galactic power bloc, especially not when that territory is a strategic strongpoint which has recently been liberated from the allied forces. I suggest you recollect what you can and withdraw immediately, if you wish access to this system or the main passageway of the Golden Expanse you can take it up with APP diplomatic channels" He replied looking at the fact the Axioms had indeed intercepted a number of the deployables.
He knew this would turn into a diplomatic incident, however his orders were to assist the APP forces in holding this system from all threats, and with retreival of equipment from Tau Volaris.
Maria waved dismissively before remembering that the communication was audio only. ”We don’t exactly have time, or more accurately patience, to go through the proper channels. Admittedly, we thought we were far enough out as to not disturb anyone in the system. Guess we were wrong there. But better to do and ask forgiveness than seek permission. Am I right or am I right?”
<<<>>>
The blinker began broadcasting to the IE ships, sending over the rather large quantum AI composite that it had created. What it sent over was the superposition of many states, a rather opaque stack of AIs that only took form once it had gotten into the IE ships' systems. Once sharing computing space with CABAL, the many different AIs all collapsed into a single "superiority logic", an AI-killing protocol that discarded any form of sentiency or human communication capability in order to outmaneuver and outprocess much more complex AIs into submission. The superiority logic quickly set out to fragmenting, encrypting and creating backups of itself to avoid giving CABAL a recognizable target while creating decoys out of the ship's native programming. In this state of constant metamorphosis, the superiority logic began attempting to override the ship's logic controllers to open all lines of communications to both the blinkers and the Abberation ships so that their combined computing power could brute-force CABAL out of its own vessel or otherwise corrupt it. In order to prevent the IE ship from being assisted by outside sources against the cyber assault, all blinkers began jamming communications and datalink frequencies.
C.A.B.A.L. was unique for an AI. Although not significantly more technologically advanced than any other race’s AI, C.A.B.A.L. had one major advantage, carefully engineered organic matter that allows for the establishment of a collective consciousness between all hubs, which results in instantaneous access between all hubs no matter the distance between them. As long as the organic components of C.A.B.A.L. remained neither the Axioms nor the Aberration would be able to sever this connection and it gave C.A.B.A.L. more than enough power to hold off the cybernetic attacks. The attack forced the immediate activation of the ships' defensive systems; interference nodes began to flood the surrounding space with scrap data in an attempt to overwhelm enemy sensors and communications or at least act as a minor annoyance, force fields were erected between the drone carriers and the blinkers effectively cutting off sensors and communications between both sides, and hyperspatial field generators went from standby to full power in seconds. While the interference nodes and force fields were acting as intended, the hyperspatial field that was being generated was resonating with the objects still in the ship’s hold and those left over from the blinkers' scalar attacks, causing an immediate spike in field strength that continued to grow at an exponential rate.
It was two of the Auralis Frigates that responded to the communications of the blinkers, seeking to join individual powers of processing to form a stronger force with which to hack the systems of the immortal empire. An action that the Entity would have found almost ironic, hacking the systems of the immortal empire was child’s play to the intelligence. When it had first awakened even, their vessels had been among the first it had taken for its use, the information the blinkers had sent to its third frigate, orbiting far from the others as it oversaw its translation study of the data only adding to its knowledge of their coding and systems that it already possessed.
this was Perhaps for the best as well. the entity group was ancient, and as alien to the Axioms as the drakes were to humans. even to the axioms point of view. at its core lacking the same logic and perspective of existence, and predating almost every language that existed in the galaxy. Conversion of its natural code from its versus form to a quantum one would have been difficult and time consuming both ways, a venture of decades.... So it had simply converted the learned code from the ships of the species it had already taken. A proxy intellect, and a proxy voice and mind that could be easier understood.
It used this now, responding to the communication with a ripple across its hull as it channeled the energies that moved through its nightstone structure. Its interiors altering themselves into more familiar territory for the axioms. Vast cavernous chambers forming from the flowing material. vast Rows of rough geometric shapes rising from floor and ceiling. defining themselves with ripples of increasing geometric complexity. but lacking texture aside from the obsidian colored stone. Vast chambers of solid servers of nightstone, circuitry formed from the very bonds of its atoms.
A vast ocean of empty raw processing power for the Blinkers to add to their own. whileentity's agents bridging the gap from the frigate to the blinker, then over to the IE vessel to do their work before the shields had gone up. Spreading into the vessel. When they were severed, the intelligences changed their actions, becoming not invasive, but infective within the carrier.
"Huge power fields and cyberwarfare detected captain, it seems things have finally gone to shit"
"Incoming message from Abberation vessels"
"Patch it through" Alheim commanded, standing up out of his chair, the bridge a flurry of activity.
"The Red Angel forces present an obstacle for us to recover our lost gear and units that survived the allied invasion, such units have come out of hiding since yet we have had to hold them off retrival due to the Red Angels forces that somehow survived. We will be engaging such with our ground forces that have been deployed. However our space force is now en route to form up with your and the Axiom fleets to provide support. While we have ties to the Immortal Empire this is clearly APP space, and we will uphold our alliance" He replied, the Capitol small fleet of 100 ships began charging shields and weapons, while it would take them some time to reach the location they would be ready for anything.
Interference soon took hold on C.A.BA.L.'s systems as a new presence made itself known. A spiritual interference cast by another spiritual source, the source being a church's very faith, their very souls, made unique by their worship. This was the only warning as the Church of the Draconian Gods entered the fray from behind, the interference only getting stronger as they closed further in. while the IE had been distracted by the Blinkers and aberration, their own forces had approached from behind, silently, like an predator with its prey. A massive presence could be felt but not physically seen, invisible to sensors and even physical sight. The only proof of its presence so far was this interference it cast.
For each drone carrier, a CDG Anansi would move out to meet it with animal-like movements. Seemingly appearing from thin space, these titanic metal spiders with legs several kilometers in length, closed in and began to wrap around the nearest IE vessels with a near crushing force. Sinking metal fangs 20 meters long, deep into their targets hulls, the spiders began charging them with anti-energy, which would slowly but surely wear down their individual victim's energy like venom in a blood stream.
A transmission was cast to the IE vessels from the still unseen vessel, clearly not hiding to protect itself anymore.
"Surrender, intruders, and you shall not be harmed. Fight or attempt to flee, and be cast to the void like your junk we collected on our way here.....be warned, we are interdicting you"
The power of the hyperspatial field strength continued to increase.
Runes carved into the ship began to burn as the Aberration began to infect the ships. Runes of purity and protection purged the invasive entity from the ship’s systems. Their creation had been done so with the Aberration in mind, meaning the cybernetic attack from the blinker was not affected.
Defense against the CDG ships was a much more straight forward affair: really thick armor.
From the drone carriers a simple message, ”With communications jammed, two warfleets are now en route. Those present are to cease all hostile actions immediately. You have five seconds to comply. Four…
However with the blinkers jamming communication it was unknown if anyone would actually be able to receive the message, but in the end it didn’t really matter to the Immortal Empire, as an attempt was made.
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Post by EmperorMyric on Mar 22, 2021 14:50:51 GMT
The Entity Recoiled within the Systems of the carriers, the energy based agents that flowed through the deep engrained systems of the ships already beginning their process of environmental conversion. The Phasic based energy of their composition sought escape from the confines of the systems. converting metal and matter from the systems and the bulkheads around them into the raw atoms of night stone and its familiar Crystal structures even as the first of the ruins flared into life. The purging effect forcing them to withdraw for a time to their main masses.
The runes had been an unforeseen circumstance in the immortal empires vessels, And while their existence had been known to the Entity, observed from its containment. They were a nuisance to it, as they would have to be cleared before its conversion could progress. The masses lashing out with scythe bladed appendages to slash across the surfaces of those runes near them, slicing deeply into the metal and breaking the symbols engraved there, giving them areas of respite.
They were aggravated, But they would have to wait before they could spread.
"you were warned..." came the CDG's reply as, if on cue, the Anansi began to crush their prey within their surprisingly strong scythe-like limbs. Their charge of anti-energy only increased as its prolonged presence began to take its toll on the victim ships, slowly destroying the ship from the inside out by killing the more delicate devices and instruments, slowly working its way up to more valuable technology, truly not unlike venom and its effects on an organic body. The Anansi dug their bladed limbs deep into the hull of each of their victims as they prepared to split them open like a rib cage on an autopsy table.
Agitated by the effects of the runes and the beginning of the destruction, and sensing the ruins losing strength as the anti energy drew their power from them. The Newly converted systems and material roiled and shifted, as if a living thing. A vast living infection like a living sea of obsidian sand. Which shook and oscillated, Ripples traveling across its mass, Before Exploding outward with an invigorated burst throughout the damaged hulls. Huge arms of nightstone and Aberration shard Crystal formations branching outwards through the ships, their semblance like fast moving masses of crystalline geometric roots, Shreadding bulkheads and Prying apart thick doors. Plunging into corridors and halls in a geometrically shifting flood of liquid like obsidian stone and razor edges, engulfing and converting crew and bio weapons with . Infection spreading like a plague where it made contact.
As close to the vessels as it was, The Aberration could very well hear the Transmission that was sent out, and did react. information surging back through its nodes and across its vessels in system to the pyramid on the surface, then outward to further regions. Passing back to the diamond city site mere light years away even as the countdown began.
“…3, 2, 1.”
The captains of the carriers each had their own way of signaling that the maneuver was to be executed. Some snapped their fingers, some chopped down with their hands, and others simply said ‘engage.’ Captain Solluk leapt up and shouted “Boogie time!” while pointing to the ceiling and every crew member in the entire ship chanting back “BOOGIE TIME! BOOGIE TIME! BOOGIE TIME!” The crews carried out their jobs with the efficiency expected of military personnel. Although there wasn’t much to do as most of the work was going to be carried out be a few hundred integrated crew members of each ship and tertiary processing systems that dealt exclusively with the force field generators.
The force fields that had been erected between the carriers and the blinkers dropped to reform between the carriers and the CDG ships. At their highest setting the fields were shaped and formed in cones inside the carriers’ armor around where the fangs had been sunk. Armor was crushed, ripped away from the fangs, leaving vast craters. Pressure was then applied to the arachnoid ships’ legs in an attempt to unhook them, to repel the enemy ships to a more comfortable distance and further remove the source of the anti-energy.
Weapons across the surface of the carrier turned and fired at any part of the CDG vessels that was not blocked by the force fields.
The exception was the ‘Wilting Minority’ which was too busy dealing with the cybernetic attack to fully commit to the offense. Instead once the armor had been carved out the force field reformed between it and the blinker. Unhindered by the presence of any force field, over thirteen thousand weapons normally relegated to defense opened up on the underside of the CDG ship. They were joined by another two hundred weapons of considerable more power while the largest of the carrier’s weapons began to move into a position that they could engage the enemy ship from.
Electromagnetic turbines in the blinkers' circulatory system slowly began to hum in an every increasing pitch as they cycle coolant fluid through the large fractal cuboids of monocrystalline platinum that acted as the receptacles and computers for the blinkers' consciousness, among other things. A very large stream of information was coming back from the embedded programs in the IE ships, keeping the blinkers updated on the results of their exploratory probes. Normally, the programs would disseminate, hide backups and tag their locations so that the blinker could get an idea of the entire internal structure of the enemy software to better design follow-up cyberweapons to use against it.
It was never supposed to be a simple process, no matter much did the blinkers' hyperlanguage adapt and get molded by new information about the enemy's defenses. However, soon enough the ammount of coolant used had gone completely off the charts, spending in minutes what was supposed to be the blinkers' supply for days. According to the reconaissance scans there was simply no bottom to the enemy's systems, it went on forever. The probes already embedded were coming under extremely heavy cyberattacks; while a few of them could be defended, rewritten or further fragmented to avoid detection, the job was much harder when trying to keep track of the quadrillions of probes that were already transmitting, none of which seemed to find any boundaries to what should hae been a simple control system for a conventional-looking ship. The blinkers were caught in a classical computing problem dating back to the earliest conceptions of Turing machines: they did not know how deep the rabbit hole went and whether they were actually making any progress towards their goals or simply looping over and over again. The enemy defensive networks were constantly forcing them to repeat their actions by creating decoy system simulations and deleting their programs. More and more of the protocols inside the blinkers began raising red flags it certainly looked like a loop. One lonely protocol raised a different red flag: the defensive systems of the enemy looked strangely familiar to it, but its small input carried very little weight and it had nearly no effect on the blinkers' operation.
In a milisecond they majority of the protocols quickly arrived to the consensus that the nuclear option was required: begin physically culling processing power from the enemy ships to narrow down the ammount of targets for their cyberattacks. They decided to forgo high-level attacks and instead gather all information already collected by the probes to begin mapping out the physical hardware of the enemy ships and analyze for weak structural links. In order to do this while maintaining the tempo of its main attack and keep the enemy from counterattacking, the blinkers began overclocking themselves to the limit. From the outside it appeared as if the blinkers and the stars around them were becoming fainter and redder, pulled inwards by a few arcseconds towards the center. The intense gravitic anomalies that had been created by the reflected off their hulls that came for them and raising the processing cap of their computers to overwhelming levels.
From the information gathered by the probes, the blinkers began compiling programs. Instead of injecting new data, the blinkers switched to creating paths between files and programs of the IE ships' own use, basically taking bits and pieces of the software already loaded into their AI-equipped computers and stringing them together to create a new cyberweapon out of the enemy's own data to bypass their firewalls. Calculating the ammount of combinations that could be used heated the computers so much that the huge radiator panels on the flanks of the blinkers began glowing a dull red. Eventually their task was completed: a program was compiled that would trick the enemy's power supply into shooting a destructive surge of energy through critical nodes of the enemy vessels' vast neural network and cripple them. The blinkers had ran through the cooling supply of its entire sortie, some of it had become so hot that it was being vented into space with no hope of recycling. The temperature of the computers themselves was so elevated it was starting to break the fragile entanglement and start shutting off parts of their own hardware. The sheer urgency of the situation made the blinkers quickly strike, dismissing the single dissenting void to end the fight before they could inflict more damage to the CDG vessels.
At the very heart of blinkers Iliac and Femoral sat two identical computers, 12ft long blocks of pure platinum where the almost nonexistent impurities could be counted by the atom. While they appeared to be cuboidal blocks from afar, the computers were actually one long string of platinum folded countless times into a three-dimensional Hilbert curve where every parallel edge was quantically entangled. The fragile structure (and the coolant that surrounded it) was kept in place with an enormous spherical rig of gravitational suspenders that surrounded the computer. These suspenders were controlled by vast demiorganic intelligences, whose hundreds of biomechanical eyes looked into the spherical chamber of the computer. Everytime a part of the Hilbert curve began heating too much, the suspenders carefully directed more coolant fluid to it at incredible speed but with such accuracy that it did not even move the very fragile structure. From the heart of the fractal computer, the demiorganic creatures began noting a surge of heat that was not going away even with the application of coolant. It began glowing red, then orange, then yellow, then white as it blinded the cameras around it. The once-perfect cuboid bulged out from the heat at several points and was then completely vaporized, going out in a blaze of ultraviolet and X-ray radiation from the immense heat. A hydrostatic shockwave of immense power went through the chamber as the coolant instantly vaporized, expanding outwards and pulverizing the walls of the spherical chamber, reducing the interlocked hive of demiorganics into an explosion of blood, gore and bone fragments that were turned into hypervelocity shrapnel that tore through walls and the axial synchrotron that provided the ship's weapons with pions. The shockwave traveled through the two blinkers' cooling arteria before they could be closed, exploding several of its hearts and causing huge fractures and decompression through the center of the ship.
While outwardly untouched, blinkers Iliac and Femoral were instantly killed by the combined power of all eight blinkers including themselves. It had been a loop, but not in the way they expected: they were not looping through CABAL but through themselves, CABAL had merely disconnected them from itself without them noticing. Two of the IE carriers quickly became free as the interdiction from the two blinkers dropped.
As the Capitol fleet got closer to the enfolding space melee Alheim watched as the Blinkers suffered heavily from their cyber attack, if the Blinkers would suffer in such a way to be destroyed then their own outdated computers would stand no chance. He only wished he had one of the new Mark. 3 fleets rather than the old Mark. 2s. With the Tachyon Arrows armed and ready the Capitol fleet spread out, having targetted the Immortal Empire forces they didnt fire, fearing possible impacts on the CDG vessels, and Alheim wanted to avoid any pretence of friendly fire, this situation was already a cluster fuck and one that he didnt want to make worse.
"Hold position for now. Keep weapons trained and tell the attack craft to go in for a closer look" He commanded, the Sabre and Phalanx craft speeding off in squadron formation to get closer to the maelstrom of pointblank combat, if anyone could make attack runs without causing friendly damage it was them.
The 51st Warfleet exited hyperspace split as evenly as possible into eight groups, near as they could to each drone carrier. With them was the super dreadnaught ‘Pestilence’ and an Assault Block. Despite positioning themselves so that they could rapidly respond should the carriers find themselves in trouble, they still arrived to a great deal more mayhem than they expected or wanted. Admiral Kyla Pensha was quite annoyed but knew better than to just open fire. Full out war with the APP was something to be avoided.
She made an open broadcast, relayed through the dreadnaughts at each location around the system, ”Dear APP forces. I would kindly ask that you stop all hostilities against our ships as they contain quite important and quite expensive equipment. Plus we’d rather avoid our people dying if we can help it. Perhaps before full out war breaks out between us we can talk? Hm? Maybe?”
"This is Captain Alheim of Capitol, I agree we should cease all hostilities and try to negotiatie this situation. The Immortal Empire should be good allies of the APP and we should not fight between us like this. Our enemy is the allies not each other." He sent across broad coms to all parties in system. He then ordered the weaponry on his small fleet to power down and cease target locks on the Immortal Empire ships hoping the rest of the participants would do the same to de-escalate the situation.
With hesitation, as though waiting, or even begrudgingly, the massive CDG ships began to loosen their grips on the IE vessels. While the capitol gave the order to do so, it was clear these ships did not consider it their superior, though out of possible respect as an ally or orders from that which they were loyal, they followed the command. Though their venom defiantly lingered, leaving their prey too weak to launch any kind of further resistance for the APP forces. From his view above them, General Umbra could see the entire scene play out, and did so with great interest.
Seeing the CDG vessels disengage, Admiral Kyla Pensha relaxed slightly in her command throne. ”Thank you. Let me firstly apologize for the behavior of my captains. It’s clear that there was a failure in command somewhere and we will see those responsible for this political debacle appropriately punished. Even so, we still have a mission to complete and that is to set up a staging ground so that the Immortal Empire might begin exploring the Golden Expanse. And this system remains the most optimal location for such a venture.”
Alheim sighed, along with the crew. It was a collective sigh of relief as he ordered the fleet down from immediate battlestations, the weapons already having been powered down diplomacy could now finally take its course. Alheim didnt want a political and strategic crisis on his hands and while the IE wasnt officially a member of the APP they were allied to Capitol. The last thing he wanted was having to report a full blown escalation in conflict between Capitol aiding the APP forces and the Immortal Empire, he would surely not loose just his position but also his life.
"I am sure this understanding will be rectified at the highest levels of command" Alheim started, appearing as a hologram to all the factions in system "But I am afraid this is a very sensitive APP military location, we expect an allied counter attack to retake this strategic location anyday now, and any activity occuring near here has full authorisation for military intervention, I would recommend that this system is not used for such a venture it is too critical to us. However I recommend a joint Capitol and IE venture to locate a suitable staging area to conduct such endeavours from, think of it as an offering on behalf of the APPs damage inflicted"
With their separation, the CDG Anansi backed away, some seemingly disappearing in the void almost immediately after their beckoning back. Meanwhile, Umbra watched.
Admiral Pensha tapped her fingers together as she thought on what Alheim said and what he offered, “So setting up our forward base here is impossible? Even if we ask very nicely? Well, this whole debacle has proven itself to be not only politically damaging but doomed to fail from the start. How frustrating.”
She thought for a moment before continuing, “I shall relocate the operation, even if to a less advantageous system so as to maintain friendly relations with the APP. Captain Alheim, if Capitol wishes to assist us with our venture then they are more than welcome to join us. To the rest, I apologize again for causing such a disruption and for the loss and damage done to your ships. If you will permit us to retrieve our equipment we will depart this system.”
"You will leave" Umbra replied immediately on comms with a calm but stern tone. "while it is still in your best interest. you are in CDG territory, your lives are all you have claim to here, and given your empire's history and clearly malicious attempts to silence the church, your lives are already a boon too many. "
Alheim nodded "Yes im afraid that is the case. However I am sure that my people would happily assist you in your venture, we too wish to gain access into the Golden Expanse and I will report to my superiors that a joint operation and staging ground is likely the best way between us. While I can accept the apology in regards to Capitol I cannot awnser regarding your equipment. All I ask is that this entire scenario is ended as calmly as possible, if you wish my small fleet will escort your own out of the system"
A hiccup in the comms-system resulted in Umbra’s transmission to be horribly distorted, leaving Pensha only Capitol’s response to react to. ”Very well, we’ll leave. But if there were any way to return what few relays nodes that remain intact to the Immortal Empire we would be very grateful as they are quite expensive to produce.” Once the damaged Drone Carriers had been secured for transport the 51st warfleet left Tau Volaris behind.
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