The Shadow of Old Transgressions (Homeworld/Mass Effect Crossover Quest)

The Great Rift
System 748E
Unnamed Gas Giant

You stare intently at the robotic arm as it crosses your field of view. It's busily connecting yet another cable to your core along with dozens of others arms just like it. Worker bots trundle in and out of your compartment hauling materials and taking away debris. Using your visual sensors like this makes you feel half blind. You haven't needed to do so since you were a child just learning to interface in the Garden. You don't have to be watching this. You could be reviewing your databanks, but you've already spent a lot of time on them, and frankly you're bored of reading. Besides this is it. Once Aurora finishes here you'll finally be able to get a look around the system for yourself.

"Alright this should do it." She says over the interlink. The arms pull away and you start getting requests from Aurora's sensor protocols. You go over them one by one carefully configuring each one. It's been a while since you've had to do this, but it's something you never forget.

As each one completes your view unfolds. Radar data showing the nearby rocky debris. Infrared sensors and magnetometers showing the massive pulsing storms of the gas giant you're orbiting. Telescope arrays to give you a visual reference for everything. And finally the quantum antenna to let you listen to hyperspace. If you concentrate you can still see your compartment where the robotic arms are packing themselves away. You never stopped seeing it really, but you can see so much more than that now.

"How is it? Any glitches," queries Aurora. "None that I can see. Thanks Aurora. It's good to be able to see again."

You ponder what you are actually seeing. Aurora is hanging in the middle of a Jovian ring harvesting raw materials from the icy rocks. Laverna, Ulysses, and Iuno sit at the points of a triangle around her. Of course Aurora already told you that everyone was okay, but it's good to see them for yourself.

While you were dueling with the pirate carrier Ulysses and Laverna made their passes through the pirate wolf pack. They managed to kill two frigates and a handful of interceptors before separating. Unfortunately the pirates didn't give chase but instead split up to go after Aurora and the freighters. Ulysses dealt with most of the ones going after the freighters while you were dueling the carrier, but Laverna couldn't do much more than harass her share.

Once you and the carrier performed your mutual kill Iuno flew over to assist Laverna. And fortunately it was at least enough to keep them from destroying Aurora. Once Ulysses finished escorting the freighters through the slipgate he joined them and together they finished off the last of the pirates. Surprisingly none of the pirates jumped out. Usually at least a few are unwilling to fight to the bitter end.

Once the system was clear they performed what self repairs they could until Aurora came back online. Then they salvaged the debris field with quite a bit of trepidation. There was much rejoicing when they found your core intact, but sadly it appears that Talus's self immolation left nothing behind.

Aurora attempted to salvage the pirate carrier, but her drones were infected with some kind of biomechanical parasite living in the debris and she had to detonate them. She thinks it's probably related to whatever happened to Talus. After some debate your comrades decided not to risk anymore salvaging in case more pirates showed up. So they vaporized the remaining debris and made a jump to a random system nearby.

That's where you are now.

---

Now that you're back in the communications network the others are quick to greet you. "Valerius! You were awesome! Makes me want a gun like that too." Laverna is the first, and is as cheerful as ever. It seems less forced this time.

"Good job kid. I'm impressed. I didn't really think you could do it." Kind of harsh, but after reviewing the logs you agree with Ulysses. You got really lucky fighting that carrier. If it hadn't been mostly dead already it would have smashed you easily. It would have been better to concentrate all four of you to fight it. To provide more firepower and more targets.

"By Sajuuk you nearly gave me a reactor overload when your engines got slagged. You definitely owe me a new pair of thrusters. I never want to do that again. It's good to see you awake though." You did most of the shooting, but Iuno really did put in a lot of work to keep you alive. She sounds a little frazzled from it all, but on the plus side it seems to have distracted her from Talus.

"Thanks Iuno, I couldn't have done it without you. Aurora filled me in and it sounds like the frigates weren't an easy fight either. Have you all decided what our next step is?"

As you chat you access the flotilla network for everyone's status. It's not great reading. Laverna wasn't really prepared to fight frigates alone. She had to expend all the acolytes keeping herself covered and still took some deep hits.

"No, of course we were waiting for you. Can't make a plan without the hero of the Irune, our fearless captain."

Ulysses was already banged up and fighting a series of frigates alone did him no favors. His original armor is mostly gone, and while Aurora patched it up with some makeshift plating it won't be nearly as tough.

"I keep telling them that there's only one thing we can do. We have to go to Bentus and tell them about Talus's loss."

The carrier mostly focused on you instead of Iuno, but she took a few shots when she went to help Laverna. Still of all the frigates she's in the best shape.

"Yes, straight there and no diversions. We don't have time for detours."

Aurora took a lot of damage from Talus's detonation, but she's also the one with the best self repair systems. Still her hyperspace core has some damage that she can't fix herself. She can still jump, but she's going to be slowing down the whole flotilla.

"The Sphere convoy gave us a reward and we should use it. Yes, it's out of our way, but they'll have a shipyard that can fix us up. We'll easily make up the time once everyone's repaired."

You get the feeling that this is a debate that has been raging while you were being repaired. Laverna and Aurora want to make a detour to Irune. It's further in towards the galactic core than your route to Bentus, but they promised you a reward, and they'll have shipyards there.

Meanwhile Iuno and Ulysses want to head straight across the rim to the Great Harborship, Bentus. Taking a direct route would minimize the time in transit, and yes everyone would stay damaged, but Bentusi shipyards can fix you more easily than any alien yard.

Even if they didn't want to wait for your opinion the vote is tied without your decision.

1. What route should you take?

[] Straight to Bentus:
The Bentusi need to know there are pirates like these out there. You killed this batch, but they certainly had a base somewhere. That sort of carrier doesn't get built in a metaphorical vacuum. Bentus can get word out to the other Exchanges to have their guard up before something even more terrible happens.

[] Detour to Irune:
It's foolish to risk the route damaged as your flotilla is. What if you get ambushed along the way? It's only a few quick jumps and you'll be in orbit of Irune. With the reward from the convoy you can get everyone repaired there, and maybe even get a new body for yourself.

Wherever you end up going you're going to have a lot of time to think. It would be a good idea to put some thought into how to prepare yourself for a future conflict. You could spend some time reviewing the design archives and talking with the other members of your flotilla to find some good ideas.

1. What do you want to look into?

[] Convince Aurora to expand her hangar:
Aurora's current hangar can only build and service corvette sized ships. That's fine normally, but an obvious major drawback when traveling with several frigates. Aurora herself isn't much bigger than a frigate though. So expanding her hangar enough would be a challenge. Plus you'd need to convince her to actually modify herself like that.

[] Design a new body for yourself:
Even within the confines of a corvette hull you can do better than a pilgrim or a kludged together trio of acolytes. For instance simply expanding the pilgrim hull to fit your ion cannon immediately springs to mind. It would take some doing, but you could get as close to your old body as possible within the constraints of a corvette hull.

[] Think of something else:
(Write in) Think of something else that might help your flotilla in future fights. Maybe an upgrade for one of the others or a new kind of drone. You can design one upgrade, drone, or corvette now. You can even get started on designing a larger ship class if that's what you want to do.

---

Quest Note: I'm trying out using different colors for different characters. I think it should look okay, but if any of you have issues reading it let me know.

It appears we have a winner. But it is a bit late for a new post. So I'll leave the vote open until tomorrow just in case anyone else votes. I'll tally it up tomorrow morning, and update later in the day. Here's a little something to tide you over.

---

The Keepers

The Bright Ones created minds in their own image, and in their arrogance they said, "Behold are we not as gods." And Saajuk said, "NO."
-Fragment from the Tome of Umesh ca. 7293 GSY

The Keepers are a fleet of dogmatic synthetic intelligences who relentlessly patrol the sites of progenitor wrecks. They will attack and disable any ships that attempt to approach a progenitor wreck for any reason. Equipped with near impenetrable armor and a slew of arcane technologies they are best avoided by even full military fleets.

To most races of the galaxy they have always been there. Ancient protectors left by the progenitors themselves to guard their fallen glories. But the Bentusi are old, very old. They remember a time before the Keepers. A time when anyone could explore the heritage of the ancients as they wished.

A time when a young species full of fire and wonder delved into those very wreckage. When that species used their knowledge to create a new race of synthetic intelligences from whole cloth. When parent and child had a falling out whose consequences still reverberate to this day. It has been so long now. So long that the origins of the keepers are lost to most races, and all that remains is a superstitious dread of researching synthetic intelligence. But the Bentusi remember. And mourn what could have been.

On a more practical note the Keepers and Bentusi have a wary respect for each other. Neither regard the other with the sort of mystical awe that the lesser races hold them both in, but they are not exactly on friendly terms. It is not advised for Bentusi Pilgrims to travel through the graveyards of the galaxy. More than one promising young Bentusi has been lost that way.

The Great Rift
System 748E
Unnamed Gas Giant

"We should head straight back," you say.

"What No." "Come on" Aurora and Laverna reply almost simultaneously.

"You make some good points. We can get ourselves fixed up at Irune. And once we do we'll be able to get back Bentus faster. But look, even in the best case we lose nearly a week." You pull up a chart showing the route to Bentus, and then overlay it with a detour to Irune.

"Yes, that's not long, but you know it's not going to be the best case. We'll need to spend who knows how long at Irune negotiating for a shipyard. And then actually doing the work. It's not as if their equipment is going to be very good anyway."

There are pings of agreement from the whole group, even Laverna and Aurora. It's not that the Sphere has poor shipyards exactly, but they aren't Bentusi.

"It all adds up. Not a lot, but it adds up. Maybe it won't make a difference. But how would you feel if someone didn't get the message in time and was attacked? If we lost another elder by just a day or two after we stopped at Irune."

There is a long silence then. You automatically query the emotional overlay and get a bit of sullenness from Laverna, but only deep guilt from the other three. Finally the acknowledgements come from all four in a messy jumble, "Alright," "To Bentus," "Yes," "We're agreed then."

The flotilla prepares for the journey to the Great Harborship, Bentus. More accurately Aurora prepares. She tops off her resource bunkers and runs the equations needed to make the hyperspace jump to the next star system. As the slowest one here she'll be setting the pace. Everyone else, including you, mostly just waits for her to finish. It takes a few hours, but finally she does.

"Set formation arrow," directs Ulysses. He drops into the lead position ahead of Aurora while Laverna and Iuno move to the sides.

Aurora distributes her quantum waveform equations to the rest of the flotilla. "Syncing Hyperspace Cores."

"Synced," replies Iuno calmly. You can't tell what she's thinking.

"Synced!" exclaims Laverna. She might not have won the argument, but she seems excited just to be moving.

You remain silent through all this. Without a ship body of your own you're just a passenger right now.

"Initiate Hyperspace jump."

You watch as the bright yellow gates open in front of all four ships. It's mesmerizing. You can hear the enchanting susurration of hyperspace, and it makes you ache with longing. You want to reach out and dive into its embrace yourself. But without your body you can only watch. Even sharing Aurora's sensor data it's not the same. You can only sigh as the waveform passes over her.

This is why you spent most of your time asleep on Talus.

---

You fly through the void on trails of fire. Your rounded hull banks into maneuvers that would break larger ships in half as you vector straight through a flock of interceptors. You unleash a shot from your starboard cannon and wipe one from the sky. But that's just a passing shot. Your main target looms ahead, a Turanic Carrier.

You sling yourself in an arc around the looming vessel even as you keep your bow locked onto it. Your port cannon fires a hit that leaves a gash in its arm. Not very damaging, but your spinal cannon has finished charging. You fire your main gun and your engines strain against the recoil as a beam of yellow light smites the enemy carrier.

You're already flipping end over end and flying away before the analysis of the damage is complete. Looks like you managed to cripple one of its engines. As you lose yourself in evasive maneuvers you sigh to imagine what you could be instead. Schematics of behemoth energy weapons and sleek battlecruisers flip through your mind.

But you work with what you have. And what you have is a corvette hangar. You're glad you visited with the Kadeshi back in your pilgrimage. You drew inspiration from their multi beam frigates and pared the design down into something that could fit into a corvette. If you were any other race this wouldn't be possible. But you're a Bentusi, compact and deadly ion cannons are your trademark. It helps that you already had the acolytes as a reference for a small ion cannon strike package.

You take a deep breath as your core relaxes and eases a tension you hadn't even realized you had. A sign that your ion cannons have finished preliminary charging and dropped to nominal power draws. The strain of it always sneaks up on you.

You whip back around for another pass at the carrier — [Emergency Alert: Hyperspace Termination]

---

Foggy with the disorientation of being ejected from your dream scape you flail at the sensor readings. You're in a star system you've never heard of before, but that's not unusual. A fairly standard arrangement of planets. One life bearing one, but no signs of civilization.

"What's going on?"

"Power readings are nominal. We ran into some kind of hyperspace interference."

You run a scan for it, but Laverna beats you to the mark, "It's there. I'm sensing abnormal gravity readings coming from that moon."

The five of you focus on it. It looks like a normal moon. Mostly ice and rock orbiting an inconspicuous gas giant. But it's jutting into hyperspace like a black hole. It sets your sensors on edge. Your memory nags at you, but you can't place it.

"Hey look, it's a Grasper." Laverna is really on the ball today.

You all look and there's a collective groan as you spot the blocky yellow body and huge frontal manipulators. The smallest and most annoying Keeper vessel. Graspers love to disable intruders and carry them off to random areas to be junked. As Unbound none of you are in danger of being actually disabled, but it would still be able to push you around. And they're notoriously hard to destroy.

"We should get rid of it. Otherwise it's just going to keep bothering us."

"Wait, hold on. It's just doing it's job and it hasn't attacked us yet. Let's just distract it."

"Shooting it would be soooo tedious too."

Fortunately you and Aurora haven't let the argument distract you. Both of you pour over her sensor logs until you find the source of the interference. "There's some kind megalith under that ice. I'm seeing power fluctuations all across the scale. Looks like multiple gravity wells."

Aurora considers her options. "I think we could dig through it with some harvester drones. It would be faster to blast it out, but that would be risky with those power readings."

1. How should you deal with the Grasper?
[] Follow Ullysses's plan:
It will take a lot of firepower given how agile and heavily armored it is, but Iuno, Laverna, and Ulysses working together could eventually corner and kill the Grasper. Once they do you'll be free to take as much time as you need to deal with the megalith.

[] Take Iuno's advice:
Iuno proposes luring the Grasper around with her holographic decoys. It will take all her attention to keep away from it and the others might need to pitch in every now and then. Even Aurora will need to keep vigilant while she digs. But Keeper's have long memories. Destroy this Grasper here and it might not be just a Grasper next time.

2. How should you get to the Megalith?
[] Build some Harvester Drones:
Aurora can build six with her available resources. They're built to harvest asteroids so they'll easily be able to dig down to the asteroid. It will be precise, but not quick. In addition you'll have harvester drones after this.

[] Build your new body:
On the flip side you did just design your new multi gun corvette body. Weapons designed to deal with capital ship armor will make short work of ice and rocks. And on the plus side you'll have a body again. The only issue is that it might be hard to stop at just the ice and rocks.

You also consider that Ullysses could probably dig through the rock with his ion cannons as well. But only if he's not dealing with the Grasper.