Faith in Superior Firepower [Planetary Annihilation Multicross SI]
- Thread starter Faith
- Start date
I love both of those games for the weapons. Like nano rifle or laser napalm.
- Location
- North of England
- Pronouns
- She/They
All this talk of the napalm laser... that thing is weird. I mean how the heck does a laser spontaneously generate explosions?
Riddle78
Reality nibbler.
- Location
- CFB Middle of Nowhere on the Trans-Can
My guess is that the laser is calibrated to the appropriate wavelength to emit enough thermal energy to spontaneously,and energetically,combust the air around it.
Rossum
Not a Cyberman
- Location
- Earth
Or it burns whatever flammable things it hit. Keep in mind that pretty much anything catches fire in an oxygen atmosphere when you apply enough heat to it. Steel wool can burn, clothing can burn, hair on a person's head (assuming the laser doesn't just microwave them to death), etc.
Any environment that has metal rusting can also support fire, fire is just the oxidization process working faster. Or... I guess a continuous oxidization process where the first bit of fuel releases enough energy to jump start the oxidization of the material surrounding it.
In FTL, I imagine the ships we see have thing like say... carpets, paint, bookshelves, laundry hampers, equipment with plastic components, cupboards full of dry goods, dirty clothes strewn about that the pirates didn't clean up after themselves, etc. Basically, the fire beam shoots through the hull and sets things on fire. Anything flammable.
Seeing it in action would be like the crew of Voyager walking down a corridor when suddenly this beam shoots through the side of their hull (probably pulling some kind of frequency/wavelength shenanigans to avoid dissipating on the outer hull), the air temperature turns from "totally comfortable" to "Inside an oven at 500 degrees" and suddenly all the pristine carpets burst into flames, any decorations in the hallway catch fire, and all those bio-neural gel packs in the walls start to boil and explode, spraying out blue goo that sizzle like bacon on a griddle before catching fire itself.
Then their standard issue starfleet pajamas melt and catch fire... unless of course they made them out of a material that catches fire at a higher temperature in which case it doesn't.
Either way, it's basically the Collateral Damage beam since it sets the whole ship on fire and burns the crew alive so you can loot their roasty toasty corpses later on after all the oxygen runs out and the fires die down.
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- Location
- Arizona
Dammit, now I want to replay Armageddon. the guns are fun, and if you are ever worried about running out of ammo (in a non-cheat situation), there's a nano forge ability that basically gives you either regenerating or infinite ammo while it's active. I used it a lot with a grenade launcher for the final level, too many damn enemies to bother aiming.
And in regards to your notes, I thinks its cause you and I were thinking similarly. Saints Row is one of my favorite series, and since Saints Row and Red Faction have some crossover cameos, I've often considered using RF as a resource in whatever fic ideas I have. Saints Row is less likely to be used as a source now-a-days, but that's mostly cause I don't think I can hand-wave the cyber-super-powers into a useful thing for a Commander/Planeswalker/etc to acquire. And the unexplained time travel thing just reeks of poorly thought out plot device. Though, Satan's Cracked Halo can make for a damn good artifact, you'd just have to take it from the most dangerous man in that universe...
And in regards to your notes, I thinks its cause you and I were thinking similarly. Saints Row is one of my favorite series, and since Saints Row and Red Faction have some crossover cameos, I've often considered using RF as a resource in whatever fic ideas I have. Saints Row is less likely to be used as a source now-a-days, but that's mostly cause I don't think I can hand-wave the cyber-super-powers into a useful thing for a Commander/Planeswalker/etc to acquire. And the unexplained time travel thing just reeks of poorly thought out plot device. Though, Satan's Cracked Halo can make for a damn good artifact, you'd just have to take it from the most dangerous man in that universe...
Glitchrr36
Slick's Short Company, CEO
- Location
- The Wastes
- Pronouns
- He/Him
This is why my notes are half thoughts scrawled on a notepad file, or locked up in my head. Nobody can guess the utter insanity that is my thought process!
Senpai
(Verified Progenitor)
- Location
- Somewhere in the Multiverse
I am a Progenitor made Commander! Your futile attempts cannot best me!
vyor
KITTY! \o/
I am a Progenitor made Commander! Your futile attempts cannot best me!
Which notes are you looking at?
I have *checks* around 14 different stories floating around my head.
Glitchrr36
Slick's Short Company, CEO
- Location
- The Wastes
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I am as well!I am a Progenitor made Commander! Your futile attempts cannot best me!
Senpai
(Verified Progenitor)
- Location
- Somewhere in the Multiverse
Only 14?! I have a minimum of 23 at all times... It gets annoying sometimes...
- Location
- Arizona
You wanna know something funny? I had 2 seperate unit/research idea docs for two seperate versions of the same defunct SupCom quest, and one now for a SupCom SI. What's funny is, all of them are pure brainstorming ideas, with no non-SupCom elements, and there are very few ideas shared between them. The only difference is when I wrote them, and the differences in designs I imagine up is astounding.
You know, if I ever did write my own Commander SI, I'd have to keep in mind my past brainstorming ideas, while leaving the most recent ones as suprizes to showcase my development train of thought.
You know, if I ever did write my own Commander SI, I'd have to keep in mind my past brainstorming ideas, while leaving the most recent ones as suprizes to showcase my development train of thought.
58 - Cultists
Faith
Some idea of what I'm doing.
- Location
- Land of Waves and Warmth
58 - Cultists
As soon as the Firefly got within visible range of the vehicles, a number of weapons opened fire, sending a hail of rockets, plasma blasts, and gauss rounds hurtling towards my poor, unarmed, defenceless scout.
Which proceeded to weather the hits without issue, flying right on over as if it had merely encountered a stiff breeze. I even had it perform an aileron roll, just for shiggles.
Still, kind of an asshole move on their part - 'oh, hey, an unknown flier. Let's shoot at it!'
In their defence, there probably weren't too many amateur glider pilots on Mars. Especially not with the regular communist revolutions and the huge sandstorms currently wrecking the planet.
Anyway, what I'd hoped to achieve with my close-range flyby was a nice picture of the people in the convoy - and despite the fact that most of them were inside vehicles, the few sticking their heads out the roof to man turrets showed me all that I needed.
Dark red hoods, lots of brass and spikes, glowing red optical lenses… yup. Cultists. The post-Guerilla Marauders wore more… not-crazy clothing, from what little I remembered.
Which meant the convoy I was looking at was… well, I was pretty sure I recalled their leader, Adam Hale, having one of the Marauder walkers, and this convoy contained two of the things, so it was a fair bet that this was one of his own.
And though he may have been the utterly insane leader of a rather crazy bunch of cultists, I trusted even he wouldn't be fucking around on the surface of Mars if he didn't absolutely have to. Which gave two possibilities - he was going somewhere, or he was coming back from somewhere. If I had to guess, that somewhere would be the Plague's temple, if only because ROB seemed to massively hate me.
Either way, stopping him was probably prudent.
As the Firefly swooped around for another flyby, I sent the convoy a ping, and was immediately rejected. Apparently Hale - assuming it was Hale, which I had yet to confirm, I reminded myself, - didn't feel like chatting.
Unfortunately for him, I did.
I had a couple of little things to attend to before I left Hemsville, though. First, I constructed another Habitation Block turned-prison on the former site of the colony's school, because I needed somewhere to put the Cultists. Second, I constructed one of my newest vehicles - the Brave IFV, I had decided to call it, - from the Vehicle Factory I had constructed on the eastern border of the town. Small, well equipped, and damn fast, the Brave would likely be incredibly useful in the future.
Third, I constructed a Cloning Bay - the design ripped straight from theStarsong, it would allow me to produce more NeoAvatars. At some point, I made a note to build a bigger facility for that kind of stuff. A Medical Block, perhaps.
The Cloning Bay quickly set to work producing three NeoAvatars - one was my 'personal' cyborg, Captain Drake, and the other two were nameless, faceless soldier-types. Well, obviously, they had faces, but I put no major effort into constructing them - in fact, I just outright copied two facial structures from the Cloning Bay's databanks and tweaked minor details like eye colour. If at any point they needed names, well, I could figure it out later. For now, I just mentally 'labelled' the queued NeoAvatars as Trooper 1 and Trooper 2.
Unlike the former crew of the Starsong, I had them garbed in attire far more practical for combat - a grey, battlefield-rated padded bodysuit with smooth, lightweight armoured plating, painted white and green, over the more critical areas - feet, calves, thighs, upper torso, neck, biceps, wrists, and hands.
Critical is a relative term, when discussing robots made of nigh-impervious armour, you see. But I wasn't willing to skimp entirely, because whilst one could get away missing a couple of pieces, if I'd removed the bicep and neck armour it would have presented a hugely vulnerable target in the most easily visible area, and that just looked outright silly.
I mean, I was trying to at least maintain a veneer of realism, here, and having supposedly professional soldiers run around with their entire upper torso and neck exposed was a ridiculous idea.
Once the NeoAvatars were done, I had them head into the Prison Block, where they could wait for Hale's imminent arrival. Speaking of, I should probably go and collect him.
---
FTLverse tech is so bullshit. Aside from their FTL Phase Drives, which allowed a maximum speed of around two dozen light years per second, their Phase Teleporters were also pretty silly. Limited only by the amount of power you could supply, and the accuracy of the sensor system you were using, any target larger than a housecat could be transported with precision to anylocation in range. Smaller targets worked too, of course, but the field had to be a certain size to maintain integrity and that meant a lot of wasted space if you were taking something smaller than a kitten around.
That said, none of that was particularly relevant, as I was teleporting something a little on the bigger end. Fifteen metres of brutally efficient self replicating machinery, to be specific.
The large Teleporter Pad I constructed over what had once been Hemsville's EDF Barracks, once connected to my sensor grid and power systems, was more than powerful enough to teleport me into the middle of the desert for a quick chat with the cultists. I'd even be able to bring me back, too, which was just plain swell.
I stepped onto the pad and fired it up, and in a flash of light, I was gone.
---
I popped back into reality just an inch or two off the ground, barely enough to register on my sensors and just enough to kick up a small cloud of dust and sand upon my landing.
To their credit, if the Cultists were surprised about the sudden, unexplainable appearance of a giant robot, they barely showed it. After just a second there were bullets and plasma shells slamming into my Osiris' torso, chipping away the paint and leaving scorch marks on the previously pristine hull.
Well, it hadn't been entirely pristine, but it was certainly cleaner going in than it was coming out.
After a moment, they stopped firing - presumably to reload, and let weapons cool down.
I flicked a few mental switches, turned on a voice synthesiser to give myself a slightly more forceful voice, and asked in a polite, but exasperated manner;
"Are you done?"
They must have realized that their weapons weren't doing anything to my torso, because they quickly shifted targets, with some aiming up at the eye and others aiming at the leg joints, and opened fire again.
For a bunch of maniacs, they seemed pretty on-the-ball, actually. I mean, their continued fire meant pretty much nothing - even their vehicle mounted plasma cannons and rockets were doing such negligible damage that… well, if I'd been of mind to stand around in front of them and do nothing, they might have achieved some level of damage before expending their entire munitions pool.
Since I didn't feel like allowing that to happen, I just raised my arm and fired a huge swarm of nanobots at them, rapidly disassembling every single weapon in the convoy - both vehicle and infantry based.
And as the tide of nanites washed over them and the gunfire stopped, every single visible cultist stood stock still, as if suddenly too afraid to move.
"Now are you done?"
The first of the two now-disarmed walkers dropped slightly, the body lowering itself to the ground and a small ramp deploying from its belly. A lone figure descended, clad in overly ornate robes and a very fancy hood. Adam Hale.
Good. It would have been embarrassing if I'd just screwed over a convoy of Marauders.
Before Hale could even open his mouth to speak, I had the Teleporter Pads in my Hab-turned-Prison Block lock on to the coordinates of every Marauder Cultist in the general vicinity of my Osiris. And then, when Hale did open his mouth to speak… he found himself suddenly alone in a white walled cell.
As did every member of his cult.
I, meanwhile, turned my attention to the vehicles left behind - or rather, forcibly abandoned. Trucks and jeeps, boring. Walkers - far less so.
I mean, walkers were, as a rule, fairly impractical compared to wheeled or treaded vehicles, but if the real walker could match it's in-game feats - such as near-instantaneous 180 degree spins and walking through most buildings effortlessly, - then, well, I wanted it.
And even if it couldn't, it still looked cool, and honestly as far as Red Faction, at least, was concerned, there was so little around to threaten me that I didn't really feel any pressing need to prioritise practicality over style.
Once I had completely assimilated the designs, I turned to leave before having a thought.
Red Faction quad-walkers could crush stuff underfoot. I was currently (piloting?) a much larger quad-walker with much more mass. Could I crush stuff underfoot?
In the name of science, and for absolutely no other reason at all, I walked over to the first jeep, lifted my leg, and put my giant robot foot clean through the bonnet.
The engine promptly exploded, shoving the Osiris back with a surprising deal of force. Probably because I'd been directly standing on the explosive at the time, but oh well. Had I but a face, I would have been grinning like a maniac as I moved over to the next car.
---
Lesson learned - the Osiris is much better at crushing stuff underfoot than the Red Faction walkers are. Other lesson learned - the Osiris is much more top-heavy, and slightly harder to return to an upright position if you fall over than Red Faction walkers.
No, I'm not elaborating.
---
The two armoured figures and the woman in the bomber jacket made their way along the corridor towards Hale, passing by a number of other occupied cells, and receiving jeers and cries from the residing inmates.
Hale was, in fact, the only one not jeering at my NeoAvatars as they approached. He remained silent as they drew nearer, staring resolutely at the floor as if he were diving the secrets of the universe from the smooth white tile. I swapped my focus to the lead Avatar and crossed my arms.
I really, really wanted to know if he'd let the bugs out yet - it kind of defined my entire future on this planet. Whether I'd need to start building an army or just cruise into Bastion and solve all their other, smaller problems by way of the Brave. After a couple of minutes, though, it became clear that he wasn't going to react to my presence, so I started talking.
"Adam Hale?"
At the mention of his name, the deranged cult leader looked up, bloodshot eyes twitching. "You're too late!" he cried out dramatically. "I know why you hunted me. I know why you tried to stop me. But it DOESN'T MATTER!"
Perhaps leaving him locked in solitary for a few hours was a mistake. Not that I intended to leave him alone for so long, of course, it was just… well, crushing cars by stomping on them was pretty fun.
For a moment the insanity seemed to vanish from his features, and he just stared right into my eyes - or rather, the cameras that served as the eyes of the NeoAvatar, - as if engaging in a battle of wills.
And then the madness returned, and he grinned. "No, no! You're too late! The true masters of Mars have already awoken! They will scour the surface of the world, and only the faithful shall be spared! This is the end of Martian oppression!"
And suddenly he broke down into a state that was half crying, half laughing.
"You're too late! Not one unfaithful soul will survive! Not you, not them, not the Masons! This is armageddon!"
The laughter took the lead by far, and Hale stumbled backwards, collapsing onto his bed.
Well. That answers one question, I guess.
As soon as the Firefly got within visible range of the vehicles, a number of weapons opened fire, sending a hail of rockets, plasma blasts, and gauss rounds hurtling towards my poor, unarmed, defenceless scout.
Which proceeded to weather the hits without issue, flying right on over as if it had merely encountered a stiff breeze. I even had it perform an aileron roll, just for shiggles.
Still, kind of an asshole move on their part - 'oh, hey, an unknown flier. Let's shoot at it!'
In their defence, there probably weren't too many amateur glider pilots on Mars. Especially not with the regular communist revolutions and the huge sandstorms currently wrecking the planet.
Anyway, what I'd hoped to achieve with my close-range flyby was a nice picture of the people in the convoy - and despite the fact that most of them were inside vehicles, the few sticking their heads out the roof to man turrets showed me all that I needed.
Dark red hoods, lots of brass and spikes, glowing red optical lenses… yup. Cultists. The post-Guerilla Marauders wore more… not-crazy clothing, from what little I remembered.
Which meant the convoy I was looking at was… well, I was pretty sure I recalled their leader, Adam Hale, having one of the Marauder walkers, and this convoy contained two of the things, so it was a fair bet that this was one of his own.
And though he may have been the utterly insane leader of a rather crazy bunch of cultists, I trusted even he wouldn't be fucking around on the surface of Mars if he didn't absolutely have to. Which gave two possibilities - he was going somewhere, or he was coming back from somewhere. If I had to guess, that somewhere would be the Plague's temple, if only because ROB seemed to massively hate me.
Either way, stopping him was probably prudent.
As the Firefly swooped around for another flyby, I sent the convoy a ping, and was immediately rejected. Apparently Hale - assuming it was Hale, which I had yet to confirm, I reminded myself, - didn't feel like chatting.
Unfortunately for him, I did.
I had a couple of little things to attend to before I left Hemsville, though. First, I constructed another Habitation Block turned-prison on the former site of the colony's school, because I needed somewhere to put the Cultists. Second, I constructed one of my newest vehicles - the Brave IFV, I had decided to call it, - from the Vehicle Factory I had constructed on the eastern border of the town. Small, well equipped, and damn fast, the Brave would likely be incredibly useful in the future.
Third, I constructed a Cloning Bay - the design ripped straight from theStarsong, it would allow me to produce more NeoAvatars. At some point, I made a note to build a bigger facility for that kind of stuff. A Medical Block, perhaps.
The Cloning Bay quickly set to work producing three NeoAvatars - one was my 'personal' cyborg, Captain Drake, and the other two were nameless, faceless soldier-types. Well, obviously, they had faces, but I put no major effort into constructing them - in fact, I just outright copied two facial structures from the Cloning Bay's databanks and tweaked minor details like eye colour. If at any point they needed names, well, I could figure it out later. For now, I just mentally 'labelled' the queued NeoAvatars as Trooper 1 and Trooper 2.
Unlike the former crew of the Starsong, I had them garbed in attire far more practical for combat - a grey, battlefield-rated padded bodysuit with smooth, lightweight armoured plating, painted white and green, over the more critical areas - feet, calves, thighs, upper torso, neck, biceps, wrists, and hands.
Critical is a relative term, when discussing robots made of nigh-impervious armour, you see. But I wasn't willing to skimp entirely, because whilst one could get away missing a couple of pieces, if I'd removed the bicep and neck armour it would have presented a hugely vulnerable target in the most easily visible area, and that just looked outright silly.
I mean, I was trying to at least maintain a veneer of realism, here, and having supposedly professional soldiers run around with their entire upper torso and neck exposed was a ridiculous idea.
Once the NeoAvatars were done, I had them head into the Prison Block, where they could wait for Hale's imminent arrival. Speaking of, I should probably go and collect him.
---
FTLverse tech is so bullshit. Aside from their FTL Phase Drives, which allowed a maximum speed of around two dozen light years per second, their Phase Teleporters were also pretty silly. Limited only by the amount of power you could supply, and the accuracy of the sensor system you were using, any target larger than a housecat could be transported with precision to anylocation in range. Smaller targets worked too, of course, but the field had to be a certain size to maintain integrity and that meant a lot of wasted space if you were taking something smaller than a kitten around.
That said, none of that was particularly relevant, as I was teleporting something a little on the bigger end. Fifteen metres of brutally efficient self replicating machinery, to be specific.
The large Teleporter Pad I constructed over what had once been Hemsville's EDF Barracks, once connected to my sensor grid and power systems, was more than powerful enough to teleport me into the middle of the desert for a quick chat with the cultists. I'd even be able to bring me back, too, which was just plain swell.
I stepped onto the pad and fired it up, and in a flash of light, I was gone.
---
I popped back into reality just an inch or two off the ground, barely enough to register on my sensors and just enough to kick up a small cloud of dust and sand upon my landing.
To their credit, if the Cultists were surprised about the sudden, unexplainable appearance of a giant robot, they barely showed it. After just a second there were bullets and plasma shells slamming into my Osiris' torso, chipping away the paint and leaving scorch marks on the previously pristine hull.
Well, it hadn't been entirely pristine, but it was certainly cleaner going in than it was coming out.
After a moment, they stopped firing - presumably to reload, and let weapons cool down.
I flicked a few mental switches, turned on a voice synthesiser to give myself a slightly more forceful voice, and asked in a polite, but exasperated manner;
"Are you done?"
They must have realized that their weapons weren't doing anything to my torso, because they quickly shifted targets, with some aiming up at the eye and others aiming at the leg joints, and opened fire again.
For a bunch of maniacs, they seemed pretty on-the-ball, actually. I mean, their continued fire meant pretty much nothing - even their vehicle mounted plasma cannons and rockets were doing such negligible damage that… well, if I'd been of mind to stand around in front of them and do nothing, they might have achieved some level of damage before expending their entire munitions pool.
Since I didn't feel like allowing that to happen, I just raised my arm and fired a huge swarm of nanobots at them, rapidly disassembling every single weapon in the convoy - both vehicle and infantry based.
And as the tide of nanites washed over them and the gunfire stopped, every single visible cultist stood stock still, as if suddenly too afraid to move.
"Now are you done?"
The first of the two now-disarmed walkers dropped slightly, the body lowering itself to the ground and a small ramp deploying from its belly. A lone figure descended, clad in overly ornate robes and a very fancy hood. Adam Hale.
Good. It would have been embarrassing if I'd just screwed over a convoy of Marauders.
Before Hale could even open his mouth to speak, I had the Teleporter Pads in my Hab-turned-Prison Block lock on to the coordinates of every Marauder Cultist in the general vicinity of my Osiris. And then, when Hale did open his mouth to speak… he found himself suddenly alone in a white walled cell.
As did every member of his cult.
I, meanwhile, turned my attention to the vehicles left behind - or rather, forcibly abandoned. Trucks and jeeps, boring. Walkers - far less so.
I mean, walkers were, as a rule, fairly impractical compared to wheeled or treaded vehicles, but if the real walker could match it's in-game feats - such as near-instantaneous 180 degree spins and walking through most buildings effortlessly, - then, well, I wanted it.
And even if it couldn't, it still looked cool, and honestly as far as Red Faction, at least, was concerned, there was so little around to threaten me that I didn't really feel any pressing need to prioritise practicality over style.
Once I had completely assimilated the designs, I turned to leave before having a thought.
Red Faction quad-walkers could crush stuff underfoot. I was currently (piloting?) a much larger quad-walker with much more mass. Could I crush stuff underfoot?
In the name of science, and for absolutely no other reason at all, I walked over to the first jeep, lifted my leg, and put my giant robot foot clean through the bonnet.
The engine promptly exploded, shoving the Osiris back with a surprising deal of force. Probably because I'd been directly standing on the explosive at the time, but oh well. Had I but a face, I would have been grinning like a maniac as I moved over to the next car.
---
Lesson learned - the Osiris is much better at crushing stuff underfoot than the Red Faction walkers are. Other lesson learned - the Osiris is much more top-heavy, and slightly harder to return to an upright position if you fall over than Red Faction walkers.
No, I'm not elaborating.
---
The two armoured figures and the woman in the bomber jacket made their way along the corridor towards Hale, passing by a number of other occupied cells, and receiving jeers and cries from the residing inmates.
Hale was, in fact, the only one not jeering at my NeoAvatars as they approached. He remained silent as they drew nearer, staring resolutely at the floor as if he were diving the secrets of the universe from the smooth white tile. I swapped my focus to the lead Avatar and crossed my arms.
I really, really wanted to know if he'd let the bugs out yet - it kind of defined my entire future on this planet. Whether I'd need to start building an army or just cruise into Bastion and solve all their other, smaller problems by way of the Brave. After a couple of minutes, though, it became clear that he wasn't going to react to my presence, so I started talking.
"Adam Hale?"
At the mention of his name, the deranged cult leader looked up, bloodshot eyes twitching. "You're too late!" he cried out dramatically. "I know why you hunted me. I know why you tried to stop me. But it DOESN'T MATTER!"
Perhaps leaving him locked in solitary for a few hours was a mistake. Not that I intended to leave him alone for so long, of course, it was just… well, crushing cars by stomping on them was pretty fun.
For a moment the insanity seemed to vanish from his features, and he just stared right into my eyes - or rather, the cameras that served as the eyes of the NeoAvatar, - as if engaging in a battle of wills.
And then the madness returned, and he grinned. "No, no! You're too late! The true masters of Mars have already awoken! They will scour the surface of the world, and only the faithful shall be spared! This is the end of Martian oppression!"
And suddenly he broke down into a state that was half crying, half laughing.
"You're too late! Not one unfaithful soul will survive! Not you, not them, not the Masons! This is armageddon!"
The laughter took the lead by far, and Hale stumbled backwards, collapsing onto his bed.
Well. That answers one question, I guess.
Arafell
Verified Cephalon
- Location
- Oregon
. . . Ominous.
Well, maybe not for you, you're a giant metal death robot who can always exit the dimension, but ominous for the squishy people.
Well. At least one threat has been dealt with.
...How big an issue was Adam in canon, anyways? And by that, I mean from the point of view of someone simply playing the game (and not paying attention to any lore not shoved in their face by the game), and not from the point of view of someone who has the entire Red Faction wiki (and parts of the Saints Row and Freespace wikis) memorized.
...How big an issue was Adam in canon, anyways? And by that, I mean from the point of view of someone simply playing the game (and not paying attention to any lore not shoved in their face by the game), and not from the point of view of someone who has the entire Red Faction wiki (and parts of the Saints Row and Freespace wikis) memorized.
Faith
Some idea of what I'm doing.
- Location
- Land of Waves and Warmth
In terms of fighting? An On-Rails shooter segment where you, in a minecart, have to shoot power boxes to slow down his big heavy walker. Rinse and repeat for a bit, then shoot some things hanging from the roof so they fall on the walker. Boom, decapitated. Somehow.
In terms of his other actions? Well, he gave his 2IC an attack gunship and had him butcher his way through a small army of Red Faction mooks before blowing up the vitally important terraformer and ruining Mars for everyone. He was also, obviously, responsible for unleashing The Plague, but honestly him and his cultists didn't do a lot themselves. They more just created messes which grew bigger and bigger and eventually got out of control.
Dealing with them is a very minor 'yay', compared to the Plague.
Riddle78
Reality nibbler.
- Location
- CFB Middle of Nowhere on the Trans-Can
You know,there is a cure for that kind of crazy. A 5.56 to the brainpan. But,since Faith doesn't roll that way... You could use the Progenitor Nanites to rewire the brain,with creative application. Should turn Hale into someone else,if you do it right.
Also,FUCK those guys. Fucking doomsday cults. How do they even happen!?
Also,FUCK those guys. Fucking doomsday cults. How do they even happen!?
Rossum
Not a Cyberman
- Location
- Earth
My guess is that sometime in the past, a bunch of people got together to complain about how shit everything is with the new-fangled rock and roll, neighbors commiting animal sacrifices, the TV programs getting increasingly stupid, or some kind of evil Megacorp or corrupt dictatorship controlled the planet and they all talked about how everything was evil and unsustainable and it would all come crashing down someday.
Then one of more of those things happened, their group got more popular, and soon they had whole families grouping together talking about how the world is corrupt and they only have eachother and they should all stockpile guns to protect themselves. A few generations later, you've got a bunch of cultists who've been raised on how the outside world is evil, it will eventually be destroyed due to it's corruption, and they've all got machine guns.
At least that's my experience with it (minus the machine guns part).
As for rewiring his brain, a level 2 or above Medbay from FTL can deal with brain trauma. Or at least the sort of trauma that comes from being stuck alone on a barren moon for years. So it's quite possible that advanced FTL medbays come complete with some sort of psychological counseling software.
As a sort of weird, but fascinating real-world aside, there is evidence suggesting that lead (that is, the lead in leaded gasoline that was used in cars largely from the 1940's through the 1970's in America) is responsible for the upswing in crime from the 60's to the 90's. Turns out using lead in gasoline results in a fine lead-laced vapor getting spread around high traffic areas and kids growing up around that get a bit of brain damage, particularly in the portions of their brain responsible for impulse control or empathy or whatever. On the macroscale, this results in a higher population or people likely to commit violent crimes. Once the lead gasoline was phased out, kids stopped getting poisoned and crime rates dropped accordingly 20 years later.
Granted, I'm no expert on this sort of stuff, but these sorts of facts do make me think. It's quite possible that these cultist have a legit brain disease, possibly a result of some toxin or industrial molecule they got exposed to as kids, or possibly magic or whatever else they might run into in this setting. Maybe explosive barrels if those are a thing.
Anyway, if there is a way to open his brain and fix it so he's not giggling like a maniac or trying to kill everyone (and presumably himself) that would probably be pretty good. I mean, he might not suddenly turn good or anything, but his newfound sanity might inspire him to run a normal cult where he just has his followers have book-readings three times a week, do farmwork, and have the occasional fertility festival. That at least should mellow them out so they aren't planning to blow up the world anymore.
Emo teenager. And insane people. And afterward, peer pressure.
vyor
KITTY! \o/
It's clearly the Ebon Dragon's fault.
59 - Tunnels
Faith
Some idea of what I'm doing.
- Location
- Land of Waves and Warmth
But I haven't even been to Exalted yet!
59 - Tunnels
Soooooooo.
Bugs. Lots of bugs. With the GPS data I recovered from Hale's cultist convoy, I was able to locate both where they were going - a cultist stronghold in the tunnels beneath Eos, - and where they were coming from - a Marauder ruin containing a seal that kept the Plague from emerging.
A seal which had, in the past three hours, been torn apart and smashed in by one Darius Mason.
I'd hoped it would have been the reverse, but having deployed Fireflies to both locations on the GPS, and observing one being totally overrun by acid spewing monsters… well, there's only so many places you can find acid spewing monsters on Mars.
And they're going to get even rarer, if I have anything to say about it.
Luckily, the cultist's GPS systems had also provided a few other tidbits of useful information - the location of almost every tunnel entrance on the surface.
The GPS didn't have exact maps of the tunnels themselves, so it was impossible for me to say with certainty which settlements would be first hit by the Plague - assuming they hadn't already, - so I took the more Commander-y approach.
Don't know which area's going to be targeted? Defend all of them.
The two NeoAvatar Troopers who had been escorting my personal Avatar clambered into the Brave parked at the doors of the Prison Block, joined by almost a dozen more of the rapidly built IFVs.
Whilst they assembled on the Teleporter Pads, I had my Fireflies do fly-bys and sensor sweeps of the tunnel entrances - I didn't want to teleport my jeeps onto the tops of civilian vehicles, or anything, after all.
Once I'd verified that the tunnel entrances were deserted, I started teleporting the Braves out, two to a settlement. The IFVs quickly made their way into the tunnels proper, descending winding ramps and the occasional manually-triggered cargo lift (luckily, the NeoAvatars inside were more than capable of getting out and flipping switches, but the Red Faction really should have switched to wireless, the inconsiderate bastards).
As I guided the vehicles in their traversal of the tunnels, I spun off a second thread to manage the rather more pressing matter of the ohgodhuge swarm of bugs.
By creating an equally ohgodhuge swarm of robots.
Obviously.
First, though, I would be sending in some NeoAvatars - if only to extract Darius Mason. Didn't want to accidentally crush the guy under an unyielding tide of metal - even if he probably would have been able to space-asshole his way out.
The third thing, of course, was to do with the stability of the Martian atmosphere. The Terraformer that held it all together had been destroyed by Hale's cultists, but they'd been nice enough to keep a record of it's location - they marked it as a holy site, even. For… some reason.
Anyway, long story short, I had the location of the Terraformer. Which meant all I needed to do was rebuilt it. I wondered if I could integrate Elysion Cores into its inner workings for increased efficiency.
Since the terraformer was a rather less pressing concern than the impending alien space locust apocalypse, I put the thought aside. Questions for later.
---
The first bugs arrived at Diggstown only a few minutes after my own forces. In fact, Trooper 21 had only just gotten out of his vehicle - and I had to double check to confirm the apparent gender of the cyborg, because I'd had the Clone Bay cranking out randomised clones and I hadn't been keeping track. Anyway, Trooper 21 had exited his vehicle to talk to the Red Faction soldiers guarding the checkpoint when the first bugs appeared on the Brave's incredibly advanced sensors.
For all that they were creepy and small and fucking terrible at killing Masons (not too shabby at murderifying the rest of Mars, though), the Plague were fast. They passed through several kilometres of tunnel far faster than I would have liked, growing steadily closer to the settlement even in the time it took Trooper 21 to walk the fifty or so metres from the cargo elevator to the checkpoint.
Of course, I was feigning ignorance - at least to the imminence of their attack, - to fool the natives, so I refused to allow my growing unease show as Trooper 21 approached the checkpoint.
"Hey! Who the hell are you fellas?" The apparent leader of the Red Faction guards called out. "I've never seen your uniforms around."
I hopped across the network, assuming direct control of Trooper 21 and waving dismissively as I switched on an appropriate voice modulator unit. "Not surprised. We're new to Mars."
"New to Mars…" he seemed to mull that over for a moment before he - and his three colleagues - all pointed their rifles in my direction. "You're from Earth?"
I… actually wasn't sure how to answer that. I mean, yes, technically I was, but not the Earth they were thinking of… and besides, they might interpret the unexpected and unannounced arrival of a large military force as some kind of attempt to retake Mars in the name of the glorious homeworld, or some bullshit like that. I mean, it'd be far from the stupidest thing to happen.
In the end, though, I decided to go for something approximating the truth.
"We're the Faith Foundation. We're pursuing some leads on some potential Ultor biochemical weapons and technology. A recent analysis of their documents indicated that there's something they've been running on Mars, some incredibly dangerous project that could potentially kill everyone on the planet."
I shrugged. "I think you can see why we'd want to look into it."
The Red Faction guards shared some glances. "Faith Foundation, huh? Never heard of you. That said, we have been living in caves for five years. Contact with Earth has been… sporadic," the leader explained. "Ultor technology, though? You won't find any of that underground - most of their facilities were on the surface."
After a moment's pause, he added, "'course, most of those got taken down at some point or another… guess the Marauders might have some lying around, but there's none in Diggstown, I'll tell you that now."
I shrugged again. "Well, thanks for the intel. Don't suppose we'd be able to hole up here for a while? Surface isn't exactly fun to go driving around on, especially with the weather how it is. And we're running low on rations - can we restock here?"
The Red Faction leader laughed heartily. "Sure, if you don't mind your rations tasting like dirt and iron filings. Just don't you or your pals do anything stupid. We've got our eyes on you."
"Excellent. Shall we leave our vehicles at the gate?" I asked, gesturing to the wide open expanse where a small number of vehicles sat, surrounded by crates and fuel tanks.
The leader nodded and grinned. "If you wouldn't mind. Baxton! How about you show these gentlemen around after they're done parking?"
I had Trooper 21 turn and walk back towards the two cars, increasingly aware of the Plague's growing proximity. Of course, I didn't need to get within talking distance to control the vehicles but… you know. Keeping up the illusion, and all that.
After moving suitably far away from the Red Faction soldiers, and making some generic commanding-looking gestures, I had the two IFVs move towards the gate to park.
By absolute sheer coincidence, and not at all my own planning, the two jeeps had just begun to reverse into place on either side of the main path when the first creepy crawler emerged from one of the side tunnels with a sickening screech.
The Red Faction's guards turned from their little huddled discussion at the noise, looking across the near-empty cavern with looks of surprise and concern upon their face before one of them called out, "what the hell is that?"
Suddenly nine more of the little crawlers ran around the corner, all hissing and biting and snapping at the air.
The Red Faction seemed to hesitate only briefly before taking up arms, two men operating mounted turrets whilst the others grabbed their rifles and crouched down to open fire at the rapidly growing swarm of aliens. Streams of bullets interspersed with the occasional plasma blast shot across the expanse between the barricade and the side tunnel, shredding the Plague and blasting them into little chunks, but for every one that fell, another seemed to step forth and take its place with gusto.
I quickly authorised my own forces to join in, and twin beams of light shot out from the Braves, carving huge swathes through the approaching horde. Trooper 21, the only one not inside a vehicle, reached over his shoulder and retrieved his Plasma SMG, adding its power to the maelstrom of fire.
Similar duels were going on throughout the tunnel network - all seven of my two-car patrols had engaged the enemy, with or without the support of the Red Faction. In one case, the Red Faction had even fired upon one of my IFVs - luckily, the shoulder-mounted rocket launcher lacked the shield breaching technology that FTLverse missiles used, and the Brave's Phase Shield generator was able to shrug the hit off without issue.
The team I'd sent to pick up Mason was having… surprisingly little trouble, actually. There was all of nothing important between the entrance to the temple and the seal - just rubble, debris, and a few odd stage lights and the like. Every now and then, a single small Plague bug - crawler? Creeper? Something to that effect, - would leap out, and be immediately immolated for its trouble, but for the most part it was silent.
The four NeoAvatars had to dismount to proceed down a service elevator - not that that would have stopped the three Braves from providing cover fire at maximum efficiency. The only reason they weren't was that there was nothing for them to shoot at, honestly.
The elevator hadn't even reached the bottom when I picked up some rather odd readings from the random patch of desert from which I, myself, had emerged upon stepping through the Dimensional Gate.
Curious.
---
The source of the odd readings was, in fact, a Dimensional Gate. No frame was present, there was just the glowing vortex of energy hanging in the air - and not a lot else besides that.
It was simply there. Doing nothing.
My Osiris chassis had moved to inspect in person, escorted by a number of miscellaneous units I'd picked up along the way - a Firefly, two Air Fabricators, and a host of Kestrels I'd borrowed from Fork 3's military buildup pile, but nothing seemed to be happening.
I attempted to order one of the Kestrels to fly through, only for it to be violently pushed back by some inexplicable force - one I couldn't even perceive with all the myriad bullshit sensors at my disposal.
I was about to shrug it off as a weird one-off, surround it with turrets and call it a day when a bright green Osiris Commander stepped out, a single grey racing stripe (was it still a racing stripe on a fifteen metre unstoppable war machine?) running down its torso.
That would be… Fork 2, then. The one I'd left behind on my Hub World, and subsequently lost contact with as soon as I'd passed through the Dimensional Gate.
The Osiris commander twisted to look at my own before the copy of my mind residing within spoke up.
"Huh. Apparently you can't send signals through these things. Who designed that? Wait, never mind. ROB. Best not wonder any further"
I nodded at my own sage advice. "Is there something you needed?" I asked my Fork, genuinely curious as to why I might have decided to leave the Hub. Surely I hadn't gotten bored already?
"Hey, I'll just shut down and we can re-merge the threads or whatever. It'll be faster than communicating verbally… why are we communicating verbally?"
I had no decent response to that, so I shrugged. An even more ineffective method of communications for a hyper-advanced war machine such as myself.
The second Osiris shut down, red eye dimming, and I reached across my unit network to recover the mental fork.
A̧̡͘n҉̸̨͜d̀͞҉ ̧͏t̨̧̕h́҉̢͢e̵͝n̸͜͞ ̷̢̡͜͏s̷̨̢o̧m̛͜͢͏ȩ̶́t҉̸͏h̴̸̡̕͝i̵̷͞ń̛͟͏́g̴̶̶̛ ͟͏̡̕͡b͘͟r̨o̶͞k̴̀ȩ̶͜.̸͠
59 - Tunnels
Soooooooo.
Bugs. Lots of bugs. With the GPS data I recovered from Hale's cultist convoy, I was able to locate both where they were going - a cultist stronghold in the tunnels beneath Eos, - and where they were coming from - a Marauder ruin containing a seal that kept the Plague from emerging.
A seal which had, in the past three hours, been torn apart and smashed in by one Darius Mason.
I'd hoped it would have been the reverse, but having deployed Fireflies to both locations on the GPS, and observing one being totally overrun by acid spewing monsters… well, there's only so many places you can find acid spewing monsters on Mars.
And they're going to get even rarer, if I have anything to say about it.
Luckily, the cultist's GPS systems had also provided a few other tidbits of useful information - the location of almost every tunnel entrance on the surface.
The GPS didn't have exact maps of the tunnels themselves, so it was impossible for me to say with certainty which settlements would be first hit by the Plague - assuming they hadn't already, - so I took the more Commander-y approach.
Don't know which area's going to be targeted? Defend all of them.
The two NeoAvatar Troopers who had been escorting my personal Avatar clambered into the Brave parked at the doors of the Prison Block, joined by almost a dozen more of the rapidly built IFVs.
Whilst they assembled on the Teleporter Pads, I had my Fireflies do fly-bys and sensor sweeps of the tunnel entrances - I didn't want to teleport my jeeps onto the tops of civilian vehicles, or anything, after all.
Once I'd verified that the tunnel entrances were deserted, I started teleporting the Braves out, two to a settlement. The IFVs quickly made their way into the tunnels proper, descending winding ramps and the occasional manually-triggered cargo lift (luckily, the NeoAvatars inside were more than capable of getting out and flipping switches, but the Red Faction really should have switched to wireless, the inconsiderate bastards).
As I guided the vehicles in their traversal of the tunnels, I spun off a second thread to manage the rather more pressing matter of the ohgodhuge swarm of bugs.
By creating an equally ohgodhuge swarm of robots.
Obviously.
First, though, I would be sending in some NeoAvatars - if only to extract Darius Mason. Didn't want to accidentally crush the guy under an unyielding tide of metal - even if he probably would have been able to space-asshole his way out.
The third thing, of course, was to do with the stability of the Martian atmosphere. The Terraformer that held it all together had been destroyed by Hale's cultists, but they'd been nice enough to keep a record of it's location - they marked it as a holy site, even. For… some reason.
Anyway, long story short, I had the location of the Terraformer. Which meant all I needed to do was rebuilt it. I wondered if I could integrate Elysion Cores into its inner workings for increased efficiency.
Since the terraformer was a rather less pressing concern than the impending alien space locust apocalypse, I put the thought aside. Questions for later.
---
The first bugs arrived at Diggstown only a few minutes after my own forces. In fact, Trooper 21 had only just gotten out of his vehicle - and I had to double check to confirm the apparent gender of the cyborg, because I'd had the Clone Bay cranking out randomised clones and I hadn't been keeping track. Anyway, Trooper 21 had exited his vehicle to talk to the Red Faction soldiers guarding the checkpoint when the first bugs appeared on the Brave's incredibly advanced sensors.
For all that they were creepy and small and fucking terrible at killing Masons (not too shabby at murderifying the rest of Mars, though), the Plague were fast. They passed through several kilometres of tunnel far faster than I would have liked, growing steadily closer to the settlement even in the time it took Trooper 21 to walk the fifty or so metres from the cargo elevator to the checkpoint.
Of course, I was feigning ignorance - at least to the imminence of their attack, - to fool the natives, so I refused to allow my growing unease show as Trooper 21 approached the checkpoint.
"Hey! Who the hell are you fellas?" The apparent leader of the Red Faction guards called out. "I've never seen your uniforms around."
I hopped across the network, assuming direct control of Trooper 21 and waving dismissively as I switched on an appropriate voice modulator unit. "Not surprised. We're new to Mars."
"New to Mars…" he seemed to mull that over for a moment before he - and his three colleagues - all pointed their rifles in my direction. "You're from Earth?"
I… actually wasn't sure how to answer that. I mean, yes, technically I was, but not the Earth they were thinking of… and besides, they might interpret the unexpected and unannounced arrival of a large military force as some kind of attempt to retake Mars in the name of the glorious homeworld, or some bullshit like that. I mean, it'd be far from the stupidest thing to happen.
In the end, though, I decided to go for something approximating the truth.
"We're the Faith Foundation. We're pursuing some leads on some potential Ultor biochemical weapons and technology. A recent analysis of their documents indicated that there's something they've been running on Mars, some incredibly dangerous project that could potentially kill everyone on the planet."
I shrugged. "I think you can see why we'd want to look into it."
The Red Faction guards shared some glances. "Faith Foundation, huh? Never heard of you. That said, we have been living in caves for five years. Contact with Earth has been… sporadic," the leader explained. "Ultor technology, though? You won't find any of that underground - most of their facilities were on the surface."
After a moment's pause, he added, "'course, most of those got taken down at some point or another… guess the Marauders might have some lying around, but there's none in Diggstown, I'll tell you that now."
I shrugged again. "Well, thanks for the intel. Don't suppose we'd be able to hole up here for a while? Surface isn't exactly fun to go driving around on, especially with the weather how it is. And we're running low on rations - can we restock here?"
The Red Faction leader laughed heartily. "Sure, if you don't mind your rations tasting like dirt and iron filings. Just don't you or your pals do anything stupid. We've got our eyes on you."
"Excellent. Shall we leave our vehicles at the gate?" I asked, gesturing to the wide open expanse where a small number of vehicles sat, surrounded by crates and fuel tanks.
The leader nodded and grinned. "If you wouldn't mind. Baxton! How about you show these gentlemen around after they're done parking?"
I had Trooper 21 turn and walk back towards the two cars, increasingly aware of the Plague's growing proximity. Of course, I didn't need to get within talking distance to control the vehicles but… you know. Keeping up the illusion, and all that.
After moving suitably far away from the Red Faction soldiers, and making some generic commanding-looking gestures, I had the two IFVs move towards the gate to park.
By absolute sheer coincidence, and not at all my own planning, the two jeeps had just begun to reverse into place on either side of the main path when the first creepy crawler emerged from one of the side tunnels with a sickening screech.
The Red Faction's guards turned from their little huddled discussion at the noise, looking across the near-empty cavern with looks of surprise and concern upon their face before one of them called out, "what the hell is that?"
Suddenly nine more of the little crawlers ran around the corner, all hissing and biting and snapping at the air.
The Red Faction seemed to hesitate only briefly before taking up arms, two men operating mounted turrets whilst the others grabbed their rifles and crouched down to open fire at the rapidly growing swarm of aliens. Streams of bullets interspersed with the occasional plasma blast shot across the expanse between the barricade and the side tunnel, shredding the Plague and blasting them into little chunks, but for every one that fell, another seemed to step forth and take its place with gusto.
I quickly authorised my own forces to join in, and twin beams of light shot out from the Braves, carving huge swathes through the approaching horde. Trooper 21, the only one not inside a vehicle, reached over his shoulder and retrieved his Plasma SMG, adding its power to the maelstrom of fire.
Similar duels were going on throughout the tunnel network - all seven of my two-car patrols had engaged the enemy, with or without the support of the Red Faction. In one case, the Red Faction had even fired upon one of my IFVs - luckily, the shoulder-mounted rocket launcher lacked the shield breaching technology that FTLverse missiles used, and the Brave's Phase Shield generator was able to shrug the hit off without issue.
The team I'd sent to pick up Mason was having… surprisingly little trouble, actually. There was all of nothing important between the entrance to the temple and the seal - just rubble, debris, and a few odd stage lights and the like. Every now and then, a single small Plague bug - crawler? Creeper? Something to that effect, - would leap out, and be immediately immolated for its trouble, but for the most part it was silent.
The four NeoAvatars had to dismount to proceed down a service elevator - not that that would have stopped the three Braves from providing cover fire at maximum efficiency. The only reason they weren't was that there was nothing for them to shoot at, honestly.
The elevator hadn't even reached the bottom when I picked up some rather odd readings from the random patch of desert from which I, myself, had emerged upon stepping through the Dimensional Gate.
Curious.
---
The source of the odd readings was, in fact, a Dimensional Gate. No frame was present, there was just the glowing vortex of energy hanging in the air - and not a lot else besides that.
It was simply there. Doing nothing.
My Osiris chassis had moved to inspect in person, escorted by a number of miscellaneous units I'd picked up along the way - a Firefly, two Air Fabricators, and a host of Kestrels I'd borrowed from Fork 3's military buildup pile, but nothing seemed to be happening.
I attempted to order one of the Kestrels to fly through, only for it to be violently pushed back by some inexplicable force - one I couldn't even perceive with all the myriad bullshit sensors at my disposal.
I was about to shrug it off as a weird one-off, surround it with turrets and call it a day when a bright green Osiris Commander stepped out, a single grey racing stripe (was it still a racing stripe on a fifteen metre unstoppable war machine?) running down its torso.
That would be… Fork 2, then. The one I'd left behind on my Hub World, and subsequently lost contact with as soon as I'd passed through the Dimensional Gate.
The Osiris commander twisted to look at my own before the copy of my mind residing within spoke up.
"Huh. Apparently you can't send signals through these things. Who designed that? Wait, never mind. ROB. Best not wonder any further"
I nodded at my own sage advice. "Is there something you needed?" I asked my Fork, genuinely curious as to why I might have decided to leave the Hub. Surely I hadn't gotten bored already?
"Hey, I'll just shut down and we can re-merge the threads or whatever. It'll be faster than communicating verbally… why are we communicating verbally?"
I had no decent response to that, so I shrugged. An even more ineffective method of communications for a hyper-advanced war machine such as myself.
The second Osiris shut down, red eye dimming, and I reached across my unit network to recover the mental fork.
A̧̡͘n҉̸̨͜d̀͞҉ ̧͏t̨̧̕h́҉̢͢e̵͝n̸͜͞ ̷̢̡͜͏s̷̨̢o̧m̛͜͢͏ȩ̶́t҉̸͏h̴̸̡̕͝i̵̷͞ń̛͟͏́g̴̶̶̛ ͟͏̡̕͡b͘͟r̨o̶͞k̴̀ȩ̶͜.̸͠
Riddle78
Reality nibbler.
- Location
- CFB Middle of Nowhere on the Trans-Can
Whelp. Faith's fucked!