- Location
- Canada
No and yes. More precisely, does not work that way and I know respectively.DaLintyGuy said:
The Programmer - Mass Effect SI
- Thread starter XCVG
- Start date
Wow. Now the races of the galaxy, has confirmation. That stereotype of humans, as violent psychotic beings is true. Not even Krogan, pulls a columbine on the Citadel.
On one hand, this does have shades of MasterPC, which is rather creepy.
On the other hand, it reminds me of cluless and clucompile from Undocumented Features. Which means this could be pretty awesome.
Watching thread.
On the other hand, it reminds me of cluless and clucompile from Undocumented Features. Which means this could be pretty awesome.
Watching thread.
- Location
- Canada
//Too sleepy to post comments. Enjoy.
Chapters[6] modeling
After the "getting over yourself" stage comes the "what do I do next" stage. First, how much time do I have?
Date.deltaDateAndEvent(currentLocation.getCurrentDate(),getObjectFromDescription("Eden Prime Attack 2183"));
5d23h1m33s
That gives me a school week, or a week minus two days, or five days, or- you get the idea. That's quite a bit of time all things considered. I know I want to do good things for the galaxy, but what?
There's an ironic paradox- all the power in over the universe and no idea what to do with it.
I decide it's best if I break up my options in an organized manner, or attempt to anyway.
The first option is the classic self-insert. Join Shepard's crew, follow them around the galaxy and step through The Stations Of The Canon, maybe slightly influencing events as it happens. Except I'm pretty sure that I'll fuck that up somehow, and even if not deliberately probably drastically change events. The universe is not butterfly proof. I think.
The second option is quite similar to the first, but slightly different. Join Shepard's crew and actively try to make things better. That guy who kind of worked with Cerberus from that story with Q in it did this. Only you might fuck things up horribly, possibly killing more people, maybe even the saviour of the galaxy. With that being said, I think I'm the first with these abilities to try that.
The third option is to work behind the scenes, gently nudging Shepard in the right direction, giving some quiet help from the shadows. Maybe revealing myself later, when the time is right. Of course, one might screw that up too, revealing too soon, too late, or ending up doing nothing, or a clusterfuck of massive proportions.
The fourth option is to go get fucking rich, party hard, get laid, and just live it out awesomely. It might be some of the self-enhancements I did, but for some reason this just doesn't appeal to me like it should.
Maybe I'm selfish, but I want to meet Shepard in the flesh... I said meet, not fuck. So option three is out. I don't think I could stand just watching everything play out as it's supposed to, I mean, I'd go nuts not doing anything, feeling like I'm not doing anything anyway. So option one is out.
That leaves option two. So logical and rational.
So I need to meet Shepard, and I need to get on her crew. I have a few chances to do that. All of them I've seen in other self-inserts.
The first is to be a survivor on Eden Prime. Usually this one doesn't happen by choice. The problem here is that I'm exactly that- a survivor. Shepard gets the evidence, puts me in a safe place, and leaves. I could prevent that from happening, but it's still sub-optimal.
I could assist with the investigation. Most people just save Tali- not like she needed saving anyway. I could alternatively save Michel, or hang out on the Presidium with a briefcase full of evidence or something Different like that.
I could meet her on Noveria, or Feros, or Virmire, but any of those places bring problems of their own, and how am I supposed to know when she's there? I mean, I can know when Shepard will be there, but I'm not supposed to.
Or I could just appear randomly aboard the Normandy. But that won't work very well.
I need a few things in order. I need a persona- displaced nerd isn't going to fly. I need Shepard to take me along, preferably willingly.
Something like ex-merc or privateer would work. Badass enough to handle himself in combat, decent knowledge of the galaxy, and got something she wants. Perfect.
Except I look too young, I'd screw up and blow the cover story somewhere along the line, and I don't even have any idea what a merc does in this galaxy. Granted, I can fix all this by Hacking The Universe, but... dead Shaundi and all that.
I could claim that I'm some kind of information broker or somesuch. Except I don't really have that much information, though I can get a lot, and I'd be useless on the ground and Shepard knows this. That's okay, I'm content to stay on the ship, but would she even let me aboard?
This is without even considering other variables, like Anderson or Udina. Damn, there's just no easy answer.
Being alone really sucks. I work a lot better when I can bounce ideas off someone. Bounce off someone... wait, wasn't Tali already on the Citadel before Eden Prime?
TaliZorah.getLocation(String,2);
Veil$40A8D47
Fuck. So much for that plan. Come to think of it, I seem to recall Tali's evidence mentioning the attack. How long did it take the Normandy to get to the Citadel after Eden Prime, anyway?
Eden Prime. The attack is still a school week or 1.2 college weeks away. Once Saren comes, he's going to decimate the colony. Kill most of the garrison, most of the civilians, burn humanity's shining jewel to the ground. That's horrible, but nobody could do anything to stop it. The attack came out of nowhere. Except I know it's coming.
I could just magick away the attack, and in doing so completely shatter what would be the plot of the first game. I could warn the Alliance, but would they believe me? And what happens if Saren calls off the attack? What if it's something small, like Shepard going in front instead of Jenkins?
I can save the colony.
But I might take the galaxy out with it.
Except I can save that too.
And possibly fuck up everything in the process.
And fix that too.
And end up with a neverending circle of patch over patch.
I don't want that to happen. Goddamn it, I need ideas!
I can't do nothing, that's for sure. But I have to be very careful or I'll end up with the break-fix loop above. I need a plan, but none is coming to me.
I slam my fist down on my desk, and the computer shifts a few inches. That's probably not good for it.
Okay, let's think this through logically. What's the goal? Save the colonists. I might not be able to save all of them, but I'm going to try. The other goal is, of course, not to alter the flow of events too badly, but I'm just going to put that aside for the moment. That can be fixed.
Options. Easiest option is to alert the Alliance. But I'm going to need to appear reliable, like a reputable source, or else they'll just ignore me. If they don't question me and investigate. Maybe there's a way to hack that.
Huh. No magical hints. Which means it'll probably take a script a few pages long, and I don't really want to to write a script that long. Even when the galaxy is at stake I can't move my lazy ass.
So that's out. I could intervene indirectly, maybe spawn in a few 304s and watch the fireworks. But that brings in way more problems than it solves.
I could intervene in a direct-but-not-direct way. Maybe put up a shield over the colony or make everyone super tough. But again, problems.
So that leaves direct intervention as the last option after my not-so-logical decision process. I need to protect the colony, but allow Saren to use the beacon, and make sure the Normandy arrives and Shepard uses the beacon.
It occurs to me that I could just despawn Saren right then and there, but I immediately dismiss the thought.
Eden Prime has the 212th stationed on the colony, and maybe a small colonial militia as well. I need them armed and ready to fight. They're going to be massively outnumbered and outgunned, so I need to give them an advantage, too. Maybe some new armor, new guns, and some heavy firepower.
We need to get the colonists to safety, to a defensible, sheltered position. I don't know of any on the planet, but I know I can find one. I rally the troops with a legit sounding warning, get everyone to safety, hold out until Shepard arrives.
Wait, how big is Eden Prime?
EdenPrime.getPopulation();
3710892
Are you fucking shitting me? It didn't look anywhere close to that big in-game. That throws that plan out the window.
Wait. It didn't look anywhere close to that in-game. That could be rationalized as engine limitations, but a planet is a big place. Saren was looking for the beacon specifically. Which means that he's going to be invading a very small part of the planet. Small enough that we can evacuate and hold him off there. He's going to focus on the beacon, so we just have to contain and distract his forces until everything settles.
But how am I going to supply the 212 with extra firepower and make them believe my story? I've run into the same problem I had with my other plans- credibility. Sure I can get around it, but then I end up with even more problems!
I feel smart that I realize that this early in the game, but stupid that I'm letting it get in my way. I'm a physical god, damn it!
I bring up the news, looking for inspiration. Quickly I skim through the headlines, not bothering to actually read any of the articles.
Matriarch Alantha Dead At 988
Francis Kitt Discusses Shakespeare Project
Pushing Boundaries: What Pelya's Law Means
Insane Woman Awakens in C-Sec Morgue
Pirate Raid May Have Stolen Top-Secret Cargo
HBG Executive Assures Galaxy "We're not Cerberus"
New Study Shows Cancer Risk Higher in E0 Exposed Humans
Wait, back up a bit.
HBG Executive Assures Galaxy "We're not Cerberus"
That's it. I know exactly how I'm going to do this.
Corporation aegis = new Corporation("Aegis Foundation");
Chapters[6] modeling
After the "getting over yourself" stage comes the "what do I do next" stage. First, how much time do I have?
Date.deltaDateAndEvent(currentLocation.getCurrentDate(),getObjectFromDescription("Eden Prime Attack 2183"));
5d23h1m33s
That gives me a school week, or a week minus two days, or five days, or- you get the idea. That's quite a bit of time all things considered. I know I want to do good things for the galaxy, but what?
There's an ironic paradox- all the power in over the universe and no idea what to do with it.
I decide it's best if I break up my options in an organized manner, or attempt to anyway.
The first option is the classic self-insert. Join Shepard's crew, follow them around the galaxy and step through The Stations Of The Canon, maybe slightly influencing events as it happens. Except I'm pretty sure that I'll fuck that up somehow, and even if not deliberately probably drastically change events. The universe is not butterfly proof. I think.
The second option is quite similar to the first, but slightly different. Join Shepard's crew and actively try to make things better. That guy who kind of worked with Cerberus from that story with Q in it did this. Only you might fuck things up horribly, possibly killing more people, maybe even the saviour of the galaxy. With that being said, I think I'm the first with these abilities to try that.
The third option is to work behind the scenes, gently nudging Shepard in the right direction, giving some quiet help from the shadows. Maybe revealing myself later, when the time is right. Of course, one might screw that up too, revealing too soon, too late, or ending up doing nothing, or a clusterfuck of massive proportions.
The fourth option is to go get fucking rich, party hard, get laid, and just live it out awesomely. It might be some of the self-enhancements I did, but for some reason this just doesn't appeal to me like it should.
Maybe I'm selfish, but I want to meet Shepard in the flesh... I said meet, not fuck. So option three is out. I don't think I could stand just watching everything play out as it's supposed to, I mean, I'd go nuts not doing anything, feeling like I'm not doing anything anyway. So option one is out.
That leaves option two. So logical and rational.
So I need to meet Shepard, and I need to get on her crew. I have a few chances to do that. All of them I've seen in other self-inserts.
The first is to be a survivor on Eden Prime. Usually this one doesn't happen by choice. The problem here is that I'm exactly that- a survivor. Shepard gets the evidence, puts me in a safe place, and leaves. I could prevent that from happening, but it's still sub-optimal.
I could assist with the investigation. Most people just save Tali- not like she needed saving anyway. I could alternatively save Michel, or hang out on the Presidium with a briefcase full of evidence or something Different like that.
I could meet her on Noveria, or Feros, or Virmire, but any of those places bring problems of their own, and how am I supposed to know when she's there? I mean, I can know when Shepard will be there, but I'm not supposed to.
Or I could just appear randomly aboard the Normandy. But that won't work very well.
I need a few things in order. I need a persona- displaced nerd isn't going to fly. I need Shepard to take me along, preferably willingly.
Something like ex-merc or privateer would work. Badass enough to handle himself in combat, decent knowledge of the galaxy, and got something she wants. Perfect.
Except I look too young, I'd screw up and blow the cover story somewhere along the line, and I don't even have any idea what a merc does in this galaxy. Granted, I can fix all this by Hacking The Universe, but... dead Shaundi and all that.
I could claim that I'm some kind of information broker or somesuch. Except I don't really have that much information, though I can get a lot, and I'd be useless on the ground and Shepard knows this. That's okay, I'm content to stay on the ship, but would she even let me aboard?
This is without even considering other variables, like Anderson or Udina. Damn, there's just no easy answer.
Being alone really sucks. I work a lot better when I can bounce ideas off someone. Bounce off someone... wait, wasn't Tali already on the Citadel before Eden Prime?
TaliZorah.getLocation(String,2);
Veil$40A8D47
Fuck. So much for that plan. Come to think of it, I seem to recall Tali's evidence mentioning the attack. How long did it take the Normandy to get to the Citadel after Eden Prime, anyway?
Eden Prime. The attack is still a school week or 1.2 college weeks away. Once Saren comes, he's going to decimate the colony. Kill most of the garrison, most of the civilians, burn humanity's shining jewel to the ground. That's horrible, but nobody could do anything to stop it. The attack came out of nowhere. Except I know it's coming.
I could just magick away the attack, and in doing so completely shatter what would be the plot of the first game. I could warn the Alliance, but would they believe me? And what happens if Saren calls off the attack? What if it's something small, like Shepard going in front instead of Jenkins?
I can save the colony.
But I might take the galaxy out with it.
Except I can save that too.
And possibly fuck up everything in the process.
And fix that too.
And end up with a neverending circle of patch over patch.
I don't want that to happen. Goddamn it, I need ideas!
I can't do nothing, that's for sure. But I have to be very careful or I'll end up with the break-fix loop above. I need a plan, but none is coming to me.
I slam my fist down on my desk, and the computer shifts a few inches. That's probably not good for it.
Okay, let's think this through logically. What's the goal? Save the colonists. I might not be able to save all of them, but I'm going to try. The other goal is, of course, not to alter the flow of events too badly, but I'm just going to put that aside for the moment. That can be fixed.
Options. Easiest option is to alert the Alliance. But I'm going to need to appear reliable, like a reputable source, or else they'll just ignore me. If they don't question me and investigate. Maybe there's a way to hack that.
Huh. No magical hints. Which means it'll probably take a script a few pages long, and I don't really want to to write a script that long. Even when the galaxy is at stake I can't move my lazy ass.
So that's out. I could intervene indirectly, maybe spawn in a few 304s and watch the fireworks. But that brings in way more problems than it solves.
I could intervene in a direct-but-not-direct way. Maybe put up a shield over the colony or make everyone super tough. But again, problems.
So that leaves direct intervention as the last option after my not-so-logical decision process. I need to protect the colony, but allow Saren to use the beacon, and make sure the Normandy arrives and Shepard uses the beacon.
It occurs to me that I could just despawn Saren right then and there, but I immediately dismiss the thought.
Eden Prime has the 212th stationed on the colony, and maybe a small colonial militia as well. I need them armed and ready to fight. They're going to be massively outnumbered and outgunned, so I need to give them an advantage, too. Maybe some new armor, new guns, and some heavy firepower.
We need to get the colonists to safety, to a defensible, sheltered position. I don't know of any on the planet, but I know I can find one. I rally the troops with a legit sounding warning, get everyone to safety, hold out until Shepard arrives.
Wait, how big is Eden Prime?
EdenPrime.getPopulation();
3710892
Are you fucking shitting me? It didn't look anywhere close to that big in-game. That throws that plan out the window.
Wait. It didn't look anywhere close to that in-game. That could be rationalized as engine limitations, but a planet is a big place. Saren was looking for the beacon specifically. Which means that he's going to be invading a very small part of the planet. Small enough that we can evacuate and hold him off there. He's going to focus on the beacon, so we just have to contain and distract his forces until everything settles.
But how am I going to supply the 212 with extra firepower and make them believe my story? I've run into the same problem I had with my other plans- credibility. Sure I can get around it, but then I end up with even more problems!
I feel smart that I realize that this early in the game, but stupid that I'm letting it get in my way. I'm a physical god, damn it!
I bring up the news, looking for inspiration. Quickly I skim through the headlines, not bothering to actually read any of the articles.
Matriarch Alantha Dead At 988
Francis Kitt Discusses Shakespeare Project
Pushing Boundaries: What Pelya's Law Means
Insane Woman Awakens in C-Sec Morgue
Pirate Raid May Have Stolen Top-Secret Cargo
HBG Executive Assures Galaxy "We're not Cerberus"
New Study Shows Cancer Risk Higher in E0 Exposed Humans
Wait, back up a bit.
HBG Executive Assures Galaxy "We're not Cerberus"
That's it. I know exactly how I'm going to do this.
Corporation aegis = new Corporation("Aegis Foundation");
Night_stalker
Slava Ukraini!
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Or worse, it's Shaundi.green said:
Night_stalker
Slava Ukraini!
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I dunno, there's no reports of even MORE death and destruction...Abhoth said:
- Location
- Canada
Damn it, I thought I was being subtle. Just file that away in your head somewhere, it's a plot thread that won't come up for a while.Night_stalker said:
drexal15
Proud GM
He's Gatt, this is the second time he's woken up on a place run by alien.Night_stalker said:
By now I would assume he's on some ship traveling to Omega.
- Location
- Canada
/*
There will be action coming up in the next chapter, I promise! I know that this story has been slow to start but I'm going to speed it up very soon.
*/
Chapters[7] plan
The plan is simple. I'm a representative from a defence contractor. I've learned of an incoming pirate attack on Eden Prime from a source I can't divulge for reasons of corporate security. I've got some weapons systems that I was going to sell but I'm willing to take the opportunity to test them out instead.
It's a fucking horrible plan. It's complex, relies on a lot of factors I can't control for, and might not even give me the outcome I'm looking for. I'll be the first to admit it's a shitty plan, and that it's the best I could come up with really says something about my planning ability. Spawning a couple 304s in orbit is getting more and more attractive every moment.
But at least I can tilt the odds in my favour. Come on cluless, I need hints!
aegis.setType(enum corporationType)
aegis.setDescription(String description)
aegis.extrapolate()
Okay, I can make my corporation look real. That's always useful. I need a good timeline.
aegis.setType(FakeCorporation);
aegis.setDescription("Safeguarding the galaxy without sacrificing morality."); //god that's fucking horrible
aegis.extrapolate();
this.setOccupation(aegis,ceo);
Now I have a legit corporation. The next step is what wares I need to hawk. I can't give them stuff that's too nice, or it'll seriously fuck up the technological development of the galaxy, but it has to be good enough to fend of Saren's attack. But not good enough to defeat him entirely. And the little voice in the back of my head is saying that inherited classes are going to come up.
First up, armor. I'll be the first to admit I have a serious fet- I mean, obsession with that. There's just something, uh, really cool about it's protectiveness, especially on- yeah, uh, not going there. Okay, that sounded bad and I'm not going there.
Ahem. Anyway, the upshot is that I've already designed some very effective systems. Get your head out of the gutter. That's my job.
import com.xcvgsystems.sgd;
I want to give them Aegis suits, maybe the Mark III or the Mark V. No, definitely not the Mark V, that one has jump jets and I don't want to drop those on them yet. Even the Mark III is a little advanced, with its stealth systems and all, although stealth is actually a thing here. Either way, I'm going to need to scrub all records of the SGC from the suits, modify the communications systems to sync with Alliance protocols, modify the control scheme to be familiar to the Alliance soldiers, and replace the shields with normal barriers.
How the fuck do I do that? If these were nice direct reality altering powers, that would be easy. But with reality programming, I'm going to need all the inexplicable hints I can get.
class aegis3mod extends aegis3(Selector com.xcvgsystems.sgd)
{
replace super.employref() aegis(Selector Corporation);
replace super.useref() aegis(Selector Corporation);
replace appearanceLogos aegis(Selector Corporation);
replace super.usercontrols()methodLookup("Alliance armor controls") here.armor.alliance.base.controlsch();
replace super.comsys()methodLookup("Alliance comm protocols") here.telecom.alliance.milstd();
}
I think I need to compile the class before it'll work.
compile aegis3mod;
preparing for compile:
reading superclass information...
retrieving dependencies...
WARNING: multiple source dependencies may cause conflicts
setting up build environment...
WARNING: use of the default package is discouraged
building class:
integrating dependencies...
WARNING: element sg_naq undefined for universe UniverseMassEffect
WARNING: element sg_trin undefined for universe UniverseMassEffect
INFO: building with libsgmaterials from package com.mgm.Stargate
INFO: interface sgccompute[-]mecomputecom undefined, creating temporary interface
INFO: interface sgccompute[-]mecomputehid undefined, creating temporary interface
INFO: interface sgshield[-]localphys undefined, creating temporary interface
INFO: interface sgdamp[-]localphys undefined, creating temporary interface
INFO: interface sgenergy[-]localphys undefined, creating temporary interface
extrapolating additional information...
INFO: expected 6E27 atoms, got 6E27 atoms
building class into usable object...
WARNING: origin not local to world, may cause undefined or out-of-bounds behavior
class built with 0 errors
Wow. That was long. Is there a silent option? What about a preview?
Tool.preview(aegis3mod);
A viewer showing the armor appears in the same space in my mind the code does. Aegis Foundation insignia, huh, I love the really generic auto-generated logo. It's so realistic and detailed....
Weapons next. I think I can just give them some from Halogen, so I can deal with that later. I've already imported that verse, even. Right, might as well throw in a shameless self-plug while I'm in here. Halogen is my original verse under development, well, under development before I ended up here. Guess Ascension Revolution is never going to be finished now.
Heavy weapons... I don't know the first thing about designing gunships or tanks or such. So I can just bring in some repainted Makos and generic gunships. I've got some designs in my head, but they'd probably ask too many questions about the puddle-jumper-with-gatling-gun.
It's probably best if I don't just appear on the planet, so I'm going to get a ride. Probably easier to just charter one, then I don't have to worry about the consequences of spawning stuff so much. Then again, I would love a cool ship.
No. Okay, maybe. But later.
this.giveCredentials(aegis.GenericCredentials);
this.giveCredentials(aegis.ExpenseAccount);
I could probably go out and find a place to charter a ship, but why go out and meet people when you could just sit in your apartment and do it over the internet! I mean extranet!
There's probably something wrong with me.
I open up the extranet browser. In the future, people don't believe in URLs or IP addresses. Everything is by keyword. You just type in a keyword, and that's sent to a local server which searches its own database and returns cached results. Then that request is forwarded to servers further away, which search their own database, return results and forward the request again. The response from the local server- for me, the one down the street, is nearly instant, and the next few (around the Citadel) pretty fast as well. Once you get further than that you start seeing serious latencies. So the result page loads instantly, but keeps loading. That's weird and I miss Google.
By the way, I made all that up. I figure it's a good guess but I'm too lazy to look up how it actually works.
I search "charter flights to eden prime". Amazingly, the system does a pretty good job of interpreting my vague wording. The first three results are sponsored advertisements. The next two are local charter listings and the six after that are all websites of companies that offer charter flights.
I search the local charter listings first. No good, all the companies need at least 24 hours notice and the fastest advertised travel time is four days, plus a few hours at each end for loading and unloading. If I want to bring lots of big crates, then I'm looking at an even slower ship. Or paying way more, like not a little more, but way the hell more.
I try several of the company websites, with the same results. Finally, I come to the last one, Star Industries. I have an urge to add a k to the end of the first word of that name.
Hey, they have a live agent! I try it. The conversation goes something like this:
Silia: Welcome to the Star Industries live agent help support line! How may We help you today?
adminstrator@s7-3700: need a charter flight
Silia: Established in !dateformaterror, Star Industries is the Citadel's leading provider of chartered starships.
adminstrator@s7-3700: need to get to Eden Prime 4 days or faster, need to book now, and need to carry heavy cargo
Silia: Star Industries offers a variety of charter options, including flicker ships, fast cargo carriers, and executive transports.
adminstrator@s7-3700: are you even an actual live agent?
Silia: Silia by Ertec is an advanced virtual intelligence system designed specifically for customer service.
adminstrator@s7-3700: Well, that's really helpful /sarcasm
adminstrator@s7-3700: You should add a k to the end of Star in your company's name, just trust me on that one.
adminstrator@s7-3700: also you're a fucking useless bot, bye
Well, fuck. Back to Plan A. Which is to magically teleport.
this.teleport(EdenPrime,TPFLAG_NOTELEFRAG);
There's a slight feeling of vertigo and disorientation, then my surroundings change to a futuristic city and I suddenly find myself falling. I probably only fall a few inches before something soft breaks my fall, and we both tumble to the ground.
"Fuck!"
There will be action coming up in the next chapter, I promise! I know that this story has been slow to start but I'm going to speed it up very soon.
*/
Chapters[7] plan
The plan is simple. I'm a representative from a defence contractor. I've learned of an incoming pirate attack on Eden Prime from a source I can't divulge for reasons of corporate security. I've got some weapons systems that I was going to sell but I'm willing to take the opportunity to test them out instead.
It's a fucking horrible plan. It's complex, relies on a lot of factors I can't control for, and might not even give me the outcome I'm looking for. I'll be the first to admit it's a shitty plan, and that it's the best I could come up with really says something about my planning ability. Spawning a couple 304s in orbit is getting more and more attractive every moment.
But at least I can tilt the odds in my favour. Come on cluless, I need hints!
aegis.setType(enum corporationType)
aegis.setDescription(String description)
aegis.extrapolate()
Okay, I can make my corporation look real. That's always useful. I need a good timeline.
aegis.setType(FakeCorporation);
aegis.setDescription("Safeguarding the galaxy without sacrificing morality."); //god that's fucking horrible
aegis.extrapolate();
this.setOccupation(aegis,ceo);
Now I have a legit corporation. The next step is what wares I need to hawk. I can't give them stuff that's too nice, or it'll seriously fuck up the technological development of the galaxy, but it has to be good enough to fend of Saren's attack. But not good enough to defeat him entirely. And the little voice in the back of my head is saying that inherited classes are going to come up.
First up, armor. I'll be the first to admit I have a serious fet- I mean, obsession with that. There's just something, uh, really cool about it's protectiveness, especially on- yeah, uh, not going there. Okay, that sounded bad and I'm not going there.
Ahem. Anyway, the upshot is that I've already designed some very effective systems. Get your head out of the gutter. That's my job.
import com.xcvgsystems.sgd;
I want to give them Aegis suits, maybe the Mark III or the Mark V. No, definitely not the Mark V, that one has jump jets and I don't want to drop those on them yet. Even the Mark III is a little advanced, with its stealth systems and all, although stealth is actually a thing here. Either way, I'm going to need to scrub all records of the SGC from the suits, modify the communications systems to sync with Alliance protocols, modify the control scheme to be familiar to the Alliance soldiers, and replace the shields with normal barriers.
How the fuck do I do that? If these were nice direct reality altering powers, that would be easy. But with reality programming, I'm going to need all the inexplicable hints I can get.
class aegis3mod extends aegis3(Selector com.xcvgsystems.sgd)
{
replace super.employref() aegis(Selector Corporation);
replace super.useref() aegis(Selector Corporation);
replace appearanceLogos aegis(Selector Corporation);
replace super.usercontrols()
replace super.comsys()
}
I think I need to compile the class before it'll work.
compile aegis3mod;
preparing for compile:
reading superclass information...
retrieving dependencies...
WARNING: multiple source dependencies may cause conflicts
setting up build environment...
WARNING: use of the default package is discouraged
building class:
integrating dependencies...
WARNING: element sg_naq undefined for universe UniverseMassEffect
WARNING: element sg_trin undefined for universe UniverseMassEffect
INFO: building with libsgmaterials from package com.mgm.Stargate
INFO: interface sgccompute[-]mecomputecom undefined, creating temporary interface
INFO: interface sgccompute[-]mecomputehid undefined, creating temporary interface
INFO: interface sgshield[-]localphys undefined, creating temporary interface
INFO: interface sgdamp[-]localphys undefined, creating temporary interface
INFO: interface sgenergy[-]localphys undefined, creating temporary interface
extrapolating additional information...
INFO: expected 6E27 atoms, got 6E27 atoms
building class into usable object...
WARNING: origin not local to world, may cause undefined or out-of-bounds behavior
class built with 0 errors
Wow. That was long. Is there a silent option? What about a preview?
Tool.preview(aegis3mod);
A viewer showing the armor appears in the same space in my mind the code does. Aegis Foundation insignia, huh, I love the really generic auto-generated logo. It's so realistic and detailed....
Weapons next. I think I can just give them some from Halogen, so I can deal with that later. I've already imported that verse, even. Right, might as well throw in a shameless self-plug while I'm in here. Halogen is my original verse under development, well, under development before I ended up here. Guess Ascension Revolution is never going to be finished now.
Heavy weapons... I don't know the first thing about designing gunships or tanks or such. So I can just bring in some repainted Makos and generic gunships. I've got some designs in my head, but they'd probably ask too many questions about the puddle-jumper-with-gatling-gun.
It's probably best if I don't just appear on the planet, so I'm going to get a ride. Probably easier to just charter one, then I don't have to worry about the consequences of spawning stuff so much. Then again, I would love a cool ship.
No. Okay, maybe. But later.
this.giveCredentials(aegis.GenericCredentials);
this.giveCredentials(aegis.ExpenseAccount);
I could probably go out and find a place to charter a ship, but why go out and meet people when you could just sit in your apartment and do it over the internet! I mean extranet!
There's probably something wrong with me.
I open up the extranet browser. In the future, people don't believe in URLs or IP addresses. Everything is by keyword. You just type in a keyword, and that's sent to a local server which searches its own database and returns cached results. Then that request is forwarded to servers further away, which search their own database, return results and forward the request again. The response from the local server- for me, the one down the street, is nearly instant, and the next few (around the Citadel) pretty fast as well. Once you get further than that you start seeing serious latencies. So the result page loads instantly, but keeps loading. That's weird and I miss Google.
By the way, I made all that up. I figure it's a good guess but I'm too lazy to look up how it actually works.
I search "charter flights to eden prime". Amazingly, the system does a pretty good job of interpreting my vague wording. The first three results are sponsored advertisements. The next two are local charter listings and the six after that are all websites of companies that offer charter flights.
I search the local charter listings first. No good, all the companies need at least 24 hours notice and the fastest advertised travel time is four days, plus a few hours at each end for loading and unloading. If I want to bring lots of big crates, then I'm looking at an even slower ship. Or paying way more, like not a little more, but way the hell more.
I try several of the company websites, with the same results. Finally, I come to the last one, Star Industries. I have an urge to add a k to the end of the first word of that name.
Hey, they have a live agent! I try it. The conversation goes something like this:
Silia: Welcome to the Star Industries live agent help support line! How may We help you today?
adminstrator@s7-3700: need a charter flight
Silia: Established in !dateformaterror, Star Industries is the Citadel's leading provider of chartered starships.
adminstrator@s7-3700: need to get to Eden Prime 4 days or faster, need to book now, and need to carry heavy cargo
Silia: Star Industries offers a variety of charter options, including flicker ships, fast cargo carriers, and executive transports.
adminstrator@s7-3700: are you even an actual live agent?
Silia: Silia by Ertec is an advanced virtual intelligence system designed specifically for customer service.
adminstrator@s7-3700: Well, that's really helpful /sarcasm
adminstrator@s7-3700: You should add a k to the end of Star in your company's name, just trust me on that one.
adminstrator@s7-3700: also you're a fucking useless bot, bye
Well, fuck. Back to Plan A. Which is to magically teleport.
this.teleport(EdenPrime,TPFLAG_NOTELEFRAG);
There's a slight feeling of vertigo and disorientation, then my surroundings change to a futuristic city and I suddenly find myself falling. I probably only fall a few inches before something soft breaks my fall, and we both tumble to the ground.
"Fuck!"
Then the universe reboot. Due to too many commands.
spencer1519
(Verified Heretic)
- Location
- Oregon, USA
Talk about your crash into hello.
Granted, this usually doesn't involve teleporting via reality hax, but your new true love doesn't need to know that.
- Location
- Canada
/*
Apologies for the long, long, long delay. I've been very busy with some other projects, mostly to do with the holiday season. This chapter I had to force together and it shows I think. Also, I promise there will be some action in the next chapter. I know it's been a bit of a slog but things should finally start coming together.
*/
Chapters[8] inbound
I quickly and awkwardly scramble to my feet, and the person I landed on is already staring at me.
Tall (maybe I'm just short in the future) athletic woman, relatively small breasts but nice hips. Military fatigues. Tan or light brown skin colour. Round face. Disapproving look in her brown eyes. Holy shit, it's Ashley Williams!
I suppress the urge to do a fangirlish squee. It's harder than you might think, and it leaks out as possibly the most awkward coughing fit ever.
"Hey, what the hell?"
Hello there Kimberly Brooks. Or, more accurately, person who was played by Kimberly Brooks and sounds almost exactly like her. But looks nothing like her based on the pictures I've seen.
Did you know that Kimberly Brooks played Daisy Fitzroy in Bioshock Infinite? It's the only game I know of with both Laura Bailey and Jennifer Hale in it, but you can barely tell because of the accents.
Yes, I actually go on wild tangents like that all the time. Meanwhile, Ashley fucking Williams is staring at me like I'm crazy. Which is probable.
"Are you just going to stand there and stare like an idiot?"
I look around, both because yes I am staring and I need a plausible excuse for landing on top of her. Running into someone is one thing, landing on top of them is quite another.
We're standing in what is I guess the outskirts of the colony. It looks kind of like what we saw in the game. Pretty flat, dirt ground. We're surrounded by prefab units in various states of repair arranged in a roughly gridlike pattern. It's definitely more dense than what we saw in-game, a different area I guess, but the visual style (if you can call it that) is the same. We're on the edge of the 'street', near one of the prefabs.
"Uh, sorry about that," I stutter. "I didn't meant to run into you like that."
"Run into me?" she says, arching an eyebrow. "You landed on top of me! How does that even happen?"
"Bad geometry?" I offer. This is not going to work. I need some help.
this.setCharisma(200);
I think I can sell it now.
"Look, this is awkward and I apologize but there's really no point dwelling. You're with the Alliance, correct?"
"Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams, 212th." She crosses her arms as I suppress another squee. "Who are you?"
That's a good question. Do I even have a name in this universe? Better set one, for now at least.
this.setExternalID(string first, string[] middle, string last)
Huh, should probably stick with my actual first name, just to avoid potential self-confusion. I'll drop the middle name completely- they were on their way out Before and they're probably almost gone now, and change my last name.
this.setExternalID("Chris",null,"Miller");
reconcile -q -c;
reconciling changes:
-this.setExternalID("Chris",null,"Miller");
successful - 19 changes made
Wow, Miller. How very creative. You have the ability to warp reality and the best name you could come up with was Miller. Note to self: Find something more interesting later.
"I'm Chris Miller, CEO of the Aegis Foundation. We're a small startup focused on providing advanced defence solutions. I was actually on my way here to demonstrate some technologies when a situation came up."
That got her interested, at least. Amazing how smooth I can be with my charisma stat jacked way the hell up. I'm still nervous as hell, but it's not in the way now. "How do I know you're legit and not just some crazy guy off the street?"
ashley.giveItem(aegis.CEOBusinessCard,1);
A business card appears in her hand and she's taken aback. "What the hell?"
"One of the many technologies we've been working on. There's more I can show you." She starts walking away, and I hurry to keep up.
"You said a situation came up. Get to the point." The fact that this is the closest I've been to having a girlfriend is pretty sad. Except she's at least ten years older than me so it's kind of a bit creepy. Stop thinking about her like that. No, really, stop. She might notice.
Then again, knowing me, probably not.
"I was on my way here when we picked up a vessel on our long-range scanners. Checked it against the database, and, well, it's geth. And it's coming here."
"Hold on a minute. You said you picked a geth ship up on long-range scanners, but they must have been moving faster than light. If you saw them from here, wouldn't they already be here?"
"With conventional slower-than-light scanners, yes. With our new subspace arrays, we can pick them up already." Why didn't I just say I didn't see them from here, I picked them up when they were stopped for gas a few systems over?
"There are so many things wrong with that. Relativity, causality, space-time. Did you fail high school physics?"
"Reducing the mass of a ship to accelerate it past the lightspeed barrier was once considered impossible."
"I'm not convinced. The geth haven't been seen outside the Veil in hundreds of years."
"Look, if you can take me to your base I can show you and your commanding officer."
"I can't just bring some president of a two-bit company with a few magic tricks on base."
"And if the geth drop in and start killing everyone because you weren't prepared?"
She sighs and concedes, "You better be legit. If you aren't, I will personally fuck you up."
"I'm not lying." Also, I wouldn't mind that.
I'm gonna need a crate full of stuff ready when I get there. Better do that now, while we're walking. I'll just follow her and hopefully not walk into a post.
Container shipment = new Container(StandardShippingCrate);
shipment.addm(aegis3mod,12);
shipment.add(Tool.QuickBuild("man-portable long-range subspace scanner with omni-tool interface"));
shipment.addm(UniverseHalogen.Weapon.S97,12);
shipment.addm(UniverseHalogen.Ammo.slugCase,6);
Done. I can just drop the sucker in and explain it away as one of our advanced techs.
It occurs to me that I'm probably fucking up everything already with all the advanced technology, but when you have it at your fingertips it's so hard to resist. Because why not?
It's not far to the Alliance base, if you can call it that. Outpost would be charitable. It's just a few prefab buildings, a chain-link fence, a single guard post and a sign that declared it as Fort Kynareth, home of the 212th Screaming Weasels (maybe a joke?). Then again, maybe I just have ridiculous preconceived notions of what a military base should be.
"Huh, that's smaller than I expected," I note under my breath.
"It's a fob, you dumb civvie." I actually know what she meant by that.
"Hey boomstick, who's the civvie?" The guard shouted from inside his post. I didn't get a good look at him, because Ash quickly moves between us.
"Really, Mike?" she asked.
He raised his hands into the air. "I don't come up with the names, just use 'em. Besides, you know I love ya."
"In your dreams."
"Wet dreams." His tone turned serious. "But seriously, who's the civvie? You know I can't just let anyone in off the street."
I step in, introducing myself and handing him a business card.
"I don't know, we didn't get so much as a call ahead."
"He says there are geth coming to kill us." I can't see her roll her eyes, but I think she's doing it.
"And you actually believe that?" the guard- Mike- laughed.
"No, but do you want to be wrong?"
"Not really."
"Then let us through. Call it calling a favour."
"Fine, but if you're wrong, it's your cute little ass that's getting it."
"Go fuck yourself, Mike!" Ash shouts as we walk into the base.
"I don't even need a p-mag with you around!" he shouts after us. Ash shoots him a dirty look, but says nothing.
"Uh, who was that guy?" I ask.
"Corporal Mike Bailey. Complete bag. Hits on girls, hits on guys, makes lots of inappropriate comments. But we keep him around because he can put a bullet between your eyes at a thousand metres."
Inside the base, there's a woman in PT gear running around, one guy cleaning a machine gun, two soldiers (marines?) in armour doing a patrol, and a lot of marines sitting around. What's odd to me is that almost half of them are female. And at least half of them are hot. Well, by my standards anyway.
Some of them turn to look at us as we pass. This reminds me more of Generation Kill by the minute. Except for the women.
"After you, jefe," Ash says, motioning to one of the prefabs. I briefly wonder how Hispanic Williams is, or if the word has simply entered the common vernacular by now. It might not even mean the same thing. It might even be an insult for all I know.
God, future English is hard.
As the doors slides open and I step through I briefly wonder if I can hack in a backstory.
target.addEvent(interp("Aegis Foundation call-ahead"));
Piece of cake. And wow, that is some funky new commands. Also, a target object reference would have been handy earlier. Is there a tracer one too?
The inside of the prefab is covered in computer consoles connected by messy wiring. Dominating the chamber is a large computerized plotting table with a hologram above it. Several marines (should it be capitalized as Marines?) are stationed around the room. It smells of sweat and air conditioner and a faint whiff of strawberries. I may or may not have imagined the last one. Standing above the plotting table is the LT.
If Chief Williams is attractive, then Lieutenant Hart is gorgeous. She's slightly taller than the Chief, but slimmer too, though still of an athletic rather than model-like build. Pretty face, brilliant blue eyes and honey blond hair tied back in a loose ponytail. She's wearing the same fatigues but somehow they manage to look way better on her. Also it turns out she's the source of strawberry scent.
I will admit that I am an unapologetic amazon chaser. Never had any luck, though. Not much to choose from and none of them would even like me back anyway.
"What have you got for me, Chief?" Buthervoice! I was expecting Colonel Carter and she sounds more like Colonel Ferrando. I'm exaggerating, of course, but now that I have your attention... Imagine female Bishop from Rainbow Six Vegas 2 except less horrible and with more ground glass. That is a horribly obscure reference and I apologize.
"Chris Miller, CEO of the Aegis Foundation," Williams announces. Huh, she sounds much more sure now.
"You're early," Hart notes matter-of-factly, crossing her well-toned arms over her perfectly sized breasts. Must think of other thoughts before something bad happens! Margret Thatcher naked on a cold day! Margret Thatcher naked on a cold day! I think she noticed my staring because I see a slight smirk. Or maybe that's her breathing.
I gulp and return the matter-of-fact tone. "Something came up."
"What kind of something?"
"On my way here, my long-range scanners detected a vessel approaching at high speed."
"This is the same long-range scanner you were going to demo for us?" Williams asked.
I blink. Right, of course. I easily make up a slightly tall tale. "A bigger version, but the principle is the same."
"Okay, ships come here all the time. I take it from your tone that this wasn't just some merchantman?"
"Well, we compared it to what we had in our database," I lie smoothly, "and it appears to be of geth origin."
"Bullshit. The geth haven't been seen outside the veil in hundreds of years," one of the other marines in the prefab blurted out.
"The shipment. Did it make it?" Hart asked.
Yes, yes it did.
shipment.spawn(findEmptyCoords(here));
reconcile -q -c;
reconciling changes:
-shipment.spawn(findEmptyCoords(here));
successful - 2 changes made
"Should already be here."
Hart blinks a few times. "Of course. I don't suppose one of those scanners is in that crate?"
"I think so." I know so.
We head outside, and sure enough a large shipping crate is parked inside the compound. Uh, how do you open these? Nevermind, it has a computer console thing. It reads my thumbprint and the doors pop open.
Inside are several plastic boxes with the Aegis Foundation logo on them. Let's see, the stack of narrow ones probably contain guns, the big tall ones are armour, and the oddly shaped one that there's only one of must be the scanner. I grab it and head back outside.
"That's it?" Williams asks.
"Cramming ridiculously advanced technology into ridiculously small spaces is one of our many specialties," I quip. Why am I so comfortable here? Oh right, because I mindhacked myself. There's a new word. Write that down somewhere.
I figured the box would be held shut with more computerized latches, but no, it's just a box, and it's heat-sealed shut. I hand it to Williams. "I, uh, kind of forgot my knife."
"You don't need a knife," she berates, and opens the package. Squeeze the side a little, push on that corner and the end pops off. "How do you not know how to open your own packaging?"
"Usually I put the product in the box." I take the now-open box from her and pull out the contents. Which is a small metal equipment box, an unidentifiable thingy and a long thin cable inside a foam container. Judging by the flexiness, I'd say it's EPP, or the futuristic equivalent thereof. I take a bite. It doesn't taste like much of anything. I spit it out.
"Did you just bite the packaging?"
"No?" That didn't come out right. I hurriedly depackage everything like I'm fucking Synaptic. Okay, the unidentified thing is like a fold-out satellite dish. And this connects here and, okay, I guess I can sync it to my omni-tool, aha!
"This isn't the first time you've done this, is it?" Hart asks. It probably took me five minutes just to get the damn thing together.
"Actually, uh, this is our first prototype," I lie. That would make sense, right? "Still working out the-"
"Holy shit, they're coming in right on top of us!"
I look at the hologram on my wrist. The big ball is Eden Prime, the red wedges are the bad guys I guess, and I don't have a good sense of scale but they look pretty close. I tap both and get a meaningless number in return.
"You sure this thing works?" Williams questions.
"I'm positive."
"How long do we have?" That was Heart. I mean Hart.
I fiddle with the virtual buttons some more. Menu, show measurement, ETA. Mechanically I read the readout. "At the current rate of advance, just over.. just over an hour?"
That can't be right.
Date.deltaDateAndEvent(currentLocation.getCurrentDate(),getObjectFromDescription("Eden Prime Attack 2183"));
1h1m12s
What? I thought I had more time! Unless, of course, my presence pushed it up, which is possible. Even probable. By attempting to alter the flow of events I inadvertently altered the flow of events. Wait, that doesn't make any sense. You know what I mean.
Looks like my nonexistant plan just got blown to hell.
Apologies for the long, long, long delay. I've been very busy with some other projects, mostly to do with the holiday season. This chapter I had to force together and it shows I think. Also, I promise there will be some action in the next chapter. I know it's been a bit of a slog but things should finally start coming together.
*/
Chapters[8] inbound
I quickly and awkwardly scramble to my feet, and the person I landed on is already staring at me.
Tall (maybe I'm just short in the future) athletic woman, relatively small breasts but nice hips. Military fatigues. Tan or light brown skin colour. Round face. Disapproving look in her brown eyes. Holy shit, it's Ashley Williams!
I suppress the urge to do a fangirlish squee. It's harder than you might think, and it leaks out as possibly the most awkward coughing fit ever.
"Hey, what the hell?"
Hello there Kimberly Brooks. Or, more accurately, person who was played by Kimberly Brooks and sounds almost exactly like her. But looks nothing like her based on the pictures I've seen.
Did you know that Kimberly Brooks played Daisy Fitzroy in Bioshock Infinite? It's the only game I know of with both Laura Bailey and Jennifer Hale in it, but you can barely tell because of the accents.
Yes, I actually go on wild tangents like that all the time. Meanwhile, Ashley fucking Williams is staring at me like I'm crazy. Which is probable.
"Are you just going to stand there and stare like an idiot?"
I look around, both because yes I am staring and I need a plausible excuse for landing on top of her. Running into someone is one thing, landing on top of them is quite another.
We're standing in what is I guess the outskirts of the colony. It looks kind of like what we saw in the game. Pretty flat, dirt ground. We're surrounded by prefab units in various states of repair arranged in a roughly gridlike pattern. It's definitely more dense than what we saw in-game, a different area I guess, but the visual style (if you can call it that) is the same. We're on the edge of the 'street', near one of the prefabs.
"Uh, sorry about that," I stutter. "I didn't meant to run into you like that."
"Run into me?" she says, arching an eyebrow. "You landed on top of me! How does that even happen?"
"Bad geometry?" I offer. This is not going to work. I need some help.
this.setCharisma(200);
I think I can sell it now.
"Look, this is awkward and I apologize but there's really no point dwelling. You're with the Alliance, correct?"
"Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams, 212th." She crosses her arms as I suppress another squee. "Who are you?"
That's a good question. Do I even have a name in this universe? Better set one, for now at least.
this.setExternalID(string first, string[] middle, string last)
Huh, should probably stick with my actual first name, just to avoid potential self-confusion. I'll drop the middle name completely- they were on their way out Before and they're probably almost gone now, and change my last name.
this.setExternalID("Chris",null,"Miller");
reconcile -q -c;
reconciling changes:
-this.setExternalID("Chris",null,"Miller");
successful - 19 changes made
Wow, Miller. How very creative. You have the ability to warp reality and the best name you could come up with was Miller. Note to self: Find something more interesting later.
"I'm Chris Miller, CEO of the Aegis Foundation. We're a small startup focused on providing advanced defence solutions. I was actually on my way here to demonstrate some technologies when a situation came up."
That got her interested, at least. Amazing how smooth I can be with my charisma stat jacked way the hell up. I'm still nervous as hell, but it's not in the way now. "How do I know you're legit and not just some crazy guy off the street?"
ashley.giveItem(aegis.CEOBusinessCard,1);
A business card appears in her hand and she's taken aback. "What the hell?"
"One of the many technologies we've been working on. There's more I can show you." She starts walking away, and I hurry to keep up.
"You said a situation came up. Get to the point." The fact that this is the closest I've been to having a girlfriend is pretty sad. Except she's at least ten years older than me so it's kind of a bit creepy. Stop thinking about her like that. No, really, stop. She might notice.
Then again, knowing me, probably not.
"I was on my way here when we picked up a vessel on our long-range scanners. Checked it against the database, and, well, it's geth. And it's coming here."
"Hold on a minute. You said you picked a geth ship up on long-range scanners, but they must have been moving faster than light. If you saw them from here, wouldn't they already be here?"
"With conventional slower-than-light scanners, yes. With our new subspace arrays, we can pick them up already." Why didn't I just say I didn't see them from here, I picked them up when they were stopped for gas a few systems over?
"There are so many things wrong with that. Relativity, causality, space-time. Did you fail high school physics?"
"Reducing the mass of a ship to accelerate it past the lightspeed barrier was once considered impossible."
"I'm not convinced. The geth haven't been seen outside the Veil in hundreds of years."
"Look, if you can take me to your base I can show you and your commanding officer."
"I can't just bring some president of a two-bit company with a few magic tricks on base."
"And if the geth drop in and start killing everyone because you weren't prepared?"
She sighs and concedes, "You better be legit. If you aren't, I will personally fuck you up."
"I'm not lying." Also, I wouldn't mind that.
I'm gonna need a crate full of stuff ready when I get there. Better do that now, while we're walking. I'll just follow her and hopefully not walk into a post.
Container shipment = new Container(StandardShippingCrate);
shipment.addm(aegis3mod,12);
shipment.add(Tool.QuickBuild("man-portable long-range subspace scanner with omni-tool interface"));
shipment.addm(UniverseHalogen.Weapon.S97,12);
shipment.addm(UniverseHalogen.Ammo.slugCase,6);
Done. I can just drop the sucker in and explain it away as one of our advanced techs.
It occurs to me that I'm probably fucking up everything already with all the advanced technology, but when you have it at your fingertips it's so hard to resist. Because why not?
It's not far to the Alliance base, if you can call it that. Outpost would be charitable. It's just a few prefab buildings, a chain-link fence, a single guard post and a sign that declared it as Fort Kynareth, home of the 212th Screaming Weasels (maybe a joke?). Then again, maybe I just have ridiculous preconceived notions of what a military base should be.
"Huh, that's smaller than I expected," I note under my breath.
"It's a fob, you dumb civvie." I actually know what she meant by that.
"Hey boomstick, who's the civvie?" The guard shouted from inside his post. I didn't get a good look at him, because Ash quickly moves between us.
"Really, Mike?" she asked.
He raised his hands into the air. "I don't come up with the names, just use 'em. Besides, you know I love ya."
"In your dreams."
"Wet dreams." His tone turned serious. "But seriously, who's the civvie? You know I can't just let anyone in off the street."
I step in, introducing myself and handing him a business card.
"I don't know, we didn't get so much as a call ahead."
"He says there are geth coming to kill us." I can't see her roll her eyes, but I think she's doing it.
"And you actually believe that?" the guard- Mike- laughed.
"No, but do you want to be wrong?"
"Not really."
"Then let us through. Call it calling a favour."
"Fine, but if you're wrong, it's your cute little ass that's getting it."
"Go fuck yourself, Mike!" Ash shouts as we walk into the base.
"I don't even need a p-mag with you around!" he shouts after us. Ash shoots him a dirty look, but says nothing.
"Uh, who was that guy?" I ask.
"Corporal Mike Bailey. Complete bag. Hits on girls, hits on guys, makes lots of inappropriate comments. But we keep him around because he can put a bullet between your eyes at a thousand metres."
Inside the base, there's a woman in PT gear running around, one guy cleaning a machine gun, two soldiers (marines?) in armour doing a patrol, and a lot of marines sitting around. What's odd to me is that almost half of them are female. And at least half of them are hot. Well, by my standards anyway.
Some of them turn to look at us as we pass. This reminds me more of Generation Kill by the minute. Except for the women.
"After you, jefe," Ash says, motioning to one of the prefabs. I briefly wonder how Hispanic Williams is, or if the word has simply entered the common vernacular by now. It might not even mean the same thing. It might even be an insult for all I know.
God, future English is hard.
As the doors slides open and I step through I briefly wonder if I can hack in a backstory.
target.addEvent(interp("Aegis Foundation call-ahead"));
Piece of cake. And wow, that is some funky new commands. Also, a target object reference would have been handy earlier. Is there a tracer one too?
The inside of the prefab is covered in computer consoles connected by messy wiring. Dominating the chamber is a large computerized plotting table with a hologram above it. Several marines (should it be capitalized as Marines?) are stationed around the room. It smells of sweat and air conditioner and a faint whiff of strawberries. I may or may not have imagined the last one. Standing above the plotting table is the LT.
If Chief Williams is attractive, then Lieutenant Hart is gorgeous. She's slightly taller than the Chief, but slimmer too, though still of an athletic rather than model-like build. Pretty face, brilliant blue eyes and honey blond hair tied back in a loose ponytail. She's wearing the same fatigues but somehow they manage to look way better on her. Also it turns out she's the source of strawberry scent.
I will admit that I am an unapologetic amazon chaser. Never had any luck, though. Not much to choose from and none of them would even like me back anyway.
"What have you got for me, Chief?" Buthervoice! I was expecting Colonel Carter and she sounds more like Colonel Ferrando. I'm exaggerating, of course, but now that I have your attention... Imagine female Bishop from Rainbow Six Vegas 2 except less horrible and with more ground glass. That is a horribly obscure reference and I apologize.
"Chris Miller, CEO of the Aegis Foundation," Williams announces. Huh, she sounds much more sure now.
"You're early," Hart notes matter-of-factly, crossing her well-toned arms over her perfectly sized breasts. Must think of other thoughts before something bad happens! Margret Thatcher naked on a cold day! Margret Thatcher naked on a cold day! I think she noticed my staring because I see a slight smirk. Or maybe that's her breathing.
I gulp and return the matter-of-fact tone. "Something came up."
"What kind of something?"
"On my way here, my long-range scanners detected a vessel approaching at high speed."
"This is the same long-range scanner you were going to demo for us?" Williams asked.
I blink. Right, of course. I easily make up a slightly tall tale. "A bigger version, but the principle is the same."
"Okay, ships come here all the time. I take it from your tone that this wasn't just some merchantman?"
"Well, we compared it to what we had in our database," I lie smoothly, "and it appears to be of geth origin."
"Bullshit. The geth haven't been seen outside the veil in hundreds of years," one of the other marines in the prefab blurted out.
"The shipment. Did it make it?" Hart asked.
Yes, yes it did.
shipment.spawn(findEmptyCoords(here));
reconcile -q -c;
reconciling changes:
-shipment.spawn(findEmptyCoords(here));
successful - 2 changes made
"Should already be here."
Hart blinks a few times. "Of course. I don't suppose one of those scanners is in that crate?"
"I think so." I know so.
We head outside, and sure enough a large shipping crate is parked inside the compound. Uh, how do you open these? Nevermind, it has a computer console thing. It reads my thumbprint and the doors pop open.
Inside are several plastic boxes with the Aegis Foundation logo on them. Let's see, the stack of narrow ones probably contain guns, the big tall ones are armour, and the oddly shaped one that there's only one of must be the scanner. I grab it and head back outside.
"That's it?" Williams asks.
"Cramming ridiculously advanced technology into ridiculously small spaces is one of our many specialties," I quip. Why am I so comfortable here? Oh right, because I mindhacked myself. There's a new word. Write that down somewhere.
I figured the box would be held shut with more computerized latches, but no, it's just a box, and it's heat-sealed shut. I hand it to Williams. "I, uh, kind of forgot my knife."
"You don't need a knife," she berates, and opens the package. Squeeze the side a little, push on that corner and the end pops off. "How do you not know how to open your own packaging?"
"Usually I put the product in the box." I take the now-open box from her and pull out the contents. Which is a small metal equipment box, an unidentifiable thingy and a long thin cable inside a foam container. Judging by the flexiness, I'd say it's EPP, or the futuristic equivalent thereof. I take a bite. It doesn't taste like much of anything. I spit it out.
"Did you just bite the packaging?"
"No?" That didn't come out right. I hurriedly depackage everything like I'm fucking Synaptic. Okay, the unidentified thing is like a fold-out satellite dish. And this connects here and, okay, I guess I can sync it to my omni-tool, aha!
"This isn't the first time you've done this, is it?" Hart asks. It probably took me five minutes just to get the damn thing together.
"Actually, uh, this is our first prototype," I lie. That would make sense, right? "Still working out the-"
"Holy shit, they're coming in right on top of us!"
I look at the hologram on my wrist. The big ball is Eden Prime, the red wedges are the bad guys I guess, and I don't have a good sense of scale but they look pretty close. I tap both and get a meaningless number in return.
"You sure this thing works?" Williams questions.
"I'm positive."
"How long do we have?" That was Heart. I mean Hart.
I fiddle with the virtual buttons some more. Menu, show measurement, ETA. Mechanically I read the readout. "At the current rate of advance, just over.. just over an hour?"
That can't be right.
Date.deltaDateAndEvent(currentLocation.getCurrentDate(),getObjectFromDescription("Eden Prime Attack 2183"));
1h1m12s
What? I thought I had more time! Unless, of course, my presence pushed it up, which is possible. Even probable. By attempting to alter the flow of events I inadvertently altered the flow of events. Wait, that doesn't make any sense. You know what I mean.
Looks like my nonexistant plan just got blown to hell.
Quick! Spawn in a platoon of BX commando droids!
... But armed with Nod weapons.
... But armed with Nod weapons.
Night_stalker
Slava Ukraini!
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Eh, a hour's easily enough time to hide the beacon and scramble the militia.
spencer1519
(Verified Heretic)
- Location
- Oregon, USA
import com.Gainax.UniverseNeonGenesisEvangelion;
I think you know what to do from there.
I think you know what to do from there.
horus
Lupercal
- Location
- Cthonia
...horus said:
Well, yeah...
Still, it's a freaking behemoth of a ship. And would be a Bad Idea in general.
- Location
- Canada
/*
I lied. This is more buildup. It's kind of weak, and I will admit I did get lazy. But next chapter the fun will start. I know, I've been saying that for half the story now...
*/
Chapters[9] setup
"Not a glitch?" Lieutenant Hart asks, standing up and heading back toward the command building.
"Within reasonable doubt, not a glitch."
"It's not some kind of marketing stunt?" Williams asks me, more cynical.
"I may be crazy and stupid, but I'm not that crazy and stupid," I reply with more than a bit of snark.
"Get me a line to command," Hart orders as she reenters the command prefab. "Send this message. Geth attack inbound, detected via experimental FTL system provided by Aegis Foundation. Estimated time to arrival sixty minutes. Recommend immediate scramble."
"Will they believe us?" Williams asks.
"They better believe us," Hart replies. "Whether or not they do, we're mobilizing."
I'm actually really fucking confused about ranks now. If I remember correctly, the Systems Alliance doesn't have a separate branch for Marines. They're attached to the Navy- I think. Hart is a Lieutenant- pronounced the American way. But is she equivalent in rank to a Marines Lieutenant or a Navy Lieutenant. If she's the former, she's probably no more than platoon leader. If it's the latter, then she might be the battalion or divisional commander. I probably mixed up the units, but you get the idea.
"How long until you're, uh, reinforced?" I ask.
"If you mean locally, never. The rest of the colonial garrison is going to be too busy defending the cities to help us out here. There's a unit of colonial militia out here but we'd be lucky if they got out of bed before the attack hits. If you mean from the Alliance, too late."
"What do you mean by too late?" Actually, I'm pretty sure I know the answer.
"The geth are machines. They're not motivated by fear. They don't care that we're going to counterattack later, they want the colony now. Our defences are primarily based around the fear of a brutal counterattack. Which means that we're sitting swans against the geth."
I know linguistic drift is a thing, but that blunt metaphors trauma still made me flinch.
"Where exactly is your unit heading?"
"An archaeological dig a few kilometres south of here," Hart says curtly. She turns to the guy on the console. "I'm gearing up. Let me know if anything happens."
"But why would the geth want this colony?" I ask, following the two women out of the prefab. Damn, they move fast.
After a pause I answer my own question. "The digsite."
"What about it?" Williams asks. Oh Ash, you fucking suck at hiding things.
"The beacon."
She give me this look. "You shouldn't know about it. Technically, we shouldn't know about it. How could they know about it?"
Chief has a point. Actually, how did Saren know that they'd found the beacon on Eden Prime. Was it already published in some kind of space journal? I thought it was top secret.
I answer my own question again. "It's a beacon. Maybe it acts like one."
"The eggheads said they didn't detect any activity,"
"It's poorly-understood ancient tech. Maybe they missed something."
"Fucking scientists," Williams mutters under her breath. I return The Look. Poorly. She apologizes anyway. "Sorry."
"Engineer, not scientist." Well, it's still a lie but it's less of a lie. Before, I was considering dumping engineering for IT. I'm not smart enough or nonlazy enough to be an engineer. I don't know about the job, but I don't think I can make it through the education. "Well, mostly."
"What do you mean mostly?"
"I don't do most of it anymore." Vague is good.
Hart pauses in front of the container, and she asks me directly, "What exactly have you got in there?"
"A dozen suits of armour, a dozen assault rifles. All cutting-edge."
"How cutting-edge?" Hart asks.
"What armour are you using right now?"
"Sirta Phoenix." Ah, the bright bubblegum pink. How could you forget that?
"This stuff's at least an order of magnitude better. It's fully powered, fully sealed, the armour itself is
significantly stronger and it's powered. The shields are also a new type that are resistant to energy weapons." Man, I am just making this shit up as I go along. I hope that I'm reasonably accurate and I hope I sound convincing. With my track record, both points are doubtful.
"And the guns?"
"Accurate and powerful, but we haven't tested those much." Wow, I'm getting good at making shit up as I go along. "They need ammo, too. Don't worry, I won't charge you if you toss them away in the middle of combat."
"Can we trust this?" Williams asks.
"You want an advantage, you've got it." I cross my arms and try to look badass. I think I just came across as a scumbag.
She grabs one of the armour cases, and though she seems to lift it fine (I thought the stuff weighed a few hundred pounds?) I can tell the weight surprised her. "What the fuck is this made of?"
"Alloys you've probably never heard of." Actually, mostly carbon composite (nanotubes, maybe) and naquadah-carbon-trinium.
"Anything heavier?" Hart asks, taking one for herself and motioning some marines to grab the rest. She begins heading toward another building.
"It's already pretty heavy."
"I meant weapons. What do you have for heavy weapons?" Oh, right, that.
"Some drones, maybe a gunship." I am (not literally) pulling this out of my ass. "I didn't exactly have time to take inventory."
"This armour adjusts, right?" Hart asks, changing subjects.
"Yes." Hopefully.
"Good." She taps her ear. "Innes, Ramirez, Garcia, Mann, Satowa, Moshe, McIntosh, Borosova, Yerchenko, Han, meet at the armory. I've got a surprise for you."
We enter a prefab with a lot of guns, some security gates and a lady with a ponytail and a rifle casually leaning against the wall. I follow Hart as she makes a right into a room with a lot of lockers. A locker room, I guess. They drop the cases on the ground and open them.
"So, how do you put it on?"
That's actually a very good question which I shall have to dodge. "It shouldn't be too different from what you're used to." If I remember my own writing correctly, it takes two people, so this should be fun.
Then they start stripping. I avert my eyes as they suddenly start pulling clothes off. Man, Hart is hot. No. She's probably old enough to be your mother.
"What, never seen a female body before?" Williams teases.
Actually, the answer is no. I mean, technically, yes, since I was born to a human mother, but in the normal sense, no.
"You have somewhere safe to go?" Hart asks. I'm still looking at the wall.
"I've got a ship."
"You won't get off the planet in time."
"I don't intend to."
"What?"
"Are you still naked or can I look now?"
"We're done." I look. Wow. That is way better than naked.
Forget I said that.
"I said I might have some more equipment. I'm going to try to get it working and get it here."
"With the geth crawling around?"
"The geth aren't something I have to worry about."
I feel like such a badass. I feel like such a dirty Stu.
Even with the hax I still don't know what to say here. I utter, "Good luck."
"You too." Hart grasps my hand with her armoured one. I feel the bones move around in her crushing grip. There are actuators in those gloves, you know!
"He's fucking crazy," I hear as I leave the building.
I need a plausible place to park a jumper. Also a copilot, probably. Have I already imported Stargate?
import com.mgm.stargate.*;
Right, where can I park the jumper? I wave at the guard as I leave the base. He gives me the finger. Behind him, the base is stepping up in a flurry of activity. I think I mixed metaphors there.
There's a little hill that would hide a jumper behind it. I pull out my toolgun, which is still on me somehow. I think there's some weird shit going on with my inventory but I'm not going to test it right now. Do I look like rationalist!Harry to you?
ToolGun.setSpawnObject(PuddleJumper);
I aim and fire and a puddle jumper appears. For those of you who have never watched Stargate, or stopped watching before season 8 of SG-1 or the beginning of Atlantis, a puddle jumper is a small ship that's very tough, has okay weapons, cloaks, does not go FTL, and fits through a Stargate.
The ramp is down, so I casually stroll inside and take a seat where the pilot would sit. I touch the panel. It's supposed to activate. Nothing happens. Ah, right.
this.setFlag(ATA, true);
As expected, everything lights up and comes online. I need a Staples button. That was easy. And then I remember something very important.
The Eden Prime attack was supposed to happen a week from now. That date coincides with the first mission of the Normandy. Shepard isn't going to here for another week. I think I just accidentally the galaxy.
Nah, it's okay. Hopefully they'll come early because of the distress call. If not, I'll just teleport them or something.
normandy.setGoal(EdenPrime)
I wonder if that will actually work.
But what about the beacon? Only because of very specific events did Shepard get the Prothean junk downloaded into her brain. If the conditions aren't perfectly right then someone else might download it or nobody at all. Which means we have no catalyst (lower case) and no chase. Which means that Saren is the only one with the knowledge and Saren wins. Unless, of course, Saren never uses the beacon, in which case the whole plot of Mass Effect 1 basically just got flushed down the toilet.
In the wise words of Jack O'Neill, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. But I think it's going to involve some spaghetti code.
With my thoughts, I cloak the Jumper and take off. It's very easy and natural, even though I've never done it before. I guess setting that flag gave me the good ATA gene like O'Neill and Sheppard (spell it right, people) have, not the next to useless Beckett ATA gene.
Date.deltaDateAndEvent(currentLocation.getCurrentDate(),getObjectFromDescription("Eden Prime Attack 2183"));
55m19s
I should have brought a deck of cards. I do have my phone still (I know, I know), but I don't think I could kill an hour with Doom or Angry Birds or Fruit Ninja.
I bring up my omni-tool and connect to the extranet. Once that comes up, I start searching for the available games. Lots ofFacebook social games, a ton of casual games, and few real games. Top-down shooters seem to be the thing, although I am seeing tower defence and (strange) puzzle games too. No Minecraft. It kind of bothers me for a bit that the selection of games almost exactly mirrors what we had Before.
And then I go back to some pondering I did when I was reading a lot of sci-fi. All (well, most) science fiction attempts to predict the future. And all (not most) science fiction is a product of its time. Sometimes an author will get it right and predict the future, most of the time they don't. The message is generally in line with the thoughts of the day, albeit on the cutting edge. Or something like that. I have more important things to think about right now!
I settle on a top-down shooter, Alliance Corsair. Not gonna lie, it's kind of meh, and I was expecting the control scheme to be a lot less primitive. To its credit, there is a story, but it's really bad and even I know it's implausible, and the voice acting is absolutely abhorrent.
I put the Puddle Jumper in autopilot mode (don't ask, I don't know) and get absorbed into the game. About a minute in I realize that I should probably not be so distracted, so I set an alarm to go off five minutes before the predicted arrival.
Then and only then do I get adsorbed into the game.
On the clock, five minutes before the invasion, the alarm goes off. It force closes my game and nukes all the progress I've made. You'd think by 2183 they'd figure out how to write an operating system that doesn't do that.
Oh well. Better get set for the invasion. I feel like a bit of an asshole treating a tragic event like some kind of non-tragic event like a movie or a play or something and that metaphor is falling apart now. I promised drones and maybe a gunship. In retrospect, I probably should have prepped before playing casual games. Even in the future I am irresponsible.
set_alias com.bnioware.masseffect.robots.StandardDrone drone;
Alias drone set!
set_alias com.bnioware.masseffect.vehicles.GunShip gunship;
Alias gunship set!
There. Now I have some drones I can spawn in when I need to, where I need to. And a gunship or a million.
And of course I don't actually have comms with anyone. Maybe I can patch into their suits?
A little fiddling with the omni-tool and I'm in. I expected it to require me to enter a 37-character GUID or something, but nope. I guess the main purpose of these things is communication after all.
"Is this thing on?" I say clumsily. Is that a thing?
"Yes." That was Annoyed Ash.
"I found some drones."
"Copy that." That was Curt Ash.
While I'm fucking around with all this, the Reaper/Geth forces have begun to arrive.
There's a lot of activity on the ground, but I can't really see what's going on- it just looks like a bunch of dots shifting and lights flashing. The sky, however, is a flurry of activity. There's the big scary fucker descending out of the clouds like the hand of God or something. Hi, Sovereign. It's surrounded by lots of little guys, I'm assuming they're Geth dropships. There's other ships headed toward them and little flashes of fire. That means the Alliance is engaging, which is a good sign.
Perhaps needlessly, I speak into the comm system, "They're here."
Let's rock.
I lied. This is more buildup. It's kind of weak, and I will admit I did get lazy. But next chapter the fun will start. I know, I've been saying that for half the story now...
*/
Chapters[9] setup
"Not a glitch?" Lieutenant Hart asks, standing up and heading back toward the command building.
"Within reasonable doubt, not a glitch."
"It's not some kind of marketing stunt?" Williams asks me, more cynical.
"I may be crazy and stupid, but I'm not that crazy and stupid," I reply with more than a bit of snark.
"Get me a line to command," Hart orders as she reenters the command prefab. "Send this message. Geth attack inbound, detected via experimental FTL system provided by Aegis Foundation. Estimated time to arrival sixty minutes. Recommend immediate scramble."
"Will they believe us?" Williams asks.
"They better believe us," Hart replies. "Whether or not they do, we're mobilizing."
I'm actually really fucking confused about ranks now. If I remember correctly, the Systems Alliance doesn't have a separate branch for Marines. They're attached to the Navy- I think. Hart is a Lieutenant- pronounced the American way. But is she equivalent in rank to a Marines Lieutenant or a Navy Lieutenant. If she's the former, she's probably no more than platoon leader. If it's the latter, then she might be the battalion or divisional commander. I probably mixed up the units, but you get the idea.
"How long until you're, uh, reinforced?" I ask.
"If you mean locally, never. The rest of the colonial garrison is going to be too busy defending the cities to help us out here. There's a unit of colonial militia out here but we'd be lucky if they got out of bed before the attack hits. If you mean from the Alliance, too late."
"What do you mean by too late?" Actually, I'm pretty sure I know the answer.
"The geth are machines. They're not motivated by fear. They don't care that we're going to counterattack later, they want the colony now. Our defences are primarily based around the fear of a brutal counterattack. Which means that we're sitting swans against the geth."
I know linguistic drift is a thing, but that blunt metaphors trauma still made me flinch.
"Where exactly is your unit heading?"
"An archaeological dig a few kilometres south of here," Hart says curtly. She turns to the guy on the console. "I'm gearing up. Let me know if anything happens."
"But why would the geth want this colony?" I ask, following the two women out of the prefab. Damn, they move fast.
After a pause I answer my own question. "The digsite."
"What about it?" Williams asks. Oh Ash, you fucking suck at hiding things.
"The beacon."
She give me this look. "You shouldn't know about it. Technically, we shouldn't know about it. How could they know about it?"
Chief has a point. Actually, how did Saren know that they'd found the beacon on Eden Prime. Was it already published in some kind of space journal? I thought it was top secret.
I answer my own question again. "It's a beacon. Maybe it acts like one."
"The eggheads said they didn't detect any activity,"
"It's poorly-understood ancient tech. Maybe they missed something."
"Fucking scientists," Williams mutters under her breath. I return The Look. Poorly. She apologizes anyway. "Sorry."
"Engineer, not scientist." Well, it's still a lie but it's less of a lie. Before, I was considering dumping engineering for IT. I'm not smart enough or nonlazy enough to be an engineer. I don't know about the job, but I don't think I can make it through the education. "Well, mostly."
"What do you mean mostly?"
"I don't do most of it anymore." Vague is good.
Hart pauses in front of the container, and she asks me directly, "What exactly have you got in there?"
"A dozen suits of armour, a dozen assault rifles. All cutting-edge."
"How cutting-edge?" Hart asks.
"What armour are you using right now?"
"Sirta Phoenix." Ah, the bright bubblegum pink. How could you forget that?
"This stuff's at least an order of magnitude better. It's fully powered, fully sealed, the armour itself is
significantly stronger and it's powered. The shields are also a new type that are resistant to energy weapons." Man, I am just making this shit up as I go along. I hope that I'm reasonably accurate and I hope I sound convincing. With my track record, both points are doubtful.
"And the guns?"
"Accurate and powerful, but we haven't tested those much." Wow, I'm getting good at making shit up as I go along. "They need ammo, too. Don't worry, I won't charge you if you toss them away in the middle of combat."
"Can we trust this?" Williams asks.
"You want an advantage, you've got it." I cross my arms and try to look badass. I think I just came across as a scumbag.
She grabs one of the armour cases, and though she seems to lift it fine (I thought the stuff weighed a few hundred pounds?) I can tell the weight surprised her. "What the fuck is this made of?"
"Alloys you've probably never heard of." Actually, mostly carbon composite (nanotubes, maybe) and naquadah-carbon-trinium.
"Anything heavier?" Hart asks, taking one for herself and motioning some marines to grab the rest. She begins heading toward another building.
"It's already pretty heavy."
"I meant weapons. What do you have for heavy weapons?" Oh, right, that.
"Some drones, maybe a gunship." I am (not literally) pulling this out of my ass. "I didn't exactly have time to take inventory."
"This armour adjusts, right?" Hart asks, changing subjects.
"Yes." Hopefully.
"Good." She taps her ear. "Innes, Ramirez, Garcia, Mann, Satowa, Moshe, McIntosh, Borosova, Yerchenko, Han, meet at the armory. I've got a surprise for you."
We enter a prefab with a lot of guns, some security gates and a lady with a ponytail and a rifle casually leaning against the wall. I follow Hart as she makes a right into a room with a lot of lockers. A locker room, I guess. They drop the cases on the ground and open them.
"So, how do you put it on?"
That's actually a very good question which I shall have to dodge. "It shouldn't be too different from what you're used to." If I remember my own writing correctly, it takes two people, so this should be fun.
Then they start stripping. I avert my eyes as they suddenly start pulling clothes off. Man, Hart is hot. No. She's probably old enough to be your mother.
"What, never seen a female body before?" Williams teases.
Actually, the answer is no. I mean, technically, yes, since I was born to a human mother, but in the normal sense, no.
"You have somewhere safe to go?" Hart asks. I'm still looking at the wall.
"I've got a ship."
"You won't get off the planet in time."
"I don't intend to."
"What?"
"Are you still naked or can I look now?"
"We're done." I look. Wow. That is way better than naked.
Forget I said that.
"I said I might have some more equipment. I'm going to try to get it working and get it here."
"With the geth crawling around?"
"The geth aren't something I have to worry about."
I feel like such a badass. I feel like such a dirty Stu.
Even with the hax I still don't know what to say here. I utter, "Good luck."
"You too." Hart grasps my hand with her armoured one. I feel the bones move around in her crushing grip. There are actuators in those gloves, you know!
"He's fucking crazy," I hear as I leave the building.
I need a plausible place to park a jumper. Also a copilot, probably. Have I already imported Stargate?
import com.mgm.stargate.*;
Right, where can I park the jumper? I wave at the guard as I leave the base. He gives me the finger. Behind him, the base is stepping up in a flurry of activity. I think I mixed metaphors there.
There's a little hill that would hide a jumper behind it. I pull out my toolgun, which is still on me somehow. I think there's some weird shit going on with my inventory but I'm not going to test it right now. Do I look like rationalist!Harry to you?
ToolGun.setSpawnObject(PuddleJumper);
I aim and fire and a puddle jumper appears. For those of you who have never watched Stargate, or stopped watching before season 8 of SG-1 or the beginning of Atlantis, a puddle jumper is a small ship that's very tough, has okay weapons, cloaks, does not go FTL, and fits through a Stargate.
The ramp is down, so I casually stroll inside and take a seat where the pilot would sit. I touch the panel. It's supposed to activate. Nothing happens. Ah, right.
this.setFlag(ATA, true);
As expected, everything lights up and comes online. I need a Staples button. That was easy. And then I remember something very important.
The Eden Prime attack was supposed to happen a week from now. That date coincides with the first mission of the Normandy. Shepard isn't going to here for another week. I think I just accidentally the galaxy.
Nah, it's okay. Hopefully they'll come early because of the distress call. If not, I'll just teleport them or something.
normandy.setGoal(EdenPrime)
I wonder if that will actually work.
But what about the beacon? Only because of very specific events did Shepard get the Prothean junk downloaded into her brain. If the conditions aren't perfectly right then someone else might download it or nobody at all. Which means we have no catalyst (lower case) and no chase. Which means that Saren is the only one with the knowledge and Saren wins. Unless, of course, Saren never uses the beacon, in which case the whole plot of Mass Effect 1 basically just got flushed down the toilet.
In the wise words of Jack O'Neill, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. But I think it's going to involve some spaghetti code.
With my thoughts, I cloak the Jumper and take off. It's very easy and natural, even though I've never done it before. I guess setting that flag gave me the good ATA gene like O'Neill and Sheppard (spell it right, people) have, not the next to useless Beckett ATA gene.
Date.deltaDateAndEvent(currentLocation.getCurrentDate(),getObjectFromDescription("Eden Prime Attack 2183"));
55m19s
I should have brought a deck of cards. I do have my phone still (I know, I know), but I don't think I could kill an hour with Doom or Angry Birds or Fruit Ninja.
I bring up my omni-tool and connect to the extranet. Once that comes up, I start searching for the available games. Lots of
And then I go back to some pondering I did when I was reading a lot of sci-fi. All (well, most) science fiction attempts to predict the future. And all (not most) science fiction is a product of its time. Sometimes an author will get it right and predict the future, most of the time they don't. The message is generally in line with the thoughts of the day, albeit on the cutting edge. Or something like that. I have more important things to think about right now!
I settle on a top-down shooter, Alliance Corsair. Not gonna lie, it's kind of meh, and I was expecting the control scheme to be a lot less primitive. To its credit, there is a story, but it's really bad and even I know it's implausible, and the voice acting is absolutely abhorrent.
I put the Puddle Jumper in autopilot mode (don't ask, I don't know) and get absorbed into the game. About a minute in I realize that I should probably not be so distracted, so I set an alarm to go off five minutes before the predicted arrival.
Then and only then do I get adsorbed into the game.
On the clock, five minutes before the invasion, the alarm goes off. It force closes my game and nukes all the progress I've made. You'd think by 2183 they'd figure out how to write an operating system that doesn't do that.
Oh well. Better get set for the invasion. I feel like a bit of an asshole treating a tragic event like some kind of non-tragic event like a movie or a play or something and that metaphor is falling apart now. I promised drones and maybe a gunship. In retrospect, I probably should have prepped before playing casual games. Even in the future I am irresponsible.
set_alias com.bnioware.masseffect.robots.StandardDrone drone;
Alias drone set!
set_alias com.bnioware.masseffect.vehicles.GunShip gunship;
Alias gunship set!
There. Now I have some drones I can spawn in when I need to, where I need to. And a gunship or a million.
And of course I don't actually have comms with anyone. Maybe I can patch into their suits?
A little fiddling with the omni-tool and I'm in. I expected it to require me to enter a 37-character GUID or something, but nope. I guess the main purpose of these things is communication after all.
"Is this thing on?" I say clumsily. Is that a thing?
"Yes." That was Annoyed Ash.
"I found some drones."
"Copy that." That was Curt Ash.
While I'm fucking around with all this, the Reaper/Geth forces have begun to arrive.
There's a lot of activity on the ground, but I can't really see what's going on- it just looks like a bunch of dots shifting and lights flashing. The sky, however, is a flurry of activity. There's the big scary fucker descending out of the clouds like the hand of God or something. Hi, Sovereign. It's surrounded by lots of little guys, I'm assuming they're Geth dropships. There's other ships headed toward them and little flashes of fire. That means the Alliance is engaging, which is a good sign.
Perhaps needlessly, I speak into the comm system, "They're here."
Let's rock.
