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 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.]

1
Written in joy,

To my teacher, Palatine Chyrrosh:

I am pleased to report that Locus Scyrix's first field test was an unqualified success. We will have no more trouble from the 112-KAL19 star system. Or should I say we will have no 112-KAL19 star system, now?

If you didn't know (as I recall, the dirty business of extermination doesn't interest you overmuch), 112-KAL19 was a major staging point for the Anisine Collective, a wormhole conflux that allowed them to dispatch fleets to any system we invaded. It was the lynchpin of their down-eastern defenses. Now that it's gone, my statisticians say we've accelerated the Collective's conquest by three decades.

Three decades! Six months ago, they were saying it would've taken that long just to destroy 112-KAL19! We have you to thank for this, my friend. For you, I've delivered a cask of my favorite Lyranni acetum. Check your transwarp window.

But enough adulation (well-deserved as it is). You'll want to know how Scyrix performed.

The Anisine knew we were coming, of course. You can't move something as big as Scyrix without causing a few hyperspace ripples. We only docked four hundred ships inside Scyrix, however -- I know you were pushing for a full complement, but the Sector Marshal has ultimate authority in that area. Still, the drivelink synchronizer module worked perfectly. I estimate it reduced transit time by 8%, so tell Yral and her team they have a commendation coming their way. Imagine if we'd filled Scyrix to maximum capacity! How fast would it have gone, then?

But back to the subject. The Anisine had six thousand ships firing at us before we'd even exited warp, along with the usual battery of defensive emplacements (they certainly love their exospace weapons). Shunt-gap technology doesn't work so well when you're in hyperspace, but our active armor sufficed. Anyways, when Scyrix popped out on top of them, gridfire projectors blazing, they fell back pretty quickly. You'd think they'd never been attacked by an artificial planetoid before. But vermin are vermin because they're smart and know when to run. Not that running would save them!

So then we offloaded about a quarter of our complement to secure the ground in a couple light-minutes' radius and planted a hyperspace interdictor to keep the Anisine from fleeing. More were jumping in every minute, reinforcing the star, while their defensives took potshots at us from the circumstellar disc. We lost no one significant.

Once we'd confirmed Scyrix was secure, our ships docked again. Then we deployed COLD REIGN.

Your grand weapon, unleashed for the first time! I wish you could've seen it in person. Neurocast just doesn't feel the same, somehow.

Scyrix enclosed the heart of 112-KAL19 in a chronal abbreviation bubble where six million years passed to every second outside. Then it dropped the bubble, and the star collapsed.

Now that was a lightshow and a half! I estimate the Anisine had twelve thousand ships in the system by then. I don't think they realized they couldn't actually leave the place until that point. Superluminal relay showed them trying to escape the blastwave, and going up like torches when they couldn't. Their planets caught, too: atmosphere stripping away, cities and orbitals melting and being hurled about like toys. Twelve billion Anisine, reduced to less than ashes. It was magnificent. Magnificent.

I'll admit, I was irrationally nervous as I watched the supernova draw closer to Scyrix. Who wouldn't have been, seeing a system being laid to waste by it? But of course, it washed over us almost harmlessly: the shunt-gap field diverted the worst of the energy into hyperspace. And once it was past, we got to watch the blastwave annihilate the rest of the system's planets over the next few hours.

The rest was simple clean-up work: scanning 112-KAL19 for survivors (there were none) and taking diagnostics (power couplings in sections 66.801 and 72.912 blew out after we fired COLD REIGN).

In short, Locus Scyrix fulfilled all possible expectations, and did so in a manner that has significantly weakened one of our most stubborn enemies. I have no doubt the Locus Project will receive an official sanction after Scyrix's success. Mark my words, the Solar Emperor himself will hear of this!

Your friend and student,

Chief Science Officer Tyrust Alheddum

Lance Fleet Khyroh

AFTER ACTION REVIEW
for Operation: SHORELINE BLACK ETERNAL

This report composed on: [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 Republic of Arqued (IRA) lost an estimated 32% of its defensive capability, 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 IRA capital system 218-IHN40 was identified as a promising target for attack, as its destruction would present a crippling blow to both IRA 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 IRA morale.

PROCEDURE:

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

2
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. Not a single one is damaged. 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. 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 space, is now in Elduri hands.

To tell the truth, it was hardly a fight. 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 Grox who surround 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.