Is there something broken with the spacing?

For me random words have a bunch of extra spaces before and after it.

It's happening in every paragraph.
 
The spacing is 'justified', to use the MS Word/Google Docs term.

Didn't think that would carry over from G-Docs. Mea Culpa. Should be fixed now.

EDIT: Figured I should respond to these, too.
...See this is why ships need hallway mounted flamethrowers. For smartass robot types like this silicon-based shitbird.
Unit is a troll. I like that.
This Engi is hilarious.
Unit's been the most fun part of writing these chapters, I will admit. Spent a few minutes trying to figure out how the Engi would perceive things like vents and chairs for his interlude, and I like to think I did fairly well. I mean, no one told me they were bad...

Oh no.

Not an Engi investigation.

I mean, what would you do if you caught someone's attention? :p
Curl up in a ball and cry due to crippling social anxiety
In this case, there's no real change to the plan, except the time scale.

Which is an issue, because, as always, a large part of her plan was 'stall so I can figure out an actual plan.'


Yeah? Faith?

This is why when you notice an infiltrator and your ships are all entirely disposable like Commander run drone ships are the best resolution to having been infiltrated is thoroughly questioning the infiltrator, and if you don't like their responses activating the self destruct.
Aside from the well-established fact that Faith is rather against murdering people, she's planning to go into negotiations with the Engi, and having previously interrogated and then executed one of their own is probably not the best way to earn their favour. He was acting alone, after all (doing a bit of snooping to see if it was worth calling in the fleet). Admittedly, Faith isn't entirely sure that's true IC, but she's assuming it is because Chief Engineer =/= Spy and the Engi would be stupid for assuming that.
 
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Aside from the well-established fact that Faith is rather against murdering people, she's planning to go into negotiations with the Engi, and having previously interrogated and then executed one of their own is probably not the best way to earn their favour. He was acting alone, after all (doing a bit of snooping to see if it was worth calling in the fleet). Admittedly, Faith isn't entirely sure that's true IC, but she's assuming it is because Chief Engineer =/= Spy and the Engi would be stupid for assuming that.

Who said anything about executing? Clearly the infiltrator had placed a scuttling charge on the ship prior to being located, and it triggered in transit...

Seriously, even the Engi would understand that stowing away on a ship to spy (as this Engi did) is rather illegal, and although they can infer that the Faith Foundation isn't a government ship, it's still most likely under a foreign government's jurisdiction. Arrested, interrogated and executed is rather harsh outside wartime operations, but the Federation at least is at war...

But then, there's things to be said about dumping the whole mess in the Engi's laps rather than cleaning up her own mess.

Although I do understand that you, as author, want to wrap up the arc.
 
Who said anything about executing? Clearly the infiltrator had placed a scuttling charge on the ship prior to being located, and it triggered in transit...
Could have worked, but again, Faith is trying to be strictly non-violent.

Seriously, even the Engi would understand that stowing away on a ship to spy (as this Engi did) is rather illegal, and although they can infer that the Faith Foundation isn't a government ship, it's still most likely under a foreign government's jurisdiction. Arrested, interrogated and executed is rather harsh outside wartime operations, but the Federation at least is at war...
Here's the thing though: thanks to Unit's report, they know it's not:
"Ah. Well, you see, the thing about that is that the Faith Foundation are actually entirely self-sufficient. We operate under the guidance of no governing body, so we're not in any records."
Or at least, they know that the Faith Federation would like to pretend they're not under government jurisdiction. Generally, people would try to dissasociate themselves from their government like that because their government would like to lock them behind bars.

At this point, it's a safe bet for the Engi that the Faith Foundation aren't going to run and hide behind their government - besides, they're Humans, there are only two Human governments, and both are currently in their death throes, due to the actions of the Faith Foundation no less.

Faith: "Hey, Federation, I know I just obliterated your fleet and carved a pretty picture into you moon illegally, but could you please grant me diplomatic immunity from the Engi? Kthxby!"

Federation Officer: "Welp, this bitch is back. How many nukes did we not send up with the fleet? However many we have left, launch them all."

But then, there's things to be said about dumping the whole mess in the Engi's laps rather than cleaning up her own mess.

Although I do understand that you, as author, want to wrap up the arc.
There are many, many things to be said about it. Most of them positive for Faith, and less positive for everyone else. The Engi have a better handle on the political situation - better ideas of the relation between the Feds and the Slugs, or the Lanius, or stuff that Faith's thus far been more or less ignoring.

And yes, getting real tired of this arc. Engi diplomacy, a short sidequest in the name of glorious shinies, and then, as I've said, off to the Red Planet.

I'd have disassembled him with my own nanites for negotiating in bad faith, then reclaim their shitty fleet.
Until you get to Drich Benevolent Precursor Civilisation level, there is no other kind of negotiation. To some degree, every negotiation that takes place has every side involved going 'how can I angle this to be better for me than anyone else at this table?'

Also, again, Faith is trying to be a pacifist, because death weighs heavily on the soul, and all that jazz.

Course, if my muse refuses to cooperate more than it already is, you may get the chance to commit such atrocities yourself in one of the quest ideas I have lined up. *shrug* We'll see.
 
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Here's the thing though: thanks to Unit's report, they know it's not:

Ah. Well, you see, the thing about that is that the Faith Foundation are actually entirely self-sufficient. We operate under the guidance of no governing body, so we're not in any records.

Or at least, they know that the Faith Federation would like to pretend they're not under government jurisdiction. Generally, people would try to dissasociate themselves from their government like that because their government would like to lock them behind bars.

Yes. That's true. But there's also a flip side.

At this point, it's a safe bet for the Engi that the Faith Foundation aren't going to run and hide behind their government - besides, they're Humans, there are only two Human governments, and both are currently in their death throes, due to the actions of the Faith Foundation no less.

That is, the Federation and the Rebellion have basically just been wiped from the political field by the Faith Foundation. 'Hide behind the government'? Why bother hiding behind the government you just dismantled, you can just tell the Engi's 'well, that's cute and all but I've got a massive warfleet that just mopped the floor with the Rebellion and the Federation at the same time for hilariously few casualties and you want to start something? That's cute, so how about you shut up and sit down, before you end up hurting yourself punching away at my armour plating?


You want diplomatic immunity or to ensure the Engi's don't do anything to you in retaliation? Don't play the political game, call them out for the things that, in international law, are actually rather illegal, kill the infiltrator for spying (it's legal, although usually not done because enemy spies that are alive can be useful sources of information for you and misinformation for the enemy) and then dare them to object while pointing towards the laws they broke and you printed in long form on the barrel of every gun in your fleet.

They'll get the point.

There are many, many things to be said about it. Most of them positive for Faith, and less positive for everyone else.

... No not really. I mean, Faith's refusal to kill and preference for non violent solutions? Those speak very well of her indeed. However, the stated intent, after having basically tipped the manure cart, to basically drop the entire mess into the lap of a foreign government and let them sort the whole thing out?

Commander Faith by her own actions created her responsibility to see to it that the Federation and the Rebellion toe the line and set up a government according to her specifications. Yes, that would mean sticking around for a decade or more being the violently benevolent guiding hand to the fledgling new government, but by tearing down the old order and then instructing what's left to heed her instructions for the new order that's something she's made her job.

If she wanted to avoid that what she should've done is merely record the battle and not interfere in the politics of what's essentially a foreign government.

The Engi have a better handle on the political situation - better ideas of the relation between the Feds and the Slugs, or the Lanius, or stuff that Faith's thus far been more or less ignoring.

Sure, their insight and advice would be valuable.

But they've no reason to go with 'we're the new government of the Federation' beyond 'the Faith Foundation says so.' If you think the rebellion going now was nasty, think for a moment about what will happen...

And yes, getting real tired of this arc. Engi diplomacy, a short sidequest in the name of glorious shinies, and then, as I've said, off to the Red Planet.

Mars? Why are you going to Mars?
 
Mars? Why are you going to Mars?
Look back at the setting list. In addition to those worlds already visited (Sanctum and FTL) Red Faction is also crossed off, which suggests that it'll be the next world.

Which is amazing, because that setting has weaponised microsingularities. And Martian communists fighting giant death bugs.
 
Space Asshole
In a truck, flying off a Drich



Can space asshole defeat a commander? Can he hammer all the things? Will there be a Saints Row crossover? All this and more, coming soon.
 
...you know, saints row might be interesting if you go after SR4 and Gat outta Hell. The humans are in space with their conquered Zin minions, and are about to go after a (literally God-given) planet that's habitable by humans, but is already inhabited by a warrior race. In the words of Kinzie, it'll be their toughest fight yet. And Gat is pleased he gave up Going-to-heaven-with-his-girlfriend/becoming-the-ruler-of-Hell for this.
 
51 - Arrest
Unfortunately, I haven't played any Saints Row games besides The Third, so that's off the table. Any appearances of anything related to SR are just going to be the easter eggs and callouts already found in the Red Faction games.

Also, apologies for the late post. RTXAU, followed immediately by a friend's party, means I've been up the better part of eighteen hours and yet had only 30~mins of free time, so I didn't get a chance to post this until now. Mea culpa.

--

51 - Arrest
To say that I was annoyed would be a rather impressive understatement. I personally prefer the term 'quite miffed'.

Six Engi ships - an air cruiser and five smaller craft, fighters of some kind, - were currently on approach to my own units, and I detected no small number of sensor sweeps of various kinds across both the Starsong and the Pilgrims.

They seemed rather content to remain silent, though, and for the first minute or two the two small fleets were simply drifting in the general direction of one another.

Well, they were drifting towards the Starsong, and the Pilgrims were ignoring them to continue their build queue. But the Starsong was still drifting towards them, so it counts, right?

Finally, as the lead ships of each fleet drew to about ninety six thousand kilometres distant, I recieved a hail.

Well.

Guess most of my totally-well-made-and-definitely-not-nonexistent plans were going down the drain. It would have been upsetting, if I'd actually had any plans I liked.

"Faith Foundation vessel. This is Metric of the 3rd Assembly Reconnaissance fleet. You are under investigation for intrusion into Engi space, illegal construction operations, and unlawful imprisonment of an individual of the Engi Assembly."

Aaaaand there goes the rest of my plans.

Wait.

What?

I flicked back through my memory, replaying what was said.

Huh. It was a bit… abrupt, and very blunt, but I couldn't deny his claims. Though this wasn't inhabited Engi territory, it did technically belong to them. And Unit was locked in Bunk 7, but I felt I had good reason for that.

"In addition, you have several crimes listed against the Galactic Federation including but not limited to; two counts intrusion into restricted space, two counts damaging military property, damaging civilian property, disrupting intragalactic communications, two counts damaging government property, opposing the government, consorting with terrorists, resisting arrest, defacement of a Galactic Federation territory, orbital bombardment of an inhabited celestial body, usurping the power of the Galactic Federation, unlawful occupation of Earth Orbit and Earth Satellite 1 Orbit, and littering."

Oh.

Fudge.



Either I accidentally stole the name of a prior terrorist group, or these guys have already figured out the connection.

Come to think of it, the Tracker and Pilgrim corvettes were both based on the same design, and from the outside looked very, very similar except with regards to weapons placement, so it wasn't too much of a stretch that the relatively advanced Engi had spotted the similarities.

That was kind of stupid of me, actually. I should have made different ships, instead of relying on the Elysion Corvette design again.

Ah well.

Again, I couldn't exactly deny any of the claims levelled against me. I was assuming that either LDC-952 or the various Earth Orbitals counted as civilian property, the fleet and the stations were military and government, I'd shot at them - covering opposition, consorting with terrorists, and resisting arrest, - the Moon was… well, defaced was a bit of an understatement, and it had technically been inhabited, even if it was only by one team of scientists.

There was just one thing I wasn't sure of.

My priorities may have been a little skewed, here, what with the Engi fleet staring down my one combat vessel with weapons charged, but it wasn't like they were a threat, or anything. So I went ahead and asked my question.

"Littering? I don't recall-"

"On the 17th of December, Galactic Federation Homeworld Standard Calendar, two unidentified flying objects crashed into the Earth's surface due to ground-to-air weapons fire, and were not recovered by the offending party."

I ran a quick check of my fleets, wondering what the hell he was talking about, and quickly figured it out. Two of my Booster Drones had been shot down whilst carrying one of the ships down to the surface. The ship had made it down fine with the remaining six drones, which was good, but I was a little weirded out by the fact that they apparently expected me to go down to the surface of the Earth to clean up two drones barely bigger than the things they regularly fielded, and intended to deploy in the thousands during the Battle of Earth.

Even though they were the ones directly responsible for downing the Booster Drones anyway.

I guess they were colossal morons, from what I had seen, so I probably should have been expecting it.

"Alright, so, like, do I get a chance to dispute those, or…?"

"No. Please disable your ship's weapons and prepare to be boarded."

Now, I could have fought my way out. It would have been rather easy, honestly. The Starsong, whilst based on FTL tech, had a number of improvements and upgrades the Engi fleet couldn't hope to match, and I had the ships responsible for the destruction of LDC-952 just seconds away.

It would have been rather against the point though, since I intended to make peace of sorts with them.

Of course, just because I didn't want to fight them didn't mean I had to obey.

In fact, given the snarky traitorous lying bastard currently locked in Bunk 7, I was rather disinclined to do such a thing.

"Okay, look. Clearly, you're quite upset about this whole thing with me kidnapping one of your guys and trespassing on your land… space. Whatever. That's fine. I get that. But I'm going to have to refuse."

"If you do not comply willingly we will utilize force."

"Mmmkay, buddy. Good luck with that. Here, take your asshole spy back."

A couple of flicked mental switches later and Unit found himself torn from his room and onto the Starsong's teleporter pad. He was there for less than a second before the teleporter fired again, this time placing him firmly aboard the leading Engi vessel.

"Now, if you don't mind, I'm a very busy individual, and you have just disrupted a somewhat important plan of mind. I have much to do, and little time to do it in."

I noted power spikes throughout the Engi fleet.

"Stand down and prepare to be boarded, or we will open fire."

With a metaphorical sigh, I sent out a self-destruct signal to the asteroid base below. Now the Engi knew it was here, it wasn't worth keeping it around. They'd probably just keep trying to invade or destroy it, and I really couldn't be bothered to deal with that.

As the buildings began to break apart, reverting to clouds of nanobots before scattering and exploding into nothing, the five Pilgrim construction vessels activated their FTL Drives, slinking away before any of the Engi vessels could do anything about it.

The Engi apparently decided that that was cause enough to open fire, because the next thing I knew several dozen energy blasts were shooting across the void.

Starsong's shields tanked the majority of the fire without issue, deftly outmaneuvering the small volley of incoming missiles with a sudden burst of acceleration.

"Look, guys, I got rid of the buildings, I gave you back the prisoner, and I'm about to leave your territory. There. You have no reason to go after me now."

"As allies of the Galactic Federation, we are obliged to detain and extradite you to the correct authorities."

"Um. You realise that I totally obliterated their military capacity, right? What are they going to do, think angry thoughts - wait, never mind, I already used that line. Look, basically, I'm really busy and if you guys are just going to waste everyone's time trying to arrest me, I'm afraid I'm going to have to leave."

"You will be brought before the correct authorities, regardless of your wishes. Surrender or we will continue firing."

Obviously, they weren't quite getting my point. Oh well, their loss.

"Guys, it's really cute you think you have a choice in this matter, but… nah."

And then the Starsong, too, jumped beyond lightspeed, leaving six Engi ships drifting over a barren and worthless hunk of rock.

---

Observation - Faith Foundation vessels possess technology far surpassing our own. Their air cruiser nullified the offensive power of our entire fleet. Construction capabilities also beyond compare. Nanite construction systems beyond our own - design noted in report.

Noted. Unknown Group now designated Faith Foundation additionally responsible for disarmament of both Galactic Federation and Human Rebellion fleets. Threat level severe. No mention of objectives in report.

Objectives Unknown. Further investigation required.


Negative. Faith Foundation severe threat to Assembly. Observed Cyberwarfare feats are beyond even advanced Engi operations. Priority is to remove them as a threat. Long terms goals irrelevant.

Affirmative.


---

So.

Engi fleet kinda screwed up my plans. Well, my Plan Bs, anyway. Seems they were pretty strongly allied with the Federation still, if they were willing to try and arrest and/or kill me over it.

In hindsight, I probably should have looked into the relations between the Federation and the Engi a little more - I hadn't realized that they'd be so zealous about it.

Not willing to make that mistake twice, my second fork, previously digging up everything I could on the Engi, switched targets, turning my attention to the Zoltan.

Every other concurrent instance had by this point finished their tasks - the offloading of Rebel and Federation personnel on Earth and Erran, - and so they, too, spun down. I sent the two FTL Gates the self-destruct command and recalled the majority of my fleet, leaving only a few dozen Stealth Avengers to keep an eye on things.

Hopefully I wouldn't screw up so bad with the Zoltan.
 
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Engi: they are better than us in every conceivable fashion, And our military might is insufficient to destroy them.
2ndEngi: Lets piss them off and attack them.
Engi: Agreed this cant go wrong for us in any way.

:V
 
Um... are these guys stupid?

They just rattled down their accusations, but didn't once ask why. Idiots. The first thing you want to know from an unknown potential enemy is their objective
 
They're starting to realise that she's just plain better than them at information stuff.
She was getting outmaneuvered by a glorified expert system. Don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying reading about a commander who isn't perfect in every way—and slamming the AI down into a moon is a reasonable way of disabling it—but the fact remains, Faith considered an AI that should have been her inferior in every way to be a serious threat.

She did blow up that space station, but it's an AI. A program, you know? It's almost certainly backed up somewhere.

Meanwhile, I think she's getting close to just throwing her hands up in disgust and leaving. After which, the rebels and federation will be right back to shooting at each other within a month.

It's gloriously horrifying. Faith's doing a good job of showing that Faith is in over her head, which at least gives plenty of room for character growth. So long as there's someone she can throw her weight behind, yeah, she's got plenty of weight—but she's floundering now, because there isn't.
 
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Faith has arrived at a problem that cannot be 100% solved through Dakka. And she's flubbing it hard.
 
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