- Location
- Somewhere out there
But I wasn't arooooooound then!I think I already made my opinion on trying to turn this into Sliders clear
I'm thinking lasers.
The Practice War [Complete]
- Thread starter Snowfire
- Start date
- Original Sci-Fi
Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
- Location
- Wordcats
First post you made in the thread:
Post where I made my opinion on turning this into Sliders known:
Post where I made my opinion on turning this into Sliders known:
Don't worry about. Just be glad that 'e hasn't ruled out Macross yet.
Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
- Location
- Wordcats
You are just obsessed.
...I don't understand the question.
To be fair, Macross is kinda awesome, and has some elements that already slot into our existing setting with almost no work at all.
Mandabar
Waifu of choice is Rem. Give that girl some hugs!
- Location
- Florida, USA [Yes. Florida *FacePalm*]
I'm terrified after seeing those rolls.
Wasn't SV confirmed to have a cursed dice roller system?
Quote attack!
Mhhhhhmmmm...... No seems Macross is still a go!
\o/
Fire all missiles!
Wasn't SV confirmed to have a cursed dice roller system?
Waaaiiit... Didn't s/he already rule it out?
Quote attack!
The answer is still no to designing Macross
I'm not even going to try to argue the point any more. But you still can't build Macross, so there
Mhhhhhmmmm...... No seems Macross is still a go!
\o/
Fire all missiles!
- Location
- Somewhere other than where I am.
No, I meant I read that, and a chill went up my spine. It was the strangest feeling.
Edit: If we could get Boson Jumping* working, we could build the Nadesico.
*I'm not actually sure if this would violate the ban on the First Secret. In-system teleport might count as a different Secret.
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If we move the entire solar system with us, can we bypass the rule against FTL? We wouldn't be traveling FTL after all... (yes I know better)
Nope, there's a Kingdom Hearts CK2 quest here in which our dice luck was so bullshit that the QM resorted to using a separate roller for each action...........and our luck remained absurdly bullshit.
Over there, we've had a nat100 almost every turn, and our most recent turn (turn 5) had an average result of 78 off of 8 dice with no modifiers. That then got raised even higher by a one reroll per turn bonus we've unlocked.
- Location
- Somewhere other than where I am.
So not cursed. Just broken.
I'm pretty sure the dice are fair, in the sense that the mean die roll for a d100 comes out to ~50.5, but I don't think there's been any studies as to whether or not the dice have an unusually high variance or tendency to go on runs, as those are harder to calculate.
- Location
- Somewhere other than where I am.
Fair dice have linear distribution. Testing for runs is just a matter of collecting enough rolls and feeding them to various compression functions. If it is compressible beyond standard deviation, it isn't random.
This has come up before, the forums dice roller uses PHP's implementation of the mersenne twister, which isn't biased.
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
Depending on how it's used, the resulting dice can still be biased. Most likely only by a tiny little bit, but still...
Basically, 2^32 does not divide evenly into 100.
Do you think your dice are purely random as well?
I mean, if you don't buy those specifically designed ones that are proud of being exactly perfect that is....
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
My dice are built on a fair PRNG that lacks this particular problem. I think I'll be fine.
Point taken, mind you. The above is a tiny, tiny nit; the forum dice still beat anything you can find on your table by far. Unless Snowfire is rolling a D2e20, which I wouldn't put past him.
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- Location
- Somewhere other than where I am.
As long as you seed from a good HRNG.My dice are built on a fair PRNG that lacks this particular problem. I think I'll be fine.
Point taken, mind you. The above is a tiny, tiny nit; the forum dice still beat anything you can find on your table by far. Unless Snowfire is rolling a D2e20, which I wouldn't put past him.
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
If anyone I'm playing RPGs with manages to break the PRNG, then I'd say they deserve the 20s.
- Location
- Somewhere other than where I am.
"Anyone who attempts to generate random numbers by deterministic means is, of course, living in a state of sin." - John von Neumann
- Location
- Somewhere out there
It should be noted that PRNGs are MORE random than real dice. Real dice are biased by how they're rolled; if a person rolls the die in a consistent fashion, then a correlation will arise between the number that was on the top of the die when it was picked up and the result of the roll.
It should also be noted that true random numbers HAVE runs and wild swings, and a RNG that DOESN'T isn't particularly random at all.
It should also be noted that true random numbers HAVE runs and wild swings, and a RNG that DOESN'T isn't particularly random at all.
The Second Battle of Sol: Tactics 1
Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
- Location
- Wordcats
In the dark of space, it's been said that no one can hear you scream. No one can hear you at all, in fact. Death, life, none of it matters. Space is a harsh mistress, but to call her heartless would betray a fundamental lack of understanding of the endless void. Space doesn't want to kill you out of malice, it's just that very few humans can survive her cold embrace. That you happened to be one of that few did very little to help how you felt as you watched the largest fighter strike in human history form up on the main plot. You could see a little of what Lina was doing now, your small understanding of tactics catching the broad strokes of what she'd clued you in to look for. The ships of the fleet were drawn up in a line forward of the orbitals, a faint curve bringing the edge of the crescent back towards them. It was a simple formation, but there was little value in finesse for this engagement.
Unless finesse was also trickery, in which case Lina was staking the entire battle on it. Calypso was well protected at the centre of the line, the comforting presence of the main fleet clustered about her and a considerable fighter component to guard against small craft. Not for you the first crush of battle, you're too valuable for that. But if Lina's plan worked, no ship in the fleet would escape combat.
You watched final pieces of that plan slot into place on the plot, small movements to open what looked like a vulnerability in your lines, an intricate chessboard of lives and many more dimensions than the traditional two. Lines within lines, far deeper than you could see even knowing what to look for. A few ships here, a task force spread a little wider than it really should be. You could narrow down the gap, but not the jaws that were meant to swing shut around it. You couldn't complain though, if you could have seen them then the Shiplords surely would have.
Vega was lost in the depths of a powerful half-state to your left, and a small part you envied the ease with which she'd been able to fall into her Focus. You could trace the path easily, but it took something more to bring power with it, a set of circumstances that had to resonate with you. Your Focus wasn't as easy to bring to bear here as hers, after all. You could feel pieces of your power melding with the protections the other Restorer Focused had brought to life around the Calypso, and their thankful thoughts as you smoothed away the subtle imperfections that could make her vulnerable. That was so simple now, an exercise as easy to you as breathing, but it didn't help with the bigger picture in front of you.
Unless…it did.
:Sidra!: The thought blazed up inside you, a flare of brilliant possibility that you couldn't voice with words, but you didn't have to. Sidra dived into the mix of hope and half-logic, digging for its foundation even as you slipped between the layers of protections you'd given strength to into the black beyond. There was a sound somewhere around you, a warped and twisted tone that pulsed at the heart of the Tribute Fleet. It was muffled even this close, as the fleets rushed together, but in the end it was all just a matter of finding the right frequency. The torn note sang in your ears as you caught the edge of it, and your Concert Set translated the vibration into something close enough to reality for you to hear.
You'd been trying to find a pure note. For all those hours, you'd been looking from something whole, something that sang true. But what if the truth was something else, a note that wasn't true or whole, but distorted and warped. You'd discounted it before as interference, but you should have known better. You tried to shake that thought away before Sidra could pounce on it, but they still heard it, and the same voice that had greeted you three years ago flowed through your mind like water.
:We all missed it, Amanda. And you are no more infallible than any Child of Earth.: She told you. In Sidra's mind, all the intelligences created by the Unison process were included in that number. You couldn't disagree, although you knew a few who might. It didn't matter though, because she was right. You felt a flicker of dry amusement as you considered tacking 'as usual' onto that statement. :But you found it, and before battle was joined. It matters not if only barely:
:Should I follow it, then?: You wondered, and your eyes flicked to the battle plot back in concrete reality. The Shiplords were moving in closer, targets systems coming to life across the fleet as they neared the edge of your missile envelope. Their formation was shifting, they'd clearly noticed the gap Lina had left in the line, and you winced inside as emotionless computers tallied up the force accelerating towards it.
Four of the Collector-class ships, their multi-kilometre hulls bristling with weapons, and more than half of the escort groups the Tribute Fleet had brought with them. You wondered why for a moment, then remembered that to the Shiplords those auxiliary craft were entirely expendable. A legitimate swarm of drones came with them, and you glanced over at Lina to find your sword calm. Watching the field, passing orders to ensure her edge would be as sharp as it could be, but unworried by the torrent of death.
:Lina has all in hand, I think.: Sidra replied, firm assent pulsing through your link. :And we need not go too far.: The voice of your Platform turned very serious. :I think it might be unwise to attempt that, in truth. Not until we know what we're dealing with.:
:We've been dealing with things we don't understand ever since you woke up, Sidra.: You replied, but your tone wasn't firm. You knew the other side to that coin, and Sidra did too.
:But all of those have involved Practice, or constructs of the Elder First, who we have no reason to attribute malice to in their decision making. Some considerable degree of human error, perhaps, but not malice.: You sighed heavily in the silence of your mind, and Sidra's next words were quite gentle.
:Amanda, I do understand. We're cut from the same cloth, as it were, and I share the need to find the source of this wrongness. But we can't risk the possibility that these ships have defences, the fact that there are more ships than predicted suggests that the Shiplords do have some. These ships might not have them, but if they do.:
:Alright.: To most others, the word would have verged on snappy, but it would have been less than useless to use tactics like that on Sidra. :We'll be careful.:
Roll: 63 + 16 + 30 + 10 vs 40 + 25 + 30 = 119 vs 95. Success
:Thank you.: You felt their presence in your mind shift at the words, reaching out around you like a non-physical Aegis. The twisted music swelled again, pouring through your mind and shaking your soul, but your protections held. It was like trying to climb a waterfall, but that wasn't impossible, not to you. On the bridge, the physical you took up the discordant melody in a low hum, but you were too caught up in other things to notice.
As you looked deeper, you saw glimpses of a truth. Broken chords that tore at your soul, but there was no single source like you'd thought. The Medicament-class had made you look, but what you saw was almost more than you could take. Every ship in the Tribute Fleet was the same, and the nightmarish symphony was all of them. Here and there were nexuses, leads to the music, a conductor.
The world spun under you, as if the very foundations of your existence were shifting, suddenly made quicksand by what you desperately didn't want to see. Everything you saw as beautiful, as who you were, these ships were and were not. You'd wanted to trace the imperfections, to find what was at their core, you'd found much more than that. Nanobiological, Vision had said. A big word to avoid vaster problems, like where the material for those living circuits came from. The Second Secret could create synthetic biomaterial, you knew that from Mary, but those ships weren't synthetic. You knew that now, and that was the problem.
Who or what had gone into creating them you didn't know, and you understood even less of the why. It was creation and mending, perverted on a scale you'd never thought possible. The essence beneath was twisted and veiled, but it was still there, and you could see a little of it now. And that meant-
There was a glimpse of something deeper, something more than just the knowledge you had now.
:Amanda, stop!: Sidra yelled, and you tried to pull yourself back.
Then there was pain.
Power tore out through your Focus, a wave of light that burnt away the music in your mind. It wasn't mending, it wasn't even destruction. It was just energy, loosed without any form by your soul, and with it came the pain. The pain of staring into the most complete conceptual perversion you'd never dared imagine, and using the strength of your soul to do so. A soul that was dedicated to the concept that had been twisted. It didn't want to know what you'd found, it wanted it gone, and much of you agreed with that. But you needed what you'd found, for it was not within your power to simply wipe away the twisted music from reality.
And even as that thought surfaced, another replaced it with the realisation that the untamed energies were attacking the protections Sidra had created. They were trying to stop it, but their abilities were more varied and truthfully weaker than your own. Cracks were forming in the shell, as the energy tried to find a way out to strike what was beyond you. Stronger than you'd ever thought you were, but it couldn't be enough. Maybe if you could channel it, but without form it would waste itself doing great damage to the Calypso. Damage you might not be able to repair, no matter how skilled you were. You had to stop it!
Roll: 46 + 40 + 20 – 30 = 76 vs DC 50. Success
There was no subtlety to it, there wasn't time. A vast curtain of your will, fuelled by need, crashed down on the inferno blazing around your soul. Hands reached out, catching errant strands and turning them back to your purpose. You couldn't fight yourself, and the curtain wouldn't last, but perhaps you didn't have to. The outburst of still barely-contained energy had damaged your protections, if they were to hold again they would need to be restored. Your Focus was Mending.
The curtain of your will started to shred, fire eating through it in an attempt to be released again. This time, however, you were ready for it, and you met it at your Focus. Not with strength, that would never work, but with a purpose. A fragile gratitude flooded through you from Sidra, and it grew stronger as the energy changed within your Focus as it was meant to.
Streamers of power reached up, smoothing away the damage that it had done, and you breathed out slowly as the fires dimmed. You hadn't gotten much, but at least what little you had found hadn't been torn to pieces by who you were.
:Well,: Sidra noted quietly, as the walls of your self were restored. :That was a bit more exciting than I'd expected it to be.: You couldn't help a chuckle.
:That was my own power,: you sent, still struggling to understand how what had just happened was even possible. :Wasn't it.:
:Yes, it was. And not let free against your will, either.: You stopped short as those words penetrated. You watched the power finish its work restoring your walls, and gave a small, mental shake of your head.
:I should have seen that.: You said at last, and Sidra tutted chidingly.
:I didn't work it out until just before it backfired on us, Amanda, and I think a lot faster than you.: You hadn't expected them to, but the words helped. :I said before, you've been used to being able to just dive in, even when it's unknown. But you stopped the reaction before it could harm what we found, or the protections around us. And,:
:I'll know to be more careful next time.: You said for them. :And even if we'd found nothing, the knowing would have been worth it.: Soothing assent flowed back from Sidra, and you opened your eyes for real.
"Lightshow done for now?" Lina asked from your side as you came back to physical awareness, and you looked over at her, confused. "You were glowing for a bit, Amanda." She said. "Nothing dangerous, so we just worked around it. The humming was a bit off-putting, though."
"I…" you shook your head, questions you could ask later. If the cameras had picked up the tune, that could be useful for later. You looked up at the battle plot, trying to recall what you knew your eyes had seen. The Medicament was hanging back, using one of the closer Collector-class ships as a screen, but hadn't used its repair functions yet. One of your Task Forces had been utterly savaged baiting the trap, but their lives had been enough. The Shiplord assault group was buried in your line, and Lina had started the jaws of the trap moving. "How are we doing?" You asked.
"About as well as I'd expected." Lina replied, watching the display all the while with an intensity you'd never seen from her before. "Our fighters have been keeping the drones off of us, and we even managed to get a few strikes through against their assault group. Did some heavy damage to one of the escort groups to repay what they did to ours. The Tower-class Echelon held up surprisingly well under the four Collectors, but I had them start to give ground as soon as I could. They'll need time to recover before I slot them back into the rotation again, but there's a full squadron heading for the breakthrough." She swiped one of the virtual screens across to your own interface, that highlighted the ships moving in to trap the assault group. "The Dauntless class groups did a lot less than I'd have liked, but they were firing at extreme range. Light damage to the leading Collector."
"As to the wider battle," she nodded to the tactical display, "we're holding. It could be better, I don't like how much damage our standard auxiliaries are taking off of their Escort groups, but the hybrid ships are taking up the strain admirably." She hissed with sudden satisfaction as the van of the Tribute Fleet started to move, darting across the steadily shrinking battlefield. "They're going for the breach. Nick, get those orbitals moving!" Commands flashed out across the net, passing smoothly despite the attempts of Shiplord jamming. Vega had something to do with that, you thought.
"Amanda," Lina broke in. "Did you get anything? I don't care if it seems useless, if we're committing the Two Twenty Three, I want anything you can give me.
"You mean the fighters," Lina nodded before you could finish, and you tried not to think about how many brave men and women and just gone to their deaths to supply this chance. "I…you need to warn them, Lina." You shook your head quickly. "No, I'll do it myself. What they need to know will come easier from me. They'll need my upload."
"I suggest you be quick about it then," Lina said as First Fleet's line started to collapse in on itself. It looked like total chaos, but her calm assured you there was a pattern to it. She turned to her chief of staff. "Nick, Icarus has forty seconds to fire its thrusters or it'll be out of position for the stopper."
"They've locked the manoeuvre in, Minister. Twenty seconds." You tuned the rest of the words out, the unhurried rush of a command staff who knew exactly what they were doing. Instead you sought the core of the Harmonial network, skirting the edge of the web of light that was Vega.
:Kalilah, you there?: Although new to the outfit, your bodyguard had become on the primary leaders of the unit. Her swift advancement to equal your own capabilities with a Unison Platform was part of that, but she'd also been able to help a great many translate the abilities of their Focuses into something that made them capable of handling themselves in combat.
:Here, Amanda.: She sent back. For all the help she'd given, she was still terse. You were working on that, but learning to socialise after decades spent almost entirely alone took time. :What did you find?: And of course they felt what you'd just gone through, they'd promised to help keep you on an even keel, after all.
:I need you to warn the Restorer Focused to not look to closely at Shiplord vessels. Doing so is what caused the disturbance you helped me control. Sidra, can you transfer the relevant parts of the recording?:
:Sending.: Information streamed across the link, and you felt Kalilah skimming it even as her attention stayed on you.
:We knew that Shiplord vessels were built using Shiplord technology.: You told her, reaching out to Sidra to help you stay calm, and a pane of clear glass slid between your mind and the memory. :But they're not made with synthetic biomaterial. The Medicament-class will be a hub for the conceptual perversion that Restorer Focused will experience, and the Collectors will be little better. Make sure that they're not looking too hard, and have their Platforms make sure.:
:I will.: Kalilah's mental tone was almost inhuman, and an icy shiver ran through you as you felt the adamant will beneath it, suppressing all emotion. :If I have to tear that ship apart with my bare hands, it will be destroyed.: She finished, and the words were in the manner of a vow.
:Good luck, Amanda.: Kalilah told you, the words carrying the awareness that you weren't going to simply stop. :If you find anything we can use, let us know. We'll do all we can to anchor you, but can't promise as much after we're deployed.:
:If it's a choice between your lives and my comfort, choose the lives.: It came out as an order, one of the few you'd ever given, and Kalilah bore it willingly.
:Yes ma'am.:
:Good luck out there.: You flickered back to the edge of reality, catching a glimpse of First Fleet's line compressing down even further. They'd outrun the Tribute Fleet vessels, prepared as they'd been to fall back. You murmured another wish of hope, this one to Lina and her crews, then released your hold on physical reality once again.
You had your own part to play, after all.
Unless finesse was also trickery, in which case Lina was staking the entire battle on it. Calypso was well protected at the centre of the line, the comforting presence of the main fleet clustered about her and a considerable fighter component to guard against small craft. Not for you the first crush of battle, you're too valuable for that. But if Lina's plan worked, no ship in the fleet would escape combat.
You watched final pieces of that plan slot into place on the plot, small movements to open what looked like a vulnerability in your lines, an intricate chessboard of lives and many more dimensions than the traditional two. Lines within lines, far deeper than you could see even knowing what to look for. A few ships here, a task force spread a little wider than it really should be. You could narrow down the gap, but not the jaws that were meant to swing shut around it. You couldn't complain though, if you could have seen them then the Shiplords surely would have.
Vega was lost in the depths of a powerful half-state to your left, and a small part you envied the ease with which she'd been able to fall into her Focus. You could trace the path easily, but it took something more to bring power with it, a set of circumstances that had to resonate with you. Your Focus wasn't as easy to bring to bear here as hers, after all. You could feel pieces of your power melding with the protections the other Restorer Focused had brought to life around the Calypso, and their thankful thoughts as you smoothed away the subtle imperfections that could make her vulnerable. That was so simple now, an exercise as easy to you as breathing, but it didn't help with the bigger picture in front of you.
Unless…it did.
:Sidra!: The thought blazed up inside you, a flare of brilliant possibility that you couldn't voice with words, but you didn't have to. Sidra dived into the mix of hope and half-logic, digging for its foundation even as you slipped between the layers of protections you'd given strength to into the black beyond. There was a sound somewhere around you, a warped and twisted tone that pulsed at the heart of the Tribute Fleet. It was muffled even this close, as the fleets rushed together, but in the end it was all just a matter of finding the right frequency. The torn note sang in your ears as you caught the edge of it, and your Concert Set translated the vibration into something close enough to reality for you to hear.
You'd been trying to find a pure note. For all those hours, you'd been looking from something whole, something that sang true. But what if the truth was something else, a note that wasn't true or whole, but distorted and warped. You'd discounted it before as interference, but you should have known better. You tried to shake that thought away before Sidra could pounce on it, but they still heard it, and the same voice that had greeted you three years ago flowed through your mind like water.
:We all missed it, Amanda. And you are no more infallible than any Child of Earth.: She told you. In Sidra's mind, all the intelligences created by the Unison process were included in that number. You couldn't disagree, although you knew a few who might. It didn't matter though, because she was right. You felt a flicker of dry amusement as you considered tacking 'as usual' onto that statement. :But you found it, and before battle was joined. It matters not if only barely:
:Should I follow it, then?: You wondered, and your eyes flicked to the battle plot back in concrete reality. The Shiplords were moving in closer, targets systems coming to life across the fleet as they neared the edge of your missile envelope. Their formation was shifting, they'd clearly noticed the gap Lina had left in the line, and you winced inside as emotionless computers tallied up the force accelerating towards it.
Four of the Collector-class ships, their multi-kilometre hulls bristling with weapons, and more than half of the escort groups the Tribute Fleet had brought with them. You wondered why for a moment, then remembered that to the Shiplords those auxiliary craft were entirely expendable. A legitimate swarm of drones came with them, and you glanced over at Lina to find your sword calm. Watching the field, passing orders to ensure her edge would be as sharp as it could be, but unworried by the torrent of death.
:Lina has all in hand, I think.: Sidra replied, firm assent pulsing through your link. :And we need not go too far.: The voice of your Platform turned very serious. :I think it might be unwise to attempt that, in truth. Not until we know what we're dealing with.:
:We've been dealing with things we don't understand ever since you woke up, Sidra.: You replied, but your tone wasn't firm. You knew the other side to that coin, and Sidra did too.
:But all of those have involved Practice, or constructs of the Elder First, who we have no reason to attribute malice to in their decision making. Some considerable degree of human error, perhaps, but not malice.: You sighed heavily in the silence of your mind, and Sidra's next words were quite gentle.
:Amanda, I do understand. We're cut from the same cloth, as it were, and I share the need to find the source of this wrongness. But we can't risk the possibility that these ships have defences, the fact that there are more ships than predicted suggests that the Shiplords do have some. These ships might not have them, but if they do.:
:Alright.: To most others, the word would have verged on snappy, but it would have been less than useless to use tactics like that on Sidra. :We'll be careful.:
Roll: 63 + 16 + 30 + 10 vs 40 + 25 + 30 = 119 vs 95. Success
:Thank you.: You felt their presence in your mind shift at the words, reaching out around you like a non-physical Aegis. The twisted music swelled again, pouring through your mind and shaking your soul, but your protections held. It was like trying to climb a waterfall, but that wasn't impossible, not to you. On the bridge, the physical you took up the discordant melody in a low hum, but you were too caught up in other things to notice.
As you looked deeper, you saw glimpses of a truth. Broken chords that tore at your soul, but there was no single source like you'd thought. The Medicament-class had made you look, but what you saw was almost more than you could take. Every ship in the Tribute Fleet was the same, and the nightmarish symphony was all of them. Here and there were nexuses, leads to the music, a conductor.
The world spun under you, as if the very foundations of your existence were shifting, suddenly made quicksand by what you desperately didn't want to see. Everything you saw as beautiful, as who you were, these ships were and were not. You'd wanted to trace the imperfections, to find what was at their core, you'd found much more than that. Nanobiological, Vision had said. A big word to avoid vaster problems, like where the material for those living circuits came from. The Second Secret could create synthetic biomaterial, you knew that from Mary, but those ships weren't synthetic. You knew that now, and that was the problem.
Who or what had gone into creating them you didn't know, and you understood even less of the why. It was creation and mending, perverted on a scale you'd never thought possible. The essence beneath was twisted and veiled, but it was still there, and you could see a little of it now. And that meant-
There was a glimpse of something deeper, something more than just the knowledge you had now.
:Amanda, stop!: Sidra yelled, and you tried to pull yourself back.
Then there was pain.
Power tore out through your Focus, a wave of light that burnt away the music in your mind. It wasn't mending, it wasn't even destruction. It was just energy, loosed without any form by your soul, and with it came the pain. The pain of staring into the most complete conceptual perversion you'd never dared imagine, and using the strength of your soul to do so. A soul that was dedicated to the concept that had been twisted. It didn't want to know what you'd found, it wanted it gone, and much of you agreed with that. But you needed what you'd found, for it was not within your power to simply wipe away the twisted music from reality.
And even as that thought surfaced, another replaced it with the realisation that the untamed energies were attacking the protections Sidra had created. They were trying to stop it, but their abilities were more varied and truthfully weaker than your own. Cracks were forming in the shell, as the energy tried to find a way out to strike what was beyond you. Stronger than you'd ever thought you were, but it couldn't be enough. Maybe if you could channel it, but without form it would waste itself doing great damage to the Calypso. Damage you might not be able to repair, no matter how skilled you were. You had to stop it!
Roll: 46 + 40 + 20 – 30 = 76 vs DC 50. Success
There was no subtlety to it, there wasn't time. A vast curtain of your will, fuelled by need, crashed down on the inferno blazing around your soul. Hands reached out, catching errant strands and turning them back to your purpose. You couldn't fight yourself, and the curtain wouldn't last, but perhaps you didn't have to. The outburst of still barely-contained energy had damaged your protections, if they were to hold again they would need to be restored. Your Focus was Mending.
The curtain of your will started to shred, fire eating through it in an attempt to be released again. This time, however, you were ready for it, and you met it at your Focus. Not with strength, that would never work, but with a purpose. A fragile gratitude flooded through you from Sidra, and it grew stronger as the energy changed within your Focus as it was meant to.
Streamers of power reached up, smoothing away the damage that it had done, and you breathed out slowly as the fires dimmed. You hadn't gotten much, but at least what little you had found hadn't been torn to pieces by who you were.
:Well,: Sidra noted quietly, as the walls of your self were restored. :That was a bit more exciting than I'd expected it to be.: You couldn't help a chuckle.
:That was my own power,: you sent, still struggling to understand how what had just happened was even possible. :Wasn't it.:
:Yes, it was. And not let free against your will, either.: You stopped short as those words penetrated. You watched the power finish its work restoring your walls, and gave a small, mental shake of your head.
:I should have seen that.: You said at last, and Sidra tutted chidingly.
:I didn't work it out until just before it backfired on us, Amanda, and I think a lot faster than you.: You hadn't expected them to, but the words helped. :I said before, you've been used to being able to just dive in, even when it's unknown. But you stopped the reaction before it could harm what we found, or the protections around us. And,:
:I'll know to be more careful next time.: You said for them. :And even if we'd found nothing, the knowing would have been worth it.: Soothing assent flowed back from Sidra, and you opened your eyes for real.
"Lightshow done for now?" Lina asked from your side as you came back to physical awareness, and you looked over at her, confused. "You were glowing for a bit, Amanda." She said. "Nothing dangerous, so we just worked around it. The humming was a bit off-putting, though."
"I…" you shook your head, questions you could ask later. If the cameras had picked up the tune, that could be useful for later. You looked up at the battle plot, trying to recall what you knew your eyes had seen. The Medicament was hanging back, using one of the closer Collector-class ships as a screen, but hadn't used its repair functions yet. One of your Task Forces had been utterly savaged baiting the trap, but their lives had been enough. The Shiplord assault group was buried in your line, and Lina had started the jaws of the trap moving. "How are we doing?" You asked.
"About as well as I'd expected." Lina replied, watching the display all the while with an intensity you'd never seen from her before. "Our fighters have been keeping the drones off of us, and we even managed to get a few strikes through against their assault group. Did some heavy damage to one of the escort groups to repay what they did to ours. The Tower-class Echelon held up surprisingly well under the four Collectors, but I had them start to give ground as soon as I could. They'll need time to recover before I slot them back into the rotation again, but there's a full squadron heading for the breakthrough." She swiped one of the virtual screens across to your own interface, that highlighted the ships moving in to trap the assault group. "The Dauntless class groups did a lot less than I'd have liked, but they were firing at extreme range. Light damage to the leading Collector."
"As to the wider battle," she nodded to the tactical display, "we're holding. It could be better, I don't like how much damage our standard auxiliaries are taking off of their Escort groups, but the hybrid ships are taking up the strain admirably." She hissed with sudden satisfaction as the van of the Tribute Fleet started to move, darting across the steadily shrinking battlefield. "They're going for the breach. Nick, get those orbitals moving!" Commands flashed out across the net, passing smoothly despite the attempts of Shiplord jamming. Vega had something to do with that, you thought.
"Amanda," Lina broke in. "Did you get anything? I don't care if it seems useless, if we're committing the Two Twenty Three, I want anything you can give me.
"You mean the fighters," Lina nodded before you could finish, and you tried not to think about how many brave men and women and just gone to their deaths to supply this chance. "I…you need to warn them, Lina." You shook your head quickly. "No, I'll do it myself. What they need to know will come easier from me. They'll need my upload."
"I suggest you be quick about it then," Lina said as First Fleet's line started to collapse in on itself. It looked like total chaos, but her calm assured you there was a pattern to it. She turned to her chief of staff. "Nick, Icarus has forty seconds to fire its thrusters or it'll be out of position for the stopper."
"They've locked the manoeuvre in, Minister. Twenty seconds." You tuned the rest of the words out, the unhurried rush of a command staff who knew exactly what they were doing. Instead you sought the core of the Harmonial network, skirting the edge of the web of light that was Vega.
:Kalilah, you there?: Although new to the outfit, your bodyguard had become on the primary leaders of the unit. Her swift advancement to equal your own capabilities with a Unison Platform was part of that, but she'd also been able to help a great many translate the abilities of their Focuses into something that made them capable of handling themselves in combat.
:Here, Amanda.: She sent back. For all the help she'd given, she was still terse. You were working on that, but learning to socialise after decades spent almost entirely alone took time. :What did you find?: And of course they felt what you'd just gone through, they'd promised to help keep you on an even keel, after all.
:I need you to warn the Restorer Focused to not look to closely at Shiplord vessels. Doing so is what caused the disturbance you helped me control. Sidra, can you transfer the relevant parts of the recording?:
:Sending.: Information streamed across the link, and you felt Kalilah skimming it even as her attention stayed on you.
:We knew that Shiplord vessels were built using Shiplord technology.: You told her, reaching out to Sidra to help you stay calm, and a pane of clear glass slid between your mind and the memory. :But they're not made with synthetic biomaterial. The Medicament-class will be a hub for the conceptual perversion that Restorer Focused will experience, and the Collectors will be little better. Make sure that they're not looking too hard, and have their Platforms make sure.:
:I will.: Kalilah's mental tone was almost inhuman, and an icy shiver ran through you as you felt the adamant will beneath it, suppressing all emotion. :If I have to tear that ship apart with my bare hands, it will be destroyed.: She finished, and the words were in the manner of a vow.
:Good luck, Amanda.: Kalilah told you, the words carrying the awareness that you weren't going to simply stop. :If you find anything we can use, let us know. We'll do all we can to anchor you, but can't promise as much after we're deployed.:
:If it's a choice between your lives and my comfort, choose the lives.: It came out as an order, one of the few you'd ever given, and Kalilah bore it willingly.
:Yes ma'am.:
:Good luck out there.: You flickered back to the edge of reality, catching a glimpse of First Fleet's line compressing down even further. They'd outrun the Tribute Fleet vessels, prepared as they'd been to fall back. You murmured another wish of hope, this one to Lina and her crews, then released your hold on physical reality once again.
You had your own part to play, after all.
Your options remain relatively simple this round, but your rolls have granted you a better understanding of what you're going up against whilst maintaining your mind. Under Lina's engagement plan, the Calypso will not engage the enemy until Tactics 3. Your options:
[] The Centre Holds: Although you will not engage the enemy directly for a few minutes yet, it might be wise to ensure that you are fully prepared for that. The Calypso is, after all, the heart of your defensive efforts.
[] Web of Dream: Your soul felt stronger when you had to damp its fires, but you do not understand why. The flicker is fainter now, but that could well be that you have been more focused on other things. Or perhaps that it is becoming closer to who you are.
[] Outside the Familiar: Looking into the Tribute Fleet returned you with an answer of horror, and a powerful reminder that your conscious self is not all there is to a human. Looking again has its risks, but equal rewards.
[] The Discordant Melody: What you found was hidden in a resonant tone, something that your integrated Artefact is well equipped to trace. This is risky, for it will open you to the full strength of that symphony of horror, but if you can master your soul it promises powerful results.
[] Write-in?
Rolls will be shown in full, but mechanical results will be hidden except in the event of a crit.
[] The Centre Holds: Although you will not engage the enemy directly for a few minutes yet, it might be wise to ensure that you are fully prepared for that. The Calypso is, after all, the heart of your defensive efforts.
[] Web of Dream: Your soul felt stronger when you had to damp its fires, but you do not understand why. The flicker is fainter now, but that could well be that you have been more focused on other things. Or perhaps that it is becoming closer to who you are.
[] Outside the Familiar: Looking into the Tribute Fleet returned you with an answer of horror, and a powerful reminder that your conscious self is not all there is to a human. Looking again has its risks, but equal rewards.
[] The Discordant Melody: What you found was hidden in a resonant tone, something that your integrated Artefact is well equipped to trace. This is risky, for it will open you to the full strength of that symphony of horror, but if you can master your soul it promises powerful results.
[] Write-in?
Rolls will be shown in full, but mechanical results will be hidden except in the event of a crit.
Human Assets
FSNS Calypso
1 Squadron (9) Ulfberht class
3 Squadrons (27) Dauntless class (1 Reserve Squadron)
7 Echelons (21) Tower class (1 Echelon Lightly Damaged)
4 Advanced Task Forces
8 Standard Task Forces (1 Heavily Damaged, 2 Moderately Damaged, 3 Lightly Damaged)
8 Major Orbital Installations
The Two Twenty Three
Shiplord Assets
10 Collector-class (3 Lightly Damaged)
7 Escort Groups (1 Heavily Damaged, 1 Moderately Damaged, 4 Lightly Damaged)
1 Medicament-class Logistics Cruiser
FSNS Calypso
1 Squadron (9) Ulfberht class
3 Squadrons (27) Dauntless class (1 Reserve Squadron)
7 Echelons (21) Tower class (1 Echelon Lightly Damaged)
4 Advanced Task Forces
8 Standard Task Forces (1 Heavily Damaged, 2 Moderately Damaged, 3 Lightly Damaged)
8 Major Orbital Installations
The Two Twenty Three
Shiplord Assets
10 Collector-class (3 Lightly Damaged)
7 Escort Groups (1 Heavily Damaged, 1 Moderately Damaged, 4 Lightly Damaged)
1 Medicament-class Logistics Cruiser
Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
- Location
- Wordcats
I'm not completely happy with some parts of this update, but I'm also aware that chasing perfection would delay it for ages. So, I hope you like it, and please forgive me any errors.
Also, your dice struck back with a vengeance in the combat rolls. You were not meant to hammer one of the Escort Groups into the Heavily Damaged bracket ;-;
Also, your dice struck back with a vengeance in the combat rolls. You were not meant to hammer one of the Escort Groups into the Heavily Damaged bracket ;-;