Keyguyperson
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Welcome to Cyberhell
STATUS: So, as an American, what do I do when I need to choose between illegal immigration to Canada and dying in a civil war? 4 yrs ago
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So, as an American, what do I do when I need to choose between illegal immigration to Canada and dying in a civil war?
5 yrs ago
Woo! Got the prick!
8 yrs ago
When you try to write an essay on climate change but it just degrades into angry rambling halfway through.
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8 yrs ago
Conquer it, conquer the bread.
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8 yrs ago
Up until today I've never had any trouble with my EUIV Japan games. Today I got stomped five times in a row before even uniting the country.
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Bio
I'm a weeaboo communist. Are you surprised?
EDIT: You probably are now, but I'm not going to tell you why you wouldn't have been like two years ago. You get to agonize over that yourself.
EDIT: You probably are now, but I'm not going to tell you why you wouldn't have been like two years ago. You get to agonize over that yourself.
Most Recent Posts
Actually, Duck has mentioned that his systems are close. In fact, his homeworld is the first potentially habitable exploplanet ever discovered (Which doesn't actually exist, turns out it was an error), which puts it about 21 light years away. I'm still working on the map, these things are really hard to make without pulling your hair out over how unrealistic it is.
Mars
Oumou, the project lead, smiled. It seemed that they were slowly figuring out English. She quickly motioned to the soldiers, and they yelled at the civilian sin a commanding but non-aggressive voice.
"Clear a path! We're bringing guests!"
The civilians seemed happy to clear out, and parted for the group. All of them had a different reaction to the aliens, some let their mouths drop open, parents held their children, and lovers clutched each other close together. Some ran, some slowly walked away. Most stood amazed, and a select few reached out to touch them. Through the crowd, an odd symbol could be seen. It was a cross, many around the person wearing it had a similar symbol, but there was something different about this one. It was on fire, had a point at the bottom, and had only recently been taken out. One of the soldiers immediately recognized it, a thin man with blonde hair, blue eyes, and a face that didn't fit in with a military uniform. His skin was somewhat tan, but not enough to be of another race.
"GET THE FUCK OUTTA' HERE!" He screamed, shoving both of the aliens out of the way and putting himself between the man and his squad.
The civilians ran in feat, screaming. Only the man with the odd symbol remained, shoving the pointed end into his skin and twisting it.
"DECEIVERS!" Screamed the man, rushing towards the aliens. Noticing what he was doing, the soldier ran towards the aliens, reaching for his sheath. He pulled out a simple steel sword, definitely different from the plasma sabers the others carried. It had multiple symbols carved, no, forged into it's blade. They weren't in any of the languages on the signs or computers, probably a rarely used language. Whatever it was, it obviously held significance. The blade would have required a completely unique mold.
In the center, there was a shining copper star. A flattened spiral of copper ran all the way up the blade, apparently decorative. The soldier held it expertly, as if he had been holding it all his life. He looked at the man, whose veins were slowly beginning to turn a sickly green. He suddenly picked up speed, as if pulled by the sword. For a split second, the aliens could see his face. He looked like he had no idea what would happen next, but he still seemed confident. As if he couldn't imagine anything slightly bad happening next. In the final moment, he let go of the sword and smiled, as if it meant more than his life to make sure the sword was safe. The moment he let go, he fell on the aliens, the full weight of his armor being laid down on them.
An explosion came next, the view of the aliens being obscured by the soldier. The next thing they saw was a crimson liquid, pouring down on them. The soldier barely pushed himself off of them, falling limp on the floor just before them. His entire body was covered int he same liquid, and his breathing was twice as fast. It was clear that he could only move on arm, mainly because the other was just gone, lying in a gruesome mess beside him. The man that had caused the explosion had apparently exploded himself, giving his life in an attempt to kill the aliens.
"You're... alive..." Said the soldier weakly, a smile growing on his face. "Father... forgive him... he had no... no choice."
He coughed up more of the liquid, almost certainly blood. Despite it all, he continued to smile.
"Arizona... is... safe..."
Another soldier ran up to him, injecting him with a metallic-looking liquid. His breathing slowed, then stopped completely. His hear stopped too, as did any neural action. The bleeding began to slow as well, which was odd, since he appeared to be completely dead. Two of the soldiers lifted him softly, heading for the spaceplane. Oumou helped the aliens up, picked up the odd sword the soldier was using, and began to run after the soldiers carrying the dead man.
Hazaka Union Contact
A giant warship immediately diverted course for the vessel, all of it's weapons prepared to fire. it sent a message to the new vessel, it was spoken without aggressiveness, but the vessel certainly didn't back down.
"This is the United Terran Federation Dreadnought Norway. You are in Terra's gravity well, and have thus invaded the space around our home world. A battle was just fought here, so forgive our suspicion. You will have to stay at your current location until further notice, everyone's on edge right now.
Sol
A squad of ten frigates approached the Iscandarian ship, their weapons ports clearly glowing with plasma buildup. A message was sent directly from Earth, from the large area the humans referred to as "The District".
"You are almost certainly a distraction for the main fleet. If you do have Fergus McClain onboard, then we will not open fire. Now tell me, are you here to end this war? If you are, then dock with one of the destroyers. Fergus McClain can act as our diplomat."
Oumou, the project lead, smiled. It seemed that they were slowly figuring out English. She quickly motioned to the soldiers, and they yelled at the civilian sin a commanding but non-aggressive voice.
"Clear a path! We're bringing guests!"
The civilians seemed happy to clear out, and parted for the group. All of them had a different reaction to the aliens, some let their mouths drop open, parents held their children, and lovers clutched each other close together. Some ran, some slowly walked away. Most stood amazed, and a select few reached out to touch them. Through the crowd, an odd symbol could be seen. It was a cross, many around the person wearing it had a similar symbol, but there was something different about this one. It was on fire, had a point at the bottom, and had only recently been taken out. One of the soldiers immediately recognized it, a thin man with blonde hair, blue eyes, and a face that didn't fit in with a military uniform. His skin was somewhat tan, but not enough to be of another race.
"GET THE FUCK OUTTA' HERE!" He screamed, shoving both of the aliens out of the way and putting himself between the man and his squad.
The civilians ran in feat, screaming. Only the man with the odd symbol remained, shoving the pointed end into his skin and twisting it.
"DECEIVERS!" Screamed the man, rushing towards the aliens. Noticing what he was doing, the soldier ran towards the aliens, reaching for his sheath. He pulled out a simple steel sword, definitely different from the plasma sabers the others carried. It had multiple symbols carved, no, forged into it's blade. They weren't in any of the languages on the signs or computers, probably a rarely used language. Whatever it was, it obviously held significance. The blade would have required a completely unique mold.
In the center, there was a shining copper star. A flattened spiral of copper ran all the way up the blade, apparently decorative. The soldier held it expertly, as if he had been holding it all his life. He looked at the man, whose veins were slowly beginning to turn a sickly green. He suddenly picked up speed, as if pulled by the sword. For a split second, the aliens could see his face. He looked like he had no idea what would happen next, but he still seemed confident. As if he couldn't imagine anything slightly bad happening next. In the final moment, he let go of the sword and smiled, as if it meant more than his life to make sure the sword was safe. The moment he let go, he fell on the aliens, the full weight of his armor being laid down on them.
An explosion came next, the view of the aliens being obscured by the soldier. The next thing they saw was a crimson liquid, pouring down on them. The soldier barely pushed himself off of them, falling limp on the floor just before them. His entire body was covered int he same liquid, and his breathing was twice as fast. It was clear that he could only move on arm, mainly because the other was just gone, lying in a gruesome mess beside him. The man that had caused the explosion had apparently exploded himself, giving his life in an attempt to kill the aliens.
"You're... alive..." Said the soldier weakly, a smile growing on his face. "Father... forgive him... he had no... no choice."
He coughed up more of the liquid, almost certainly blood. Despite it all, he continued to smile.
"Arizona... is... safe..."
Another soldier ran up to him, injecting him with a metallic-looking liquid. His breathing slowed, then stopped completely. His hear stopped too, as did any neural action. The bleeding began to slow as well, which was odd, since he appeared to be completely dead. Two of the soldiers lifted him softly, heading for the spaceplane. Oumou helped the aliens up, picked up the odd sword the soldier was using, and began to run after the soldiers carrying the dead man.
Hazaka Union Contact
A giant warship immediately diverted course for the vessel, all of it's weapons prepared to fire. it sent a message to the new vessel, it was spoken without aggressiveness, but the vessel certainly didn't back down.
"This is the United Terran Federation Dreadnought Norway. You are in Terra's gravity well, and have thus invaded the space around our home world. A battle was just fought here, so forgive our suspicion. You will have to stay at your current location until further notice, everyone's on edge right now.
Sol
A squad of ten frigates approached the Iscandarian ship, their weapons ports clearly glowing with plasma buildup. A message was sent directly from Earth, from the large area the humans referred to as "The District".
"You are almost certainly a distraction for the main fleet. If you do have Fergus McClain onboard, then we will not open fire. Now tell me, are you here to end this war? If you are, then dock with one of the destroyers. Fergus McClain can act as our diplomat."
Cale Tucker said
Retreating using FTL making strategy has the same amount of strategy as laying your pencil down without dropping it after sharpening it. It doesn't take a genius to run
It does take a genius to stop a fleet from retreating (depending on their type of FTL). Since warp drive works entirely in real space, if the fleet was surrounded, then it would be horrific if they jumped out. Ever read about what happens if a baseball hits a planet at near light speed? Turns out the entire star system is destroyed due to a chain reaction started by the planet turning into plasma. Retreating at FTL speeds while surrounded would be a very, very bad idea compared to just letting yourself die. Of course, there might be gaps, which the retreating fleet would need to identify and exploit before being obliterated.
Restrictions on FTL should be placed by the players, not the staff. This RP has a different FTL for basically every species, it's not like Star Trek where everyone uses a vaguely defined magic engine that make ships go at the speed of the plot. I personally like to go over the limitations and dangers of my Warp Drive. For example, if a ship does not move radiation and particle buildup to the aft section, then it will literally vaporize a system. If it's not perfectly positioned, it will vaporize a system behind it. Both of those result in the loss of the ship. If the system that moves particles to the back is damaged (thus making it not move particles at all), then the ship will be instantly shredded by the subatomic particles that pop in and out of existence in a vacuum. Basically, warp drive is extremely dangerous for pretty much anyone anywhere. As is firing a railgun (we all know the quote from Mass Effect 2).
These problems could create great story. Imagine a merchant vessel accidentally destroying an outlying trading post? That's war material right there. If not war, then reparations equal to the value of an entire solar system. To pay them back for that, the UTF would quite literally have to give the entire Sol system to whoever operated that trading post. There could be a wreckage field spread out over light years over the years, every ship sent to it mysteriously disappearing. An ancient railgun slug could begin to fall towards an inhabited planet, forcing an alien ship to sacrifice itself to save the colony in a declaration of good faith. Sure, those are unlikely, but they can happen. So we can have them happen here.
Cale Tucker said
Retreating using FTL making strategy has the same amount of strategy as laying your pencil down without dropping it after sharpening it. It doesn't take a genius to run
It does take a genius to stop a fleet from retreating (depending on their type of FTL). Since warp drive works entirely in real space, if the fleet was surrounded, then it would be horrific if they jumped out. Ever read about what happens if a baseball hits a planet at near light speed? Turns out the entire star system is destroyed due to a chain reaction started by the planet turning into plasma. Retreating at FTL speeds while surrounded would be a very, very bad idea compared to just letting yourself die. Of course, there might be gaps, which the retreating fleet would need to identify and exploit before being obliterated.
Restrictions on FTL should be placed by the players, not the staff. This RP has a different FTL for basically every species, it's not like Star Trek where everyone uses a vaguely defined magic engine that make ships go at the speed of the plot. I personally like to go over the limitations and dangers of my Warp Drive. For example, if a ship does not move radiation and particle buildup to the aft section, then it will literally vaporize a system. If it's not perfectly positioned, it will vaporize a system behind it. Both of those result in the loss of the ship. If the system that moves particles to the back is damaged (thus making it not move particles at all), then the ship will be instantly shredded by the subatomic particles that pop in and out of existence in a vacuum. Basically, warp drive is extremely dangerous for pretty much anyone anywhere. As is firing a railgun (we all know the quote from Mass Effect 2).
These problems could create great story. Imagine a merchant vessel accidentally destroying an outlying trading post? That's war material right there. If not war, then reparations equal to the value of an entire solar system. To pay them back for that, the UTF would quite literally have to give the entire Sol system to whoever operated that trading post. There could be a wreckage field spread out over light years over the years, every ship sent to it mysteriously disappearing. An ancient railgun slug could begin to fall towards an inhabited planet, forcing an alien ship to sacrifice itself to save the colony in a declaration of good faith. Sure, those are unlikely, but they can happen. So we can have them happen here.
WilsonTurner said
Who made you GM?
He's voicing an opinion. An opinion which the current GM actually does agree with.
Apollo26 said
You watched interstellar recently didnt you Key.
Yep. I won't lie, the population bomb is totally the same in literally every single way. I had the idea before I watched the movie, but after it I decided to model the population bomb after the one in the movie.
ASTA said
I don't see any issue with using FTL in an intelligent, tactical manner. Hit-and-run strategies, deceivement and coordinated retreats are all valid (and critical) components of warfare. I know everyone wants space battles to consist soley of giant space battleships exchanging massive broadsides with one another at retardely close ranges, noble space admirals fighting to the last ship and man and nimble space fighters trying to shake one another off of their tails in a 3D environment that affords seamless movement, but not everyone wants to go down this route.Once again, no to the FTL nerfing.
Embrace the differences, don't shun them. FTL? Okay, how can we use this to create completely unknown tactics? Ranged is better? Let's build our ships around a giant railgun! I imagine any melee taking place would involve older tactics, like the Ancient "Smash the ships together and kill the enemy crew", or the more recent WWII Battleships. However, just remember that a tungsten slug launched at 50% of light speed is basically a nuke. But it doesn't destroy a city. It destroys a planet.
So yeah. First person to build a moon-sized sniper rifle pretty much automatically wins forever. But good luck with that kind of thing.
Sol System
The Terrans stared at the empty space before them, the Iscandarian ships had vanished. At first they thought it was a trick, but on every ship the sensors officer said the same thing: They had jumped out. It was over, the battle had been won. A channel was opened to all ships from the TSS Norway, the Dreadnought that had taken control of the Terran fleet. For what seemed like an eternity, everyone was silent. Then a single person spoke.
"We've won!"
They were joined in a thunderous roar by the rest of the fleet, thousands of humans yelling in dozens of languages. It was a victory cry like none before it, for the first time in decades, humanity had something to be proud of.
On the surface of Earth, soldiers and civilians alike looked up to see the lights of the Iscandarian fleet gone. Raising fists in the air, they cried the same cry as those in orbit. Lovers embraced, as did the soldiers as they lifted the UTF flag as high as they could. At the site of the main Iscandarian invasion, the army surrounded the Iscandarians and with her coilgun aimed directly at the Iscandarian General, the woman who had sent the message to the Iscandarian fleet in the first place spoke in a spiteful tone.
"You'd better have been telling the truth, because this war was personal the moment it started. If you were lying, then you collectively broke the heart of someone who I've known for a long goddamned time. If you surrender now, then I'll give you a chance. If you were lying to us, though, then I will have my revenge for fucking up a man's already abysmal life!"
Fergus's Room
"People died. Lots of people, there's no such thing as apologizing for that, even if you had nothing to do with it. Every being projects... well, the exact term escapes me, so I'll call them lines of force. They have to do with higher-dimensional physics, and they connect beings to distant planets, galaxies, and even universes. They connect everything that exists together. When one being dies, hundreds of those line disappear. It's a terrible loss, and those scars are felt by every being in the universe. Some feel it more than others. You can't apologize for what happened, you can, however, apologize to all those people that felt it."
Fergus turned to look at Emily, recognizing her.
"Captain Emily!" He said, remembering the first battle. He realized that her uniform had a different marking on it. "Oh, change in rank? Demotion? No, you made first contact and tried to help us, promotion then? Or is it a simple uniform redesign? Does it change with the seasons? No, there aren't any seasons, silly me. Alas Prime has an almost perfectly straight axis. Different times of month? No, too obscure. Oh! It's a fleet insignia, isn't it! No, no. Insignia's usually look more flashy. Or does the marking have some religious significance? Different religious celebrations then? Like Lent in Christianity, with all the purple and stuff. At least, I think it's lent. When is lent, anyway? Didn't it have something to do with a pilgrimage? No, no, that's Judaism, wait, no, well, they both have pilgrimages. Hey, wasn't lent originally a fasting thing or whatever? Most people just give up their favorite brand of potato chip now. I wonder why, probably has something to do with modern culture. We don't like discomfort. Well, interplanetary travel at a reasonable pace usually knocks the crew out and can cause permanent brain damage. That's a problem. Maybe we should have warp drives installed on all ships. No, that's too costly, that's it! Warp conduits! If we could control the flow of negative energy using magnetism we could-"
He cut himself off, realizing that he had just changed the topic from her rank to human transportation. Blushing, he started to apologize.
"Sorry, I was talking too fast, wasn't I? I do that whenever I get nervous. It's what I did on your ship... I never apologized for it. For a moment, you all thought I had killed half your bridge crew. I know what it's like to see people under your command die, I've lost my entire crew before. The Aníki̱tos, the Invictum, the Valhalla, the Yamato, the Hood, and countless others. All of those ships were destroyed, and their crew with them. When it happened, I couldn't believe it. You always expect that other ships will de taken out, not yours. Then it happens, and it feels like a nightmare. I'm sorry to have made you believe that any of your crew died."
Utopia Planatia Shipyards, Mars
The huge transport vessel flared it's plasma engines, pulling into orbit near the gigantic space station. Twenty barely visible nanofiber strings connected it to the ground, massive transport elevators moving up and down, full of materials for shipbuilding. A new dreadnought sailed out of one of the drydocks, with warp rings in the place of artificial gravity ones. It was a joint effort by the European Nations, utilizing a new (and expensive) plasma shield originally designed for use by tanks. Since argon plasma was being stretched thin, it had to use hydrogen plasma instead, giving it's shields a blood red glow.
As the two ships passed, the Dreadnought's weapons emplacements could be seen. The ship has a standard "tuning fork" railgun in the center, but instead of being exposed, four giant plates formed a circle around it (with gaps in what would be the corners if it were a square). The plates were covered in triple-mode metal streamer turrets (capable of firing molten metal, laser beams, or plasma bolts). White letters on all four plates read "Mjolnir", the perfect name for such a vessel. Even with it's vast size, the transport was slightly larger than it. Being an interstellar transport, it had to be as large as possible to, funnily enough, conserve fuel.
Dozens of tub vessels swarmed towards the transport, firing chemical rockets to bring it in to dock at the industrial ports. Open vacuum trams carried over huge crates, and the crew of the transport rushed to the airlocks to see what their cargo was. Soldiers in combat exoskeletons stood guard over the crates, marching along with perfect discipline. The officer in front handed over the codes for opening the crates.
"Go ahead, take a look." He said
The captain ran up the the crates and keyed the codes into the tablet that the officer left sitting on top of the first crate. All of them opened immediately, revealing dozens of different cargoes. Most crates contained modular metal parts for some sort of building, but a few held shelves filled with odd cylinders.
"The hell are those?" Asked the captain, pointing to the shelves. He walked up to them, reaching out to touch them. "They're cold, why?"
"Population bomb." Said the officer "Eight million fertilized eggs, frozen in cryo. The people are being loaded through the passenger trams two decks down. I don't think I need to tell you what you're doing."
The captain smiled, closing the crates again.
"What system?"
"Epsilon Indi, 12 light years out. It's fourth planet is habitable to humans, 50% Earth's gravity and size, similar atmosphere, and open for a species to come and take it. You drop off the pioneers, leave the worker bees in orbit with the spare parts, and come back for the rest of the colonists. Ten years later and you've got eight million humans spread out across a continent and a 500,000 person space station in orbit. We've modified the genetic code of the egg cells, they'll be perfectly suited to the planet. We made their bone and muscle structures more resistant to decay, of course. Besides letting them come home, they'll get to have some fun in the low gravity."
"Timetable?"
"Be out of dock at twenty-three hundred Olympus Mons Time. That'd be... 0900 by Belt Time."
Mars
After a long drive to the spaceport, the convoy stopped in front of multiple odd-looking tubes. The tubes extended to connect to the airlocks, once they were connected, both sides of the airlock doors opened to reveal a squad of humans clad in heavy, black armor. Some held coilgun assault rifles, others plasma sabers. Having heard that the aliens communicated telepathically and probably couldn't understand any Terran language, they bowed to the aliens to make sure they wouldn't think they had been betrayed. They definitely looked excited about something, probably the aliens.
As the group walked to the main waiting area, they began to hear cheers in dozens of languages.
"What's that about?" Asked one of the humans who had been with the convoy
"You'll see" Said the squad's commander
Once they reached the waiting area, they found that every flight was delayed indefinitely, as was displayed on the screens. Everyone was cheering, and the main screen (which always displayed system-wide news broadcasts) was showing some sort of victory celebration. Images of multiple beings marching with humans pointing weapons at them. The fact that it was a war probably wouldn't be that odd to the aliens, but everyone being marched looked almost exactly like humans. The only difference was the color of their veins (not visible on the screen), and their wings. Everyone escorting the aliens realized that the situation could easily be interpereted as humans of one race marching humans of another race to their death, and humans of the apparently dominant race cheering at it.
An image of Emily was shown on the screen, and the human anchorwoman identified her as 'The Iscandarian who sent in the signal". The project lead pointed to Emily, making sure she had the alien's attention.
"Iscandarian." She said, then pointing straight up.
"Alas Prime"
She then pointed to herself "Human" she said.
She then pointed up diagonally, implying a different location.
"Earth."
Pausing for a moment, she looked the alien in the eye. Knowing the alien couldn't understand her, she continued.
"Those people being marched, they're not going to be harmed. We wouldn't do that, we have laws against that kind of thing. A military ship is going to take us to Earth."
She pointed to one of the spaceplanes outside.
"Ship."
Then pointed in the same direction she did before.
"Earth"
She began to move towards one of the tubes, motioning for everyone to follow her.
The Terrans stared at the empty space before them, the Iscandarian ships had vanished. At first they thought it was a trick, but on every ship the sensors officer said the same thing: They had jumped out. It was over, the battle had been won. A channel was opened to all ships from the TSS Norway, the Dreadnought that had taken control of the Terran fleet. For what seemed like an eternity, everyone was silent. Then a single person spoke.
"We've won!"
They were joined in a thunderous roar by the rest of the fleet, thousands of humans yelling in dozens of languages. It was a victory cry like none before it, for the first time in decades, humanity had something to be proud of.
On the surface of Earth, soldiers and civilians alike looked up to see the lights of the Iscandarian fleet gone. Raising fists in the air, they cried the same cry as those in orbit. Lovers embraced, as did the soldiers as they lifted the UTF flag as high as they could. At the site of the main Iscandarian invasion, the army surrounded the Iscandarians and with her coilgun aimed directly at the Iscandarian General, the woman who had sent the message to the Iscandarian fleet in the first place spoke in a spiteful tone.
"You'd better have been telling the truth, because this war was personal the moment it started. If you were lying, then you collectively broke the heart of someone who I've known for a long goddamned time. If you surrender now, then I'll give you a chance. If you were lying to us, though, then I will have my revenge for fucking up a man's already abysmal life!"
Fergus's Room
"People died. Lots of people, there's no such thing as apologizing for that, even if you had nothing to do with it. Every being projects... well, the exact term escapes me, so I'll call them lines of force. They have to do with higher-dimensional physics, and they connect beings to distant planets, galaxies, and even universes. They connect everything that exists together. When one being dies, hundreds of those line disappear. It's a terrible loss, and those scars are felt by every being in the universe. Some feel it more than others. You can't apologize for what happened, you can, however, apologize to all those people that felt it."
Fergus turned to look at Emily, recognizing her.
"Captain Emily!" He said, remembering the first battle. He realized that her uniform had a different marking on it. "Oh, change in rank? Demotion? No, you made first contact and tried to help us, promotion then? Or is it a simple uniform redesign? Does it change with the seasons? No, there aren't any seasons, silly me. Alas Prime has an almost perfectly straight axis. Different times of month? No, too obscure. Oh! It's a fleet insignia, isn't it! No, no. Insignia's usually look more flashy. Or does the marking have some religious significance? Different religious celebrations then? Like Lent in Christianity, with all the purple and stuff. At least, I think it's lent. When is lent, anyway? Didn't it have something to do with a pilgrimage? No, no, that's Judaism, wait, no, well, they both have pilgrimages. Hey, wasn't lent originally a fasting thing or whatever? Most people just give up their favorite brand of potato chip now. I wonder why, probably has something to do with modern culture. We don't like discomfort. Well, interplanetary travel at a reasonable pace usually knocks the crew out and can cause permanent brain damage. That's a problem. Maybe we should have warp drives installed on all ships. No, that's too costly, that's it! Warp conduits! If we could control the flow of negative energy using magnetism we could-"
He cut himself off, realizing that he had just changed the topic from her rank to human transportation. Blushing, he started to apologize.
"Sorry, I was talking too fast, wasn't I? I do that whenever I get nervous. It's what I did on your ship... I never apologized for it. For a moment, you all thought I had killed half your bridge crew. I know what it's like to see people under your command die, I've lost my entire crew before. The Aníki̱tos, the Invictum, the Valhalla, the Yamato, the Hood, and countless others. All of those ships were destroyed, and their crew with them. When it happened, I couldn't believe it. You always expect that other ships will de taken out, not yours. Then it happens, and it feels like a nightmare. I'm sorry to have made you believe that any of your crew died."
Utopia Planatia Shipyards, Mars
The huge transport vessel flared it's plasma engines, pulling into orbit near the gigantic space station. Twenty barely visible nanofiber strings connected it to the ground, massive transport elevators moving up and down, full of materials for shipbuilding. A new dreadnought sailed out of one of the drydocks, with warp rings in the place of artificial gravity ones. It was a joint effort by the European Nations, utilizing a new (and expensive) plasma shield originally designed for use by tanks. Since argon plasma was being stretched thin, it had to use hydrogen plasma instead, giving it's shields a blood red glow.
As the two ships passed, the Dreadnought's weapons emplacements could be seen. The ship has a standard "tuning fork" railgun in the center, but instead of being exposed, four giant plates formed a circle around it (with gaps in what would be the corners if it were a square). The plates were covered in triple-mode metal streamer turrets (capable of firing molten metal, laser beams, or plasma bolts). White letters on all four plates read "Mjolnir", the perfect name for such a vessel. Even with it's vast size, the transport was slightly larger than it. Being an interstellar transport, it had to be as large as possible to, funnily enough, conserve fuel.
Dozens of tub vessels swarmed towards the transport, firing chemical rockets to bring it in to dock at the industrial ports. Open vacuum trams carried over huge crates, and the crew of the transport rushed to the airlocks to see what their cargo was. Soldiers in combat exoskeletons stood guard over the crates, marching along with perfect discipline. The officer in front handed over the codes for opening the crates.
"Go ahead, take a look." He said
The captain ran up the the crates and keyed the codes into the tablet that the officer left sitting on top of the first crate. All of them opened immediately, revealing dozens of different cargoes. Most crates contained modular metal parts for some sort of building, but a few held shelves filled with odd cylinders.
"The hell are those?" Asked the captain, pointing to the shelves. He walked up to them, reaching out to touch them. "They're cold, why?"
"Population bomb." Said the officer "Eight million fertilized eggs, frozen in cryo. The people are being loaded through the passenger trams two decks down. I don't think I need to tell you what you're doing."
The captain smiled, closing the crates again.
"What system?"
"Epsilon Indi, 12 light years out. It's fourth planet is habitable to humans, 50% Earth's gravity and size, similar atmosphere, and open for a species to come and take it. You drop off the pioneers, leave the worker bees in orbit with the spare parts, and come back for the rest of the colonists. Ten years later and you've got eight million humans spread out across a continent and a 500,000 person space station in orbit. We've modified the genetic code of the egg cells, they'll be perfectly suited to the planet. We made their bone and muscle structures more resistant to decay, of course. Besides letting them come home, they'll get to have some fun in the low gravity."
"Timetable?"
"Be out of dock at twenty-three hundred Olympus Mons Time. That'd be... 0900 by Belt Time."
Mars
After a long drive to the spaceport, the convoy stopped in front of multiple odd-looking tubes. The tubes extended to connect to the airlocks, once they were connected, both sides of the airlock doors opened to reveal a squad of humans clad in heavy, black armor. Some held coilgun assault rifles, others plasma sabers. Having heard that the aliens communicated telepathically and probably couldn't understand any Terran language, they bowed to the aliens to make sure they wouldn't think they had been betrayed. They definitely looked excited about something, probably the aliens.
As the group walked to the main waiting area, they began to hear cheers in dozens of languages.
"What's that about?" Asked one of the humans who had been with the convoy
"You'll see" Said the squad's commander
Once they reached the waiting area, they found that every flight was delayed indefinitely, as was displayed on the screens. Everyone was cheering, and the main screen (which always displayed system-wide news broadcasts) was showing some sort of victory celebration. Images of multiple beings marching with humans pointing weapons at them. The fact that it was a war probably wouldn't be that odd to the aliens, but everyone being marched looked almost exactly like humans. The only difference was the color of their veins (not visible on the screen), and their wings. Everyone escorting the aliens realized that the situation could easily be interpereted as humans of one race marching humans of another race to their death, and humans of the apparently dominant race cheering at it.
An image of Emily was shown on the screen, and the human anchorwoman identified her as 'The Iscandarian who sent in the signal". The project lead pointed to Emily, making sure she had the alien's attention.
"Iscandarian." She said, then pointing straight up.
"Alas Prime"
She then pointed to herself "Human" she said.
She then pointed up diagonally, implying a different location.
"Earth."
Pausing for a moment, she looked the alien in the eye. Knowing the alien couldn't understand her, she continued.
"Those people being marched, they're not going to be harmed. We wouldn't do that, we have laws against that kind of thing. A military ship is going to take us to Earth."
She pointed to one of the spaceplanes outside.
"Ship."
Then pointed in the same direction she did before.
"Earth"
She began to move towards one of the tubes, motioning for everyone to follow her.
In
Space Race 1950 Reboot (Original Idea By KeyGuyPerson)
→
12 yrs ago
Forum: Nation Interest Checks
duck55223 said
Did you ask keyguy before you did this?
Yes, did you miss my other post here?
In
Space Race 1950 Reboot (Original Idea By KeyGuyPerson)
→
12 yrs ago
Forum: Nation Interest Checks
Well, you know my stance on this.
Louisiana Border, USNA Side
"Heh, they think we have spies. We don't have spies, we have informants. Just like they have Emperors and not dictators!"
The entire barracks laughed at the young soldier's joke, there were few rules in the border guard despite the animosity between Louisiana and the USNA. Nobody expected an attack, so they were usually as loud as they wanted. For the older troops, it was much better than the border situations they remembered. Many had been stationed at the Korean border, where they had to constantly stand in front of a bridge in complete silence. They were like statues back then, not people. It was nice to have a chance to go back without having to leave the military.
"Hey, hey, what do you call it when Louisiana tries to launch a rocket?" Said another, pausing as everyone waited for the punchline. "Friendly fire!"
The barracks once again erupted in laughter, having no idea that a war wasn't in the near future. In fact, the President was enjoying Bobby's ambition to develop space. And everyone knew that when the President said something, the rest of the country found themselves agreeing with him.
"Heh, they think we have spies. We don't have spies, we have informants. Just like they have Emperors and not dictators!"
The entire barracks laughed at the young soldier's joke, there were few rules in the border guard despite the animosity between Louisiana and the USNA. Nobody expected an attack, so they were usually as loud as they wanted. For the older troops, it was much better than the border situations they remembered. Many had been stationed at the Korean border, where they had to constantly stand in front of a bridge in complete silence. They were like statues back then, not people. It was nice to have a chance to go back without having to leave the military.
"Hey, hey, what do you call it when Louisiana tries to launch a rocket?" Said another, pausing as everyone waited for the punchline. "Friendly fire!"
The barracks once again erupted in laughter, having no idea that a war wasn't in the near future. In fact, the President was enjoying Bobby's ambition to develop space. And everyone knew that when the President said something, the rest of the country found themselves agreeing with him.
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