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Devastation Comes In Big Packages [Planetary Annihilation/Multicross SI]

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torroar said:
Alternatively:

"Mann, what's happening to you?!"

"Oh, the zerg revived halfway down my throat, now it's trying to tear it's way through the quantum-crystalline and Ancient-derived alloy which acts as the tubing for my 'organs'."

"And that's..."

"Kind of tickles, really."
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" ... I think it's adapting. I feel a burning sensation behind the sternum, like something is trying to break out ..."
 
Hah, nah, I'll give the zerg that their retardedly powerful acids can melt starship grade stuff in a snap or whatever, but, again, kind of lucked out on rolling on the universe that lets me get access to the stuff that can bounce off death star laser blasts and long-term burny exposure to suns.

In either case, the nanomachines could just eat it up after it starts wriggling around in his throat.

But basically? Probably not going to have much food...ing...going on. On the other hand, we know they've got whiskey and mai tais here.
 
torroar said:
Hah, nah, I'll give the zerg that their retardedly powerful acids can melt starship grade stuff in a snap or whatever, but, again, kind of lucked out on rolling on the universe that lets me get access to the stuff that can bounce off death star laser blasts and long-term burny exposure to suns.

In either case, the nanomachines could just eat it up after it starts wriggling around in his throat.

But basically? Probably not going to have much food...ing...going on. On the other hand, we know they've got whiskey and mai tais here.
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Isn't there somewhere something about who the first colonist were (and came from)?
 
MTB said:
Isn't there somewhere something about who the first colonist were (and came from)?
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I mean. All of the ships that eventually gave rise to the Korprulu Sector terrans were criminals in various veins, at least in the eyes of the Earth. And they subsequently developed...the Confederacy, complete with the flag, in large terms of accent, disposition, and music tastes outside of the upper crust who had more operatic stuff as a sign of what was going on with their culture.

So basically the Korprulu Sector was Space Australia that mutated into Space Confederate States of America minus slavery.
 
torroar said:
Hah, nah, I'll give the zerg that their retardedly powerful acids can melt starship grade stuff in a snap or whatever, but, again, kind of lucked out on rolling on the universe that lets me get access to the stuff that can bounce off death star laser blasts and long-term burny exposure to suns.

In either case, the nanomachines could just eat it up after it starts wriggling around in his throat.
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Honestly, I just wanna see him hock a zerg loogie in someone's face.

...

What?
 
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85 – School Days
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    • 85 – School Days​

    There were, obviously, far more complex negotiations that had to occur once they reached Umoja itself. Yuriko didn't partake in them, preferring instead to load up what amounted to luggage for herself, though all things considered the hastily fabricated ghost suit on old Confederate designs was all she had excepting some basic clothing and toiletries. As well as a teleport homing beacon she was to keep near her at all times just in case. For all that the Umojans were, as Mann said, 'the closest thing to good guys except for Raynor's guys this universe has got' neither of them were fooling themselves into thinking that this could go very badly, very quickly. For an organization that heavily relied on subtlety and subterfuge to make up for the massive sheer numbers difference between them and the Dominion, they had to be careful.

    Even if Mann was performing his practically patented manner of interacting with people. She'd heard him refer to it as 'too big a gift horse to ignore' sorts of maneuvers. Yuriko was reasonably sure that the word horse was not quite enough to fully encompass what he did. For here he was, offering more secure and largely undamaged alien technology to a people who were slavering for any hint of it. And potentially more. For all that Mann was quite open with her he still kept some thoughts in his head. Technically all thoughts considering the fact that she could not read a machine's mind. Yet as they embarked on a dropship with a full dozen robotic marines surrounding her, with Mann himself beside her, she felt…happy?

    Perhaps.

    She had been lazing around for too long. It went against her nature. There was only so long that one could exercise and eat and play without doing something more fulfilling. For herself at least. Mann could likely sit on a bean bag and eat ice cream for eternity if she let him. But her thoughts on that were put to rest for a time as Mann snapped his fingers and dragged her thoughts out of her navel and back up towards his face. Perhaps a little uncharacteristically, his looked moderately serious, to the point that his hat was being left on the ship that had brought them here.

    "So here's the deal Yuriko," he tapped his knee in a staccato tempo. "You're into the Shadowguard Academy…but you aren't an Umojan citizen. Pretty much the only reason we're getting away with this is the fact that I basically crammed their second greatest wish down their throats…and even then that wasn't enough."

    She stilled, and tilted her head as she looked at him.

    "Mann…I don't…this is largely my own selfish request, we don't have to."

    "Nah, it's fine, I'm happy to help you out. You want to get more psychic commando training, you'll get it. I mean, they agreed to having a small guard compliment – mostly because their Academy is far less full of people than the Dominion's," his eyes narrowed as he momentarily clenched his teeth and fists. "In the Dominion, they force people into the program. Not to mention the mind wipes. But anyway," he shook his head, "MannCo is as of this moment in possession of an unofficial slash covert Letter of Marque to go fuck around with Mengsk and the KM. Not really bothered about doing it either, but yeah, there's that."

    The dropship trembled as they changed atmospheric pressures, but as the only non-robot in the ship it was only Yuriko that was slightly shaken from side to side.

    "So…you have to go be a pirate…more?" she chuckled. "What's the problem here, again?"

    Mann shrugged, leaning back to thunk his head against the wall behind him, folding his arms at the same time.

    "Eh, I dunno. Part of me is fine with it – most of me if I'm honest – but I just wanted to let you know that that's what I'll be doing…as well as some more information that may or may not be pertinent if you run into certain individuals down there."

    A chime sounded, making both of them look up before they once more met each other's gazes.

    "That's the 60 second drop," he stood as he spoke, offering her his hand to help her stand. "But yeah, someone down there is named Valerian Mengsk. Avoid him if you can…or not, depending on how things go."

    "Mengsk-," she almost yelped before Mann put a finger to her lips.

    "Yeah, it's Arcturus' son. There was this…book I read once, 'I, Mengsk', and it uh…," Mann snorted, "It went into some stuff. But yeah, he's down there. Somewhat of a good kid. Doesn't always make the best decisions."

    And so he spoke of it, of the two living Mengsks and the woman who was lover to one and mother to another. During which she busied part of her attentions with expanding her own psychic senses, peeling back the veil, and examining the rapidly growing populace which was entering her own extra-normal senses. Only those centered on the drop pad they were approaching were apprehensive, while the vast majority around them were almost entirely unaware of anything but the goings on of their daily lives. Even so, she busied herself with focusing almost entirely on building up her own mental shielding. She was here in the first place because what seemed like an almost casual use of psionics by the Tal'darim had shattered through her normal shielding.

    "But uh…yeah. If you see either of them, and let it slip that we can heal her or something…do that. If not? Focus on your training…and Yuriko?"

    "Hmm?" she blinked at him.

    "Try and have some fun with it. Or not, I've never been to a military school. Either way," he headed towards the dropping ramp where six Umojan marines and some people who she quickly scanned and learned to be in fact the Headmaster of the Academy as well as another Shadowguard – who quickly noticed and tilted their head before she found herself blocked out, "Do well."

    It was a remarkably clean white and grey landing pad, in a set of six such pods of which they were the only occupants, all of which lead further into a massive skyscraper that she realized was only one among many. The city itself was…massive. A very artful set of glass and metal and stone, gleaming in the sunlight of Umoja's sun. It was, she decided, far more elegant and aesthetically pleasing than the somewhat dirtier and more clunky fashion for things in the Dominion based on what she had seen.

    "I don't plan on failing," she informed him primly while levitating her luggage behind her to the impressed and now slightly concerned marines and the man in front of her who…she also could no longer read.

    "Headmaster Adrien. This is your newest student, Yuriko Thirteen."

    "An unusual name," the Headmaster replied, examining her closely. "For an unusual girl, with unusual powers, brought her by an unusual man."

    "Unusual," Mann chortled before calming, "But yes."

    "You are aware that you practically held my government hostage with your gifts?" the white haired man raised a single bushy eyebrow at Mann before looking back at her.

    "Eh. She wanted it, she gets it," Mann laughed and clapped her on the back. "But I'll tell you this," and the sheer threat in a single step forward was enough for Yuriko to register it in every marine's mind simultaneously, "If you mess with her in any way outside the training – which I'm aware might involve a bit of the old breakdown and rebuild sort of thing, I might end up doing worse than hold your government hostage."

    The landing pad was silent except for the wind for a long, long sixty seconds.

    "Alissa," the Headmaster finally said.

    "I can't read him, or any of his marines," the Shadowguard finally spoke. "Her, though, I slipped into her shields when she got here."

    What?!

    "No, that's not," Yuriko began, her cheeks colored as she frantically searched for any sign of a foreign psychic presence in her mind.

    "Peace," the Shadowguard raised a hand, "Only surface thoughts. Security measures."

    "Hmph," Mann crossed his arms. "So, you and your government finally come to an agreement?"

    "Aye," the Headmaster nodded before gesturing along the path into the building. "Two of your…guards get to come and be near the Academy. One of your Behemoths can stay in orbit…though I'll tell you that any hint of treachery," and there he trailed off, looking meaningfully at Mann who hadn't changed expression.

    "Yeah, I know. Don't worry. And if we're done exchanging threats?"

    The Headmaster nodded genially.

    "Okay then," Mann turned and began walking into the dropship.

    Yuriko felt his two marines step in behind her, and taking heart in that, stepped forward to fall in behind the Shadowguard, her Headmaster, and the Umojan marines as well.

    "I wish you to know, Ms. Thirteen that I will be affording you no special treatment whatsoever. If anything, I will be likely pressured by numerous sources to increase the severity of your training."

    "Are you going to be sticking needles into my skull with experimental chemicals? Shaving off layers of my skin down to the musculature to test pain tolerance and ability to maintain telekinetic force enough to crush bones of others while they are shooting at me with lethal ammunition? Forcing me to watch others around me be torn the shreds while demanding constant discipline and pain tolerance while being shot at and simultaneously lifting a tank and liquefying the inhabitants?"

    He paused and turned towards her, an unreadable look and mind facing her. The Shadowguard as well had gone completely still.

    "No," he said in a quiet tone.

    "Then I doubt it will be like the training that I have experience with."

    A thousand, thousand memories, torn from the minds of her clones. Watching. Seeing. Reading the files. Torn from the mind of the man who ran the institute in the first place. No. Some she had suffered herself. Far more she had only the screams in her mind of, but they counted as well, considering that they came from Yuriko. Not herself, perhaps, but Yurikos all the same.

    There was nothing that Umoja could do to phase her. Little could at all these days.

    Behind her, Mann's dropship screamed towards the sky, and she throttled the urge to wave before turning back to the Headmaster.

    "Shall we, then?"
     
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    • turns out, pulling the memories out of the good Doctor's skull and that out of the first few dozen clones she met in the Institute have stuck things in Yuriko's brain! Forever! Yaaaaaayyyyy also if any of you care I started posting a new SI fic that I'm bumbling around with just about as much bumbling as I usually do - Tripping Forward (Jumpchain SI) [Just finishing the prologue soon, maybe even today] Check it out! Or not, you all have free will and can do as you wish! It's a jumpchain, so you might hate it, which is perfectly reasonable :p

    Just got some good news in my life, so I'm just trying to spread some smiles :) Have a great day, all of you!
     
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    I mean, we see so much from The Network's perspective that sometimes I feel it's easy to forget - especially for myself as the writer - to demonstrate that others have their own issues. For instance, Yuriko suffers from the knowledge of what happened at the sanitarium from about a hundred different 1st Person perspectives, is a formerly ultra dedicated quasi-religious zealot soldier commando what blew people up for a job, turned food hedonist, who just got her psychic confidence rattled by a protoss who didn't even really think about what he did to her, now going back into a form of psychic training so that she knows it won't happen again without some real effort being expunged. So yeah, just because Mann can throw down with the best of the best luxury-hogs, that doesn't mean he can fix anything he wants with just a snap of his fingers. He's not omnipotent or anything close to it.
     
    Hehe, they got the shizzels because of her powerlevel while relativly untrained... and now they have a glimps of her training plus her name "13". Infering she is a clone liberated from some primitive psy training facility shouldn't be that hard for them. The question of clone 13 of how many is there to ask... :D
     
    torroar said:
    A thousand, thousand memories, torn from the minds of her clones. Watching. Seeing. Reading the files. Torn from the mind of the man who ran the institute in the first place. No. Some she had suffered herself. Far more she had only the screams in her mind of, but they counted as well, considering that they came from Yuriko. Not herself, perhaps, but Yurikos all the same.
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    And I wonder how much of that Alissa got. I've got a feeling her first exercise might be blocking her own mind so she doesn't drive all the other students up the wall every time she reminisces.
     
    Think about counter mind intrusion training, when the attacker accidentally accesses deeper layers - and her memories.
    Or, if she's in a hard mental battle, where she invites the enemy into her mind - and then shoves the memories onto him/her/it. ... Just shouldn't be done in W40K.
     
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    torroar said:
    "Are you going to be sticking needles into my skull with experimental chemicals? Shaving off layers of my skin down to the musculature to test pain tolerance and ability to maintain telekinetic force enough to crush bones of others while they are shooting at me with lethal ammunition? Forcing me to watch others around me be torn the shreds while demanding constant discipline and pain tolerance while being shot at and simultaneously lifting a tank and liquefying the inhabitants?"
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    How many of the Umojans think that Mann did that to her? Just curious...
     
    Umojans will likely think that based on what she said and her odd name means she was likely recusced by Mann from some kind of horrible psychic program from the old Confedancy, the Dominion or some other group which really isn't far off from truth.

    Lack of mental defense training will mean they will likely take she was never being made to be subtle at all. Unlike how most humans use psychics in this verse she wasn't made to be special forces but a walking WMD.

    Hope she takes to more controlled and subtle training well while making friends in process.
     
    Massgamer said:
    Umojans will likely think that based on what she said and her odd name means she was likely recusced by Mann from some kind of horrible psychic program from the old Confedancy, the Dominion or some other group which really isn't far off from truth.

    Lack of mental defense training will mean they will likely take she was never being made to be subtle at all. Unlike how most humans use psychics in this verse she wasn't made to be special forces but a walking WMD.

    Hope she takes to more controlled and subtle training well while making friends in process.
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    From what I remember from the games, the average ghost wasn't able to bench press tanks by frowning ... which would directly support your (the Umojan's) interpretation.
     
    torroar said:
    Just got some good news in my life, so I'm just trying to spread some smiles :) Have a great day, all of you!
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    Well very glad your life is improving and as always thanks for the smiles you bring us.:D
    MTB said:
    From what I remember from the games, the average ghost wasn't able to bench press tanks by frowning ... which would directly support your (the Umojan's) interpretation.
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    Yeah, the only psychics that could possibly match what she can do are the Protoss in general, most powerful Zerg, and very rare humans like Nova.
    torroar said:
    So yeah, just because Mann can throw down with the best of the best luxury-hogs, that doesn't mean he can fix anything he wants with just a snap of his fingers. He's not omnipotent or anything close to it.
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    On the plus side taking much better training alongside others will hopefully work towards her mental recovery as she makes friends and attachments.
     
    Massgamer said:
    On the plus side taking much better training alongside others will hopefully work towards her mental recovery as she makes friends and attachments.
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    You know, after all the wars, the Umojan's might have a better idea how to treat trauma than Mann ... after all, getting your face eaten by a Zergling, reconstruction, losing your legs to a baneling, reconstruction, end of war will also leave scars.
     
    MTB said:
    You know, after all the wars, the Umojan's might have a better idea how to treat trauma than Mann ... after all, getting your face eaten by a Zergling, reconstruction, losing your legs to a baneling, reconstruction, end of war will also leave scars.
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    Very fair point and would be to their benefit that someone of her power doesn't feel the need to use it at full blast.
     
    Massgamer said:
    Unlike how most humans use psychics
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    mostly cause those guy are weak shit
    people like Kerri and Nova are super rare
    the Spectre came close but they still need rare gas and mineral to boost their psi power up enough to go from psi infiltration/sabotage to psi infiltration/assault
     
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