Because if he was trying to merely wipe out all the fishmalks, he would be objectively correct. And that would make our party the bad-
... ah, I see what you did there. MORAL AMBIGUITY.
Panopticon: A Game of Posthumans, Perniciousness, Paranoia, Politics, and Plasmaguns
Because if he was trying to merely wipe out all the fishmalks, he would be objectively correct. And that would make our party the bad-
... ah, I see what you did there. MORAL AMBIGUITY.
First he came for the Fishmalks, and I said nothing, because I was not a fishmalk.
Then he came for the Camarilla, and I said nothing, because I was not a vampire.
Then he came for the werewolves, and I said nothing, because I was not a genocidal ecoterrorist.
Then he came for the Traditions, and I said nothing, because I was not a superstitionist.
Then he came for me, and because I was a loyal Technocrat I shook his hand and told him "good job."
Which was his first mistake since it let me deploy a weaponized nano-swarm to hijack his nervous system, access all his accounts and drain all those precious resources. Guess who has funding now!
- Location
- National Capital Region, USA
Rose: "But... she does spend all her time trying to get Jamelia-sempai to notice her..."Now I kind of regret not making Henriette's dox flaw Anime Omake Vision.
Henriette: "Shut it, Rose!" ~moe pout~
SR XIII: Sera In, or, Sera Handles A Tripod And Comes Out On Top
SR XIII: Sera In, or, Serafina Handles A Tripod And Comes Out On Top
Shots and explosions ring out in the holding facility. Systematically the black-grey killing machines wipe out every alien scientist and technician in the chamber. Soon the walls and floors are splattered with green ichor, which runs down pre-existing channels into the draining channels in the cold, lifeless floor.
Serafina's brain is whirring. It's a cold logical machine, as part of her roars through powerless subway tunnels, thanking Q Division for the biosensor and radar mapping functions on the Saviour. She doesn't have much time, and she needs to cause as much damage as possible.
She immediately discounts assaulting the bridge- too heavily fortified, the likelihood of encountering enlightened opposition and other unknown factors- and then reluctantly the ships, on account of them being loaded with troops. They're the best defended position that isn't the bridge, and the chances that she's already tripped internal alarms and being centralized in one place will make it easier for her enemies to eliminate the X-410s.
The reactor. It's close by - suspiciously so - and she can follow the power-carrying conduits back to it. If she takes down the reactor, she'll cripple the vessel. Void Engineer stealth systems are power hungry so this thing's stealth probably will be and there's a good chance that this thing will become visible - and once it's visible the Union will be able to engage it.
And if she's going to have to flee Mexico City the fact that the UFO won't be able to follow her is what is technically known as 'very good news'. Yes, the smaller craft will still be working, but not having a huge mothership able to jump in on her location can only be good news.
The three black and grey figures try their best not to look at the naked men, women and children in here. She can't even pretend that some of them are dead already, because the biosensor readouts in her HUDs mercilessly scrutinise and report on the vital signs of everyone in here. They're all alive. The ones who are conscious are so scared. Their heartrates are through the roof. And… and… and...
Serafina can't cry. It's for the best. She'd be crying right now, because she's having to leave these people here. If her plan doesn't work, they'll all suffer whatever fate the aliens have planned for them. If her plan does work, they'll all die in the crash. Another few hundreds or thousands on her conscience. Barely more than a rounding error for the deaths on her head, drowned out by the deaths she's already responsible for. She can't save anyone. She can never save anyone when the gunfire starts.
She hates this. She hates that a death in a crash this is all the mercy she can spare them.
One of her bodies punches its vivisector into the wall, puncturing one of the power conduits, The fuel lines. The arteries. Yes, arteries is perhaps the best word, because there's a dull glowing green fuel in there, being pumped through rubbery organic conduits.
Chemical analysis doesn't need to tell her that it's a toxic brew of human byproducts, element-115 and various extradimensional materials she can't identify. She'd guessed the first two from the smell and the green glow. These aliens are… they're evil. They're evil, and it's made even worse by how they were once human. There's nothing truly human left to them now. Just a sadistic petty cruelty that revels in the violation of others. Just the worst aspects left to them.
The primal energy-rich brew in the walls is horrible. She knows people have died to make it. But she can use it. Even if she hates herself to do so. Her vivisectors inject in Xiaolian smart cells and coax the alien matter out. It flows into her weapons, forming organic protuberances which glow a malevolent green. Organic pods bud over the ammunition reserves, modifying them to make all the horrific weapons that her experience with Progenitor science can provide. It covers her vivisectors, making them malicious killing tools. The X-410s absorb it and she uses it to overclock their biology even more. They're doomed now, if they leave the sterile environment in here. She doesn't care. They're meat robots, and this place needs to die.
And then she's moving. And she's killing. It numbs the pain, to watch the shrivelled grey-skinned aliens and the forcefully-cyberised cannon fodder and the stranger, more perverse hybrids die.
After having seen in that scientist's head, it's a mercy for them too.
Clinically, the enhanced mind of the Colonel watches the progression of flashing red markers through the corridors. The vessel is only lightly manned, and the hostiles should not have been able to break out of containment. It was not expected. The aliens are known to use an alien alloy with properties similar to primium, but the scanner should have picked up if they were using any of the known HITMark-like flesh-covered robots the Subjugation Corps had nicknamed 'Alloyiens'.
And they're heading towards the primary reactor.
"Lock down the doors!" he hisses.
"We can't. The aliens are interfering with the power flows. Doors aren't responding," Assistant 2193 states in its monotone. "There are multiple punctures in vital power conduits. The xenos are draining our energy."
"ETA on reinforcements?"
"Reinforcements are on route. ETA 400 seconds."
That's too long. The aliens are far too fast and whatever they've done to themselves, feeding off the power flows of the Void Engineer vessel, have just made them faster and stronger. They've grown organic protuberances and their weapons systems are high-end biotech the Subjugation Corps have never seen in alien hands before. They're tearing through the marines. Is there a traitor in the Progenitors providing technology to these xenos? Impossible!
But they watch as chemical grounds melt and liquify the flesh of their brave soldiers, the killing machines spreading spores and damaging subsystems with their grotesquely excessive use of explosives.
Prompt action will be needed.
"Activate the singularity array," hisses the Colonel, hand going to feel the plasma pistol at their side. "Get a lock on them and beam them off my ship."
"No lock obtained," hisses Scientist 265 from their position at the transportation system "Something in their armour is jamming us."
"Then redeploy Delta Squad to guard the entrance to the reactor." They had been just about to send Delta Squad down into the tunnels to hunt down the alien scientist, but these new alien units are far faster and stronger than any they'd expected to infiltrate this facility. The Commander had predicted an infiltration attempt, but not by units this powerful. They didn't have these combat profiles when they scanned them from the air.
Is… is it possible that the aliens have their own equivalent to enlightened scientists? Nonsense on the face of it! Only humanity possesses Genius! And yet....
… well, that made it even more important that they capture the alien scientist! Its knowledge must be obtained by the Technocratic Union! Against foes like this with their advanced biotechnology, even the Heavy Troopers might not be enough!
They may have to rely on their last line of defence.
The Colonel opens a new connection. "Surgeon Captain," they hiss. "Report."
Machinery whines and breath rasps. "Colonel," the Surgeon Captain grates, though their wheezing, artificial bellow-like lungs. "What is it?"
The Surgeon Captain did not begin life as a Void Engineer. They trained as a Progenitor lab technician, until certain… unpleasantries in the aftermath of WW2 led to their indefinite and permanent confinement in an armoured suit as punishment. After the Anomaly, the shortage of medical personnel made it necessary to promote the Surgeon Captain repeatedly and expand their responsibilities, and their talent at maintaining the reactor technology had impressed the Doctor. Never a true enlightened scientist - but a well trained and capable extraordinary citizen.
"Surgeon Captain," the Colonel says. "Advanced xeno lifeforms have penetrated our vessel and have broken out of Containment. The alien scientist had strange high end bodyguards unlike anything we've ever seen before. They are headed towards the reactor. I have deployed Delta Squad to defend the entrance and am scrambling forces to protect you, but should Delta Squad fall it will be down to you to hold until reinforcements can arrive. Delta Squad are under your command."
The Surgeon Captain's lipless mouth curls back in an anticipatory grin. "I shall look forwards to it," they wheeze. "I will see what I can extract from them."
"The Doctor wishes one of them captured," the Colonel says. "Alive. For the Union."
"They shall be alive," the Surgeon Captain says. "Yes. Alive. Keep them alive as long as necessary, I shall." Their breath came out in a rasping chuckle. "They'll want to die, but I won't let them. Death is not permitted. No one escapes the Union."
"As you were," the Colonel says, returning to their command.
The Colonel still doesn't trust them - couldn't trust a Jap, especially when they weren't even truly an Engineer - but the Union doesn't demand trust. It demands obedience. And the mainstream Progenitors are becoming increasingly eccentric. If the Colonel was more suspicious, they would suspect that the Progenitors have sympathy for the damn aliens down here. Wanting to 'uplift' them. The Progenitors have a sickening habit of being too cavalier about their own humanity, and the Colonel strongly hopes that Control will bring them to heel before they go too far and forget themselves.
No. The xeno scum would have to be brought to heel, or wiped out if they continued to resist. There were no other ways forwards. For the Union. For the Corps.
Down in the dark tunnels, Serafina jumps the bike up onto the platform of an empty subway station. The only light is the dim red emergency light. She crosses over between platforms, ignoring the train with the jammed doors. She doesn't have attention to spare for the trapped commuters watching wide-eyed at the motorbike which just appeared from the tunnels like a bat out of hell and vanished again.
No, it's a mad dash relying totally on the automapping tools. She wouldn't be mad enough to do it at this speed if she wasn't riding a Saviour - and she's very glad she is. Even if some ItX bikes are faster, they tend to assume you're a cyborg wired up to the systems. With her stolen X-410 body, she can squeeze every last bit of performance out of a machine made for peak-humans.
And then she's back into the tunnels.
There's a flash of light, and suddenly there's a squad of six aliens who weren't there before. Serafina braces for pain.
And then the roof falls in, crushing them under rubble. One of them triggers their plasma pistol and fires, twitching and spasming, but it's nothing more than death throes.
That… was a lucky coincidence. Too lucky. Too coincidental. Maybe the alien teleport had damaged the roof - but Serafina doesn't think so. These kinds of 'coincidences' are a sign that either a NWO team is working overtime behind the scenes to make sure everything goes according to plan or that some Reality Deviant has taken probability and causality and the fundamental laws of physics and given it a hard yank.
Sera would grin if she had a mouth right now. She really shouldn't approve of that, but it had just saved her life. Well, if Alice has picked up some RD tricks and is using them to keep her safe, it'd be pretty shitty of her to condemn her for that. Serafina is very fond of her body, even if it's currently digested and spread as a hivemind over multiple combat bioroids.
And maybe it was just a coincidence after all.
Carefully she dismounts and picks her way over the rubble, before beginning her mad flight. Her head hurts from parallel processing so much. She'll have to disengage the drug feed soon, because it's slowly killing her. But for now, it's much less of a threat than the literal aliens who are literally after her head. She doesn't make any jokes about probing. She's seen what they do to their victims and she wouldn't wish that on most of her enemies.
Serafina withdraws her vivisector from the pipeline. She's feeling numb.
One of her bodies died. Just like that. And another was hurt. It's knitting back together, but only slowly. She's having to use the poisonous toxic fuel of this place - and well, that comes at a cost. Its biology is deteriorating from this, and all she can do is make the mutations somewhat beneficial.
It was so fast.
There was a flurry of flashes of light, and Serafina found that suddenly one of her bodies wasn't responding to her and she couldn't from its eyes anymore. There wasn't any pain. That's something. But it was not responding and part of her couldn't be dying because it's not time yet and she's not close enough and…
Through her other eyes, she watched helplessly as the damaged body twists and falls. It was missing half its head and the focussed plasma fire from the hulking aliens has burned clean through its chest.
She shakes her head and shudders. One body down already. Another one injured. And she's barely at the reactor. Hopefully it's something nice with exposed fuel rods she can destroy.
Right?
Wrong, she finds when she takes the plasma guns from the dead shock troopers and melts her way in.
This chamber here would be a vast hollow space. Would be, were it not for the wreckage of the insect-like spacecraft which lies, embedded in organic red weed-like material. Would be, were it not for the pods of screaming men and women and children attached to the outside of the vessel, their blood being drained. Would be, if there was not strange arcane reactor cores glowing E-115 green protruding from the damaged hull and connecting up to the overgrown walls.
Serafina knows what the spaceship is. It's an X-200 Vader. A Void Engineer craft. As far as she knows, they were all lost in the Anomaly.
And these things. These once-human things. They built their ship around it. Did they find it - or was it their ship all along? Either way, this is the thing that's powering their ship. Powering it using people.
That's why they take people. Not just to make them into soldiers. Not just to experiment on them. Humans are fuel. And that doesn't make any sense. There isn't the energy in the human body to do this! It… it… it's so Reality Deviant!
And then a war machine drops down from the ceiling. It's a tripod three times the height of a man, its central body on spindly, tentacle like legs. Other similar appendages serve as hands. Two carry oozing, seeping scalpel-blades, while the third cradles a plasma cannon it wields as a pistol.
It lets out a hooting wail, and within seconds, everything turns into chaos.
Organic detritus sloughing off her weapons, Serafina flings wave after wave of grenades at the towering tripod with the frantic desperation of equal parts hate and fear. The room is drowned out with deafening noise as her full auto grenade rifles cycled through shooting modes, trying to find a way of breaking its defences. Pods all along the hull shatter and break as she tries to shut down the power, force it to spend time defending its prize. The blade in its hands dances and swings through the air, whistling, forming a nearly unbreakable defence. She swears it's cutting her grenades in half.
It moves as soon as one of her rifles clicks empty. The sword-wielding machine smashes through the hail of fire with the whine of overcharged servomotors, accepting a few hits to close to melee. Its swords come down in an overhand blow. Serafina throws herself back, fully aware there's no way she's stopping a blow like that. It'd probably slice through the X-410 like butter.
Certainly the red weed and the hull plating can't withstand that smashing slash. Energy crackles, from the ground as it severs power cables and the red weed begins to scream. Scream like people.
The impact resonates through her legs all the way up to her head, and had the body closer to it not already been on the ground, it would have been knocked down. There's some kind of displacement field in its swords! Another reason not to get hit! That thing.is far too strong, and Serafina mentally recoils back as her instincts scream warnings at her. She lets the Xiaolian handle this. It knows what to do.
She manages to dodge the next few blows as her other body hammers the tripod in the back with grenades. A blow comes too close and the shockwave of the displacement wave makes warnings flash orange from tissue damage all along its right side. That had been bleedthrough the biosuit! Range, she needs to get away! Her other body is hitting it with immuno-aggravants and corrosive liquefiers and anti-armour grenades, but it's just too damn tough!
And then it lunges in, and a whip-fast flash of its blade is enough to take off her legs below the knee. Looming over her, the tripod laughs a hissing laugh, and twists its torso a hundred and eighty degrees, spinning on the body that's still fighting just as it runs out of ammo too.
She tries to draw the Steriliser. It's quicker. The blade stabs through the biosuit, through its torso, and fails to penetrate the back. Torso a mess of red, black-green-red ooze-blood seeping down the blade, she finds herself hefted into the air like a specimen pinned on a specimen plate.
Sadistic. Amoral. Victimising. The traits of these enemies flashes through her head, and even though she doesn't feel pain she can do quite a good mimicry of it. It works, and the tripod pulls her in closer, as if to get a closer look at her. Its front unfolds, revealing a mess of surgical tools and syringes and torture implements extending from biotech organs and a grey-skinned, dark-eyed face on a video screen, grinning and hooting at her in an alien tongue.
It brings her closer. The needles and the eviscerators and the vivisectors stab in almost lovingly, with delicate ease.
"Die," Serafina whispers, and triggers the Xiaolian's self-destruct. What little ammo it has left detonates, cracking the corroded bronze-coloured shell. The body liquefies and bursts, spraying toxic biowaste all over the sensitive feeding mechanisms of the tripod. Omniphagic bacteria get into the sensitive organic components and start tearing it apart from the inside.
Perhaps if it had time, its countermeasures could handle this offensive. It doesn't have time. Because the one remaining X-410 has reloaded, attached its severed legs and now it is on it, pulling off armour plating and getting its gun into the exposed innards. It's firing on full auto, hammering the monster with toxic chemical warloads. The alien's flesh liquefies and oozes out from the metallic hull. Its grey, aging flesh. Once human. No longer. Like everything else on this fucking ship.
Serafina's weapon clicks empty, and in the silence, the tripod falls. Its clatter is very loud.
Dropping the weapon and drawing her Steriliser, she limps onwards. And yes, the word is 'limps'. She reattached the legs, but they're damaged and malformed. The primium shielding is just gone where the cut happened. Melted.
She's dying. Not generally. Just this body. But it's dying. Too much damage. It can't heal from the blade, and its biosuit has taken damage. She forces its flesh to patch up the systems and slows the decline, but she just doesn't have the tools to fix this X-410 properly now. The primal energy she drained from the systems. Made from the people. Not good for the X-410. Not good for anyone. Put an end to it. Killed it.
Serafina forces the dying X-410 onwards. Into the ship. She can still see the power flows. She's caused damage. A lot of damage. Her grenades have shattered pods and broken power lines. But it's still working. There's… there's still something she needs to do. She knows all the aliens are converging on her location. She can't fight them, so she'll need to finish her mission. Even if its biosuit is failing and she's having to force its organs to work, micromanaging it. Before she can let this Xiaolian die and resume her own escape.
Digging her hands in, she pulls off damaged hull playing and slips inside the ship, following the power conduits. There's more of the red weed here, covering the walls and floors like a mat. The red weed is wilting from… from whatever she's done, and she makes sure to kill it wherever she goes, letting out a toxic sporecloud which makes it shrivel and die and stops it blocking her way.
She finds the 'reactor'. It's in the old reactor room of the Vader, but they've stripped it out and replaced it. And they're not getting power from anything as mundane as ununpentium fusion.
There's a man in here.
The battered, bruised man wears the tattered remnants of a priest's outfit. It - and the flesh underneath - has been tattered and slashed, like it's been done with a cloud of razors. And that's not the worst thing. His torso has been split open and his organs are pulled out. Metal wires and cables and tubes full of blood and green fluid form spider-like webbing around the central chamber. His skin is sickly and greying. They're pumping the blood and green fluid in, and his veins bulge. Some of them have burst, leaving mottled bruises over his skin. They've cut away some of his skull and there are needles in his exposed brain.
He's still screaming faintly, in a voice which has almost failed from overuse. He tries to pray, forcing out words through the agony.
Looking around, Serafina understands how this place works. God, she wishes she didn't. But the logic is clear. In its own way, it resembles… places she's seen before. In space. Void Engineer vivisection facilities for alien lifeforms, designed to analyse and scrutinise them. She's even operated them, back in '97. The alien is put in the containment, and its biology is systematically scanned, studied, and then broken down for primal energy. This way, it's been comprehensibly mapped and can be recreated for later tests elsewhere. It's the 'kinder' way of doing it, because only one alien need die for a holotype for the species to be established. With this data, it's possible to recreate the specimen in laboratories lightyears from the original planet and for repeatable tests to be carried out on the clones.
Only this man isn't dying. It won't let him die. They're draining primal energy from the liquidation of all the people outside and using it to keep him alive. All that death. All that suffering. Just to stop him from dying. And they're taking just as much primal energy out of him as they're pumping in.
They're using him as… as a scrubber. Or as a catalyst, Because the flows are subtly different. They're taking primal energy from normal people, and somehow using this… this unwilling Reality Deviant to do… do something to it, something which generates a field she can't identify as a byproduct. Something which must be critical for the ship. Because there has to be a reason they're doing it, that they aren't just using the raw primal energy. He's the capstone of this… this monstrosity.
Forgive Me Father, For I Have Sinned
Serafina is in the heart of the monster, in the wreckage of an X-200 Vader they built this UFO around. She's found the Realit… the man who seems to be the lynchpin of their systems and what the aliens did to him is horrific. She has one Xiaolian left, and it's damaged and poisoned by her use of the toxic Resonance of this place. She knows more aliens are coming. She's almost out of time.
[ ] He's in too much pain to help and the X-410 is dying. One last push. Fry whatever systems you can. Make sure they'll not be able to put someone else in here. Never again. Prepare the Xiaolian's self destruct. Time to die. (x0.75)
[ ] No one deserves to die in here. Not like this. Try to get him out. Talk to him, find out how he got here. Try to save just one person from this… this hellhole, because if you can get to open air the gunsquid might be able to pick him up. To prove that you can save someone. To show that this ship and its once-men isn't the Union. That Serafina isn't like them. (x1.5)
Shots and explosions ring out in the holding facility. Systematically the black-grey killing machines wipe out every alien scientist and technician in the chamber. Soon the walls and floors are splattered with green ichor, which runs down pre-existing channels into the draining channels in the cold, lifeless floor.
Serafina's brain is whirring. It's a cold logical machine, as part of her roars through powerless subway tunnels, thanking Q Division for the biosensor and radar mapping functions on the Saviour. She doesn't have much time, and she needs to cause as much damage as possible.
She immediately discounts assaulting the bridge- too heavily fortified, the likelihood of encountering enlightened opposition and other unknown factors- and then reluctantly the ships, on account of them being loaded with troops. They're the best defended position that isn't the bridge, and the chances that she's already tripped internal alarms and being centralized in one place will make it easier for her enemies to eliminate the X-410s.
The reactor. It's close by - suspiciously so - and she can follow the power-carrying conduits back to it. If she takes down the reactor, she'll cripple the vessel. Void Engineer stealth systems are power hungry so this thing's stealth probably will be and there's a good chance that this thing will become visible - and once it's visible the Union will be able to engage it.
And if she's going to have to flee Mexico City the fact that the UFO won't be able to follow her is what is technically known as 'very good news'. Yes, the smaller craft will still be working, but not having a huge mothership able to jump in on her location can only be good news.
The three black and grey figures try their best not to look at the naked men, women and children in here. She can't even pretend that some of them are dead already, because the biosensor readouts in her HUDs mercilessly scrutinise and report on the vital signs of everyone in here. They're all alive. The ones who are conscious are so scared. Their heartrates are through the roof. And… and… and...
Serafina can't cry. It's for the best. She'd be crying right now, because she's having to leave these people here. If her plan doesn't work, they'll all suffer whatever fate the aliens have planned for them. If her plan does work, they'll all die in the crash. Another few hundreds or thousands on her conscience. Barely more than a rounding error for the deaths on her head, drowned out by the deaths she's already responsible for. She can't save anyone. She can never save anyone when the gunfire starts.
She hates this. She hates that a death in a crash this is all the mercy she can spare them.
One of her bodies punches its vivisector into the wall, puncturing one of the power conduits, The fuel lines. The arteries. Yes, arteries is perhaps the best word, because there's a dull glowing green fuel in there, being pumped through rubbery organic conduits.
Chemical analysis doesn't need to tell her that it's a toxic brew of human byproducts, element-115 and various extradimensional materials she can't identify. She'd guessed the first two from the smell and the green glow. These aliens are… they're evil. They're evil, and it's made even worse by how they were once human. There's nothing truly human left to them now. Just a sadistic petty cruelty that revels in the violation of others. Just the worst aspects left to them.
The primal energy-rich brew in the walls is horrible. She knows people have died to make it. But she can use it. Even if she hates herself to do so. Her vivisectors inject in Xiaolian smart cells and coax the alien matter out. It flows into her weapons, forming organic protuberances which glow a malevolent green. Organic pods bud over the ammunition reserves, modifying them to make all the horrific weapons that her experience with Progenitor science can provide. It covers her vivisectors, making them malicious killing tools. The X-410s absorb it and she uses it to overclock their biology even more. They're doomed now, if they leave the sterile environment in here. She doesn't care. They're meat robots, and this place needs to die.
And then she's moving. And she's killing. It numbs the pain, to watch the shrivelled grey-skinned aliens and the forcefully-cyberised cannon fodder and the stranger, more perverse hybrids die.
After having seen in that scientist's head, it's a mercy for them too.
***
Clinically, the enhanced mind of the Colonel watches the progression of flashing red markers through the corridors. The vessel is only lightly manned, and the hostiles should not have been able to break out of containment. It was not expected. The aliens are known to use an alien alloy with properties similar to primium, but the scanner should have picked up if they were using any of the known HITMark-like flesh-covered robots the Subjugation Corps had nicknamed 'Alloyiens'.
And they're heading towards the primary reactor.
"Lock down the doors!" he hisses.
"We can't. The aliens are interfering with the power flows. Doors aren't responding," Assistant 2193 states in its monotone. "There are multiple punctures in vital power conduits. The xenos are draining our energy."
"ETA on reinforcements?"
"Reinforcements are on route. ETA 400 seconds."
That's too long. The aliens are far too fast and whatever they've done to themselves, feeding off the power flows of the Void Engineer vessel, have just made them faster and stronger. They've grown organic protuberances and their weapons systems are high-end biotech the Subjugation Corps have never seen in alien hands before. They're tearing through the marines. Is there a traitor in the Progenitors providing technology to these xenos? Impossible!
But they watch as chemical grounds melt and liquify the flesh of their brave soldiers, the killing machines spreading spores and damaging subsystems with their grotesquely excessive use of explosives.
Prompt action will be needed.
"Activate the singularity array," hisses the Colonel, hand going to feel the plasma pistol at their side. "Get a lock on them and beam them off my ship."
"No lock obtained," hisses Scientist 265 from their position at the transportation system "Something in their armour is jamming us."
"Then redeploy Delta Squad to guard the entrance to the reactor." They had been just about to send Delta Squad down into the tunnels to hunt down the alien scientist, but these new alien units are far faster and stronger than any they'd expected to infiltrate this facility. The Commander had predicted an infiltration attempt, but not by units this powerful. They didn't have these combat profiles when they scanned them from the air.
Is… is it possible that the aliens have their own equivalent to enlightened scientists? Nonsense on the face of it! Only humanity possesses Genius! And yet....
… well, that made it even more important that they capture the alien scientist! Its knowledge must be obtained by the Technocratic Union! Against foes like this with their advanced biotechnology, even the Heavy Troopers might not be enough!
They may have to rely on their last line of defence.
The Colonel opens a new connection. "Surgeon Captain," they hiss. "Report."
Machinery whines and breath rasps. "Colonel," the Surgeon Captain grates, though their wheezing, artificial bellow-like lungs. "What is it?"
The Surgeon Captain did not begin life as a Void Engineer. They trained as a Progenitor lab technician, until certain… unpleasantries in the aftermath of WW2 led to their indefinite and permanent confinement in an armoured suit as punishment. After the Anomaly, the shortage of medical personnel made it necessary to promote the Surgeon Captain repeatedly and expand their responsibilities, and their talent at maintaining the reactor technology had impressed the Doctor. Never a true enlightened scientist - but a well trained and capable extraordinary citizen.
"Surgeon Captain," the Colonel says. "Advanced xeno lifeforms have penetrated our vessel and have broken out of Containment. The alien scientist had strange high end bodyguards unlike anything we've ever seen before. They are headed towards the reactor. I have deployed Delta Squad to defend the entrance and am scrambling forces to protect you, but should Delta Squad fall it will be down to you to hold until reinforcements can arrive. Delta Squad are under your command."
The Surgeon Captain's lipless mouth curls back in an anticipatory grin. "I shall look forwards to it," they wheeze. "I will see what I can extract from them."
"The Doctor wishes one of them captured," the Colonel says. "Alive. For the Union."
"They shall be alive," the Surgeon Captain says. "Yes. Alive. Keep them alive as long as necessary, I shall." Their breath came out in a rasping chuckle. "They'll want to die, but I won't let them. Death is not permitted. No one escapes the Union."
"As you were," the Colonel says, returning to their command.
The Colonel still doesn't trust them - couldn't trust a Jap, especially when they weren't even truly an Engineer - but the Union doesn't demand trust. It demands obedience. And the mainstream Progenitors are becoming increasingly eccentric. If the Colonel was more suspicious, they would suspect that the Progenitors have sympathy for the damn aliens down here. Wanting to 'uplift' them. The Progenitors have a sickening habit of being too cavalier about their own humanity, and the Colonel strongly hopes that Control will bring them to heel before they go too far and forget themselves.
No. The xeno scum would have to be brought to heel, or wiped out if they continued to resist. There were no other ways forwards. For the Union. For the Corps.
***
Down in the dark tunnels, Serafina jumps the bike up onto the platform of an empty subway station. The only light is the dim red emergency light. She crosses over between platforms, ignoring the train with the jammed doors. She doesn't have attention to spare for the trapped commuters watching wide-eyed at the motorbike which just appeared from the tunnels like a bat out of hell and vanished again.
No, it's a mad dash relying totally on the automapping tools. She wouldn't be mad enough to do it at this speed if she wasn't riding a Saviour - and she's very glad she is. Even if some ItX bikes are faster, they tend to assume you're a cyborg wired up to the systems. With her stolen X-410 body, she can squeeze every last bit of performance out of a machine made for peak-humans.
And then she's back into the tunnels.
There's a flash of light, and suddenly there's a squad of six aliens who weren't there before. Serafina braces for pain.
And then the roof falls in, crushing them under rubble. One of them triggers their plasma pistol and fires, twitching and spasming, but it's nothing more than death throes.
That… was a lucky coincidence. Too lucky. Too coincidental. Maybe the alien teleport had damaged the roof - but Serafina doesn't think so. These kinds of 'coincidences' are a sign that either a NWO team is working overtime behind the scenes to make sure everything goes according to plan or that some Reality Deviant has taken probability and causality and the fundamental laws of physics and given it a hard yank.
Sera would grin if she had a mouth right now. She really shouldn't approve of that, but it had just saved her life. Well, if Alice has picked up some RD tricks and is using them to keep her safe, it'd be pretty shitty of her to condemn her for that. Serafina is very fond of her body, even if it's currently digested and spread as a hivemind over multiple combat bioroids.
And maybe it was just a coincidence after all.
Carefully she dismounts and picks her way over the rubble, before beginning her mad flight. Her head hurts from parallel processing so much. She'll have to disengage the drug feed soon, because it's slowly killing her. But for now, it's much less of a threat than the literal aliens who are literally after her head. She doesn't make any jokes about probing. She's seen what they do to their victims and she wouldn't wish that on most of her enemies.
***
Article: Step into bright. Orders change. Defend. Kill. For Union. For Corps.
Voices. In head. Tell Delta where go. Delta listen.
[Surgeon General] talk to Delta. Delta-1 and Delta-2 and Delta-3 and Delta-4 stand by door. Delta kill enemy. For Union. For Corps.
Time pass.
there is a sound. thundering, pulsing. organic and yet distinctive in its nature. some kind of explosive weapon no doubt. faint echoes of received pain inform of the demise of fellow marines. their weapons fire only impacts against the walls, and the tearing and melting indicates extensive collateral damage of union property. no proximate sound can be heard of the oncoming hostiles, nor can they be visually detected. nevertheless, we have unconfirmed contact.
Alert status. Report to [Surgeon General]. [Surgeon General] confirm alert.
Is enemy?
Maybe enemy!
footsteps, loud and entirely audible. they're quieter than the footsteps of shocktroopers, but louder than a marine. yes. yes. bloodlust rising. seeing red before the eyes. the tang of adrenaline and other combat drugs is bitter and the bitter taste is the love of the Union
movement
Shoot! Shoot! Kil! Kill! For the Union! For the Corps!
they're very fast. very hard to track. the first once dances back away from the plasma beams and then the explosions count. concealment does little when there's alien biological weapons being thrown around. delta-2 falls
[Surgeon General] order attack! Kill! Kill!
in the slow motion of combat rage, delta-3 is torn apart by the cascading grenade ripples. the armour doesn't help. sprays of red blood and green-glowing e-115 extract splatter across the area, falling like rain. the hiss and sizzle of the alien weapons and their organic noxious byproducts fills the air. shrapnel patters off delta-1's armour and there's a few dull stabs of pain where it penetrates.
There! Exposed! Kill! Kill! Delta-1 and Delta-4 focus fire on [Surgeon General] command.
bright green light lashes out. glee and ecstasy, yes. the heavy kick of a plasma rifle is a wonder, and the feeling as it slams against the shoulder is the joy of completing one's tasks for the union. upgraded eyes automatically darken and the bubbling of the flesh of the alien can be seen. it's still trying to move, so that's just an excuse to keep on firing. hold down the trigger, revelling in destruction. revelling in obedience. by the corps, it's so tough - and yet it falls and melts and burns. the crackle and bubble of flesh is here.
Enemy down. Kill for the Union. Kill for the Corps.
Hit second enemy! Wound! Not kill! Warning! Enemy at power point! Can't shoot! Bad to damage! Charge!
heart pounding, drugs surging, bloodlust rising. the joy of killing and the joy of serving the union are one at this point. salivation at the idea of tearing them limb from limb. and then there's a crack from one of their weapons, and spray of chemicals and something pungent and strong and… and unusual. the first lance of pain is unexpected. it's not like the pain of bullets. it's much, much worse.
Shot. Sticky. Green covered.
Hurts.
the pain is like white hot needles riddled through the body. every nerve ablaze. the body rebels under such pain, but each movement is but more pain. the body no longer desires the embedded metal. it repels it. repulses it. one by one. each implant another spike of agony. and goodness there is so much metal in the flesh so much metal in the flesh so much metal in the flesh so much metal
Signal Terminated - Destruction of DEI from autoimmune response
Lifesigns of Shocktrooper V531 "Delta-1" continue for a further 8.2s
***
Serafina withdraws her vivisector from the pipeline. She's feeling numb.
One of her bodies died. Just like that. And another was hurt. It's knitting back together, but only slowly. She's having to use the poisonous toxic fuel of this place - and well, that comes at a cost. Its biology is deteriorating from this, and all she can do is make the mutations somewhat beneficial.
It was so fast.
There was a flurry of flashes of light, and Serafina found that suddenly one of her bodies wasn't responding to her and she couldn't from its eyes anymore. There wasn't any pain. That's something. But it was not responding and part of her couldn't be dying because it's not time yet and she's not close enough and…
Through her other eyes, she watched helplessly as the damaged body twists and falls. It was missing half its head and the focussed plasma fire from the hulking aliens has burned clean through its chest.
She shakes her head and shudders. One body down already. Another one injured. And she's barely at the reactor. Hopefully it's something nice with exposed fuel rods she can destroy.
Right?
Wrong, she finds when she takes the plasma guns from the dead shock troopers and melts her way in.
This chamber here would be a vast hollow space. Would be, were it not for the wreckage of the insect-like spacecraft which lies, embedded in organic red weed-like material. Would be, were it not for the pods of screaming men and women and children attached to the outside of the vessel, their blood being drained. Would be, if there was not strange arcane reactor cores glowing E-115 green protruding from the damaged hull and connecting up to the overgrown walls.
Serafina knows what the spaceship is. It's an X-200 Vader. A Void Engineer craft. As far as she knows, they were all lost in the Anomaly.
And these things. These once-human things. They built their ship around it. Did they find it - or was it their ship all along? Either way, this is the thing that's powering their ship. Powering it using people.
That's why they take people. Not just to make them into soldiers. Not just to experiment on them. Humans are fuel. And that doesn't make any sense. There isn't the energy in the human body to do this! It… it… it's so Reality Deviant!
And then a war machine drops down from the ceiling. It's a tripod three times the height of a man, its central body on spindly, tentacle like legs. Other similar appendages serve as hands. Two carry oozing, seeping scalpel-blades, while the third cradles a plasma cannon it wields as a pistol.
It lets out a hooting wail, and within seconds, everything turns into chaos.
Organic detritus sloughing off her weapons, Serafina flings wave after wave of grenades at the towering tripod with the frantic desperation of equal parts hate and fear. The room is drowned out with deafening noise as her full auto grenade rifles cycled through shooting modes, trying to find a way of breaking its defences. Pods all along the hull shatter and break as she tries to shut down the power, force it to spend time defending its prize. The blade in its hands dances and swings through the air, whistling, forming a nearly unbreakable defence. She swears it's cutting her grenades in half.
It moves as soon as one of her rifles clicks empty. The sword-wielding machine smashes through the hail of fire with the whine of overcharged servomotors, accepting a few hits to close to melee. Its swords come down in an overhand blow. Serafina throws herself back, fully aware there's no way she's stopping a blow like that. It'd probably slice through the X-410 like butter.
Certainly the red weed and the hull plating can't withstand that smashing slash. Energy crackles, from the ground as it severs power cables and the red weed begins to scream. Scream like people.
The impact resonates through her legs all the way up to her head, and had the body closer to it not already been on the ground, it would have been knocked down. There's some kind of displacement field in its swords! Another reason not to get hit! That thing.is far too strong, and Serafina mentally recoils back as her instincts scream warnings at her. She lets the Xiaolian handle this. It knows what to do.
She manages to dodge the next few blows as her other body hammers the tripod in the back with grenades. A blow comes too close and the shockwave of the displacement wave makes warnings flash orange from tissue damage all along its right side. That had been bleedthrough the biosuit! Range, she needs to get away! Her other body is hitting it with immuno-aggravants and corrosive liquefiers and anti-armour grenades, but it's just too damn tough!
And then it lunges in, and a whip-fast flash of its blade is enough to take off her legs below the knee. Looming over her, the tripod laughs a hissing laugh, and twists its torso a hundred and eighty degrees, spinning on the body that's still fighting just as it runs out of ammo too.
She tries to draw the Steriliser. It's quicker. The blade stabs through the biosuit, through its torso, and fails to penetrate the back. Torso a mess of red, black-green-red ooze-blood seeping down the blade, she finds herself hefted into the air like a specimen pinned on a specimen plate.
Sadistic. Amoral. Victimising. The traits of these enemies flashes through her head, and even though she doesn't feel pain she can do quite a good mimicry of it. It works, and the tripod pulls her in closer, as if to get a closer look at her. Its front unfolds, revealing a mess of surgical tools and syringes and torture implements extending from biotech organs and a grey-skinned, dark-eyed face on a video screen, grinning and hooting at her in an alien tongue.
It brings her closer. The needles and the eviscerators and the vivisectors stab in almost lovingly, with delicate ease.
"Die," Serafina whispers, and triggers the Xiaolian's self-destruct. What little ammo it has left detonates, cracking the corroded bronze-coloured shell. The body liquefies and bursts, spraying toxic biowaste all over the sensitive feeding mechanisms of the tripod. Omniphagic bacteria get into the sensitive organic components and start tearing it apart from the inside.
Perhaps if it had time, its countermeasures could handle this offensive. It doesn't have time. Because the one remaining X-410 has reloaded, attached its severed legs and now it is on it, pulling off armour plating and getting its gun into the exposed innards. It's firing on full auto, hammering the monster with toxic chemical warloads. The alien's flesh liquefies and oozes out from the metallic hull. Its grey, aging flesh. Once human. No longer. Like everything else on this fucking ship.
Serafina's weapon clicks empty, and in the silence, the tripod falls. Its clatter is very loud.
Dropping the weapon and drawing her Steriliser, she limps onwards. And yes, the word is 'limps'. She reattached the legs, but they're damaged and malformed. The primium shielding is just gone where the cut happened. Melted.
She's dying. Not generally. Just this body. But it's dying. Too much damage. It can't heal from the blade, and its biosuit has taken damage. She forces its flesh to patch up the systems and slows the decline, but she just doesn't have the tools to fix this X-410 properly now. The primal energy she drained from the systems. Made from the people. Not good for the X-410. Not good for anyone. Put an end to it. Killed it.
Serafina forces the dying X-410 onwards. Into the ship. She can still see the power flows. She's caused damage. A lot of damage. Her grenades have shattered pods and broken power lines. But it's still working. There's… there's still something she needs to do. She knows all the aliens are converging on her location. She can't fight them, so she'll need to finish her mission. Even if its biosuit is failing and she's having to force its organs to work, micromanaging it. Before she can let this Xiaolian die and resume her own escape.
Digging her hands in, she pulls off damaged hull playing and slips inside the ship, following the power conduits. There's more of the red weed here, covering the walls and floors like a mat. The red weed is wilting from… from whatever she's done, and she makes sure to kill it wherever she goes, letting out a toxic sporecloud which makes it shrivel and die and stops it blocking her way.
She finds the 'reactor'. It's in the old reactor room of the Vader, but they've stripped it out and replaced it. And they're not getting power from anything as mundane as ununpentium fusion.
There's a man in here.
The battered, bruised man wears the tattered remnants of a priest's outfit. It - and the flesh underneath - has been tattered and slashed, like it's been done with a cloud of razors. And that's not the worst thing. His torso has been split open and his organs are pulled out. Metal wires and cables and tubes full of blood and green fluid form spider-like webbing around the central chamber. His skin is sickly and greying. They're pumping the blood and green fluid in, and his veins bulge. Some of them have burst, leaving mottled bruises over his skin. They've cut away some of his skull and there are needles in his exposed brain.
He's still screaming faintly, in a voice which has almost failed from overuse. He tries to pray, forcing out words through the agony.
Looking around, Serafina understands how this place works. God, she wishes she didn't. But the logic is clear. In its own way, it resembles… places she's seen before. In space. Void Engineer vivisection facilities for alien lifeforms, designed to analyse and scrutinise them. She's even operated them, back in '97. The alien is put in the containment, and its biology is systematically scanned, studied, and then broken down for primal energy. This way, it's been comprehensibly mapped and can be recreated for later tests elsewhere. It's the 'kinder' way of doing it, because only one alien need die for a holotype for the species to be established. With this data, it's possible to recreate the specimen in laboratories lightyears from the original planet and for repeatable tests to be carried out on the clones.
Only this man isn't dying. It won't let him die. They're draining primal energy from the liquidation of all the people outside and using it to keep him alive. All that death. All that suffering. Just to stop him from dying. And they're taking just as much primal energy out of him as they're pumping in.
They're using him as… as a scrubber. Or as a catalyst, Because the flows are subtly different. They're taking primal energy from normal people, and somehow using this… this unwilling Reality Deviant to do… do something to it, something which generates a field she can't identify as a byproduct. Something which must be critical for the ship. Because there has to be a reason they're doing it, that they aren't just using the raw primal energy. He's the capstone of this… this monstrosity.
Forgive Me Father, For I Have Sinned
Serafina is in the heart of the monster, in the wreckage of an X-200 Vader they built this UFO around. She's found the Realit… the man who seems to be the lynchpin of their systems and what the aliens did to him is horrific. She has one Xiaolian left, and it's damaged and poisoned by her use of the toxic Resonance of this place. She knows more aliens are coming. She's almost out of time.
[ ] He's in too much pain to help and the X-410 is dying. One last push. Fry whatever systems you can. Make sure they'll not be able to put someone else in here. Never again. Prepare the Xiaolian's self destruct. Time to die. (x0.75)
[ ] No one deserves to die in here. Not like this. Try to get him out. Talk to him, find out how he got here. Try to save just one person from this… this hellhole, because if you can get to open air the gunsquid might be able to pick him up. To prove that you can save someone. To show that this ship and its once-men isn't the Union. That Serafina isn't like them. (x1.5)
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Aleph
Princess of Stabbity
- Location
- The sixth circle of Hell (second on weekends)
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Presumably the Adversary is an Illien. See! Even her name shows that she's xeno scum!
Oh, 'Licia. You bitch, you.
Yeah, in hindsight - or for that matter presentsight or foresight - that was a mistake. Do not show your fleshy innards to the hyper-advanced combat alien bodyguards. It can only end badly.
Happily, spirits don't get to be sensible.
And as for the vote... okay, to be honest? At this point? We've done a hell of a lot of damage, and just disconnecting him should damage the reactor, the gunsquid is on its way and can probably handle the now-crippled saucer, and Serafina desperately needs to save someone. Abandoning him now is probably going against her Vice, and we can't really afford that. Not with how low on WP she is by now. Not with how many other deaths are on her conscience.
[X] No one deserves to die in here. Not like this. Try to get him out. Talk to him, find out how he got here. Try to save just one person from this… this hellhole, because if you can get to open air the gunsquid might be able to pick him up. To prove that you can save someone. To show that this ship and its once-men isn't the Union. That Serafina isn't like them.
Sarpedon
Knight Errant
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] He's in too much pain to help and the X-410 is dying. One last push. Fry whatever systems you can. Make sure they'll not be able to put someone else in here. Never again. Prepare the Xiaolian's self destruct. Time to die.
A dude who has been used as a powersource for however long by space ghost Mengele is uh probably not saveable, the best we can give him is a quick end to his torture. Also space ghost Mengele is coming for us. time to gtfo.
A dude who has been used as a powersource for however long by space ghost Mengele is uh probably not saveable, the best we can give him is a quick end to his torture. Also space ghost Mengele is coming for us. time to gtfo.
Aleph
Princess of Stabbity
- Location
- The sixth circle of Hell (second on weekends)
- Pronouns
- She/Her
No, probably not. But we can at least make him comfortable, and get him out of this hellhole and into the fresh air, and try. We gave An-Jin Choi a quick end, and you know how well that worked out for us - do you really think this guy won't have a decent chance of leaving a tortured ghost if he dies in a place like this? That's not a quick, merciful end, that's just more of the same. And Space Ghost Mengele may be coming for us, but this body is, bluntly, already doomed; the body Serafina entered through is down in the tunnels. And Psychic Russian Warsquid is coming for him. Backup is on its way.
The Union is fundamentally a humanist association, in its goals. That's what it was founded as, and what it grew as in its infancy. And losing sight of that was what turned Threat Null into the horror that it is today. We owe it both to Serafina's psyche and to the principles of the Union to show that we have not lost sight of everything we were; that we can still act to help people. That we won't always ignore suffering and cold-bloodedly put the mission first. Jamelia might kill him in this situation, but we're not playing Jamelia at the moment, we're playing Serafina. And right now, I really do believe that Serafina needs to try to help someone. To try, even if Life 4 might not be enough to save him. Or else we're going to have a post-Moscow breakdown all over again and all this will have been for nothing.
Space Ghost Unit 731 Technician is, depending on your point of view, either oozing out of his samurai-sword dual-wielding tripod or in a cradle in the Subjugation Corps hidden base, slowly and painfully growing a new clone body to inhabit as he respawns even more damaged and "grey alien" than before.
Depends on whether you consider the destroyed corpus or his new not-yet-spawned form to be him, really.
- Location
- National Capital Region, USA
[X] No one deserves to die in here. Not like this. Try to get him out. Talk to him, find out how he got here. Try to save just one person from this… thishellhole, because if you can get to open air the gunsquid might be able to pick him up. To prove that you can save someone. To show that this ship and its once-men isn't the Union. That Serafina isn't like them.
Quantumboost
Now with 50% more dots in Dimensional Science
- Location
- Ensemble Space
[X] No one deserves to die in here. Not like this. Try to get him out. Talk to him, find out how he got here. Try to save just one person from this… this hellhole, because if you can get to open air the gunsquid might be able to pick him up. To prove that you can save someone. To show that this ship and its once-men isn't the Union. That Serafina isn't like them. (x1.5)
Yeah. Aleph's got the right of it. With how little Willpower Serafina has now (at best she has 2 left, and probably less), she is in desperate desperate need of self-affirmation right now. Otherwise she goes right back to psychological breakdown. Only worse.
...and I have a creeping feeling that someone much much worse than Mrs. Clock might get to her this time.
Yeah. Aleph's got the right of it. With how little Willpower Serafina has now (at best she has 2 left, and probably less), she is in desperate desperate need of self-affirmation right now. Otherwise she goes right back to psychological breakdown. Only worse.
...and I have a creeping feeling that someone much much worse than Mrs. Clock might get to her this time.
[x] No one deserves to die in here. Not like this. Try to get him out. Talk to him, find out how he got here. Try to save just one person from this… thishellhole, because if you can get to open air the gunsquid might be able to pick him up. To prove that you can save someone. To show that this ship and its once-men isn't the Union. That Serafina isn't like them. (x1.5)
All choices have consequences, and I'm pretty sure this one is no exception. All things considered, though... I like the probable consequences of this one better than the alternative.
All choices have consequences, and I'm pretty sure this one is no exception. All things considered, though... I like the probable consequences of this one better than the alternative.
[X] No one deserves to die in here. Not like this. Try to get him out. Talk to him, find out how he got here. Try to save just one person from this… thishellhole, because if you can get to open air the gunsquid might be able to pick him up. To prove that you can save someone. To show that this ship and its once-men isn't the Union. That Serafina isn't like them.
Because Aleph made a convincing argument.
Because Aleph made a convincing argument.
Winged Knight
Still just a crazy man with a wolf on his head
- Location
- Texas
If even just one person can be rescued from this torment then it is good. If this man can feel the outside air for what is likely the first time in decades, freed from this hellish cradle he's been stuffed into, then I believe he's been saved even if he dies soon afterward. It doesn't matter that he's a Reality Deviant. In an abomination like this ship, whatever he used to be doesn't matter. In this place he is a victim, his body and soul violated by insane monsters, and we have the opportunity to bring him some measure of salvation.
We shall be what the Union should be, not what this twisted mockery has become.
[X] No one deserves to die in here. Not like this. Try to get him out. Talk to him, find out how he got here. Try to save just one person from this… this hellhole, because if you can get to open air the gunsquid might be able to pick him up. To prove that you can save someone. To show that this ship and its once-men isn't the Union. That Serafina isn't like them.
We shall be what the Union should be, not what this twisted mockery has become.
[X] No one deserves to die in here. Not like this. Try to get him out. Talk to him, find out how he got here. Try to save just one person from this… this hellhole, because if you can get to open air the gunsquid might be able to pick him up. To prove that you can save someone. To show that this ship and its once-men isn't the Union. That Serafina isn't like them.
I'm guessing that this priest guy is a marauder; We've already seen threat null use assimilated Marauders to project anti-paradox fields once before, in the anathema.
If we do rescue him, he might end up going through Conditioning that's nearly as horrible. That said, it would delay serafina's breakdown until later, where we have more time and ability to deal with it.
hence, vote.
[X] No one deserves to die in here. Not like this. Try to get him out. Talk to him, find out how he got here. Try to save just one person from this… thishellhole, because if you can get to open air the gunsquid might be able to pick him up. To prove that you can save someone. To show that this ship and its once-men isn't the Union. That Serafina isn't like them.
If we do rescue him, he might end up going through Conditioning that's nearly as horrible. That said, it would delay serafina's breakdown until later, where we have more time and ability to deal with it.
hence, vote.
[X] No one deserves to die in here. Not like this. Try to get him out. Talk to him, find out how he got here. Try to save just one person from this… thishellhole, because if you can get to open air the gunsquid might be able to pick him up. To prove that you can save someone. To show that this ship and its once-men isn't the Union. That Serafina isn't like them.
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Aleph
Princess of Stabbity
- Location
- The sixth circle of Hell (second on weekends)
- Pronouns
- She/Her
No, I don't think so. I mean, it's a possibility, but this isn't a single unit that believes something hard enough to warp reality (which is the Marauder method that the Anathema is using), this is an ex-VE ship using a Format Space effect. That's something the VEs did - hell, it's something they still do; it's highish-level DSci. This is more likely to be an awful Format Space Spirit Charm that needs mages as fuel than a Marauder-specific thing, given who's using it.
Ah. I was unaware of the abilities of the higher levels of DSci. Thanks for the clarification.
Aleph
Princess of Stabbity
- Location
- The sixth circle of Hell (second on weekends)
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Format Space is the rote that the Void Engineers used to use to barge into people's dreaming spirit sanctums where angels and men could touch surrounded by the star-speckled aether of the infinite cosmos and go "RIGHT OKAY WE'RE TAKING CHARGE HERE NOPE YOU CAN'T BREATHE BECAUSE SPACE IS A VACUUM AND YOU, ANGEL DUDE, YOU DIE WHEN WE SHOOT YOU IN THE HEAD WITH PLASMA AND NO COMING BACK THIS TIME".
As WickedWitchoftheWeb pointed out, it's sort of apparent at times that the Void Engineers descend from those bits of the Technocracy that went and wiped out most of the native Americans and then subverted and conquered India for the British Empire. Their default approach in the Umbra used to be marching in and making everyone else play their game by their rules, where their game was "plasma cannon target practice" and their rules were "we have the plasma cannons, you lot are the target practice; ready, set, go [1]".
[1] I kid, of course. They wouldn't give you that much of a warning.
I am a bit unsure if we want to save him considering that that primal energy created by a regular chorister, even if it was done by abusing him for primal energy conversion would look differently, and honestly I consider ES evil enough to give us a hope spot as we rescue a Nephandi. But then killing him is only pushing the evil that he could represent backwards until he is reborn so and it would give seraphina willpower..
Bursting Eagerness Soul
Threadwalking Rating Machine
- Location
- Wisconsin
[X] No one deserves to die in here. Not like this. Try to get him out. Talk to him, find out how he got here. Try to save just one person from this… this hellhole, because if you can get to open air the gunsquid might be able to pick him up. To prove that you can save someone. To show that this ship and its once-men isn't the Union. That Serafina isn't like them. (x1.5)
Option 1 would be the easiest, but...
[X] No one deserves to die in here. Not like this. Try to get him out. Talk to him, find out how he got here. Try to save just one person from this… this hellhole, because if you can get to open air the gunsquid might be able to pick him up. To prove that you can save someone. To show that this ship and its once-men isn't the Union. That Serafina isn't like them.
Abandoning people for the mission twice in a row might be a bad idea when you're not Jamelia Belltower. Plus, the fight did rather mess up the reactor, so that and unplugging him might be enough to at least temporarily cripple the ship.
[X] No one deserves to die in here. Not like this. Try to get him out. Talk to him, find out how he got here. Try to save just one person from this… this hellhole, because if you can get to open air the gunsquid might be able to pick him up. To prove that you can save someone. To show that this ship and its once-men isn't the Union. That Serafina isn't like them.
Abandoning people for the mission twice in a row might be a bad idea when you're not Jamelia Belltower. Plus, the fight did rather mess up the reactor, so that and unplugging him might be enough to at least temporarily cripple the ship.
[X] No one deserves to die in here. Not like this. Try to get him out. Talk to him, find out how he got here. Try to save just one person from this… this hellhole, because if you can get to open air the gunsquid might be able to pick him up. To prove that you can save someone. To show that this ship and its once-men isn't the Union. That Serafina isn't like them.
->[x]But make sure the Xiolian's self-destruct is on a hair-trigger, too. Because while she's going to do her absolute best to get this guy out, she is also going to make sure that, if the worst happens, they won't be able to do this to him again. If she can communicate with him, she'll make that clear - he won't be tortured by them again.
Because that might just break Serafina even worse.
->[x]But make sure the Xiolian's self-destruct is on a hair-trigger, too. Because while she's going to do her absolute best to get this guy out, she is also going to make sure that, if the worst happens, they won't be able to do this to him again. If she can communicate with him, she'll make that clear - he won't be tortured by them again.
Because that might just break Serafina even worse.
- Location
- National Capital Region, USA
A fragment of the early Union Rote for the matching procedure used in Reality Deviant areas on Earth was accidentally released to the Masses, where it proved just as popular in the conventional military forces of the British Empire:
Whatever happens, we have got
The Maxim gun, and they have not.
RD's that survived to be captured in such circumstances would often call this Rote 'bloody unfair!' To which Unionists would usually respond with something along the lines of "That's the point, yes."
Kerrus
Fractal Insanity
Okay, look. The Celestial Chorus sits on the council of nine seat of PRIME. With all the energy going through this guy, with the size of this ship he at least has to be a Master (that's sphere rank 5), if not an actual archmage of Prime. They've got their spikes in his brain- probably derived from the same stuff that produced the ATLAS unit reconditioning- so he's generating probably a prime 5 resonance cleaning effect continuously, filtering out all the negative shit, all the crap in the unfiltered PE flows, and using that to reinforce the pattern of the entire ship.
This isn't a reactor, because the ship isn't using primal energy to catalyze any sort of reaction. It's a converter. A scrubber. All of what is effectively tass is going through him and being converted into clean usable primal energy. It would almost be elegant if it weren't so horrifying.
It also means that he isn't suffering from void adaption. How can he- that would be a mercy, even. But they're reinforcing his own pattern with a loopback effect, using energy unwittingly taken from Earth, and that's keeping him alive and keeping him human, keeping his genius intact.
There's a concern that this person is probably fundamentally broken mentally- ironically but God only knows how long he's been in there. There's a concern that he's been tainted by all the foul energy he's been transmuting- but he's a prime mage- at least a Prime Master, and it wouldn't be in the VE's interests that he foul himself up with this energy's resonance- not the least of which because that resonance would lend itself better to things going horribly wrong for them. He's still getting hit by it, but I'm betting the loopback pattern reinforcement effect is drawing off the purified PE he's generating to prevent the onset of pattern decohesion and burn away any negative resonance.
This is just a guess, mind you, but with that in mind I think that saving him would be, if not the correct response, then at least a possible response. It wouldn't be suicide, and in any case even if his mind is shattered Serafina can go in and rebuild it later.
And taking him out, more than anything, will wreck the ship- it'll immediately lose power to those critical systems that need purified primal energy and everything else will start succumbing to the resonance of the 'fuel' they're using.
[X] No one deserves to die in here. Not like this. Try to get him out. Talk to him, find out how he got here. Try to save just one person from this… this hellhole, because if you can get to open air the gunsquid might be able to pick him up. To prove that you can save someone. To show that this ship and its once-men isn't the Union. That Serafina isn't like them.
This isn't a reactor, because the ship isn't using primal energy to catalyze any sort of reaction. It's a converter. A scrubber. All of what is effectively tass is going through him and being converted into clean usable primal energy. It would almost be elegant if it weren't so horrifying.
It also means that he isn't suffering from void adaption. How can he- that would be a mercy, even. But they're reinforcing his own pattern with a loopback effect, using energy unwittingly taken from Earth, and that's keeping him alive and keeping him human, keeping his genius intact.
There's a concern that this person is probably fundamentally broken mentally- ironically but God only knows how long he's been in there. There's a concern that he's been tainted by all the foul energy he's been transmuting- but he's a prime mage- at least a Prime Master, and it wouldn't be in the VE's interests that he foul himself up with this energy's resonance- not the least of which because that resonance would lend itself better to things going horribly wrong for them. He's still getting hit by it, but I'm betting the loopback pattern reinforcement effect is drawing off the purified PE he's generating to prevent the onset of pattern decohesion and burn away any negative resonance.
This is just a guess, mind you, but with that in mind I think that saving him would be, if not the correct response, then at least a possible response. It wouldn't be suicide, and in any case even if his mind is shattered Serafina can go in and rebuild it later.
And taking him out, more than anything, will wreck the ship- it'll immediately lose power to those critical systems that need purified primal energy and everything else will start succumbing to the resonance of the 'fuel' they're using.
[X] No one deserves to die in here. Not like this. Try to get him out. Talk to him, find out how he got here. Try to save just one person from this… this hellhole, because if you can get to open air the gunsquid might be able to pick him up. To prove that you can save someone. To show that this ship and its once-men isn't the Union. That Serafina isn't like them.
A couple of errors:
As for the vote:
[X] No one deserves to die in here. Not like this. Try to get him out. Talk to him, find out how he got here. Try to save just one person from this… this hellhole, because if you can get to open air the gunsquid might be able to pick him up. To prove that you can save someone. To show that this ship and its once-men isn't the Union. That Serafina isn't like them. (x1.5)[/QUOTE]
Paragraph cuts off.
Should be "throes".
As for the vote:
[X] No one deserves to die in here. Not like this. Try to get him out. Talk to him, find out how he got here. Try to save just one person from this… this hellhole, because if you can get to open air the gunsquid might be able to pick him up. To prove that you can save someone. To show that this ship and its once-men isn't the Union. That Serafina isn't like them. (x1.5)[/QUOTE]