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Please check the timeline. Gorbachev is currently in charge, and while he's far from perfect he's still at least well-meaning.
Scattered Gears (Titan of Steel/Multicross)
- Thread starter I Just Write
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DestinyPlayer
New member
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Still a better idea than trusting Reagan-era US. And the other power blocs are too busy screaming to pay attention.
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(A/N: Decided I didn't much like writing in Halkeginia. I'm therefore re-purposing its slot for 'one-shot' settings.)
I arrived in extremely close proximity to a star, barely having time to process my impending doom before I collided with a large space station at a few dozen meters per second. Grabbing on for dear life, I quickly clambered around the outside of the space station until I eventually found an entrance. As soon as that happened I climbed inside, feeling great relief at no longer being in immediate danger of falling into the sun. Huh, looks like there's some writing around here, along with a few long-dead skeletons. I suppose I might as well do some reading while I was here.
While it did take a bit of fiddling with Words of Truth to get the text legible, I was both enraged and saddened when I learned that the station I was on was designed to explode a sun as some sort of science experiment. Clearly, these people were absolutely crushed by their failure. I was just about to leave when someone in a brown patched-together space suit showed up and shouted at me "The sun explodes in fifteen minutes! Get to Timber Hearth and evacuate everyone there, I'll collect the rest of the astronauts. Meet the other astronauts at the White Hole Station, I'll be at the Eye of the Universe, now go!"
With that, the space-suited figure booked it at their top speed, and I followed. As I ran, I reconfigured myself for vacuum travel; the instant I was clear of the sun station, I started boosting prograde, soon getting away from the star. Apparently this universe had a higher gravitational constant, because damn that star was tiny. Similarly, so were the planets. Admittedly I didn't know just from being yelled at which one was Timber Hearth, but seeing as only one planet had an entirely breathable atmosphere and a visible village, I immediately made my trajectory there, budding off a massive shuttle around myself as I went.
Diving through the atmosphere, I touched down right in the middle of the village and immediately jumped out. I swiftly saw everyone backing away, and in response I fired up Words of Truth at maximum power as I shouted "The sun will explode in just over ten minutes! Get everyone onto the ship in five minutes along with the absolutely necessary provisions; I can duplicate them with a starting sample! Now hurry!" I couldn't afford for a single person to doubt me on this.
Immediately, everyone started dashing around, and I grabbed one particular Hearthian as I asked "Do you know if there are any others outside the village on this planet?"
Looking up at me, the terrified Hearthian answered "Yes, Tektite went to investigate a disturbance at Youngbark Crater and someone needs to go get him!"
Simulating a nod, I answered "Understood, I will go." With that I activated my Blink module to teleport fifty meters straight up and activated my thruster array, quickly scooting around the entire tiny planet until I found a crater that fit the bill with a Hearthian heat signature inside. As soon as I did so, I touched down next to the shocked Hearthian and asked "Are you Tektite?"
At this, the four-eyed alien simply nodded, before I said "Hold on tight, the sun's going to explode in a few minutes, and I'm evacuating everyone."
With that, I spent a little reserve Mana to overclock my Blink module and teleport the both of us right back to the village. As I entered the ship, I quickly counted the sixteen Hearthians in the hold now and asked "Is everyone here?"
After a few moments, everyone eventually agreed "Yes, we're all here."
In response, I replied "Understood, then we're blasting off to wait for your astronauts to meet us at the White Hole Station." and with that I fired the thrusters for the evacuation ship, the vessel shaking as we ascended. As far as actually finding the White Hole Station was concerned, that was easy as it could be. So, I parked the ship over there. Sure enough, a minute or so later two different spacecraft of Hearthian origin arrived. I quickly modified the evacuation ship to have them docked, and started boosting out of the solar system at maximum thrust. Then I noticed the head count reporting the time-looping Hearthian as missing, along with a radio signal from deep space calling out in their voice.
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(POV: The Hearthian)
This was the third loop during which I had encountered Clockwork Knight Marina, and the second during which I had coordinated the evacuation. The first time I spent utterly confused and asking the Clockwork a massive number of questions; by the time we'd arrived at a course of action it was too late, and the sun consumed the station with both of us on it. The second time we had successfully managed to get everyone past the reach of the supernova, only for me to find myself getting pulled back in time regardless.
Another several loops passed as I tracked down a way to turn off the Ash Twin Project and rehearsed how I would rescue Feldspar from the Dark Bramble. I had quickly determined that the added time it took for me to get into the Ash Twin Project would make getting Feldspar out using my ship rather impractical given the time constraints involved and the need to avoid the Anglerfish. On the other hand, I knew where the Nomai Vessel was, and the Ash Twin Project had a compatible Warp Core. For that matter, I knew the co-ordinates to reach the Eye of the Universe, so I might as well also retrieve Solanum from the Quantum Moon while I was at it.
This was the final loop. The absolute first thing I did was rocket off to where Chert was camped out on Ember Twin. As soon as I landed next to him, I told him "Chert, the sun explodes in twenty minutes. I need you to get Esker, Gabbro and Riebeck to the White Hole Station for evacuation, especially Esker and Gabbro, since Esker doesn't have a ship and Gabbro misplaced his."
Chert immediately startled and asked "Are you sure? And what about everyone else?"
Nodding, I said "I'm sure. As for everyone on Timber Hearth, there's someone arriving on the Sun Station who can handle that as soon as I get there. Now go!"
Immediately, Chert got up and dashed for his ship. Meanwhile, I sprinted for mine and made the hop to Ash Twin; I could hypothetically do this faster using my ship, but that put me at risk of losing it, and I still needed it. So as soon as the sand levels got low enough I dashed through the door for the tower, over the still-buried cacti, and through the teleporter to the Sun Station. Quickly I sprinted through the corridors, EVA'd across the gap, and encountered Marina in her blue-painted glory.
I still wasn't quite clear how she understood me, but when I shouted "The sun explodes in fifteen minutes! Get to Timber Hearth and evacuate everyone there, I'll collect the rest of the astronauts. Meet the other astronauts at the White Hole Station, I'll be at the Eye of the Universe, now go!" she didn't need to ask for confirmation, she just started moving.
Now was when our paths diverged, Marina rocketing off to Timber Hearth even as I dashed back through the teleporters to get at the core of the Ash Twin Project. I had the apocalypse-powered time machine shut down in less than forty seconds, and with its warp core in hand I made a mad dash for my ship and into the depths of Dark Bramble. Now came the tricky part.
The fog was thick and gloomy, occasionally revealing horrifying Anglerfish through the viewport. Still, my signalscope pulled through, and I managed to reach Feldspar's camp in fairly short order. As soon as I did so I told him "Feldspar, get in my ship now! The sun's exploding in about six minutes and I'm not leaving without you!"
He barely had time to argue before I started shoving him into the ship and he got the hint. As soon as I was back in the ship and navigating towards the Nomai vessel, he asked "So Hatchling, where are we going, and what's this Nomai doohickey with the two boxes on the ends?"
As I navigated past the trio of Anglerfish I answered "That's an Advanced Warp Core, and we're taking it to the vessel the Nomai arrived in. We'll be using it to warp right out of here; everyone else should be clear of the blast by now."
Mildly surprised, Feldspar asked "You know how to fly a Nomai starship?"
Shrugging as the Vessel came into view, I answered "Well, I've only ever flown their shuttles, but I have a pretty solid idea of how to work Nomai technology. You grab the radio and I'll grab the warp core, we're entering through that hull breach."
With that, we fueled up our jetpacks, opened the hatch, and exited my ship for the last time. I navigated us through the corpse-filled corridors with ease, quickly arriving at the warp core socket. The process of warping the ship took a mere forty seconds including entering the coordinates for the Eye of the Universe. The wormhole opened, and after the wrenching distortion of warp travel we were clear of Dark Bramble.
I let go of tension I didn't know I was holding, and said "If the radio's on, everyone should be coming to meet us on the evac ship in a little while. In the meantime, feel free to ask whatever you like."
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(POV: Solanum)
On the surface of the Quantum Moon's sixth location, Solanum waited, unsure of how much time had passed. The fact that her shuttle had started flickering around the Moon when not observed was a distinctly unsettling one, as it indicated that she had been present here for far longer than she had thought. As a direct corollary of that point, the prospect of getting on the shuttle and leaving the Quantum Moon seemed particularly unwise.
Lost in thought, Solanum wondered if she would be stuck here forever, before she suddenly noticed an oddity in the form of the moon's ambient light briefly reaching a blinding searing blue before dimming to nothing, though for all she knew it could have been much longer. That was in and of itself distinctly worrying, as it indicated that something rather bizarre had happened to the system's star. It was the only source of light here on the Quantum Moon, after all.
Before the panic could get too severe however, Solanum found herself treated to a rather bizarre sight in the form of two figures walking towards her. The first was clearly a space-suited individual of a species she did not recognize, while the other was a large, bulky machine, loaded down with weaponry.
The mechanical being turned towards Solanum and inexplicably glowed golden yellow, saying "Greetings. I am Clockwork Knight Marina. My companion and I have made this journey to the Quantum Moon in order to rescue you."
Solanum thought furiously for a moment, before asking "How do you know my language? I have never met either of your species before, and if you had any contact with living Nomai at least one of them would be with your rescue party."
The answer Solanum got was far from what she expected, as the mechanical being replied "I do not know your language, and am not speaking it. Instead, I am locally altering the underlying nature of reality so as to facilitate communication without need of such things. As a side effect, deception is completely impossible while this effect is in place. In addition, you are correct in your inference that we have not met any living Nomai aside from yourself. All Nomai in-system aside from yourself perished completely roughly 2.4*10^5 years ago. The cause was a highly dangerous form of exotic matter released from a comet that had recently been captured by the system primary."
There was a pause for several moments, as Solanum digested this information, before she noted "That would be consistent with my hypothesis that I am not entirely alive, as bizarre as that may sound. It does raise the question of how you knew enough to come find me here, though."
That is when the space-suited visitor spoke up, noting "That would be on account of my actions, mostly. On account of the sun naturally going supernova, I wound up paired with the Ash Twin Project, getting caught up in the resulting time loop. This is not the first loop in which I have found you here on the Quantum Moon, but it is the first time that the evacuation was a complete success."
Unexpectedly, Solanum found herself heaving, unsure if she was laughing or crying as the full impact of what she had just been told slammed home. Every other Nomai in the system was dead, and she was mostly dead. Indeed, the only reason these people were even here to talk to her was on account of all her friends and family dying before they could disassemble the Ash Twin Project.
After a few minutes of this, the last of the Nomai asked "If all the Nomai are dead, then why are you even bothering to rescue me? I'm just an unliving relic of a race long gone. For that matter, how are you even planning to do so? After all, leaving the sixth position will just put me into one of my deceased quantum states."
At this, the Clockwork Knight spoke up, noting "We are here to rescue you because no matter what, no sapient being deserves to be trapped and alone for all eternity. An additional factor is that there is evidence for the survival of other Nomai clans aside from your own. As for how, we've already determined that getting you out physically is non-viable, so the only option is to extract you as a mind-state and put you in a new body. As it happens, I have a pretty good idea of how to achieve that, though I will only do so with your consent."
Regaining a bit of composure, Solanum asked "How long until the clone will be ready? I don't want to be stuck here any longer than absolutely necessary."
Marina answered "Your new body will be less of a clone and more of a Mana construct, so making it will be extremely quick. That said, to ensure that it is actually you inhabiting it and not simply a mind-twin will require your body here to die. Additional local alterations to the laws of reality have been made to ensure that it will actually be you waking up in your new body as a result."
Solanum hesitated, before she answered "Do it."
Marina replied "This will hurt only briefly." before suddenly drawing their sword and decapitating Solanum in a flicker of motion.
The next thing Solanum knew, she was waking up in a soft bed.
In front of her sat both Marina and the Hearthian who had been caught in the time loop, both looking at her. The Hearthian asked "How do you feel, Solanum?"
Thinking for a few moments, Solanum simply answered "I feel alive."
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(POV: Clockwork Knight Marina)
I'd expanded the evacuation ship to comfortably hold all the Hearthians and Solanum in the orbit of the Eye of the Universe, complete with a habitat bay designed to be mostly comfortable to the Hearthians making up most of my passengers. Now it was simply a matter of deciding what to do next.
As the stars blinked out one by one, I noted "So, this universe is obviously dying. Obviously sticking around isn't a good idea, and I'm pretty sure that I'll be able to punch a rift to elsewhere."
After a few moments, Solanum asked "Is that really necessary? The Eye of the Universe is right there, and it seems to have a stable wormhole in the form of that quantum vortex."
Nodding, I answered "The problem is where that wormhole leads. Namely, it leads to a pocket of weirdly altered pseudo-space that will react to a conscious mind to make a new universe. I can absolutely guarantee that whoever jumps in the Eye of the Universe won't survive the process, and the universe it creates won't reach habitable conditions for an unacceptably long time."
After a few moments, Esker commented "Well, you seem pretty set on that solution of yours, so you might as well get on with it. That said, it'd be polite to leave the portal open once we're through and set up a beacon saying where the exit is so any stragglers aren't stuck."
Outer Wilds
(POV: Clockwork Knight Marina)I arrived in extremely close proximity to a star, barely having time to process my impending doom before I collided with a large space station at a few dozen meters per second. Grabbing on for dear life, I quickly clambered around the outside of the space station until I eventually found an entrance. As soon as that happened I climbed inside, feeling great relief at no longer being in immediate danger of falling into the sun. Huh, looks like there's some writing around here, along with a few long-dead skeletons. I suppose I might as well do some reading while I was here.
While it did take a bit of fiddling with Words of Truth to get the text legible, I was both enraged and saddened when I learned that the station I was on was designed to explode a sun as some sort of science experiment. Clearly, these people were absolutely crushed by their failure. I was just about to leave when someone in a brown patched-together space suit showed up and shouted at me "The sun explodes in fifteen minutes! Get to Timber Hearth and evacuate everyone there, I'll collect the rest of the astronauts. Meet the other astronauts at the White Hole Station, I'll be at the Eye of the Universe, now go!"
With that, the space-suited figure booked it at their top speed, and I followed. As I ran, I reconfigured myself for vacuum travel; the instant I was clear of the sun station, I started boosting prograde, soon getting away from the star. Apparently this universe had a higher gravitational constant, because damn that star was tiny. Similarly, so were the planets. Admittedly I didn't know just from being yelled at which one was Timber Hearth, but seeing as only one planet had an entirely breathable atmosphere and a visible village, I immediately made my trajectory there, budding off a massive shuttle around myself as I went.
Diving through the atmosphere, I touched down right in the middle of the village and immediately jumped out. I swiftly saw everyone backing away, and in response I fired up Words of Truth at maximum power as I shouted "The sun will explode in just over ten minutes! Get everyone onto the ship in five minutes along with the absolutely necessary provisions; I can duplicate them with a starting sample! Now hurry!" I couldn't afford for a single person to doubt me on this.
Immediately, everyone started dashing around, and I grabbed one particular Hearthian as I asked "Do you know if there are any others outside the village on this planet?"
Looking up at me, the terrified Hearthian answered "Yes, Tektite went to investigate a disturbance at Youngbark Crater and someone needs to go get him!"
Simulating a nod, I answered "Understood, I will go." With that I activated my Blink module to teleport fifty meters straight up and activated my thruster array, quickly scooting around the entire tiny planet until I found a crater that fit the bill with a Hearthian heat signature inside. As soon as I did so, I touched down next to the shocked Hearthian and asked "Are you Tektite?"
At this, the four-eyed alien simply nodded, before I said "Hold on tight, the sun's going to explode in a few minutes, and I'm evacuating everyone."
With that, I spent a little reserve Mana to overclock my Blink module and teleport the both of us right back to the village. As I entered the ship, I quickly counted the sixteen Hearthians in the hold now and asked "Is everyone here?"
After a few moments, everyone eventually agreed "Yes, we're all here."
In response, I replied "Understood, then we're blasting off to wait for your astronauts to meet us at the White Hole Station." and with that I fired the thrusters for the evacuation ship, the vessel shaking as we ascended. As far as actually finding the White Hole Station was concerned, that was easy as it could be. So, I parked the ship over there. Sure enough, a minute or so later two different spacecraft of Hearthian origin arrived. I quickly modified the evacuation ship to have them docked, and started boosting out of the solar system at maximum thrust. Then I noticed the head count reporting the time-looping Hearthian as missing, along with a radio signal from deep space calling out in their voice.
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(POV: The Hearthian)
This was the third loop during which I had encountered Clockwork Knight Marina, and the second during which I had coordinated the evacuation. The first time I spent utterly confused and asking the Clockwork a massive number of questions; by the time we'd arrived at a course of action it was too late, and the sun consumed the station with both of us on it. The second time we had successfully managed to get everyone past the reach of the supernova, only for me to find myself getting pulled back in time regardless.
Another several loops passed as I tracked down a way to turn off the Ash Twin Project and rehearsed how I would rescue Feldspar from the Dark Bramble. I had quickly determined that the added time it took for me to get into the Ash Twin Project would make getting Feldspar out using my ship rather impractical given the time constraints involved and the need to avoid the Anglerfish. On the other hand, I knew where the Nomai Vessel was, and the Ash Twin Project had a compatible Warp Core. For that matter, I knew the co-ordinates to reach the Eye of the Universe, so I might as well also retrieve Solanum from the Quantum Moon while I was at it.
This was the final loop. The absolute first thing I did was rocket off to where Chert was camped out on Ember Twin. As soon as I landed next to him, I told him "Chert, the sun explodes in twenty minutes. I need you to get Esker, Gabbro and Riebeck to the White Hole Station for evacuation, especially Esker and Gabbro, since Esker doesn't have a ship and Gabbro misplaced his."
Chert immediately startled and asked "Are you sure? And what about everyone else?"
Nodding, I said "I'm sure. As for everyone on Timber Hearth, there's someone arriving on the Sun Station who can handle that as soon as I get there. Now go!"
Immediately, Chert got up and dashed for his ship. Meanwhile, I sprinted for mine and made the hop to Ash Twin; I could hypothetically do this faster using my ship, but that put me at risk of losing it, and I still needed it. So as soon as the sand levels got low enough I dashed through the door for the tower, over the still-buried cacti, and through the teleporter to the Sun Station. Quickly I sprinted through the corridors, EVA'd across the gap, and encountered Marina in her blue-painted glory.
I still wasn't quite clear how she understood me, but when I shouted "The sun explodes in fifteen minutes! Get to Timber Hearth and evacuate everyone there, I'll collect the rest of the astronauts. Meet the other astronauts at the White Hole Station, I'll be at the Eye of the Universe, now go!" she didn't need to ask for confirmation, she just started moving.
Now was when our paths diverged, Marina rocketing off to Timber Hearth even as I dashed back through the teleporters to get at the core of the Ash Twin Project. I had the apocalypse-powered time machine shut down in less than forty seconds, and with its warp core in hand I made a mad dash for my ship and into the depths of Dark Bramble. Now came the tricky part.
The fog was thick and gloomy, occasionally revealing horrifying Anglerfish through the viewport. Still, my signalscope pulled through, and I managed to reach Feldspar's camp in fairly short order. As soon as I did so I told him "Feldspar, get in my ship now! The sun's exploding in about six minutes and I'm not leaving without you!"
He barely had time to argue before I started shoving him into the ship and he got the hint. As soon as I was back in the ship and navigating towards the Nomai vessel, he asked "So Hatchling, where are we going, and what's this Nomai doohickey with the two boxes on the ends?"
As I navigated past the trio of Anglerfish I answered "That's an Advanced Warp Core, and we're taking it to the vessel the Nomai arrived in. We'll be using it to warp right out of here; everyone else should be clear of the blast by now."
Mildly surprised, Feldspar asked "You know how to fly a Nomai starship?"
Shrugging as the Vessel came into view, I answered "Well, I've only ever flown their shuttles, but I have a pretty solid idea of how to work Nomai technology. You grab the radio and I'll grab the warp core, we're entering through that hull breach."
With that, we fueled up our jetpacks, opened the hatch, and exited my ship for the last time. I navigated us through the corpse-filled corridors with ease, quickly arriving at the warp core socket. The process of warping the ship took a mere forty seconds including entering the coordinates for the Eye of the Universe. The wormhole opened, and after the wrenching distortion of warp travel we were clear of Dark Bramble.
I let go of tension I didn't know I was holding, and said "If the radio's on, everyone should be coming to meet us on the evac ship in a little while. In the meantime, feel free to ask whatever you like."
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(POV: Solanum)
On the surface of the Quantum Moon's sixth location, Solanum waited, unsure of how much time had passed. The fact that her shuttle had started flickering around the Moon when not observed was a distinctly unsettling one, as it indicated that she had been present here for far longer than she had thought. As a direct corollary of that point, the prospect of getting on the shuttle and leaving the Quantum Moon seemed particularly unwise.
Lost in thought, Solanum wondered if she would be stuck here forever, before she suddenly noticed an oddity in the form of the moon's ambient light briefly reaching a blinding searing blue before dimming to nothing, though for all she knew it could have been much longer. That was in and of itself distinctly worrying, as it indicated that something rather bizarre had happened to the system's star. It was the only source of light here on the Quantum Moon, after all.
Before the panic could get too severe however, Solanum found herself treated to a rather bizarre sight in the form of two figures walking towards her. The first was clearly a space-suited individual of a species she did not recognize, while the other was a large, bulky machine, loaded down with weaponry.
The mechanical being turned towards Solanum and inexplicably glowed golden yellow, saying "Greetings. I am Clockwork Knight Marina. My companion and I have made this journey to the Quantum Moon in order to rescue you."
Solanum thought furiously for a moment, before asking "How do you know my language? I have never met either of your species before, and if you had any contact with living Nomai at least one of them would be with your rescue party."
The answer Solanum got was far from what she expected, as the mechanical being replied "I do not know your language, and am not speaking it. Instead, I am locally altering the underlying nature of reality so as to facilitate communication without need of such things. As a side effect, deception is completely impossible while this effect is in place. In addition, you are correct in your inference that we have not met any living Nomai aside from yourself. All Nomai in-system aside from yourself perished completely roughly 2.4*10^5 years ago. The cause was a highly dangerous form of exotic matter released from a comet that had recently been captured by the system primary."
There was a pause for several moments, as Solanum digested this information, before she noted "That would be consistent with my hypothesis that I am not entirely alive, as bizarre as that may sound. It does raise the question of how you knew enough to come find me here, though."
That is when the space-suited visitor spoke up, noting "That would be on account of my actions, mostly. On account of the sun naturally going supernova, I wound up paired with the Ash Twin Project, getting caught up in the resulting time loop. This is not the first loop in which I have found you here on the Quantum Moon, but it is the first time that the evacuation was a complete success."
Unexpectedly, Solanum found herself heaving, unsure if she was laughing or crying as the full impact of what she had just been told slammed home. Every other Nomai in the system was dead, and she was mostly dead. Indeed, the only reason these people were even here to talk to her was on account of all her friends and family dying before they could disassemble the Ash Twin Project.
After a few minutes of this, the last of the Nomai asked "If all the Nomai are dead, then why are you even bothering to rescue me? I'm just an unliving relic of a race long gone. For that matter, how are you even planning to do so? After all, leaving the sixth position will just put me into one of my deceased quantum states."
At this, the Clockwork Knight spoke up, noting "We are here to rescue you because no matter what, no sapient being deserves to be trapped and alone for all eternity. An additional factor is that there is evidence for the survival of other Nomai clans aside from your own. As for how, we've already determined that getting you out physically is non-viable, so the only option is to extract you as a mind-state and put you in a new body. As it happens, I have a pretty good idea of how to achieve that, though I will only do so with your consent."
Regaining a bit of composure, Solanum asked "How long until the clone will be ready? I don't want to be stuck here any longer than absolutely necessary."
Marina answered "Your new body will be less of a clone and more of a Mana construct, so making it will be extremely quick. That said, to ensure that it is actually you inhabiting it and not simply a mind-twin will require your body here to die. Additional local alterations to the laws of reality have been made to ensure that it will actually be you waking up in your new body as a result."
Solanum hesitated, before she answered "Do it."
Marina replied "This will hurt only briefly." before suddenly drawing their sword and decapitating Solanum in a flicker of motion.
The next thing Solanum knew, she was waking up in a soft bed.
In front of her sat both Marina and the Hearthian who had been caught in the time loop, both looking at her. The Hearthian asked "How do you feel, Solanum?"
Thinking for a few moments, Solanum simply answered "I feel alive."
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(POV: Clockwork Knight Marina)
I'd expanded the evacuation ship to comfortably hold all the Hearthians and Solanum in the orbit of the Eye of the Universe, complete with a habitat bay designed to be mostly comfortable to the Hearthians making up most of my passengers. Now it was simply a matter of deciding what to do next.
As the stars blinked out one by one, I noted "So, this universe is obviously dying. Obviously sticking around isn't a good idea, and I'm pretty sure that I'll be able to punch a rift to elsewhere."
After a few moments, Solanum asked "Is that really necessary? The Eye of the Universe is right there, and it seems to have a stable wormhole in the form of that quantum vortex."
Nodding, I answered "The problem is where that wormhole leads. Namely, it leads to a pocket of weirdly altered pseudo-space that will react to a conscious mind to make a new universe. I can absolutely guarantee that whoever jumps in the Eye of the Universe won't survive the process, and the universe it creates won't reach habitable conditions for an unacceptably long time."
After a few moments, Esker commented "Well, you seem pretty set on that solution of yours, so you might as well get on with it. That said, it'd be polite to leave the portal open once we're through and set up a beacon saying where the exit is so any stragglers aren't stuck."
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Jim Starluck
New member
Well, that was... hectic.
The repeated "sun exploding" statement reminded me of There's No Time to Explain.
The repeated "sun exploding" statement reminded me of There's No Time to Explain.
Huh, so no new born reality. Somewhat surprised about that.
Other than that, I have to wonder if when they develop mana abilities, the time shenanigans they have gone through will have an interesting effect.
Other than that, I have to wonder if when they develop mana abilities, the time shenanigans they have gone through will have an interesting effect.
Yeah, the whole plot of the game is that you have 32 minutes to solve the universe.
- Pronouns
- Plural
Outer Wilds, an indie game from 2019 best described as Archaeology meets Kerbal Space Program meets Groundhog Day. Basically, the player character is a newly trained astronaut/archaeologist on their first spaceflight. Twenty two minutes later the sun blows up, and you wake up back just before launch. Cue exploration and mystery solving.
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DestinyPlayer
New member
- Pronouns
- Him/They
You forgot Subnautica, because it also has that weird "Is not a horror game but is more terrifying than most actual horror games" vibe going every now and again.
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Star Wars 3
(POV: Third Person near Sheev Palpatine)In his high-class apartment on Coruscant, Sheev Palpatine was currently monitoring the situation for any unexpected occurrences that could upset his plans, and preparing contingencies accordingly. Which is to say, he was watching publicly available news broadcasts while making sarcastic commentary. He had just gotten up for a few minutes to grab a bowl of Grumbits (Enjoy the spicy, cheesy flavor!)(Name trademarked by Grumbocorp), and apparently missed a minute or so of prattle.
Either way, instead of the normal announcer there was apparently an interview taking place between some Twi'Lek host Sheev didn't care to remember the name of, and an extremely heavily armed three-eyed combat droid.
As Sheev sat down with his bowl of cheap crunchy snacks, the Twi'Lek asked "So, can we hear that speech you prepared?"
Hearing this, Palpatine snorted; why a Droid was being asked to present a speech was beyond him.
At this, the Droid replied "Certainly" and the camera zoomed in on them. Then the Droid started their speech "I am Clockwork Knight Hazen, speaking in an official capacity for the Clockwork Legion. While we did not anticipate our arrival in this galaxy, we will uphold our mission of protecting the innocent no matter our location. So when we found out that slavery is still practiced in its most brutal of forms, we decided our course of action almost immediately."
At this point, Hazen held up a clear bag for the camera, containing a chunk of metal covered in dried bodily fluids. As they did so, they noted "This is a slave leash implant, surgically removed from one of the many slaves we have already rescued. It is a remote-controlled explosive device and tracking beacon used to prevent slaves from escaping; upon receiving the detonation signal it will explosively release approximately four kilojoules of energy, dealing lethal damage to its victim in a gruesome manner. As far as we can ascertain, over one trillion sapient beings currently have these devices implanted. That is nearly ten percent of the total galactic population going by the best estimates available."
Continuing, Hazen noted "This practice is currently extant throughout much of the Outer Rim, and significant portions of the Mid Rim. That said, the single biggest concentration of slaves is in the region informally referred to as Hutt space. As the Galactic Republic seems perfectly willing to treat this region as somewhere between an autonomous province and a sovereign country, we shall do the same. Therefore, I hereby declare the Clockwork Legion to be formally in a state of war against the Hutt families and any who align with them."
Sheev almost choked on one of his snacks as the implications slammed home. The galaxy wasn't supposed to be at war for a decade yet! Even worse, he had almost no control over either of the sides involved in this conflict, and he'd never even heard of this Clockwork Legion before.
Then if it was even remotely possible, Hazen turned even more serious as they stated "To the slaving scum who made this necessary, understand that we are not driven by territorial gains or the pursuit of power for its own sake. You. Are. Hurting. People. Until that is no longer the case, we cannot be bargained with, we cannot be reasoned with, and we will not stop, ever, until every single person you dare to claim as your property is safe. If you surrender you will be spared; if you resist, try to hold slaves as hostages, or kill them as an act of spite, we will kill you. This is your only warning."
Finally coughing up the cheese-flavored snack, Sheev hauled himself to his feet and launched into a tirade of profanity including every single applicable swear word he could think of. In the background he could vaguely hear Hazen prattling on about providing volunteers with training and equipment, but he didn't pay too much attention to it, as he was currently busy ranting at the assortment of houseplants throughout his apartment.
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(POV: Clockwork Battleship Paxo)
After having done the research on how the locals handled space combat, we in the Clockwork Legion had drastically rethought how we went about building capital ships. After all, our capital-class templates had all been designed for atmospheric combat against Grand Dragons, a very different mission profile from deep space engagements against other ships. As such, aside from rather obvious improvements like adopting the local materials science, thrusters, shielding, and other such things before amplifying them massively with Mana, there were a number of other alterations we made.
First off, we were making some pretty major overhauls to the way we built our deep space weaponry, with the primary goal being to out-range basically everyone else. While the C-fractional plasma blasts fired by a Proton Beam were perfectly adequate over atmospheric ranges, they would have a nasty tendency to lose focus at far less than the ranges typical to space combat. As such, we took it upon ourselves to develop something new.
At its core, our new weapon could still broadly be classified as a particle beam with its velocity provided directly by a reaction instead of an accelerator, but the specifics were massively different. First and foremost, instead of Protonium fuel, we were using electrons (or Positrons) conjured so close together that the resulting electrostatic forces accelerated the beam to velocities absurdly close to the speed of light. This took place inside an almost closed capsule-shaped Deconjuration Field, deleting any electron that didn't ultimately end up on a vector aiming out the open end of the barrel.
After exiting the chamber, an electromagnetic lens was used to focus the diffuse cone into a tight beam a few millimeters across at the widest point, which then proceeded to self-focus down to microns thanks to relativistic effects. A few more enchantments were added to make the beam disperse after a miss so it wouldn't hurt innocent people, along with a bit of homing to compensate for any aiming wobble there might happen to be. From there, the beam was passed through a portal ring a few centimeters across to another portal ring mounted in a turret. This allowed the beam generators to remain safely buried inside the hull, along with several other advantages.
Meanwhile, our missiles remained fairly conventional Casaba Howitzer affairs; missiles were missiles. On the other hand, we made a point of fitting all our missile cells with Blink pads so that we could teleport missiles directly to outside the hull without need of a hatch. Also the fact that we were using Conjuration to make missiles as needed meant we could fire as many of them as we wanted.
Far more important was what we'd done with Hyperspace, once we'd figured out how it worked. It had taken several weeks of work, but we'd finally managed to hybridize a Hyperdrive with a Blink unit. Admittedly the end result was rather mediocre as far as actually being a Hyperdrive was concerned, rating about a class six. However, it had a single major advantage: it could effectively ignore the need for a safe and well-plotted route that Hyperdrives typically had to deal with. After all, when it came to an obstacle that would normally cause problems, it could just Blink a few light hours and instantly skip over the hazard. The net effect was that while our Hybrid Drive would lose a race down one of the major Hyperlanes, it would get to the destination faster in pretty much every other case, since unlike a conventional Hyperdrive we could just point directly at the destination and go full speed ahead.
In my case, this all came together in a disc-shaped chassis approximately 1.5 kilometers in diameter and 200 meters thick at the thickest point. My main sublight drives were all directed through the 'top' and 'bottom' of the disc, so that I could use them to dodge while keeping my edge lined up with hostile ships, even aside from the evasive maneuvers I could pull while Blinking. Even if I did happen to get hit, the twenty meters of highly sloped armor and extremely intense shields I was packing on top of massive degrees of compartmentalization and redundancy meant I could stand up to a lot of punishment.
The reason that this was all relevant? Because I was currently in hyperspace en route to Nal Hutta along with thirty other Clockwork Battleships like myself and a large number of troopships. The logic being that we might as well start with a decapitation strike and cripple the Hutts' ability to coordinate, and most of the Hutt Cartel's movers and shakers tended to do business on Nal Hutta and its moon.
Either way, when we dropped out of Hyperspace, scans immediately located about two hundred actual no-kidding warships in the system, most of them in orbit of Nar'Shadda. Apparently, the Hutts had thrown money around to buy up a lot of surplus military hardware and hire the mercenaries needed to crew it. That made sense, given that they'd had about forty eight hours since our declaration of war. Immediately, we got into action as we Blinked to a range of 50,000 kilometers and started slagging the weapons emplacements and drives on several ships, aiming to cripple the vessels without causing serious casualties among the crew. Meanwhile, some of our troopships started teleporting Knights and Fighters to the surface of Nar'Shadda and Nal'Hutta; it wasn't like the Hutts could actually stop our teleportation technology, so we might as well exploit it for all it's worth. Boarding operations meanwhile would be delayed until the ships in question were crippled; the Hutt fleet was less of a priority compared to sorting out the messes planetside, and they would be treated as such.
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(POV: Third Person near Darth Maul)
On the surface of Nar'Shadda, a certain Zabrak was absolutely furious. Two days ago some jumped up Droids had declared war on the Hutts, prompting much laughter in the bar where he saw the news. The next thing he knew his ship had been commandeered for use as a logistics vessel, leaving him stuck on the crime-ridden ecumenopolis. Adding even more insult to the already massive inconvenience, all the other ships in system had been 'repurposed' as well.
Now he was getting to watch in real time from a ship chartering service's help desk (currently being as unhelpful as possible) as three-eyed combat Droids started appearing out of literally nowhere by the thousands, getting in horrifically one-sided fights with various Hutt enforcers. Quietly, Maul tried to sneak away towards the apartment he was currently lodged in, in hopes of sleeping through this whole mess. He didn't get very far before he heard a synthesized voice ask "So, care to explain why your Thematic Signature is about two steps away from being a solid lump of evil?"
Whirling around as he ignited his dual lightsaber, Maul found himself face to face with one of the three eyed Droids in question. Immediately, he swung, only for the Droid to grab his lightsaber by the blade and hold it in place as they brought their other arm up to Maul's face near instantly. There was a puff of some compressed gas, and the last thing he was aware of before falling unconscious was the Droid noting "You are very lucky we made a point of studying anaesthesia."
invariably_stupefied
Member
Very nice! DOOM is next I believe?
- Pronouns
- Plural
DOOM 3
(POV: Clockwork Knight Adamant)It had taken around six hours to get approval to visit ARC's headquarters, and the flight over to their mobile command center took another three hours as well. Still, after that getting a meeting with Dr. Samuel Hayden was surprisingly quick. It wasn't a private meeting by any means, as several security personnel were present along with various technicians. This was perfectly acceptable, as we wouldn't be discussing anything for which secrecy was absolutely critical at this meeting.
Either way, as we sat down in the meeting room surrounded by various displays, readouts, and other such things, I asked "Should I go first with explaining how we got here, or do you want to go first?"
To this, Doctor Hayden replied "I would like to hear your story first, personally."
Simulating a nod, I began "The first thing you need to know is that the multiverse is larger than you accounted for, and there are multiple realms that could reasonably be described as Hell dimensions. I was originally created on Terra Magnus, a world indirectly ruled by one of these alternate Hell dimensions for nearly a thousand years. Their modus operandi was quite different; instead of outright invading, they enforced oppression, evil, and general misery across the planet's surface in order to sustainably farm soul fragments to make into more Daemons. The agents of this oppression were Grand Dragons, nuclear-powered dragons hundreds of meters in scale and mentally engineered to behave as a belligerent psychotic dictator."
Everyone in the room seemed shocked by this, but I didn't let that slow me down as I continued "That said, there were some places free from the rule of the Grand Dragons. The subterranean races were generally free since Grand Dragons couldn't physically fit down the entrance tunnels to their cities miles below ground. On the surface however, free zones were incredibly scarce, and only emerged when a powerful Titan made it their personal mission to create one."
At this, Doctor Hayden asked "Could you please explain what you mean by a Titan? There is some unfortunately conflicting terminology there."
Another simulated nod, before I answered "Right. All signs point to Terra Magnus being terraformed and life-seeded about twenty thousand years ago by a species of von neumann probe that tend to build themselves into a massive labyrinth subterranean structure. We generally call them Dungeons, however those that build their structures into a mobile form and acquire the truly massive amount of Mana required to animate it receive the title of Titan. Prior to about three years ago, this was an extremely rare phenomenon, as all available Mana sources lacked the sheer portability and scalability of nuclear power. That's when the Titan of Steel created Protonium, and changed the world forever."
Looking somewhat askance, Doctor Hayden asked "You mean that your world has only had nuclear power for three years?"
Simulating another nod, I noted "I think that the Daemons were actively suppressing it while letting most other fields advance relatively unhindered. Aside from that, the Titan and the Republic they founded have a distinct tendency to throw basically unlimited resources at any competent scientist they can find or make, which tends to lead to extremely rapid progress. It's probably the only reason we stood the slightest chance at the Battle Of The Hellrift."
A raised mechanical eyebrow from Hayden was all it took to prompt me to continue. "Basically, the Daemons were getting desperate thanks to us locking down their access using Dimensional Jammers, so they ripped open a multi-kilometer self expanding Hellrift to try and swallow the entire planet. We aren't entirely clear what happened at the end of that, but some variety of unexpected interaction during our attempt to force the rift shut resulted in me being catapulted directly into the Hell dimension you're currently having problems with. After that it was a matter of slaughtering several thousand Demons in a desperate struggle until a man wearing green power armor bought me enough time to self-replicate, and the story is fairly predictable from there."
Briefly, Hayden seemed slightly perturbed at the mention of the man in green. Still, he recovered fairly quickly as he commented "That certainly explains quite a few of the oddities regarding your sudden appearance, at the very least. Presumably you would like to know any relevant information regarding ARC and the Hellish invasion?"
I answered "An overview of the relevant timeline leading up to it would be appreciated. Strategic intelligence can happen through other channels."
After a moment, Hayden nodded and began "Thirty years ago, humanity was suffering a severe energy crisis. We found a solution in the form of an extra-dimensional portal on the surface of Mars leading to what you so eloquently described as a Hell Dimension. We began siphoning off and processing the energy for our own use, which worked excellently as a solution until three years ago. That's when Demons overran the Mars facility and killed almost everyone there, with their advance only being stopped by the violent man in green you mentioned, a being that has been variously referred to as the Doom Slayer, Hell Walker, and various other epithets. In the interim I pulled together the beginnings of what would become ARC when the Demons invaded Earth."
Immediately, the implications clicked and I found myself wanting to violently shake Hayden up and down while yelling at him. Still, I kept my composure and asked "Why didn't you just use the sun? You've got a massive fusion reactor right there that produces orders of magnitude more energy than your civilization consumes, and will keep doing so for billions of years to come. The distribution infrastructure might be a pain to engineer, but it certainly beats leaving open an active portal to an inherently hostile extradimensional power. I am now seriously doubting your decision-making capabilities. You had better be lying about your motives and have a better explanation, or else the sensible option would be to handle matters without the individual basically responsible for throwing open the gates to Hell in the first place."
As Samuel Hayden tried to come up with a response, I surreptitiously activated Words of Truth. After a minute or so, Samuel admitted "The extraction of Argent Energy was a cover story for what was actually being done on Mars. Though there were energy deficits at the time, they were minor, and would have shortly been solved by the deployment of additional solar collection as you indicate. However, humanity was completely unprepared for the Demonic invasion that I knew would be coming the instant I heard of the portal on Mars."
Samuel sighed, then continued "By building the facility there, I bought time for humanity to study the Demons' biology, powers, and methods of operation, thus making it much easier to learn how to fight them. When something inevitably went wrong due to personnel suffering Demonic corruption, the Mars facility was a contained environment from which the invasion could not readily escape before the Doom Slayer killed them all. This gave humanity a preview to the invasion that could not be readily ignored, giving me the sway I needed to form the precursors to ARC and give Earth a fighting chance. Still, I miscalculated how much time we would have; if the full invasion had taken two more years to start than it did, things would be going much better than they are."
The various human personnel looked completely stunned at this revelation, but I just felt vindicated that the person I was talking to actually had a brain. As he finished, I noted "That's a lot more sensible than what you were originally claiming. We in the Clockwork Legion will gladly support your defense efforts."
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(POV: The DOOM Slayer)
I'd just finished getting VEGA installed into the Fortress of Doom, and I was getting ready to deploy onto Earth. That's when Vega spoke over the intercom "You have a visitor. One of the constructs you assisted in Hell has arrived, and they have a package for you."
Quickly, I spun around inside the blue and grey control room, and came face-to-face with one of those three eyed robots. Immediately, they held out a long, narrow box, noting "Slayer, as thanks for rescuing our progenitor we have produced a modified omni-rifle for your use."
Huh, it's been a long time since someone outright gave me more weaponry. After a brief shrug, I picked up the box containing the omni-rifle and started examining the weapon, seeing how it shouldered, and... wait, where is the ammo supposed to go in? Seriously, there isn't a magazine well or anything. It's all just seamless metal aside from the barrel, selector switches, readout, and trigger.
Perhaps sensing my confusion, the robot noted "The weapon is self-powered, and conjures munitions directly in the barrel as needed. Do you want a tutorial on its use, or do you want to figure it out as you go?"
I shook my head no, I'd handled thousands of different varieties of firearm over my long career, and one more wouldn't be hard to pick up. Getting the hint, the robot said "Understood. In that case, there are only two warnings I absolutely must share. First, using either particle beam mode near allies is a bad idea unless they are shielded against radiation, though the Holy-charged one is significantly safer in that regard. Second, the missile mode fires variable yield nuclear ordnance. Please exercise caution when learning to gauge the minimum safe distance."
With that, the robot turned to leave as soon as they saw me nod in response. That done, I walked back over to the area where VEGA was preparing the portal. I had an appointment with a certain Hell Priest. Come to think of it, I wonder if the Holy-charged mode that robot mentioned could help me get around the normal requirements for nullifying their protections? If it did, it would certainly save me a lot of time and effort.
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(POV: Third Person near
Aboard the Hell Barge carried by his personal Thrall Titan, Deag Nilox was planning what part of humanity's pitiful resistance he would demolish next, when suddenly the door to his massive round scheming room was bashed open. The Hell Priest didn't get much of an opportunity to see who just arrived before a stream of extremely intense energy blasts knocked him across the room, reacting violently with the protections he'd placed on himself to wreak even more destruction upon his form. The blasts cut out after a second or so, the withered vile sorcerer feeling his life leaving him even as he rolled himself onto his back to see what was happening.
All he got for his trouble was a green-armored boot pressing down on his chest as he got a full-frontal view of the Doom Slayer bringing the barrel of a somewhat strange-looking rifle to bear. Then the Doom Slayer blew his head off and continued on his way, jumping off the Hell Barge and starting to fight his way through the wreckage of New York City. He had a meeting to crash. Idly, he noted VEGA saying that the demonic consumption of Earth had slowed by about a third.
Passing through the ruins of several skyscrapers, a shopping mall, and a subway, the Slayer made short work of every Demon in his way. Idly, the Slayer noted that they were gaining more and more appreciation for the Omni-Rifle. Seriously, this gun did everything; buckshot mode, a couple different takes on being a machine gun, two different particle beam modes that made a normal plasma rifle look like a super soaker by comparison, and on minimum yield the missiles were on par with a BFG shot for clearing a room as long as there was enough room to fire safely.
Really, the only complaint he had about the gun was that in some ways it was too effective. He couldn't very well absorb a Demon's life force to heal himself if he'd already reduced said Demon to a splattered paste on the wall, which every firing mode aside from the buckshot did with extreme rapidity. Musings aside, the Slayer had finally arrived at the lift that would take him to the Deagic Council meeting. A push of the skull-shaped button started the platform rising, even as the Slayer switched the omni-rifle to Nuclear Smite mode.
The instant that the Slayer arrived in the cavernous council chamber, he opened fire, alternating his shots between Deag Ranak and Deag Grav with such rapidity that it looked like an indistinguishable blur of motion. Mere seconds later, both remaining Hell Priests were grievously injured on the floor, even as the Slayer stomped over and finished them off.
This is when the Khan Maykr's avatar arrived, took one look at the blasted remains of the Hell Priests, and screamed "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!?" immediately before eating a Nuclear Smite to the face. As the sparking wreckage of the puppet collapsed, the Slayer simply turned and walked away as VEGA opened the portal, noting "As all three Hell Priests have been killed, the blood ritual has been stopped. That said, there remain large numbers of Demons on Earth, along with several significant hell portals. In addition, the Khan Maykr is still alive, and is likely to attempt something drastic."
- Pronouns
- Plural
Earth Bet 4
(POV: News Headlines)Toronto Nuked, Casualties Shockingly Low
At 1:00 PM on Saturday, the city of Toronto was consumed in a nuclear fireball, vaporizing everything and everyone in an area roughly ten miles across. Beyond the immediate fireball, blast pressure caused significant injuries and the destruction of many buildings out to thirteen miles away from ground zero, and there were reports of severe burning injuries and fires as far away as the southern shore of Lake Ontario. According to experts, the observed effects are consistent with a one hundred megaton thermonuclear warhead going off at or near ground level.
Despite this devastation, not one person has actually died directly from the blast, though there is some debate about whether to consider them fully alive or not. Those totally vaporized by the nuclear fireball seem partially incorporeal, though fully visible. Further, most have been observed demonstrating flight capabilites and other powers. Those not totally vaporized but who would still have died immediately are in a similar state, except that they left a corpse behind during the transition, indicating that they are some sort of ghost. Sadly, those who died of indirect causes or perished from their injuries have not remained as ghosts; there were a few cases where they became ghosts after dying, but they faded shortly afterwards.
Samantha Jacobs, one of the victims of the blast, has offered to give her eyewitness testimony from ground zero of the explosion:
"I saw Catherine at Ground Zero, but she didn't have anything to do with the explosion as far as I can tell. She was actually helping a kid with a scraped knee. What did happen is that as I was walking over to talk to her, I saw a portal open in the sky, and Catherine immediately snapped to look at it. Something big fell out that I'm guessing was the bomb, then things got weird. I felt a massive surge of something from Catherine, don't quite know how, but it felt like sheer defiance, hope, and protection all rolled into one. At exactly the same time, there was a massive flash of bright light when the nuke went off, and when everything cooled down the city was leveled and everyone was like this."
Official statements from...
Radioactive Fallout Blankets Northeastern USA, Protectorate Aiding Cleanup
Residents of New England and New York State are currently under Shelter-in-Place orders as a result of radioactive fallout from the nuclear attack on Toronto. All residents are to remain indoors as far from exterior walls as possible for as long as can be feasibly managed. FEMA and the Protectorate are both deploying to assist in cleaning up the radioactive debris as best as possible given the time frame, with particular focus being placed on the worst-affected regions in upstate New York.
In many cases, civilians went for the obvious option of their local Endbringer shelters, which are fortunately rated against radiological hazards due to the threat of Behemoth. Morale is mixed, with some being optimistic about a return to normalcy in relatively short order, and others worried about disruption to the food supply chain due to irradiation of crops and livestock in the region. These concerns are being somewhat mitigated by tens of thousands of former Toronto residents volunteering to deliver crucial supplies, as they aren't likely to be endangered by further radiation exposure.
While Eidolon couldn't give a statement due to being deployed as part of the clean-up operations, the official PRT position...
Magic Confirmed Real, Debates over PRT Jurisdiction
While Clockwork Knight Catherine's broadcast revealed magic's existence, skepticism abounded until Toronto got vaporized in a ball of nuclear fire. The aftermath of that event has confirmed the existence of such, at least as far as Catherine described. The Toronto Ghosts have proven capable of learning a wide variety of supernatural spells, and most critically they can teach these spells to others, provided those others have been exposed to Mana before. Given the sheer utility of magic and how easy it is to learn, there are many clamoring for any opportunity to get it that they can.
That said, the PRT has released an official statement that until further notice magic is being legally classified as a Parahuman power, and that those using it for commercial purposes will be in violation of NEPEA-5, facing severe legal penalties for doing so. This has sparked mass protests outside many PRT offices as those interested in magic loudly proclaim that they will not comply with NEPEA-5 under any circumstance, even as magic users within the crowd spread both Mana and the knowledge to use it with great rapidity.Notably, the Protectorate member known as Myrddin has been spotted taking part in one of these protests, when asked for comment, his statement was as follows:
"For years I've been ridiculed for my beliefs and considered delusional, only to find out that what I'd been claiming to have is real, and I didn't have it. I refuse to allow this bitter irony to stand, so I tracked down a Ghost and paid them to pump me full of Mana, which I've been training with to a frankly obsessive degree for the last week. Then I found out that the agency I worked for is trying to effectively illegalize magic, and I couldn't stand that at all. So I quit; Myrddin, freelance wizard and parahuman, at your service."
When our reporter on-scene (a magic enthusiast themselves) asked about the sizable amount of Mana being thrown off by Myrddin's new staff, the wizard cheerfully replied "Oh, that. I wanted more Mana to play with than I could make myself by thinking really hard. So I did my research, conjured up a specially made blue diamond, mounted it to that staff, magicked it up a bit, and now I've got an independent Mana source."
Myrddin refused to comment on the specifics of the enchantments used, citing trade secrets.
Other notable attendees of the Chicago Magic Protest included a pair of self-proclaimed 'furries', who had apparently been trying for some of the more exotic physiological alterations...
PRT Chief Director/Alexandria Arrested for Membership of Conspiracy Responsible for Nuking Toronto, Further Charges
Recent uproar over the PRT's attempt to effectively ban the use of magic has prompted investigations into the conduct of the agency's Chief Director, Rebecca Costa-Brown. These investigations immediately lead to the Director's apparent decision to delay the implementation of Dimensional Jammers as much as possible, a decision that was immediately viewed as suspicious in light of the device's ability to make handling Parahuman crime orders of magnitude easier. From there, even more scrutiny was applied to Rebecca Costa-Brown's past actions, revealing slight mannerism differences between appearances indicative of using a body double, with said intervals largely overlapping with Alexandria's appearances.
In fact, practically the instant that significant investigation into the director began, more and more indiscretions became incredibly apparent. This eventually lead to a wizard working for the FBI secretly placing a srying spell on Rebecca Costa-Brown, catching her in the act of walking through an interdimensional portal identical to the one seen by those at ground zero of Toronto getting nuked. Upon her return, the Director was immediately arrested, and upon attempting to resist using Parahuman abilities was subdued using a prototype Dimensional Jammer after severely injuring several FBI and PRT agents.
Rebecca Costa-Brown is currently jailed awaiting trial, though it is uncertain whether she will be extradited to Canada, or if she will be tried in the US. In either jurisdiction...
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(POV: Muon Battleship Catherine)
It had taken a lot longer than I wanted to get my battleship chassis ready, for the sole reason that I wasn't settling for just the 'standard' isssue materials. No, I was going for Muonic components, the absolute best of the best thanks to all their molecular bonds being 207 times shorter, and much stronger as well. The net result was that while my components were all eight million times more durable, they also had eight million times the Mana cost, meaning that it took days of making progressively larger external reactors to get enough Mana to make a single Muonic reactor the size of a golf ball to start with. From there it was Muonizing the massive stack of external reactor units to get enough power to make my actual chassis, a process that again took several days. By the time I had a fully Muonic battleship chassis ready to go, nearly two and a half weeks had passed. I also had enough firepower to one-shot small planetoids and a comparable level of durability, but I figured it was better safe than sorry.
Still, my chassis was eventually completed, and I began cruising towards Earth. I could have simply Blinked, but in this particular case I felt like taking things a bit slower. Scanners indicated a significantly increased level of Mana pointing towards active usage by a sizable percentage of the population, but I was more intrigued by the polydimensional being lurking behind the moon. They took the form of a multi-winged angel, and they were floating there in complete defiance of the Reaction Law without using any Mana at all.
Curious, I fired up Words of Truth and fired off a transmission to the apparent angel, asking "Hey, who are you and why are you hanging out behind the moon?"
Immediately, the being replied [WEAPON][CURTAIL/MANIPULATE/REPROGRAM/DEMORALIZE][PURPOSE?]
I was furious, and asked "Can you confirm that? I don't approve of mass mind control, and the sheer implications of cruelty indicate that the purpose you have in mind certainly isn't benevolent."
[REALIZATION][PROFANITY][PANIC]
Immediately, I Blinked to a completely different bearing from the one I'd been approaching the false angel from and opened fire. The absurdly massive c-fractional blasts of nuclear plasma just barely missed as the angel slid to the side, the bolts also seeming to deflect somehow as soon as they were outside my dimensional jamming field. Interesting, telekinesis, extremely fast cognitive processing, and possibly predictive modeling. Well, let's give her some more stuff to worry about!
With that, I also opened fire with my missile tubes at maximum "FUCK YOU!" launching thousands of Degenerate Matter Warhead missiles, even as I started Blinking around like an underage Adventurer on military-grade combat stims unloading broadside after broadside of plasma. My primary goal was to saturate every possible vector that the abomination could escape on with fire, and I didn't quite seem to be managing that. After all, they were doing an extremely effective job of evading my plasma fire and shooting down my missiles.
That's when the enchantments I'd placed on all the missed plasma shots kicked in, and they simultaneously teleported to 10 meters around the false angel with relative positioning based on their momentum, surrounding her in a rapidly collapsing shell of superheated plasma. The Hydrogen collapsed under its momentum into an extremely short-lived star, generating a brief period of nuclear fusion before it all blew apart again. For a moment, I thought I might have won, then I scanned the surrounding light second of space just in time to dodge a horrendously violent particle beam from the Lunar surface that would have definitely dented my hull.
Zooming in on my foe, it was immediately apparent that she had teleported out of my trap to the moon, and had repurposed much of the material there to build a set of frankly massive cannons. Message taken, just plain old brute force isn't going to work. Time to break out the exotics. First priority, lock down her teleportation with dimensional jamming. Immediately, I set my missile arrays to replace the warheads with self-contained dimensional jammer units and began littering the battlespace with them. Second priority, get the false angel away from the moon so she can't use it to provide fuel for the FREAKING QUASARS powering her gun batteries. That I achieved by blasting the lunar surface behind her with a telebomb, the massive explosion blasting her away from the moon at several hundred kilometers per second.
Another blink to reposition, and I also open fire with my Relative Conjuration CIWS, filling the battlespace with bullets, each of which has its very own Deconjuration Field and Dimensional Jammer along with a self-destruct that will activate after a minute.
Perhaps sensing my incoming trap, the false angel teleports again before I can completely lock down her movement, this time to Low Earth Orbit. Clever, but trying to use the planet below as shielding or hostages won't save you. In response, I teleport down into extreme close combat range and open fire with my CIWS again, the Deconjuration bullets piercing through the false angel without resistance now that she's within my dimensional jamming range. Also, she's writhing in something that looks awfully painful, and my sensors indicate the Jammers are destabilizing her structure at this intensity. Well, that's certainly one way to win, but projections about the size of the resulting explosion are rather destructive for the people groundside.
So I Blinked with the false angel in tow, setting space beyond lunar orbit as my destination. That said, I only bothered with the shielding for myself, exposing the false angel to raw Pseudo-Space. I came back fully intact due to actually allocating shielding Mana, meanwhile it seemed that about half the false angel's atoms had been deleted at random; apparently the Mana tether I used to drag them through pseudo-space counted as partial shielding. Either way, they were getting shot through with more and more holes by my Deconjuration CIWS. In less than a second, they stopped moving completely as they fully decohered in an explosion I estimated as having several Teratons of yield. Fortunately, I planned for this, and even if my hull weren't able to tank it (which it could, barely), the Deconjuration Field I projected completely deleted all the boom coming my way.
Alright, that diversion's over. Let's go check up on what I missed while I was rebuilding myself.
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Eventually. Ziz still has no idea what the fuck most of Catherine's bullshit hax even was, and will take at least some time to figure that out before trying again.
invariably_stupefied
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Not exactly a fan of Worm, but I do always like to see it getting 'fixed', so to speak. And without it being another Taylor fic to boot! Nice!
WHM Sukamia
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Weird. I haven't been getting notifications for this. And I assume you've also been uploading the rest of the Titan of Steel, which I also haven't been getting notifications for.
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Titan of Steel's fully crossposted. As for this, I just haven't written any in a while.
WHM Sukamia
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Well, I hadn't even gotten notifications for the past 3 updates of this and didn't get any notifications from when you finished crossposting Titan of Steel. It's very confusing.
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Potterverse 4
(POV: Clockwork Knight Beryl)
At the moment, I was back in my Knight chassis, which was highly appropriate given the operation I was about to deploy on. Namely, I was about to take part in raiding Azkaban, the absolutely horrific prison that the British Wizarding World threw just about every single person they wanted to punish in. Admittedly, I normally would have left this to the other fifty thousand Clockworks clamoring for a chance to take a swing at the place in order to focus on raising the kids. However, one crucial piece of information had made me change my mind: Harry's godfather was in Azkaban, and from all evidence, the man never got a trial.
For all I knew the man was innocent, so I readily signed on for the mission. Shortly afterwards I was informed that I'd been granted a slot on the raid, along with instructions to come to the spaceport at my earliest convenience. So I'd let the kids know I'd be out for a few hours along with why, transferred to a Knight-Class chassis, and got ready to go. The briefing had been fairly straightforward: since the island had anti-teleportation wards we would be inserting using dropships. We knew where it was despite being Unplottable, since the effects required to render it such stood out like a sore thumb to an orbiting Thematograph satellite. To save on acceleration time we'd be blinking straight into the atmosphere, the moon's orbital velocity meaning that we would arrive moving at several times the speed of sound towards the east. Once we'd landed, it was expected that Dementors would swarm us basically immediately. That's why we had well over six thousand Clockwork Knights with us, after all.
That all went pretty much exactly as planned, all of us Clockworks feeling the sudden jolt of the dropships entering atmosphere, along with receiving a tac-net announcement "We will be arriving at Azkaban in 42 seconds, brace for deployment."
Sure enough, the landing ramps snapped open exactly on schedule. Seconds later I charged straight out of the aerospace vessel in a thunderous roar of metal-on-metal as the hundreds of Knights on my ship did so with me. We arrived in a bleak and barren landscape of craggy rock surrounding a massive stone fortress, thousands of Dementors in the sky instinctively recoiling at our mere presence and retreating to the more defensible fortress. That's when I noticed the subtle magic pervading the area; the entire freaking island is a Genius Loci, and judging by the massive Dementor infestation along with actually allowing prisoners to be kept here, it's pretty clear they're complicit.
All of us present relayed this information over the tactical net even as we blew a hole straight through the gates. Our first priority was still getting everyone out of the cell blocks and into the dropships, but a secondary objective had just been added to get right down to the bottom of this place and destroy them if needed. I immediately joined the charge heading for the cell blocks while about one thousand Clockworks changed directions to start exploring the rest of Azkaban and cataloging the magic that kept them alive. En route, several hundred Dementors got a Holy-charged sword or Mana beam right to the face, plenty of them outright falling to shreds after taking a serious hit. Interesting, apparently these creatures weren't quite as invincible as we'd been lead to believe.
Either way, we blasted straight through the Dementor population of the prison with effectively negligible resistance, swiftly arriving at the cell blocks. Checking the cells one by one, I eventually found the cell containing Sirius Black. Straining my servos slightly, I ripped the door to his cell off its hinges and told the man with Words of Truth "Azkaban prison is being decommissioned. Come with me."
I wasn't expecting the man to start laughing hysterically, before saying "I must have finally gone insane, that has to be it! And now my hallucinations are even talking to me!"
Simulating a sigh, I walked over and heaved Sirius into a bridal carry even as I noted "No this is real. I'm Clockwork Knight Beryl, and I'm here to rescue you."
The dubiously sane Wizard just cackled as they replied "And why would you do that? Everyone knows I killed the Potters, even though it was that rat Pettigrew."
As I made my way back towards the ships, I remarked "Because you're innocent, you just told me so under Words of Truth. If you'd been trying to lie, it wouldn't have worked."
The man was still frantically questioning whether he was still in Azkaban and hallucinating the entire rescue mission all the way back to the moon, even after we showed him the footage of the nuclear warhead we'd planted under the island going off.
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(POV: Third Person near Jacob Smith)
It had been a weird week for Jacob, though not due to his endearingly bizarre hippy neighbors for once. Lately, he'd noticed a weird feeling at the back of his mind. It didn't feel bad per se, but he had no idea what it was, and that was kind of annoying. Still, he was busily tending to his vegetable garden when some stray glare from the sun caused him to sneeze, and he felt the strange whatever it was move. That's new. Thinking for a moment, Jacob tried moving that feeling around, and found that it responded to his will with ease now that he knew it was there.
Another few moments of experimenting, and Jacob had managed to reach out to the garden hose valve without moving from his position and turn it on with his mind. Well, that was certainly convenient. Quickly, Jacob turned his attention to figuring out even more of what he could do with these new powers of his, starting with levitating the water from the hose in a bunch of amazing streamers. He kept at this for a few minutes, then he saw a few men appear out of nowhere right on top of his cabbage patch, pulling out some kind of stick-
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(POV: Third Person near Jacob Smith)
It had been a weird week for Jacob, though not due to his endearingly bizarre hippy neighbors for once. Lately, he'd noticed a weird feeling at the back of his mind. It didn't feel bad per se, but he had no idea what it was, and that was kind of annoying. Then he came out to his garden, and found that someone had trampled several of his cabbages. For a moment, Jacob felt like he should know why that was the case, but something deep in his mind was preventing him from realizing it.
Then that feeling in the back of his mind started moving again (again?) as Jacob began instinctively looking around to trace the footprints now highlighting themselves to his gaze, not realizing that his eyes had started glowing in the process. He barely managed to confirm that the footprints appeared and disappeared seemingly out of nowhere just in time to see the group of men appear again (again?). He didn't know why, but he immmediately gathered all of his weird-stuff around his brain even as the men brought their wands up. As he fell unconscious, he couldn't help but think they seemed awfully familiar.
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(POV: Third Person near Jacob Smith)
Waking back up in bed, Jacob was angry. Those men had been fucking with his mind all morning if the clock was anything to go by, and they'd trampled his vegetables in the process! In a furious rage, Jacob stormed off to the basement, keeping his power-stuff under tight control as he did so. He wasn't ready for them just yet. Thirty seconds later, Jacob reached the lockbox. Opening it, he quickly retrieved his M1911 handgun, ammunition for same, 12 gauge shotgun with buckshot, combat knife, a few surplus smoke grenades, and his dog tags from back in 'nam.
Then it was out to the front yard, but most emphatically not to the garden. He didn't want even more of his veggies getting stomped all over. Several minutes were spent carefully positioning smoke bombs around the property, before Jacob was ready for the next stage of prep. Namely, he called up the rest of his buddies from the war and told them "Hey, if you could come on over I've got something neat I want to show you. That said, if you'd bring your kit with you it'd be really appreciated."
Forty minutes later he'd explained the situation and they'd rigged up the machine guns Barry had built as a hobby project. Everyone made sure they were locked, loaded, and covering all the approaches. Then Jacob walked out front again and started playing with his telekinesis. It only took a few minutes for the wizards to show up again this time, but Jacob was ready for them. With a telekinetic yank he'd snatched their wands from them, then his buddies came out from where they'd been hiding and subdued the Wizards before hog-tying them.
When the MACUSA's follow-up team of well over thirty Wizards and Witches arrived to check on things ten minutes later, they found the house barricaded, Jacob immediately shouting out the window "Come inside and we kill your men! They've been fucking with my head all morning, and one way or another it's going to stop!"
When the FBI arrived a couple hours later, Jacob and Barry were the only survivors among a pile of what had to be over a hundred corpses.
A hundred people dead - that's an utter disaster for everybody. Also, surprised the FBI weren't suborned.
Not sure how I feel about Clockwork Knoght's shenanigans. Meh! At some point von neumann swarms become unstoppable and do whatever they want. We have passed that point.
Not sure how I feel about Clockwork Knoght's shenanigans. Meh! At some point von neumann swarms become unstoppable and do whatever they want. We have passed that point.