Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
- Location
- Wordcats
I thought spoilers ate votes ;-;
The Secrets' Crusade
- Thread starter Snowfire
- Start date
- Original Sci-Fi
I thought spoilers ate votes ;-;
- Location
- Somewhere out there
Huh, you're right, I thought they did too.
- Location
- Australia
I think they're supposed to, I'll double-check with Firn when I get the chance.
Sure. Why do we care about historical plausibility though? Our chief goal is to show the Shiplords that they can achieve their goals some other way than the Tribute System - we don't really care about the Hjivin because that's the past and can't(?) be changed. So long as we can point out that Amanda-level diplomacy actually works (or at least can work in some cases) to prevent the sort of atrocities the Shiplords are so afraid of the problem of sourcing one (and the regret of not having done so earlier) is all on the Shiplords.
So yeah rereading the first quest and I came to the part where Amanda spoke to Understand the Shiplord commander. What the commander says in the second and third lines brings to my mind the actions of the Uninvolved near the end of the Hjivin War and the Shiplord trauma to that action.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
...What the fuck is that even?
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
The Uninvolved created from the Hijivn.
- Location
- Wingmaiden's Reach, the Near Roofs, Town
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I've always thought of Aphantasia as better at landscapes than portraiture
(Compare this profile post thread full of interestingly surreal avatars Baughn so generously generated for me to this dreamlike little village scene)
But this is pretty good! Maybe the AI is just bad at representational paintings of fleshbags.
(Compare this profile post thread full of interestingly surreal avatars Baughn so generously generated for me to this dreamlike little village scene)
But this is pretty good! Maybe the AI is just bad at representational paintings of fleshbags.
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
Rather than Aphantasia, this is actually VQGAN+CLIP. The link is to my personal, slightly patched copy of it -- it should be foolproof. Try just clicking 'run all'.
Your info is four months out of date, which at this point in time means AIs have gotten 2-3x better at what they do. It's maybe a little worrisome, but hey.
Last edited:
- Location
- Wingmaiden's Reach, the Near Roofs, Town
- Pronouns
- She/Her
2-3 times better at painting human faces is still really bad
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
True. Give it a year.
There's a lot I still don't understand about Secrets (and who numbered them and why) and about the Shiplord's overall priorities regarding their (what I very, very generously term) 'shepherding' of other civilizations.
But after being prompted to do a full reread by recent updates, a few things are at least slightly more clear. So much of the violence they inflict and how and why all comes back to the Hjivin Sphere, so we have plenty of the pieces. And their mindset is really awful and pain-oriented, but I can sort of see how they put the pieces together for their current... process.
The Shiplords didn't have the chops to establish the pecking order with diplomacy and technology (not when faced with a hostile outside context problem) so now the first thing they always do is establish it by carving the brutality of violence into literally everyone they meet. They didn't have ready-to-go fleets or stellar disruptors, and now they do, and they use them at the first sign of trouble so nothing can snowball like the Hjivin did. The younger races around the Hjivin didn't have the ability to defend themselves, and became soul-enriched biomass reserves on a vast scale - so now those races who show similar lack of martial prowess versus Shiplord fleets that in many (though not nearly all) ways model the Hjivin are... a liability to be dealt with. And anyone who defends themselves too well too soon, well, that shows a concerning mindset and capability. That also has to be stamped down on, the will to do otherwise has been submerged in the brutal efficiency of genocide since Zlathbu.
And the followup with nano-bio infiltrators forces the various races of the galaxy to develop at least some measure of defense against the other aspects of Hjivin behavior, while simultaneously reinforcing that the Shiplords are king of the hill, forever, and the boot is never coming off the neck.
Fundamentally, the problem seems to be the Shiplord mentality on an overall species-wide basis dealing very, very badly with outside context problems in a reality that seems fundamentally built to generate outside context problems, since what secrets you learn and what you can do with them appears to depend quite a lot on what the species believes, and the power of the soul is very real and rather hard for even a fully mature civilization to fully grasp, apparently.
The Shiplord response to trauma seems to be to make sure it can never, ever happen again, which sounds fairly reasonable until you start doing unreasonable things in search of that goal. They pivoted hard to make sure the second secret never got weaponized (by anyone other than themselves) as the Hjivin Sphere used it against them, and when faced with the Zlathbu they didn't step back from their 'traumatize everyone upon first secret discovery' plan, even when they themselves concluded it ended in stellar fire because of their shiny anti-Hjivin first contact policy. They treat every first contact like a Hjivin-shaped nail, and accept with doleful tragic 'necessity' that they end up the enemy of every single species in the galaxy by their own design, ignoring all the many non-traumatic years in which they were friends and mentors to younger races. They invented the tribute fleet hammer, and decided everything was a nail, forever.
On a far more speculative note, I'm going to go ahead and take a swing and say they reacted so hard to the Uninvolved attacking the Hjivin as they did because they lost their homeworld to, say, a stellar ejection when they were still bound to one system long, long, long, long, long ago. It would fit with the focus they put on the first secret, the fact that they had large scale evacuation ships but NOT stellar disruptors during the war with the Hjivin Sphere, the insistence on being called Shiplords (which translates rather than being something like 'human' or 'nilean' or what not), and the fact that everyone in their species wears a spacesuit (Masque) at all times despite being naturally facially expressive. If my wild theory is right, their culture would come from the survivors of their spaceships and orbitals, producing a set of cultural traumas that fit decently well.
But after being prompted to do a full reread by recent updates, a few things are at least slightly more clear. So much of the violence they inflict and how and why all comes back to the Hjivin Sphere, so we have plenty of the pieces. And their mindset is really awful and pain-oriented, but I can sort of see how they put the pieces together for their current... process.
The Shiplords didn't have the chops to establish the pecking order with diplomacy and technology (not when faced with a hostile outside context problem) so now the first thing they always do is establish it by carving the brutality of violence into literally everyone they meet. They didn't have ready-to-go fleets or stellar disruptors, and now they do, and they use them at the first sign of trouble so nothing can snowball like the Hjivin did. The younger races around the Hjivin didn't have the ability to defend themselves, and became soul-enriched biomass reserves on a vast scale - so now those races who show similar lack of martial prowess versus Shiplord fleets that in many (though not nearly all) ways model the Hjivin are... a liability to be dealt with. And anyone who defends themselves too well too soon, well, that shows a concerning mindset and capability. That also has to be stamped down on, the will to do otherwise has been submerged in the brutal efficiency of genocide since Zlathbu.
And the followup with nano-bio infiltrators forces the various races of the galaxy to develop at least some measure of defense against the other aspects of Hjivin behavior, while simultaneously reinforcing that the Shiplords are king of the hill, forever, and the boot is never coming off the neck.
Fundamentally, the problem seems to be the Shiplord mentality on an overall species-wide basis dealing very, very badly with outside context problems in a reality that seems fundamentally built to generate outside context problems, since what secrets you learn and what you can do with them appears to depend quite a lot on what the species believes, and the power of the soul is very real and rather hard for even a fully mature civilization to fully grasp, apparently.
The Shiplord response to trauma seems to be to make sure it can never, ever happen again, which sounds fairly reasonable until you start doing unreasonable things in search of that goal. They pivoted hard to make sure the second secret never got weaponized (by anyone other than themselves) as the Hjivin Sphere used it against them, and when faced with the Zlathbu they didn't step back from their 'traumatize everyone upon first secret discovery' plan, even when they themselves concluded it ended in stellar fire because of their shiny anti-Hjivin first contact policy. They treat every first contact like a Hjivin-shaped nail, and accept with doleful tragic 'necessity' that they end up the enemy of every single species in the galaxy by their own design, ignoring all the many non-traumatic years in which they were friends and mentors to younger races. They invented the tribute fleet hammer, and decided everything was a nail, forever.
On a far more speculative note, I'm going to go ahead and take a swing and say they reacted so hard to the Uninvolved attacking the Hjivin as they did because they lost their homeworld to, say, a stellar ejection when they were still bound to one system long, long, long, long, long ago. It would fit with the focus they put on the first secret, the fact that they had large scale evacuation ships but NOT stellar disruptors during the war with the Hjivin Sphere, the insistence on being called Shiplords (which translates rather than being something like 'human' or 'nilean' or what not), and the fact that everyone in their species wears a spacesuit (Masque) at all times despite being naturally facially expressive. If my wild theory is right, their culture would come from the survivors of their spaceships and orbitals, producing a set of cultural traumas that fit decently well.
A Simple Question
Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
- Location
- Wordcats
"Then we will investigate further," you answered.
You weren't sure how the simulation was going to handle this. The Shiplords had tried a partial investigation in reality. Surely others had attempted different variants of it. But had any of them ever thought to just...ask? Given what you knew about the Hjivin, how you expected them to react, you couldn't imagine anyone had.
But they weren't you. And the entire reason for the war, at least as it had been, had been founded in a place where the Hjivin could not believe that the Shiplords could develop for so long and not come to the same conclusion. That thought made you smile sadly; how right they'd been proven in the end.
"What are you doing?" Kalilah asked, the guise of your tactical advisor well suiting the question. Beneath it, though, came the real question. :You know where this leads.:
"What only a fool would consider," you replied. You weren't anywhere close to as calm as those words sounded, but it was enough. A thought found the right comm setting. :What no Shiplord would even think to try.:
:Oh.: Vega said, her voice small. :I get it.:
:This is a simulation.: You continued, feeling the awareness sink into the Unisonbound around you. Feeling them realise where you were taking this, and why. :Built on the echo of the Hjivin or not, I cannot accept that there was no way to at least hold back the war. Maybe long enough for the Shiplords to win without what happened here.:
:I'm not sure that's possible.: Mir sighed, yet you felt the smile on his face. :But that's just the thing. I'm not certain.:
:And if it's not impossible, we have to try.: You finished.
"If they have something they are hiding, then we will seek it plainly," you announced, affirming your own thoughts. "Rhyn, give me your full analysis packet. And get me the Hjivin Speaker. Now."
"Yes, Captain."
The data packet slotted into place with almost disturbing ease. Looking at it made you wonder how they'd missed it, but you forced yourself to try to remember that this had been a new experience to the Shiplords. They'd had protocols to investigate, but never for something of the Sphere's scale. Was that why?
"Coming through now." The report broke you from the thought, yet part of you remained there even as you turned the full weight of your attention to the figure that swam into being before you. You thought you had been prepared for Hjivin creations, but something about their Speaker just felt wrong. Its limbs were sleekly defined, yet there were odd shifts in their angles, and the creature seemed in motion even at rest. There was brilliance in it, you'd recognised that in the sim's data packet. But the important thing was that they were here. It showed that the Hjivin considered the Shiplords close enough to a peer to speak with, and to respond promptly. You could work with that.
"Greetings again from the Sphere, fellow travellers." Their motions were almost perfect, mimicking Shiplord body cues as well as you'd done. Maybe even better, which was more than a little frightening. "This is not our scheduled meeting. Have you come to a decision?"
"Not yet," you replied. The Sphere had been pushing now, carefully but with pressure, to formalise relations between the two polities. "Though this conversation will inform it."
"I see." The Speaker reflected surprise. For a wonder, you believed it. "What of our worlds trouble you?"
"It is quite simple," you told them calmly. "If we are to reach an accord, we must do so openly. And you have not been open with us, Speaker." Something shifted in the creature as you made the accusation, wounded innocence, no...pride. Had they truly believed their work was so seamless?
"I assure you," they began, and you cut a motion in the air, the lines of your Masque sharpening to almost do so in truth.
"You did not believe the packets we sent you." You leant forward, sharp edges and all, yet for one who could look there was no anger in the strength. "You did not believe that we could be so old, and not come in war or treachery. But you are hiding something on the worlds below, and all the rest. We may be ancient, Speaker for the Hjivin, but we are not decrepit."
:Bring all combat systems to instant standby: You snapped the command out across the internal formation net, silent to the conversation before you as the Speaker considered their reply. Energy surged through your small fleet, stirring all the weapons and wards that the Shiplords had ever thought to include in their Contact Fleet designs in their slumber. Thankfully, Contact Fleet doctrine required all groups to maintain charge enough in their stardrives for an evasive jump until proper relations had been established.
"And yet you choose to accuse us?" There was something ugly in the being's eyes, but it didn't touch you. You could almost feel the burnt arrogance seething beneath the innocent outrage of its skin.
"I choose the truth." The reply came easily, the meaning behind it even more so. "I choose to know you, as you are, behind the facade. As I must, if we are to ever forge agreements deeper than our greetings."
"You ask us to reveal the deepest secrets of our people. To reveal how the Sphere grew to become what it is," the Speaker replied, visibly calmer now. A gland, or something more? You couldn't tell. "What could you possibly offer us in return?"
"It is born of the Second Secret, isn't it," you replied, and this time the Speaker blurred back, shock sending its angles hard and hating. Still, you hadn't gone beyond the report yet. The Shiplords had suspected. "It is that or the Sixth, and your mastery extends far more to the Second. Is it a surprise that we would recognise that?"
"What then?" The Speaker said, this time the calm was utterly false, but you had no wish to break it.
"To offer truth for truth, we are not fully sure," you told them. And it was a them, wasn't it. They'd discovered that later in the war, that the Speaker wasn't called that as a title. That was what it was. A vessel, for a fragment of the minds that anchored and led the Sphere. "I can guess, if you wish. But I would prefer your words, Speaker."
"Our words?" The Speaker spoke in what was nearly a growl, the lines of its face hard. "You would know us? You would think you could? We are the Sphere, we are the worlds, and all upon them serve us."
"You are not a hivemind. We know what those look like." You actually did now, at least a little. The Shiplords had encountered some before, and there were comparisons between the Sphere's actions and that of a hive in Rhyn's report.
"We are close enough," they replied. The full weight of the Sphere's guiding minds pressed down upon you through their vessel. "We have added to who we are, what we are, and made our worlds perfect and pure. If you have lived so long, you must understand."
"We understand that the Second Secret allows something close to what you claim. But the question that I must ask is how was it done?" The answer to this question had inevitably started the war, but the Sphere had never been taken off guard like this. Even when it faced the Shiplords at the negotiating table, it did so believing that they'd stumbled to the truth.
"The Sphere grows." The reply came, and you bowed your head in sadness. "As you will know soon."
Space tore apart all across your fleet, alarms howling to life as your defensive networks registered targeting sensors and the telltale spikes of grav-shear weaponry in the moment before they fired. Yet the fleet had been ready, this time, alarmed by your own suspicions from the Speaker's reactions.
Ship after ship vanished into jump, fleeing to randomly selected spatial coordinates as far from this star as their drive charge allowed. It wouldn't be that far, but it would be enough. Your ships might not possess War Fleet drives, but they didn't have to. Space, after all, was vast.
Ship after ship, but not your own. A command lanced across your Heartcircle, telling them to delay, to hold just short of jump, and let the Sphere fire. You wanted to see what they'd do. You needed to see.
Lances of torn gravity ripped through empty spaces where Shiplord craft had been instants before, and a full dozen slammed into your flagship's shields. The hull of the ship bucked wildly as the shields, then the ship's drive, were overwhelmed. The relatively light armour of the craft splintered under the remains of those bolts, but they'd cut off soon enough to not kill you. They wanted you alive.
"Ready all drones," you ordered your section, even as biomass gathered and leapt to your ship from those around you. Their weapons forged a cage around you, one you could not escape, yet you did not wish to. "All hands to emergency stations."
The biomass flooded across the space between you, engulfing your vessel. It didn't disable your ability to jump, but it might as well have. Taking these ships along with you wouldn't delay anything. And the Speaker, whose image had never flickered, hissed something hot and hateful.
"We will come for you. And speak once you are of us. We will understand."
"No." You shook your head. "I will not surrender this ship, or my crew."
"You believe you have a choice?" it spat, contempt dripping from the words.
"You believe I don't?" Your gaze fell on Kalilah. "Full defensive charge."
She returned the motion of a nod, and you winced as the world around you erupted with a howling scream that shook your ship to its bones.
The Shiplords had never delved as deeply into the Second Secret as the Hjivin at this point had. But they'd learnt a great deal, and had a long, long time to perfect that understanding. What you used now, you knew, was the adult version of the neural disruptor which Tribute Fleets unleashed on those who wielded living weapons. Sadly they had not included its schematics, but the effects were immediate.
A shrieking howl that had no right to exist split the world, the biomass invaders of the Hjivin screaming out in agony. Exactly how those disruptors worked, you still weren't sure. There had to be a weakness somewhere in how the Second Secret created life, how it built organic matter into something that could live and breathe and know and fight. The Sphere would be able to defend against it; you knew their mastery was greater than that of the Shiplords at this moment. But only a master of the secrets, a relative equal, would have been able to build one.
This wasn't how you liked to do diplomacy. There was too much pain, too much violence to it for your tastes. But against the Sphere and without Practice, it had been one of your only viable options if, and more likely when, words failed. You had to make them understand that they were not facing a facade, that the Shiplords possessed the full suite of knowledge to match them, and the age to make victory nigh impossible.
The biomass was forced back, and secondary shield generators flickered to life, holding it there. Without purchase on the hull, none of their craft would follow you when you jumped. And despite your wish to teach the Hjivin the truth of what they faced, you also did not wish this crew to die.
"We have known the Secrets since before your race knew the touch of light," you told the Speaker, feeling the lighting peaks of their grav disruptors. "We know how to wield them, and how to fight them. Just because we do not wish to fight you does not mean we lack the ability."
"You truly believe that?" The question… it was actually real. Or close enough. And the grav weapons were holding fire.
Your mind flashed to the other hidden stars. The Shiplords had called the Hjivin their last true enemy. Not the first. That meant there had been others, and the lack of truly galactic devastation meant that they'd all lost long before they could threaten things as deeply as the Sphere had.
"You are not the first," you told them, forcing the sharpness of your shell to recede. It was the opposite of what you needed to make this real. "We have defended these stars before. If you wish for war, you will lose."
You felt the fields around you faltering, losing power to keep the ocean of biomass around you at bay. They were waiting until they were sure you had no further tricks before they broke your shields. Too bad for them.
"Then why come here?" the Speaker demanded.
"War isn't what we want," you replied, and you had to fight against the feeling of tears. It was the truth, but it was also more than just this truth. You didn't want war at all. You hated it. "My people will seek you again, but if you are willing to talk, we will be too. And I am sorry, but you will not be able to keep us to confirm it."
"You-"
You triggered the emergency jump routine.
"What was that?" were the first words greeting you on the other side. Or at least they would have been, had you not overestimated the capability of the Shiplords just a fraction. Some of the Hjivin biomass had had enough time to form a construct capable of resisting the disruptor. Not enough to maintain full mental processes, but enough to know the role you played was a primary target.
So as the ship flashed back into reality, stardrive already recharging for your next leg home, the simulation didn't end. Instead, a multi-limbed mass slashed open the floor under your seat and reared up to engulf you. It wouldn't work, you knew that somewhere, even as the world around you slid into slow motion. But it would reach you, and when it did.
Wait. That shouldn't be possible.
It felt real. Not just to the scanners, but to your soul, again. The same wrongness as you'd felt before from parts of Shiplord technology, and yet somehow worse. Like it wanted to reach into you and rip out your very self, remodel it into something new and. You tried to stop, part of you marvelling. How on earth had the Shiplords made a simulation so real? Holo had never triggered this sort of reaction befo-
:Mandy, stop!: Lea screamed.
You were a Mender. Even now, a Mender, seeking to find a way to fix… something. But that was secondary right now. Right now, you were still a Mender, surrounded by matter that the very sight of had birthed the energies of a star. Surrounded. By. It.
Reaction Strength: 97
Your soul howled defiance, caring not for the simulation, caring not for where you were, only that you were faced again by its antithesis and at a range so much closer than you'd ever been before. You scrambled after it, locking the release down, trying to soothe it. This wasn't real, no matter how real it felt. It was just a simulation, and that was fine, that meant it wasn't real, and that you didn't have to break everything. It would all be fine.
Reaction Control (you literally needed 10+ on the dice for this): 2
It was such a close thing, so very close to what would have been enough. Until your hand, had it been a hand? Something like a hand then. The grasp you'd wrapped around your own soul, that you'd held so well, for so long, slipped. It was a tiny thing, by your own measure, barely enough to leave a ripple. Far more would've been needed to trigger any sensors for Uninvolved action, even within such a deadened space. It should have been fine.
Should have been.
A single, tiny pulse rolled out from your skin, and the entire simulation went dead.
You weren't sure how the simulation was going to handle this. The Shiplords had tried a partial investigation in reality. Surely others had attempted different variants of it. But had any of them ever thought to just...ask? Given what you knew about the Hjivin, how you expected them to react, you couldn't imagine anyone had.
But they weren't you. And the entire reason for the war, at least as it had been, had been founded in a place where the Hjivin could not believe that the Shiplords could develop for so long and not come to the same conclusion. That thought made you smile sadly; how right they'd been proven in the end.
"What are you doing?" Kalilah asked, the guise of your tactical advisor well suiting the question. Beneath it, though, came the real question. :You know where this leads.:
"What only a fool would consider," you replied. You weren't anywhere close to as calm as those words sounded, but it was enough. A thought found the right comm setting. :What no Shiplord would even think to try.:
:Oh.: Vega said, her voice small. :I get it.:
:This is a simulation.: You continued, feeling the awareness sink into the Unisonbound around you. Feeling them realise where you were taking this, and why. :Built on the echo of the Hjivin or not, I cannot accept that there was no way to at least hold back the war. Maybe long enough for the Shiplords to win without what happened here.:
:I'm not sure that's possible.: Mir sighed, yet you felt the smile on his face. :But that's just the thing. I'm not certain.:
:And if it's not impossible, we have to try.: You finished.
"If they have something they are hiding, then we will seek it plainly," you announced, affirming your own thoughts. "Rhyn, give me your full analysis packet. And get me the Hjivin Speaker. Now."
"Yes, Captain."
The data packet slotted into place with almost disturbing ease. Looking at it made you wonder how they'd missed it, but you forced yourself to try to remember that this had been a new experience to the Shiplords. They'd had protocols to investigate, but never for something of the Sphere's scale. Was that why?
"Coming through now." The report broke you from the thought, yet part of you remained there even as you turned the full weight of your attention to the figure that swam into being before you. You thought you had been prepared for Hjivin creations, but something about their Speaker just felt wrong. Its limbs were sleekly defined, yet there were odd shifts in their angles, and the creature seemed in motion even at rest. There was brilliance in it, you'd recognised that in the sim's data packet. But the important thing was that they were here. It showed that the Hjivin considered the Shiplords close enough to a peer to speak with, and to respond promptly. You could work with that.
"Greetings again from the Sphere, fellow travellers." Their motions were almost perfect, mimicking Shiplord body cues as well as you'd done. Maybe even better, which was more than a little frightening. "This is not our scheduled meeting. Have you come to a decision?"
"Not yet," you replied. The Sphere had been pushing now, carefully but with pressure, to formalise relations between the two polities. "Though this conversation will inform it."
"I see." The Speaker reflected surprise. For a wonder, you believed it. "What of our worlds trouble you?"
"It is quite simple," you told them calmly. "If we are to reach an accord, we must do so openly. And you have not been open with us, Speaker." Something shifted in the creature as you made the accusation, wounded innocence, no...pride. Had they truly believed their work was so seamless?
"I assure you," they began, and you cut a motion in the air, the lines of your Masque sharpening to almost do so in truth.
"You did not believe the packets we sent you." You leant forward, sharp edges and all, yet for one who could look there was no anger in the strength. "You did not believe that we could be so old, and not come in war or treachery. But you are hiding something on the worlds below, and all the rest. We may be ancient, Speaker for the Hjivin, but we are not decrepit."
:Bring all combat systems to instant standby: You snapped the command out across the internal formation net, silent to the conversation before you as the Speaker considered their reply. Energy surged through your small fleet, stirring all the weapons and wards that the Shiplords had ever thought to include in their Contact Fleet designs in their slumber. Thankfully, Contact Fleet doctrine required all groups to maintain charge enough in their stardrives for an evasive jump until proper relations had been established.
"And yet you choose to accuse us?" There was something ugly in the being's eyes, but it didn't touch you. You could almost feel the burnt arrogance seething beneath the innocent outrage of its skin.
"I choose the truth." The reply came easily, the meaning behind it even more so. "I choose to know you, as you are, behind the facade. As I must, if we are to ever forge agreements deeper than our greetings."
"You ask us to reveal the deepest secrets of our people. To reveal how the Sphere grew to become what it is," the Speaker replied, visibly calmer now. A gland, or something more? You couldn't tell. "What could you possibly offer us in return?"
"It is born of the Second Secret, isn't it," you replied, and this time the Speaker blurred back, shock sending its angles hard and hating. Still, you hadn't gone beyond the report yet. The Shiplords had suspected. "It is that or the Sixth, and your mastery extends far more to the Second. Is it a surprise that we would recognise that?"
"What then?" The Speaker said, this time the calm was utterly false, but you had no wish to break it.
"To offer truth for truth, we are not fully sure," you told them. And it was a them, wasn't it. They'd discovered that later in the war, that the Speaker wasn't called that as a title. That was what it was. A vessel, for a fragment of the minds that anchored and led the Sphere. "I can guess, if you wish. But I would prefer your words, Speaker."
"Our words?" The Speaker spoke in what was nearly a growl, the lines of its face hard. "You would know us? You would think you could? We are the Sphere, we are the worlds, and all upon them serve us."
"You are not a hivemind. We know what those look like." You actually did now, at least a little. The Shiplords had encountered some before, and there were comparisons between the Sphere's actions and that of a hive in Rhyn's report.
"We are close enough," they replied. The full weight of the Sphere's guiding minds pressed down upon you through their vessel. "We have added to who we are, what we are, and made our worlds perfect and pure. If you have lived so long, you must understand."
"We understand that the Second Secret allows something close to what you claim. But the question that I must ask is how was it done?" The answer to this question had inevitably started the war, but the Sphere had never been taken off guard like this. Even when it faced the Shiplords at the negotiating table, it did so believing that they'd stumbled to the truth.
"The Sphere grows." The reply came, and you bowed your head in sadness. "As you will know soon."
Space tore apart all across your fleet, alarms howling to life as your defensive networks registered targeting sensors and the telltale spikes of grav-shear weaponry in the moment before they fired. Yet the fleet had been ready, this time, alarmed by your own suspicions from the Speaker's reactions.
Ship after ship vanished into jump, fleeing to randomly selected spatial coordinates as far from this star as their drive charge allowed. It wouldn't be that far, but it would be enough. Your ships might not possess War Fleet drives, but they didn't have to. Space, after all, was vast.
Ship after ship, but not your own. A command lanced across your Heartcircle, telling them to delay, to hold just short of jump, and let the Sphere fire. You wanted to see what they'd do. You needed to see.
Lances of torn gravity ripped through empty spaces where Shiplord craft had been instants before, and a full dozen slammed into your flagship's shields. The hull of the ship bucked wildly as the shields, then the ship's drive, were overwhelmed. The relatively light armour of the craft splintered under the remains of those bolts, but they'd cut off soon enough to not kill you. They wanted you alive.
"Ready all drones," you ordered your section, even as biomass gathered and leapt to your ship from those around you. Their weapons forged a cage around you, one you could not escape, yet you did not wish to. "All hands to emergency stations."
The biomass flooded across the space between you, engulfing your vessel. It didn't disable your ability to jump, but it might as well have. Taking these ships along with you wouldn't delay anything. And the Speaker, whose image had never flickered, hissed something hot and hateful.
"We will come for you. And speak once you are of us. We will understand."
"No." You shook your head. "I will not surrender this ship, or my crew."
"You believe you have a choice?" it spat, contempt dripping from the words.
"You believe I don't?" Your gaze fell on Kalilah. "Full defensive charge."
She returned the motion of a nod, and you winced as the world around you erupted with a howling scream that shook your ship to its bones.
The Shiplords had never delved as deeply into the Second Secret as the Hjivin at this point had. But they'd learnt a great deal, and had a long, long time to perfect that understanding. What you used now, you knew, was the adult version of the neural disruptor which Tribute Fleets unleashed on those who wielded living weapons. Sadly they had not included its schematics, but the effects were immediate.
A shrieking howl that had no right to exist split the world, the biomass invaders of the Hjivin screaming out in agony. Exactly how those disruptors worked, you still weren't sure. There had to be a weakness somewhere in how the Second Secret created life, how it built organic matter into something that could live and breathe and know and fight. The Sphere would be able to defend against it; you knew their mastery was greater than that of the Shiplords at this moment. But only a master of the secrets, a relative equal, would have been able to build one.
This wasn't how you liked to do diplomacy. There was too much pain, too much violence to it for your tastes. But against the Sphere and without Practice, it had been one of your only viable options if, and more likely when, words failed. You had to make them understand that they were not facing a facade, that the Shiplords possessed the full suite of knowledge to match them, and the age to make victory nigh impossible.
The biomass was forced back, and secondary shield generators flickered to life, holding it there. Without purchase on the hull, none of their craft would follow you when you jumped. And despite your wish to teach the Hjivin the truth of what they faced, you also did not wish this crew to die.
"We have known the Secrets since before your race knew the touch of light," you told the Speaker, feeling the lighting peaks of their grav disruptors. "We know how to wield them, and how to fight them. Just because we do not wish to fight you does not mean we lack the ability."
"You truly believe that?" The question… it was actually real. Or close enough. And the grav weapons were holding fire.
Your mind flashed to the other hidden stars. The Shiplords had called the Hjivin their last true enemy. Not the first. That meant there had been others, and the lack of truly galactic devastation meant that they'd all lost long before they could threaten things as deeply as the Sphere had.
"You are not the first," you told them, forcing the sharpness of your shell to recede. It was the opposite of what you needed to make this real. "We have defended these stars before. If you wish for war, you will lose."
You felt the fields around you faltering, losing power to keep the ocean of biomass around you at bay. They were waiting until they were sure you had no further tricks before they broke your shields. Too bad for them.
"Then why come here?" the Speaker demanded.
"War isn't what we want," you replied, and you had to fight against the feeling of tears. It was the truth, but it was also more than just this truth. You didn't want war at all. You hated it. "My people will seek you again, but if you are willing to talk, we will be too. And I am sorry, but you will not be able to keep us to confirm it."
"You-"
You triggered the emergency jump routine.
"What was that?" were the first words greeting you on the other side. Or at least they would have been, had you not overestimated the capability of the Shiplords just a fraction. Some of the Hjivin biomass had had enough time to form a construct capable of resisting the disruptor. Not enough to maintain full mental processes, but enough to know the role you played was a primary target.
So as the ship flashed back into reality, stardrive already recharging for your next leg home, the simulation didn't end. Instead, a multi-limbed mass slashed open the floor under your seat and reared up to engulf you. It wouldn't work, you knew that somewhere, even as the world around you slid into slow motion. But it would reach you, and when it did.
Wait. That shouldn't be possible.
It felt real. Not just to the scanners, but to your soul, again. The same wrongness as you'd felt before from parts of Shiplord technology, and yet somehow worse. Like it wanted to reach into you and rip out your very self, remodel it into something new and. You tried to stop, part of you marvelling. How on earth had the Shiplords made a simulation so real? Holo had never triggered this sort of reaction befo-
:Mandy, stop!: Lea screamed.
You were a Mender. Even now, a Mender, seeking to find a way to fix… something. But that was secondary right now. Right now, you were still a Mender, surrounded by matter that the very sight of had birthed the energies of a star. Surrounded. By. It.
Reaction Strength: 97
Your soul howled defiance, caring not for the simulation, caring not for where you were, only that you were faced again by its antithesis and at a range so much closer than you'd ever been before. You scrambled after it, locking the release down, trying to soothe it. This wasn't real, no matter how real it felt. It was just a simulation, and that was fine, that meant it wasn't real, and that you didn't have to break everything. It would all be fine.
Reaction Control (you literally needed 10+ on the dice for this): 2
It was such a close thing, so very close to what would have been enough. Until your hand, had it been a hand? Something like a hand then. The grasp you'd wrapped around your own soul, that you'd held so well, for so long, slipped. It was a tiny thing, by your own measure, barely enough to leave a ripple. Far more would've been needed to trigger any sensors for Uninvolved action, even within such a deadened space. It should have been fine.
Should have been.
A single, tiny pulse rolled out from your skin, and the entire simulation went dead.
Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
- Location
- Wordcats
Let me preface this now. I have cut this chapter here for narrative reasons, with the cliffhanger being tertiary at best. The next section brings a major, non-negative storyline shift with it, and a vote that I hope you will enjoy. But it's also a relatively small section, and tacking it on at the end of this simulation piece just made it feel like an afterthought.
That section is already completed, betaed, and will be posted tomorrow morning. The gap is specifically to provide space between this section and the one after it. Many thanks go to @Baughn and @Coda for checking this all over me. Less thanks go to Iris for not letting me get to sleep until 4am last night.
<Iris> I regret nothing.
That section is already completed, betaed, and will be posted tomorrow morning. The gap is specifically to provide space between this section and the one after it. Many thanks go to @Baughn and @Coda for checking this all over me. Less thanks go to Iris for not letting me get to sleep until 4am last night.
<Iris> I regret nothing.
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- Location
- Florida
Snowfire be honest, how excited are you that Amanda finally low rolled so heavily at such a critical moment? I can't even remember the last time something like this had happened, if at all. I'll freely admit to being scared yet intrigued at having to make a daring escape, or so I assume.
- Location
- USA
RNGesus giveth, and taketh away.
I'm excited to see what comes next. This isn't a failure that puts anyone at risk, but it opens up a 50-gallon drum of worms.
I've been enjoying the story and quest, so seeing it move in a new direction is very exciting.
I'm excited to see what comes next. This isn't a failure that puts anyone at risk, but it opens up a 50-gallon drum of worms.
I've been enjoying the story and quest, so seeing it move in a new direction is very exciting.
SaltyWaffles
I am dissapoint, son
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I have to wonder if the Shiplord staff will realize both that these are infiltrators AND that they had found a successful answer to their foundational crisis.
- Location
- Ekaterinburg, Russia
How exciting!
What surprised me the most is how sensitive the sims were... And I cannot help but wonder why.
And more importantly, whether it is a recent thing. Done after the latest battle of Sol.
Edit:
Because I can so clearly see the parallels of what Mandy asked, did, and talked to Hjivin about, and how this little breach in stealth can proceed.
What surprised me the most is how sensitive the sims were... And I cannot help but wonder why.
And more importantly, whether it is a recent thing. Done after the latest battle of Sol.
Edit:
Because I can so clearly see the parallels of what Mandy asked, did, and talked to Hjivin about, and how this little breach in stealth can proceed.
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Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
- Location
- Wordcats
It's related to how the sims felt real to the point that they could even trigger a reaction roll like this. Human ones couldn't.
It's pretty clear there's something up with the simulation at this point. They're taking it so seriously, and they seem to honestly think that there's genuine meaning to them not being able to solve it in a better way for so long. Given Mandy's reaction, I'd guess there's probably something soul-related in its construction and functioning, either a Secret or whatever they do to deal with Uninvolved or, for all we know, both. It's probably supposed to have truly perfect fidelity - and there wouldn't be a point if the simulation cheated or approximated to cover up failures.
I'd not be surprised if it's designed to crash when it can't model what happens next, even in the smallest of ways, given the importance of it. After all, that would be a sign the Shiplords missed something, and they need to figure out what.
I'd not be surprised if it's designed to crash when it can't model what happens next, even in the smallest of ways, given the importance of it. After all, that would be a sign the Shiplords missed something, and they need to figure out what.
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
That one is easy. It's a quantum computer, and Mandy caused it to decohere because it wasn't shielded against space magic.