User:The Collective Mind/Sandbox

05-03
I've decided that I'll start a new journal every deployment. Keeps things organized. There are only so many ways you can organize two journals, but still.

The new planet is called Orsohv, after an ancient Kukarot god of some sort. I'm not familiar with him. I'll look it up later. We landed at some kind of equatorial desert. Probably the folks who named the planet have a name for the desert too, but as far as I'm concerned it's Theatre 2-1.

Orsohv is pretty nice, as far as planets go. Forty-one hour days, scorching daytimes and freezing nighttimes, sand working its way into the habs, the usual desert business. Reminds me of home. The air's kind of thin, though. Last deployment we had some Motivator auxes set up some huge atmosphere exchangers beforehand. I wonder why they couldn't come on this one?

The word from on high is that Reconnaissance caught wind of Iceworlder activity a little to the north of here. Larray thought it was pretty funny, finding iceworlders in a desert. Orders are to set up and kick them off the planet. Regular border control stuff.

Last thing: the planet's got natives. Eskrov and Mul started calling them plateheads, 'cause they've got these big flat plates on their heads, and the name looks like it's stuck. Weird anatomy. Two legs, four arms, skinny as sticks. Primitive, too. Intelligence says they haven't gotten past bronze tools yet. There's a whole city of them not too far from base, built around this huge pyramid. Eskrov says you can just barely see it if you stand on the edge of camp, if the wind's good.

Command says to leave the Plateheads alone for now. They don't really post much of a threat to us, but having them riled up against us would be annoying. Worst case scenario, we can just roll over them, shell them to bits.

05-04
Orsohv was the old Kukarot god of luck. Huh.

05-06
Busy, busy! This is the first time my regiment's been involved in setting up a base. It's been pure chaos these last few days! My respect for Engineering Division has grown tremendously.

Today was setting up hangars for the tanks. They'll be arriving tomorrow, or maybe the day after; it depends on how tight Orbital Command's got its gloves. They've been busy with recon satellites and such, keeping an eye out for Iceworlder ships. Apparently we've got a positive fix on their own base camp. I heard from Hesiniya that they're trying to dig something up. Orbit doesn't want to try a bombardment until it knows what they're looking for. So, us.

In other news, Strekol's group caught a couple of the natives on the edge of camp, staring at us while we were working. Just standing there. Apparently they showed up out of nowhere during shift change. Kreliv's deep in the stink; he should've noticed them approaching by the time he switched out with Strekol.

05-07
Orbit shot down an Iceworlder satellite today. Two Ramparts damaged. Iceworlders are so obsessed they put guns on their surveillance drones.

Back to work. Tanks come in two hours, and we've gotta get the landing pad cleared out for their arrival.

05-08
Reminder: Mul owes you forty chits.

Mausin cheats! Do not play against!

2
...The fragment is [4 km] across, larger than a Dictator. There are three other chunks scattered across the system, not enough for a full ship. The other pieces either fell into the sun or fell into the gas giant; either way, they're irretrievable. I can't imagine how large the original vessel must have been.

Based on the dust buildup of the fragment's exterior segment, it's been floating in space for at least [8 million years] -- and that's assuming the builders never bothered to clean it off at any point. There's no telling when it broke up, although the scarring and burn marks suggest weapons fire as the cause.

We finished the initial scans today. The fragment is so large that most of the internal space can't be mapped from the outside. We'll insert tomorrow, once the Army Engineers finish setting up the research outpost inside. No offense to our brave boys and girls, but I sincerely hope they do it correctly. They're soldiers, not scientists.

...

...but six hours isn't nearly enough time for a full inspection of the fragment. It's three hours forward, and then three hours heading back to the outpost before our air runs out. Tytov's planning to set up resupply points along the length of the Main Path to extend our air time, but lugging the air tanks that distance is going to be difficult in itself. We'll focus on Path 3 and 4 for now.

It's so quiet in there.

...

The passages play tricks on your eyes. They look shorter than they really are.

...

No joins or seams, no signs of tool usage. It's like the place was poured, not built, which is no easy feat when the main building material is dolomite rock. Who builds a spaceship out of stone?

...

Abreik's team dug into the walls around Outpost today. They didn't find anything, which is... unsettling. No plumbing, no wiring, no machinery, nothing. It's stone and metal, all the way down. We assumed the general lack of anything mechanical was because of some aesthetic obsession, the sort you find in a CS/T culture, but... we're still working on the assumption that this was a spaceship because we found it floating in space.

My division took a look at the gemstones. I think they're a type of quartz. What's odd about them is that they aren't just set into the columns, they're partly enveloped by them: the stone extends over their edges, somehow. How did they get them in there?

We've finally broken open the big door at Path 4. Tytov tried her best to argue that it needed a subtler touch, but Sergeant Yuem won out in the end. Huzzah for high explosives! Tytov's sulking in the temple we found on the other side. She can take it. Those statues are creepy.

...

I've been hungrier than usual lately. Are the portions getting smaller? They don't seem smaller. Maybe it's all the extra exercise we've been doing. Gotta keep up the muscle tone in zero-gravity.

...

Arriev's speculating that we have found technology aboard, it's just so advanced we don't know it's there. If you gave a [caveman] a fluorescent light, he'd think it was just a funny stick made of glass until you lit it up. She says it's the same way with us.

...

This whole ship seems to be some sort of flying temple. Religious iconography is present pretty much everywhere you look. You could make a fortune on the amount of gold and precious gems just lying around here. The art is beautiful but mildly unsettling. And the use of space! It's aesthetically pleasing, but [sixty-foot]-tall hallways and galleried atriums are terribly inefficient. This must have been a civilian craft.

...

Woke up to a splitting migraine today. Miya's migraine wore off yesterday. She joked that it jumped hosts but my head hurt too bad to laugh. Kalyin, our resident Army field medic, is getting really grumpy about handing out painkillers. Says we should stop staring at dusty old mosaics all day. Well, "Corporal" Kalyin, staring at dusty old mosaics all day is my job. And second, two of your comrades have got headaches too, but I don't hear you complaining about them.

Still no idea what's giving everyone migraines. Might be the dust. Can't walk six steps in Outpost without kicking up a cloud of it.

I think the painkillers are finally starting to work. Time to head out and face the (bendy auras, nausea) morning.

...

Where are all the bodies? We have mosaics of the crew, but nothing of the crew itself, or their leavings. Even given [8 million years] of floating around in microgravity, there should be some sign of this place's original inhabitants. There are plenty of locked and inaccessible chambers, but no corpses inside them. They couldn't have rotted away, the vacuum should have preserved them near-perfectly. Was this ship scuttled deliberately, when no one was aboard?

We've found more questions than answers on this hulk. It's starting to get frustrating.

...

I asked Malitoi and Abreik. They're hungry too.

...

Chrasse. Today. Where do I begin?

Strydem's stable, according to the medics back aboard the Sudden Epiphany. We have that.

Strydem had some kind of breakdown this evening. I don't know how else to describe it. He fell over and started trying to... pull off his left foreleg. He was shouting something about how it "wasn't his." When one of our riflemen ran over to help him, Stryden pulled his knife out of its holster and just started sawing at his leg. He was bleeding

I couldn't

I could hear the

No. Writing about this was a mistake.

...

Tensions have been high since what happened to Strydem and the food problem isn't helping. Tytov's been doing her best to keep us pacified, bless her heart, but there's an argument practically every other hour. The Straight Glove Red is sending over an extra platoon of marines, and all future ventures will have twice the guards. I don't know if it'll help

I've been having the dream again

I'm going to go through Hall 12 again. I've matched the statues in the temple to some of the carvings there, but there are a lot more carvings than statues. It'll be nice to get away from the others for a while.

''This hunger isn't normal. Eating doesn't affect it at all.''

...

This is what I dream.

I'm trapped in a steel cage, but the bars are so badly rusted I can just take them apart and walk out. There are hundreds of people all around me, the ship-makers, old and weak and dead for eons, and they try to grab at me but their fingers snap like dry twigs when they grip too hard.

And there's a voice, or the echo of a voice. It used to be loud but it's been ringing so long through the hallways that all you can hear now is the faintest whisper. Maybe it was strong once, the sort of voice that demands obedience, but all the power in it is gone.

But then there's another voice, and this one isn't an echo. It's in the walls, but it's not trapped. The walls are where it belongs.

...

Yuem has a hunch but he won't tell anyone what. He's having some specialist equipment hauled off the Indeed Fervor. It's a warship, so we mere scientists aren't allowed to see the requisition forms.

...

Abreik and Malitoi and the others went into Hall 3 yesterday. They didn't come back.

...

Search parties went through Hall 3 and all adjoining halls. Found Abreik in Hall 8. Asphyxiated. No damage to air supply. No injuries. No sign of struggle.

Nobody else found.

...

Migraines again.

...

We're not alone.

...

We're under attack. We've been under attack from the moment we set foot on this ship. How could we have been so stupid to think this place wouldn't be protected?

Strydem. Abreik. The headaches. The dreams. The hunger. Psychic emissions. Confirmed by the instrumentation, the specialist pieces we brought off the Indeed Fervor. This ship is defending itself. [Eight million years] in pieces but that is not dead which was never alive in the first place. How old is this thing? How starved and weak?

But it ate them. Abreik and the others, and what little bits of our minds it was gnawing off, migraine after migraine. It ate them and now it's gathering its strength again. Our hunger a sympathetic reflection of its own, implanted as it rooted in our brains.

In two hours we get off this fragment. Two hours because that's when the rest of the defense fleet arrives. We'll blow this bad thing to pieces and blow the other three fragments to pieces with it, and hope we never see another ship like this again.

3
The planet is dead.

"That can't be possible," says Rayya.

"Link to my helmetcam and see for yourself," answers Vyanov.

Commander Yaskinya Anarat Rayya gives the order, and her communications officer complies. The image flares to life on the bridge's main viewscreen: a scene of utter devastation.

"Schrass," murmurs Rayya. Around her, her officers mutter dismay.

The planet is dead. The moss carpeting the earth is dry and shriveled, crunching beneath Sergeant Vyanov's boots as he walks across it. His gaze turns towards a towering conifer: as he watches, a handful of brown leaves flutter off its spindly branches to join the pile building beneath it. It looks like a hand, partially defleshed, clawing at the sky.

"This isn't a seasonal shift?" Rayya asks her science officer. "No environmental factors?"

SO Ketrov bows her head, scanning her console. "AN/8181 has a stable axis. There might be something environmental about this, but..."

On the viewscreen, Vyanov rests his gaze upon something large, furry, and rotting. "Looks like it all died at once, ma'am."

"A gamma ray burst?" asks Rayya.

"The atmosphere's still intact," says Ketrov. "The Trailblazer's not getting any significant radiation readings either, else Vyanov would be molting right about now."

"Thanks for letting me know I'm not about to die," says Vyanov.

Rayya leans back in her chair, considering her options. The colonization of this planet has been planned for years. Two separate Expeditionary Fleets had confirmed its viability; the last one, six months ago, reported it to be both within habitable margins and teeming with life. Behind Rayya now is a third Expeditionary Fleet, carrying two thousand soldiers, six thousand colonists, and all the machinery required to settle this world and induct it into the Empire as a brand new and productive colony.

"How long ago would you say this happened, Sergeant?"

Vyanov prods another corpse with his rifle. He flips it over. "Two months?" he guesses. "Could be longer. Whatever happened here, it looks like it killed all the usual decomposers too. I think this is all bacterial action."

"If I may interject, Commander," says Ketrov, "Ignoring the mass extinction, the planet's environment is still suitable for settlement. We should still be able to set up a colony here."

"Yes, if we ignore the mass extinction," retorts Rayya, exuding irritation pheromones. "I want to know exactly what happened here so that it doesn't happen to our colonists."

"Noted," says Ketrov.

Rayya sighs. She's come this far with six thousand colonists. She can't just turn around and go home.

"Is this a global event?" she asks Ketrov. "Give me a list of proposed colony locations. I want to see if--"

"Incoming dialogue from Operator Juk," interrupts her communications officer.

Rayya groans internally. "Put him on the screen," she orders externally. There's a lot on her mind right now, and she really doesn't need her Motive auxiliaries butting in on things.

In a glare of light, a second image appears on the viewscreen. Flat static. "Commander Rayya," it grunts.

"Speaking," says Commander Rayya. "What do you --"

"We are eighteen minutes behind schedule," says Juk. The static clears, little by little, revealing a grey-pink face. Hairless, noseless, scowling. Juk blinks beady black eyes and works his triangular jaw. "Atmospheric converters were prepared for deployment thirty minutes ago but you have not given the order. What is the reason for this delay?"

His accent is atrocious. "We've encountered some irregularities in the --" begins Rayya.

"Explain 'irregularities.'"

Juk makes Rayya want to spit. Motivators in general make Rayya want to spit. They know planetary engineering like no one else, the jury-rigging of atmospheres and oceans, but that doesn't mean she needs to enjoy their company. "There appears to have been a mass extinction event in this region sometime within the last two months. I am reassessing --"

"Show me."

Rayya grits her mandibles, radiating the metallic scent of fury. She turns to her communications officer, who leans very slightly away. "Pipe Vyanov's feed to Operator Juk's vessel," she orders.

Juk is expressionless as he watches the camera pan over the desolation. Motivators have no sense of awe, Rayya's heard. Their masters bred it out of them centuries ago.

"Well?" she asks.

Juk watches silently for a few seconds more. Finally: "As you say, Commander. We will await further orders."

Rayya can't help but feel a sullen sense of vindication. "Good. Resume position with the rest of the fleet while we pull our people out. We'll let you know when we need you."

"I will notify the Monitors," says Juk, and closes the link.

Intercepted communication
SOURCE: Light Logistics Vessel (Geoformer Escort), AD.33H.890

FREQUENCY: 28107.74 [known Motive command channel]

ENCRYPTION: Band RRS34 [Text only]

[Fragment begins.]

...[has been] delayed by a total ecosystem collapse of the planet in question. Cursory investigation suggests comprehensive fulfillment of the Prime Criteria. However, this vessel lacks the equipment necessary to confirm parameters 8 and 9. I propose that additional fleet elements are needed to make a full survey.

I submit to your judgement.

<--

BY ORDER OF THE ALLEGIANCE MONITOR

FOR FLEET OPERATOR (FOURTH CLASS) JUK

Hold position. We are moving fleet assets to reinforce and investigate. You will report directly to FLEET OPERATOR (FIRST CLASS) HULL. Do not allow the Bidonite fleet to colonize.

Acknowledge this command.

-->

FleetOp(4) Juk:

I acknowledge and obey.

[Fragment ends.]

0
Thre Huljev Gulf Culture is an extinct spacefaring civilization known to have inhabited the Huljev Gulf region of space at least 24 million years ago. The full extent of the Huljev civilization cannot be determined, as erosion and tectonic shifts have since destroyed most traces of their settlement; however, surviving ruins on geologically inert stellar bodies have been discovered from Tanataya to Orjet (approx. 5,100 ly distant) and structures of similar age and composition have been excavated by the Algolurn Popular Republic on Brezhnev IV (21,300 ly from Orjet).

Artifacts recovered from Huljev Culture (such as the KL-12 artifact and the Toboloi Devices) demonstrate a pronounced understanding of higher physics and/or the ability to manipulate the fundamental interactions on a local scale. The efficacy of such devices has been significantly reduced by age, and most are radiologically unstable. However, the simple fact of their continued functionality over a multi-million-year time span is itself suggestive of the Huljev Culture's advancement.

The exact reason for the Huljev Culture's disappearance remains unknown, though existing evidence (see 6 Hyelle 171 derelicts, 3 Gomtaw 92 asteroid belt) suggests an exceptionally violent end.

1
There is a star. It is young, white, vibrant, vital.

Circling the star is a planet. A blue-and-yellow marble, veiled by white clouds. Lights glitter on the dark side of the terminator and on the thin band of orbital facilities that ring the planet.

Lights glitter off of the fleet that hangs above it.

At least a thousand ships are in evidence, and at least six different schools of design. A shoal of spinning star-shapes passes below a formation of jagged thorns. Slender silver needles thread their way between a hulking, ugly vessel and a flight of things like metal sunfish.

Despite their differences, every single ship has one unifying feature. An insignia. A nine-pointed star set within a diamond.

Hours pass as the fleet organizes itself, taking prearranged positions around the planet; a thin protective shell. It seems to be waiting for something. Huge orbital guns are towed into position, aiming towards empty space. The planet holds its breath.

The guns fire. Ribbons of light crackle down their lengths. Space ripples and folds around their barrels. No regular guns these, but faster-than-light deterrence weapons, hurling their payloads into the higher dimensions of hyperspace.

Fifteen seconds pass. The guns fire again.

Fifteen more seconds. The guns fire again --

-- and light crackles and flares in the space beyond the fleet. Hyperspace egress. Holes open. Ships pour out.

There are barely more than a hundred. Two hundred at most, facing a host of over a thousand. They are sleek, beetle-black and insectoid, banded with violet running lights.

The defenders close in around them. Turrets acquire targets and open fire. Missiles and torpedoes hurtle out of weapons tubes, trailing streamers of smoke or light. Destruction in a dozen different hues races towards the invaders.

It isn’t enough. Not nearly enough.

Shields snap into place. Ghost-phase fields activate. Turbolaser fire stitches lines of ripples across them. Particle beams pass through like flashlights in smoke. Relativistic kill vehicles vaporize. The ships speed on unscathed.

Now it’s their turn.

Thin, scintillating spears of light, sun-bright, lance across space. The defenders’ shields pop like soap bubbles. Armor peels and parts with laughable ease. Ships tumble into the void, sliced neatly into sections like cutaway models, edges glowing white-hot. One by one, the orbital guns burst into molten clouds of debris.

Light flashes again behind the sweeping invaders. It flashes twice, three times, four.

Something big is coming through. Something enormous.

A vast black curving surface pushes its way out of hyperspace. The light of transit seethes around its edges as it just keeps coming, huge, unimaginably huge. Its shape becomes more defined as it emerges.

It’s a minor planetoid. Moon-sized, at least. It is a moon. A smooth black sphere, glinting in the sun’s light. Looming over the battle like a judge. A handful of scars mar its perfect surface, scorched craters where the defenders’ hyperspace guns failed to wound it.

The surface begins to split.

The sphere is not a sphere. It is an assemblage of massive curving arms and segmented shell that becomes a sphere when closed. The behemoth machine unfolds itself. It looks like a spider. It looks like a hand. Its internal workings are a mess of vents, grilles, joints, pipes, turbines, pistons, cables, scaffolds.

At the center, at the core, something glows blood red.

The battle rages on, if it can be called a battle. The invaders were outnumbered; all that meant was that they had more targets, and that victory is delayed slightly. The defenders regroup; they feint, they dart and maneuver. They die bravely, but they die.

Weight of numbers means a handful of victories are achieved. A black ship’s shields overload under continuous fire from twenty others; a follow-up volley of antimatter torpedoes splits it in half. A second dies when a burning needle-ship rams it, impales it, and self-destructs, tearing it apart from the inside. Perhaps a dozen more share similar fates, lost to luck and desperation.

The glow at the core of the behemoth builds in intensity. Tendrils of exotic energy begin to arc between its arms.

The defenders are breaking. Who can blame them, faced with such an unstoppable force? They are at half their number and dwindling. Less than ten minutes have passed since their first salvo. Some are pulling back, trying to flee; black-plated outriders catch them and cut them to pieces.

The behemoth joins the fray. Light rushes out from its shell, searing glittering beams. Matter touched by them sublimates, becoming constituent particles. Whole warships evaporate.

Thirty minutes later the defenders are all gone.

Now the black fleet assembles, hanging above the blue-and-yellow planet like a mocking inversion of the ships that stood there before. Down below, four billion sentients of seven different species wait for a bombardment, for the sky to catch fire and for cities to burn.

The glow has reached an apex. Violet and magenta power crackles from it and dances across the armored shell, grounding itself in strange machinery. Deep beneath, in the cramped corridors and control rooms at its heart, cold and pitiless minds run final diagnostics. There is no cruelty in them, not really. They have no more malice towards the living souls beneath them than any exterminator has towards the source of their livelihood.

A consensus is reached. Checklists are ticked off. Authorization is given. A countdown begins. The fleet watches attentively.

The crackling arcs of energy reach a crescendo, pouring out from the core. Which glows brighter, and brighter, too bright to look at, a red sun in a black moon.

The machine tenses.

The machine fires.

The glow discharges. A blinding flash of light envelops the machine and a sphere of swirling red energy engulfs it. It passes the fleet, expanding, becoming translucent as it goes, becoming transparent. The edge of the wave crashes against the planet’s magnetosphere and spins off brilliant aurorae. As it passes across the planet, the shell of energy fades away, diluted by distance.

Minutes pass. Nothing happens. On the ground, billions of eyes look up at the sky, uncomprehending. What happened? What was that light? Why haven’t we died?

A muzzle flash is often the most visible part of a weapon’s operation. It is a side effect, and has little to do with the actual kill vehicle. The weapon was not aimed at them.

Without any fuss, the invaders wheel gracefully around and accelerate towards the behemoth. They dock along the inner surfaces of each splayed arm like bats coming home to roost. One by one, they berth. They leave the planet behind them, the planet they had so assiduously rendered defenseless, like a conqueror smashing down a city wall as a prelude to immediately leaving.

The arms close ponderously around them. The vast machine becomes a blank sphere once more. Slowly, slowly, it begins to depart.

Nothing continues to happen. Nothing will happen, not for around twenty minutes, when the light and the shockwave of the supernova reaches the planet and scours it of life, earth, and atmosphere. And by then, the invaders will be long gone.

2
Palatine Chyrrosh, my old mentor:

It is done! Locus SCYRIX’s first field test is an unqualified success. The 112-KAL1a star system is no more, in the most literal manner possible. The ECLIPSE REGIME acausal weapon instigated a waveform collapse event that annihilated the star and everything in its orbit. Your designs operated exactly as you predicted.

If that solar designation doesn’t ring any bells, just know that it was home to one of the major industrial worlds of the Ninefold Balance. You know the ones - they’re the parasites who rejected our terms of subjection last year. It made quite a stir in the newsreels. The first civilization (or nine civilizations, rather?) to reject our terms in nearly a century! Well, they’re learning the error of their ways now, and make no mistake. Let this be a lesson to all the other races of the galaxy: the Elduri Dominion will not tolerate dissidence!

My analysts say that we can expect Balance to surrender within the next six months - a full eight months earlier than our last estimate! They were outmatched before, but SCYRIX has shown them exactly how bad their situation is. Of course, if Central Command is aiming for punitive extermination, we can expect this war to drag on a few years longer than that. Honestly, I almost feel sorry for them!

Well, it's been a while since the last real war. Let the spear-rattlers have their fun, I say, it's good for morale. Let the citizenry know we haven't gotten soft! The suppression programmes and the work camps are efficient, yes, very good allocation of resources, but there’s nothing like a big military victory somewhere to lift the spirit. Besides, we have enough vassal territories to last us a good few centuries. We won’t lose much if we wipe Balance out.

In any case, SCYRIX is on its way back to drydock for maintenance and retasking. I know the trouble you’ve had getting Command to approve your full Locus project. No doubt this little test will make some of the old generals reconsider their positions! After all, if one Locus could do so much for us, then just how much could twelve of them do?

Your obedient student,

Chief Science Officer Tyrust Alheddum

Lance Fleet Khyroh

PREFACE:
The mechanocyte full-spectrum weapons system (known colloquially as "the Scour") has long been the cornerstone of our eternal Dominion's efforts to ensure galactic security since its reverse-engineering from recovered Sequence Mechanovirus specimens. Famously, its earliest use played an instrumental role in the destruction of the Quohen Arm Alliance in year 3117.

The mechanocyte system is, at its most basic level, composed of two parts: the mechanocyte particle itself and the intelligence plague that controls it.

MECHANOCYTE PARTICLE:
The mechanocyte particle is an artificial self-replicating molecular assembler designed for activity in biological systems, powered by the latent electrical field of the target organism. Mechanocyte infection follows two phases.

Phase I follows conventional "aggressive pathogen" models, invading the host organism's biology and using its internal resources to construct new mechanocyte copies. This instigates both an aggressive immune response and a general cellular degradation as the increasing mechanocyte population gradually destroys more and more of the target's tissues. Mechanocyte particles will take advantage of the host's immune response to spread itself further, and are transmissible through both skin contact and fluid contact.

Phase II commences when neural activity in the target ceases. After suppressing the target's immune system, the resident mechanocytes begin to join together. One portion of the population invades the target's cortex, replacing the neural tissues with chains of mechanocyte transmitters in order to continue cellular activity within the host. A second portion then stimulates uncontrolled cell division, combining into nanoscale "scaffolding" to encourage growth along certain lines. The third portion continues to self-replicate, constructing fully-mechanical support systems to force the host body to remain active as well as aggregating into hard-wired weaponry such as blades or energy projectors.

Phase II does not technically conclude; however, mechanocyte host-reconstruction operations do eventually cease. The resulting body is known as a "vector," and is under the complete control of the intelligence plague.

Mechanocyte colonies in adjacent bodies may cooperate, joining the biomass of two or more hosts together to form a larger vector. This is noteworthy for being an unintended, emergent behavior.

INTELLIGENCE PLAGUE:
The intelligence plague is the mechanocyte system's main refinement over the original Mechanovirus. Technically, it is a network intelligence composed by each individual mechanocyte particle, communicating through subspace micro-pulse transmission. While a single particle's processor is several orders of magnitude too primitive to host the full plague, billions of particles working in tandem are capable of effecting a critical point of computation that allows the intelligence plague to emerge.

The intelligence plague's purpose is twofold.

First, it serves as a guiding intelligence for the mechanocyte system as a whole. It connects every vector within the system, directing their growth and movement as a single entity, and is capable of strategizing independently of an Elduri controller. A fully realized intelligence plague can coordinate mechanocyte vectors across multiple star systems at once.

Second, it serves as a weapon in its own right. Being composed of pure information, the plague is capable of piggybacking on communications (FTL and STL) and infecting computer systems that receive it. Once it has accessed a system, the plague identifies and compromises all functions attached to it while spreading through conventional electronic means across the rest of the network, with the ultimate goal of taking complete control of the system. Warships parasitized by the plague quickly become puppets of the plague itself, for example.

This "transmission hijacking" also serves as a way to spread the mechanocyte particle. Once it controls a transmitter, it is capable of transporting individual particles to random points around the transmitter using quantum tunneling effects, in effect making the transmitter a vector in its own right. Only a small fraction of all transported particles manifest within a viable host; however, the rate of transportation ensures infection at a rate that increases in proportion to amount of time spent near the transmitter. This combination of computer worm and pathogen transmission allows the mechanocyte particle to bypass nearly all conventional attempts to quarantine it.

AFTER ACTION REVIEW
for Operation: SHORELINE BLACK ETERNAL

This report composed on: [yr. 5218, seq. 28, rad. 09012]

FROM: Iral Fleet Commander Joruus Jhan

TO: Sector Marshal Yriah Sai Orol

OVERVIEW:

As a result of Operation HIGHLINE DEEP, conducted across [seq. 21, rad. 15180] to [seq. 25, rad. 00313], the Interstellar Theocracy of Arqued (ITA) lost an estimated 32% of its defensive capacity, allowing our forces nearly unopposed access to their core systems. Not since the Anisine Extermination has such a dramatic reduction in capability been observed.

Following brief deliberations from Oerthas Sector High Command (OSHC), it was decided that the strategic opportunity this advantage offered could not be dismissed. In particular, the ITA capital system 218-IHN40 was identified as a promising target for attack, as its destruction would present a crippling blow to both ITA organization and morale.

Accordingly, the Achani, Iral, and Kazzhi fleets were mobilized for this privilege, supported by Locus Shathoi and Locus Menarich. Usage of acausal weaponry against 218-IHN40's star or planets was forbidden save for exceptional circumstances, as OSHC believed that physical conquest of the region would cause the greatest damage to ITA morale.

PROCEDURE:

At 918/02 standard time, [seq. 27, rad. 80184], Achani Fleet made transition at three points around the 218-IHN40 star...

3
Fleet Commander Joruus Jhan reclines in his command throne, and watches the planet burn.

The battle is as good as over at this point. All around his six-kilometer flagship drift the molten husks of warships, the remains of the once-grand Arqued fleet. Arrayed before him in stately majesty is the Iral Fleet: one thousand battlecruisers and three thousand escorts, beetle-black and gleaming. All are unscathed. And looming over them all like a renegade moon is the great smooth red-etched sphere of Locus Shathoi.

Here is the Elduri Dominion, the greatest civilization of the age. A true hyperpower. All other life is false: an infestation upon the galaxy that is the Dominion's birthright. Like all infestations, it must be excised before it threatens the health of the inhabitants.

The battlecruisers fire again. Light pours from their ventral surfaces down to the planet below, spurring on the firestorms already raging across its surface. Whatever the Arqued call it, Joruus doesn't care. To him, it was only the fourth planet in the system and the most developed. Now it burns.

The same scene is repeating across the six other planets in the system. Five is a gas giant with seven moons -- three of them are gone now, smashed to pieces by Locus Menarich and Kazzhi Fleet. One is a scorched rock that hardly needed any encouragement to torch. Six is missing most of its southern hemisphere. All of them are past saving. The heart of Arqued civilization, the core of Arqued strength, is now in Elduri hands.

To tell the truth, it was hardly a fight to begin with. More like a massacre. Three fleets with Locus support; as far as Joruus knows, there's not a power in the galaxy that can oppose such a force, other than the loathsome Grox who blight the galactic core. But the Grox are a problem for another time, when the Elduri have wiped the rest of space clean. For now, petty civilizations like the Arqued occupy their attentions.

Joruus reviews the situation. Virtually all Arqued resistance has ceased; the star system is well in hand. His job here is done. The fleet sub-commanders can handle the rest without his guidance. Joruus sighs, bored. If he listens, he can just make out the Arqueds' panicked distress calls: the usual anguish and begging, praying to their gods for aid. But he's heard it all before, and what little enjoyment he drew from their cries has started to pall.

Because he has nothing better to do, Joruus brings up the combined fleet roster with a sweep of his hand and scans down the list.

Achani Fleet took the greatest casualties from the initial battle, which isn't saying much. Like so many other nations, the Arqued are simply too weak to seriously oppose the Elduri -- more proof of their universal dominion. The Achani are now engaged in hunting down the remaining Arqued spacecraft as they try to flee the system. It's a game their captains like to play, after the battle's won. If it shoots back, they destroy it. If it doesn't, they capture it, and enslave its crew.

Then he blinks. One of the names on the roster has started flashing. The Enlightenment's Virtue, flagship of the Achani Fleet. Joruus reaches out and taps it, summoning the faintly translucent image of Fleet Commander Boros into being.

"Is something wrong?" asks Joruus.

"Nothing about the Arqued. A moment, please," says Boros. He seems preoccupied with something, hands fluttering around controls that Joruus can't see. "One of my squadrons found something in grid 2-25-171°."

Boros makes a swiping motion, and the image manifests beside him. A broad crescent with a long tail. It looks like a ship, but it's neither Elduri nor Arqued.

"It's over fifteen kilometers long," says Boros. "Some of the Arqued ships were running towards it. The fancier ones. They were transmitting at it something fierce."

"Why does this deserve my attention?"

Boros waves his hands some more, his four eyes darting. "Because a minute after Sixteenth Squadron recorded this image, the thing opened fire. Wiped out the Arqued ships and Sixteenth with them. All of them."

Joruus straightens up. "What?"

"Sixteenth Squadron is gone. Two battlecruisers and six escorts. Now the ship is moving. I'm diverting other assets to intercept."

Joruus scrolls through the fleet roster. Yes, the names of Achani Fleet, Sixteenth Squadron are blacked out -- he'd mistaken them for losses from the initial attack. By his estimate, it took thirty Arqued ships to injure a single unshielded Elduri escort. For an entire squadron to be annihilated, and so quickly...

"Sixteenth was caught off guard," continues Boros. "That won't happen to the others. Just thought I'd let you know, for your casualty lists. Tell the Kazzhi commander."

Before Joruus can respond, the image winks out. Joruus is left with his fleet roster, and the sinking feeling that this routine extermination is about to go very, very badly.