The Secrets' Crusade
- Thread starter Snowfire
- Start date
- Original Sci-Fi
Now, let's be fair, the vacuum collapse is that scary, but they haven't ALL been that scary. However dangerous the Zlathbu might have been in some wild hypothetical, they never so much as showed a glimmer of coming close to realizing the threat. The Shiplords being willing to make the titular exception meant that they couldn't see a way their secrets usage could result in such devastation, they just wanted... assurances from the Zlathbu. And failed to give the Zlathbu any convincing assurances in return.
The Fifth Sorrow is in many ways the most painful, because it really, genuinely did not even come close to having to end that way, and start to finish it was 95+% the Shiplord's fault at every stage. The Fifth Sorrow wasn't, honestly, particularly special. The tribute system has produced countless systems that ended like Zlathbu except for the details of their nanotech (though perhaps the Shiplords keep count). The Fifth Sorrow was just when they finally tipped over into not having the political will to even try to question or challenge their own military policies in any meaningful way, so far as we've been made aware. The Fifth Sorrow was when they gave up, even if they kept thinking 'if only it didn't have to be like this'.
The Fifth Sorrows and all the horror that continued in its wake was the ultimate consequence of the previous Sorrows being actually horrifying potentially galaxy-breaking threats. So far, at least, we've yet to get details on the remaining few. (Though, admittedly, I often forget that while we the players see the obvious horror of the War of the Sphere being the Hjivin and their monstrosity of a 'Uninvolved', the Shiplords think the galaxy breaking threat was the Uninvolved who saved the day. They heard, but they didn't listen.)
On a less dour note, I've been thinking about this:
This place is so important that for someone to be coming here for the first time basically means you have to be young. Unlike with Kicha, we didn't accidentally imply we've been trying to work on this for ages by using really old Hearthguard handsigns, so when he didn't see previous records he made the more obvious and correct assumption - that we'd really never been here before.
Honestly, if it weren't for the lack of Practice warning signals (given how Incredibly Touchy the Shiplords are about this stuff) I would say that he might have niggling suspicions that we are, shall we say, very suspiciously young, but so far it seems that the guise is holding. He would most likely not need too many hints, but Shiplord privacy and secrecy is letting Amanda's heartcircle bluff their way through with their Practice and their ridiculously expensive Masque mock-ups.
Shard
One and Many
- Location
- Malaysia
It looks like the Sorrows have each become relatively... more controllable than the last.
The First was universe-destroying, potentially. The others would have been an evil Uninvolved and possible grey good which were at least theoretically solvable. Or at least more practically solvable.
At the cost of an increasingly stifled galaxy.
Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
- Location
- Wordcats
Just making the note but you all have cover IDs that you got from Kicha. So he's referring to you this way because according to the associated registries you are young and it's your first time making a Pilgrimage to the Sorrows.
As to how Kicha did this? That's another story.
Starman4308
(Unverified Human Being)
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
I can't be sure there's any significant correlation, not unless the Shiplords now have a "be concerned about this" category and an "immediately genocide the species" category of restricted knowledge.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
I mean, the Shiplords have very little reason not to run a high-trust society, internally speaking. Everyone else in the galaxy hates them, and they remain aloof from all other species that we know of, so there's virtually no incentive to sell each other out except to other Shiplord factions.
And all Shiplord factions appear to agree that the Shiplords' continued existence is under threat from outside forces, and they have pursued a consistent foreign policy to prevent this threat from materializing for eons. To the point where literally no one who lacks psychic access to outside-context information is even aware that they have anything other than this policy going on, as far as we know.
It's entirely plausible that this is the kind of society where it's relatively easy for a trusted high-status member of the community to forge fake ID for someone without being questioned.
Because, like, how many millennia would have passed since the last time someone tried to fuck around with a fake Hearthguard ID? What would even be the point?
Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
- Location
- Wordcats
Already picked up or in the process of being so. I may do an informational post on the matter this month.
Currently working on a sidestory piece that I think you'll all enjoy. Please don't forget to vote!
Dmol8
The Undead Unhinged Lunatic of the Web
- Location
- Belgrade,Serbia
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
[X] Mary and Iris intend to remain, they have many questions for Rinel about what happened here. Mir is also drawn to stay, as there appear to be deeper implications about why that he would wish to know.
We haven't seen Mir's perspective before, unless my memory has failed because I've only skimmed parts of this story, and his Focus is pulling him towards staying. I want to see what he sees.
We haven't seen Mir's perspective before, unless my memory has failed because I've only skimmed parts of this story, and his Focus is pulling him towards staying. I want to see what he sees.
Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
- Location
- Wordcats
You've seen Mir's PoV once, iirc, during his orientation to becoming a Unisonbound. Given that he's got a similar level of personal power within his Focus as Amanda, just with a lot less skill in flexing it (and none of her secondary modifiers) that was a fun time.
But that was back pre-Second Contact in the PW thread, and like 2-3 years ago realtime.
…god it's been that long.
But that was back pre-Second Contact in the PW thread, and like 2-3 years ago realtime.
…god it's been that long.
Dmol8
The Undead Unhinged Lunatic of the Web
- Location
- Belgrade,Serbia
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Yup. My memory failed because I have only skimmed trough PW. Good to know. Need to go back and reread that properly.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Well, I suppose if you have to have a power that has mighty, prodigious, world-shaking potentiality but poor control, "Peace" is a relatively less-bad power to apply those modifiers to. 
Contingencies In Motion - I
Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
- Location
- Wordcats
The signal had a simple purpose, despite the complexity of its creation. It had been designed to appear a sequence so random that anything outside of its direct transmission path would struggle to unravel it from mere cosmic noise. But to someone looking with the right decoder, it meant something. Humanity had been provided with a wide set of different patterns, each one to transmit a different result of their coming battles with Shiplords. This was not one that any Strand had expected.
"We have confirmation, Ship Leader." The speaker looked old, almost grizzled by the standards of your species. An affection, of course, but one still recognised. Strange how the appearance of age still had its effects, thousands of cycles after it ceased to have any real meaning. Not that you'd been immune to it in your younger days. "Signal pattern three-seventeen."
Your fingers almost shook as you signed a formal thanks to the comms officer. But you mastered the motion. The stakes you were playing for right now couldn't risk even the slightest breach. Strand Merizan had said that humanity had been confident in their ability to defeat the 'War Fleets', of course. But Three-Seventeen meant much more than the survival that your people had come to associate with victory.
A true victory was something you'd not known for thousands of cycles.
"Open transmission control," you ordered crisply. Your crew leapt to the task with a will, commands flashing out from the core dataspace to stir systems to life within the observatory's communications sphere. Power storage units built on the scale of skyscrapers poured energy into the system, weeks of steady charge expended in seconds to open a path across the stars.
"Signal to Farpoint Station. Pattern three-seventeen confirmed." You rattled off. The words came easily, standard protocol for a covert signal pattern. "Attach all associated records."
"Aye, Ship Leader."
Below the command spaces, the lifeblood of those enormous battery arrays ran into a great river of power that set space singing in tones far beyond mortal pitch. Space warped within the system, its complex machinery sucking the river of energy utterly dry to do it. And at the centre of it all, a surprisingly simple transmitter loosed a squeal of tightly compressed and encrypted data into a momentary flicker in the fabric of reality.
Then it was over. A shudder of something less than actual motion ran through the fabric of the observatory's dataspace. Soft sounds chimed, noting a switch in its reactor mode. It would take at least a month to build up to charge again, but that was alright. The station wasn't going anywhere.
"Stasis protocols," you ordered. "One month whilst we recharge."
You looked around at your crew, all following orders unknowing of your necessary deception. The sour feeling of must-be-done caught in your throat as they did so. They'd been your hosts for most of the last five cycles. None of them knew your real name, and none of them ever would - such was the cost of your most secret profession. But you'd worked with them long enough to know them.
At least some immediate good had come from the Clarions that Strand Kendl had returned with. Those miracle machines were why you weren't activating the observatory's self-destruct.
Instead, you reached for a different code. It had taken you weeks to break through the ciphers and other personal protections on the station crew's Sanctity modules. They'd be due praise in your report when you finally got the chance to file it. Whenever that would be.
You wished you could've been at Farpoint when your confirmation came through, but you had other duties to attend. No one had expected Three-Seventeen to be usable, but Kendl had been as meticulous as any Strand in providing a signal pattern for any occasion.
Darting fingers modified the stasis protocols on your fellows as they settled into their places, ensuring the systems would maintain the effect until interrupted by a standard command code. You had to remove yourself from the listing, too, but that was easily done. You'd be long gone by the time anyone broke the stasis field.
The contingencies for this signal were as ironclad as they'd seemed ridiculous, but that fit with the name it had been given. It was hard to keep numbers and dry codes intact around the rare individuals capable of making it through the selection process. Adding the unofficial designation to the message would have been gauche at best, but you thought the words all the same.
Across the station, your fellows slipped into stasis patterns, and you watched the lifesign shifts with a careful concentration. You waited until you were absolutely sure the protocols had taken, then gave it another ten minutes before moving. You made a visual check on your modifications, sighing with relief to see no damage as a result. Then you headed for the hangar.
The hangar was empty but for the two emergency transports that were the standard allocation for an observatory. And your shuttle. It was tiny compared to the two transports, far too small for an FTL drive, but that was part of the point. You'd been dropped here cycles ago by a courier vessel, and despite what the crew thought, that ship had never left the system.
The access hatch slid silently open, and you felt the comfortable presence of the familiar interface welcome you back. They were the closest the Community had ever gotten to true AI, building off of ancient personal assistant VI technology and growing over countless years beside their user. None of them had ever made the jump to sentience, but it felt like Enigma models came close.
It was false company in the end, but in some ways that was a good thing. It provided the Strands who used them with an anchor in the world not bound to flesh. One that could be restored largely untouched if it was ever lost, and that could be there with you when all other forms of personal interaction were transitory at best.
Two quick mental commands brought the shuttle's systems fully online, and a third executed the recall command as you slipped into your chair. To any outside viewers, had they been there, the shuttle would have shimmered a moment then vanished from more than eyes. Only the best sensors in the Community could have tracked it, and no one was awake to focus them. The crossing to your courier was without issue, and your shuttle slotted into its place in the larger vessel. The presence of your only true companion doubled as they gained access to its larger processing capacity.
"Welcome back, Strand Feritas." You'd never given them a name. Some of your people were like that, holding to the impossible belief that one day their companion might find one for itself. Even so, it was good to hear the familiar voice. "Was your mission successful?"
"Thank you Companion," you replied. "And it was, yes."
"That is good." There was a pause, perfectly programmed to mimic a breath. "What orders?"
You signed amusement. It would have been unprofessional to include the name in your transmission to Farpoint and, you presumed, Strand Merizan. But here was yours, and you could express yourself a little more freely. And you'd not spent a whole ten minutes relabeling all the signal definitions to not use it now.
"Empyrean Star."
"Understood." The courier's drives hummed to life, and you watched Companion chart the course your orders required. The ship's reactor ramped up from minimal power, feeding the highly advanced FTL drive that had been installed shortly before your departure. It wasn't quite the newest model now, ten cycles of development do change things, but it was close enough.
"Target located." A hologram of that target flickered up before you, rugged and ancient beyond words. "ETA one hundred eighteen hours with optimal course."
You signed affirmation, then shook yourself mentally. Something like this required a direct command.
"Go."
"We shall make our first jump in two minutes." The tone of their voice shifted. "A meal is being prepared."
A wave of apathy rushed over you at the phrase, but you forced it back. It was part of the programming you'd given Companion, to ensure that you didn't retreat totally into yourself between missions. It was dangerous for a Strand to do that.
"Thank you, Companion." You pushed yourself up heavily, turning towards the hatch that led to the small galley and what amounted to personal quarters. There wasn't much to them, but they were yours.
Doing so turned your eyes away from the assessment holo that Companion had displayed for you. It was a massive thing, pocked and marked by age in a way that no constructed starship would be. Hovering above it were the four words of the target's name.
Alternate Nutrient Source Advised.
You hoped they wouldn't prove to be a bad omen.
"We have confirmation, Ship Leader." The speaker looked old, almost grizzled by the standards of your species. An affection, of course, but one still recognised. Strange how the appearance of age still had its effects, thousands of cycles after it ceased to have any real meaning. Not that you'd been immune to it in your younger days. "Signal pattern three-seventeen."
Your fingers almost shook as you signed a formal thanks to the comms officer. But you mastered the motion. The stakes you were playing for right now couldn't risk even the slightest breach. Strand Merizan had said that humanity had been confident in their ability to defeat the 'War Fleets', of course. But Three-Seventeen meant much more than the survival that your people had come to associate with victory.
A true victory was something you'd not known for thousands of cycles.
"Open transmission control," you ordered crisply. Your crew leapt to the task with a will, commands flashing out from the core dataspace to stir systems to life within the observatory's communications sphere. Power storage units built on the scale of skyscrapers poured energy into the system, weeks of steady charge expended in seconds to open a path across the stars.
"Signal to Farpoint Station. Pattern three-seventeen confirmed." You rattled off. The words came easily, standard protocol for a covert signal pattern. "Attach all associated records."
"Aye, Ship Leader."
Below the command spaces, the lifeblood of those enormous battery arrays ran into a great river of power that set space singing in tones far beyond mortal pitch. Space warped within the system, its complex machinery sucking the river of energy utterly dry to do it. And at the centre of it all, a surprisingly simple transmitter loosed a squeal of tightly compressed and encrypted data into a momentary flicker in the fabric of reality.
Then it was over. A shudder of something less than actual motion ran through the fabric of the observatory's dataspace. Soft sounds chimed, noting a switch in its reactor mode. It would take at least a month to build up to charge again, but that was alright. The station wasn't going anywhere.
"Stasis protocols," you ordered. "One month whilst we recharge."
You looked around at your crew, all following orders unknowing of your necessary deception. The sour feeling of must-be-done caught in your throat as they did so. They'd been your hosts for most of the last five cycles. None of them knew your real name, and none of them ever would - such was the cost of your most secret profession. But you'd worked with them long enough to know them.
At least some immediate good had come from the Clarions that Strand Kendl had returned with. Those miracle machines were why you weren't activating the observatory's self-destruct.
Instead, you reached for a different code. It had taken you weeks to break through the ciphers and other personal protections on the station crew's Sanctity modules. They'd be due praise in your report when you finally got the chance to file it. Whenever that would be.
You wished you could've been at Farpoint when your confirmation came through, but you had other duties to attend. No one had expected Three-Seventeen to be usable, but Kendl had been as meticulous as any Strand in providing a signal pattern for any occasion.
Darting fingers modified the stasis protocols on your fellows as they settled into their places, ensuring the systems would maintain the effect until interrupted by a standard command code. You had to remove yourself from the listing, too, but that was easily done. You'd be long gone by the time anyone broke the stasis field.
The contingencies for this signal were as ironclad as they'd seemed ridiculous, but that fit with the name it had been given. It was hard to keep numbers and dry codes intact around the rare individuals capable of making it through the selection process. Adding the unofficial designation to the message would have been gauche at best, but you thought the words all the same.
Across the station, your fellows slipped into stasis patterns, and you watched the lifesign shifts with a careful concentration. You waited until you were absolutely sure the protocols had taken, then gave it another ten minutes before moving. You made a visual check on your modifications, sighing with relief to see no damage as a result. Then you headed for the hangar.
The hangar was empty but for the two emergency transports that were the standard allocation for an observatory. And your shuttle. It was tiny compared to the two transports, far too small for an FTL drive, but that was part of the point. You'd been dropped here cycles ago by a courier vessel, and despite what the crew thought, that ship had never left the system.
The access hatch slid silently open, and you felt the comfortable presence of the familiar interface welcome you back. They were the closest the Community had ever gotten to true AI, building off of ancient personal assistant VI technology and growing over countless years beside their user. None of them had ever made the jump to sentience, but it felt like Enigma models came close.
It was false company in the end, but in some ways that was a good thing. It provided the Strands who used them with an anchor in the world not bound to flesh. One that could be restored largely untouched if it was ever lost, and that could be there with you when all other forms of personal interaction were transitory at best.
Two quick mental commands brought the shuttle's systems fully online, and a third executed the recall command as you slipped into your chair. To any outside viewers, had they been there, the shuttle would have shimmered a moment then vanished from more than eyes. Only the best sensors in the Community could have tracked it, and no one was awake to focus them. The crossing to your courier was without issue, and your shuttle slotted into its place in the larger vessel. The presence of your only true companion doubled as they gained access to its larger processing capacity.
"Welcome back, Strand Feritas." You'd never given them a name. Some of your people were like that, holding to the impossible belief that one day their companion might find one for itself. Even so, it was good to hear the familiar voice. "Was your mission successful?"
"Thank you Companion," you replied. "And it was, yes."
"That is good." There was a pause, perfectly programmed to mimic a breath. "What orders?"
You signed amusement. It would have been unprofessional to include the name in your transmission to Farpoint and, you presumed, Strand Merizan. But here was yours, and you could express yourself a little more freely. And you'd not spent a whole ten minutes relabeling all the signal definitions to not use it now.
"Empyrean Star."
"Understood." The courier's drives hummed to life, and you watched Companion chart the course your orders required. The ship's reactor ramped up from minimal power, feeding the highly advanced FTL drive that had been installed shortly before your departure. It wasn't quite the newest model now, ten cycles of development do change things, but it was close enough.
"Target located." A hologram of that target flickered up before you, rugged and ancient beyond words. "ETA one hundred eighteen hours with optimal course."
You signed affirmation, then shook yourself mentally. Something like this required a direct command.
"Go."
"We shall make our first jump in two minutes." The tone of their voice shifted. "A meal is being prepared."
A wave of apathy rushed over you at the phrase, but you forced it back. It was part of the programming you'd given Companion, to ensure that you didn't retreat totally into yourself between missions. It was dangerous for a Strand to do that.
"Thank you, Companion." You pushed yourself up heavily, turning towards the hatch that led to the small galley and what amounted to personal quarters. There wasn't much to them, but they were yours.
Doing so turned your eyes away from the assessment holo that Companion had displayed for you. It was a massive thing, pocked and marked by age in a way that no constructed starship would be. Hovering above it were the four words of the target's name.
Alternate Nutrient Source Advised.
You hoped they wouldn't prove to be a bad omen.
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Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
- Location
- Wordcats
Behold! A sidestory piece I had no idea I was going to write until a few days ago.
This is part of a set that I'm sketching out that should show what's going on beyond the Adamant's mission right now, and I hope that it lands well. It was a lot of fun to slide into such a different writing perspective, which the Nileans have proven to be. This specifically is intended as a two-part piece, and I'll hope to get the second half out sometime in the next week or two - might aim to make it a surprise Christmas gift, who knows. Thanks go to @Baughn for looking this over for me before posting - it was meant to be out earlier today but we got distracted.
Oh, and please do remember to vote, I think we only have six at the moment. Vote will close on the 20th.
This is part of a set that I'm sketching out that should show what's going on beyond the Adamant's mission right now, and I hope that it lands well. It was a lot of fun to slide into such a different writing perspective, which the Nileans have proven to be. This specifically is intended as a two-part piece, and I'll hope to get the second half out sometime in the next week or two - might aim to make it a surprise Christmas gift, who knows. Thanks go to @Baughn for looking this over for me before posting - it was meant to be out earlier today but we got distracted.
Oh, and please do remember to vote, I think we only have six at the moment. Vote will close on the 20th.
- Location
- Germany
- Pronouns
- He/Him
hangar (happened more than once)
[x] Vega seeks to find a place within the great gallery at the centre of the station where she might tap into the well of remembrance. Amanda will go with her, to support the Harmonial, and seek answers to Mir's question more directly.
And yay for Nileans meeting a fun guy!
And yay for Nileans meeting a fun guy!
- Location
- USA
[x] Vega seeks to find a place within the great gallery at the centre of the station where she might tap into the well of remembrance. Amanda will go with her, to support the Harmonial, and seek answers to Mir's question more directly.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
So, what does Code 317 mean, I wonder?
Honestly it felt so busy deliberately NOT explaining things that it came across as very hollow to me.
- Location
- Germany
- Pronouns
- He/Him
"Kicked their asses."
- Location
- St. Petersburg
Doesn't feel like a mere military victory though. They have accounted for that.
Something that has to do with the capture of the Relay Station and the information found inside? Should still be plausible. What is it that they'd believe completely unthinkable?
[x] Mary and Iris intend to remain, they have many questions for Rinel about what happened here. Mir is also drawn to stay, as there appear to be deeper implications about why that he would wish to know.
Last edited:
- Location
- Germany
- Pronouns
- He/Him
"Negotiations opened."
Vote closed