Entropy and Order IC (Closed)

[The Great Devourer of All]

Unknown Hyperbrane
Unknown Universe
Unknown Galaxy
Unknown Specific Location
Unknown Time

The massive chamber more closely resembled the cavernous maw of a gaping beast than the planetary-sized rocky cave it was. The total silence of the chamber was deeply unsettling to The Consumer as he strode across the the narrow ledge out above the bottomless pit, two heavily armed guards keeping pace two meters behind him. As he walked up to the end of the ledge, he tried to see if he could remember what his real name was before he became the herald of The Devourer. He couldn't. It had been multiple centuries since he transitioned from a lowly physical being to a grand ethereal entity, a practical god. He couldn't even remember how exactly it had happened anymore, for all of the countless universes raped and burned had blurred his memory. He finally stepped up onto the slightly raised circular end of the platform. He felt the cold, unforgiving obsidian-eqsue stone with his mind and used the image in stead of what his blinded eyes would have shown him. An orb of energy floated up from the rock itself and whispered with the voices of trapped souls when he tapped its surface several times with his mind. A few seconds later, the cavern started to echo as if the whispering orb had let its voices echo unchecked to form a terrifying roar. But The Consumer knew that this noise was, in fact, his master revealing himself in a form halfway between the ethereal and the physical, the real and the unreal. A billion orbs of slowly burning light winked into existence, as did an intimidating dark gas. The Consumer spoke in a quiet voice that was amplified into the void of the chamber as he knelt.
"My master. I sensed that you had summoned me." The whispers, which had faded, returned and echoed eerily through the otherwise silent darkness.
"You were correct, young herald. I summoned you here to tell you of a new presence beyond the limits of our Hyperbrane. I trust you have a detailed understanding of the Battle of Zylia Alpha?"
"Yes, master. My Admirals have reported everything they know to me."
"Then you know that out of all of the multiversal entities which made themselves known that fateful day, only one has achieved a threat level above Epsilon."
"Yes, sir. The Venn-Copard Multiversal Republic."
"Of course. A curious civilization- they use technology that has been worthless in the Species for more than five thousand years, yet they have the capability to bring a fleet of forty Ravagery ships to its knees. I want you to take a portion of your Herald Fleet through the quantum sinkhole and join our forces already pursuing the enemy there. Remember, this is war."
"Yes, my master."
"Oh, and Herald?"
"Yes, master?"
"I expect no survivors." The Consumer stood up, bowed, and turned around, his guards at his heels.

[Multiversal Venn-Copard]

Universe R0-[unintelligible]-8064
Continuum G
intergalactic space

In the days and weeks following the Battle of Zylia Alpha, the VCMR had significantly adjusted their tactics for dealing with the Ravagery ships swarming all across the universe. They had been playing a strange galaxy-spanning "game", rapidly moving from one system to the next before they could be spotted, and appearing to fall into disorder after a battle only to regroup with greater numbers. It helped that over the course of the two Earth months more and more Dreadnoughts, Titans, and Leviathans had trickled into 8064, attempting to evade detection. They were executing ever-bolder attacks and using the extremely powerful Ravagery fleets as a testing system for their newest fleet doctrines.

This most recent idea, though, was stranger than the rest.

Far "above" the Milky Way Galaxy, using their scanning arrays to pick up Ravagery fleet movements, was a group of six VCMR spacecraft - three carriers and three of the brand-new "assault cruisers". Not a single corvette or frigate had joined them; this fleet would be using drone support only.

As a sort of bait, the VCMR had placed a small number of automated corvettes throughout the Milky Way Galaxy which would loudly broadcast identification signals to attract Ravagery patrols. As soon as an enemy battleship entered the same star system, the six ships waiting outside would use the corvette's destruction as an impromptu beacon to instantly arrive at the battle and begin their attack.

[Fylmyria]

Space
A single ship could be seen ambling by rather casually. It was certainly an odd-looking ship, very much resembling an earthworm. At first glance, one would think it's even inching along, just as an earthworm would do. Inside the ship was none other than Fylmyria's crazy man: Petrakun. He had heard from his best friend all about the Battle of Zylia Alpha and wanted to get in on some of the fun. "It's unfortunate," he thought to himself. "Zhe Battle vas seriously lacking in vurmz. Zhis needs to be fixed!" His crew, to this, collectively face-palmed. Petrakun looked at the coordinates that he was given. "I need to find zhis undt quickly..." The inching earthworm started moving at triple the speed (which isn't exactly fast, but very amusing to watch) in an effort to get to the coordinates for where the next battle would be. "Little old var, here comes Petrakun!" Any ship looking at the HFS - Space Worm would think that worms could exist in space and do cocaine. That shows how fast the inching motion of a typical worm became. A loud noise could be heard now. Petrakun hit the coms button.

"Jaaaaaa?" asked Petrakun.

"It is me. Have you made it to coordinates?" asked a very gruff and slightly annoyed voice.

"Ah! Grokov! How vunderbar to talk to you, mien friend! Tell me, how are you?"

"Answer the question."

"Oh. Nien, ve have not made it to zhe coordinates yet."

"What the hell have you been doing?"

"Harvesting vurms. Do you vant some?"

"No. Get to the coordinates. Now. We need to know if they were the right ones."

"Ja, ja. On our vay over." Petrakun hit the com button again and shouted to his crew. "Ja! Now ve engage in fast stuff!"

Fylmyria
The gruff man on the comm shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'm surrounded by idiots." He seemed to be working on a rather massive piece of machinery, but as it was right now, one could not tell what it is he's working on. It does seem, however, that he is simply working on final touches. "BMU and scientists, get the ships and mechs and drones ready to go. We will be departing shortly." And we will have some of our best technology yet, he was thinking.

[The Great Devourer of All]

Supernova Remnant Nebula 168-B, Stellar Catalog 5173, Mapping Archive Sub-Library 18909724
A hulking crewman, clad in armor made from the patched-together skeletons of several of his most-honored fallen foes, turned around and spoke in his native Chakree dialect. Before the sound waves had traveled a centimeter from his mouth, the ship's ambient extra-dimensional computer system translated it perfectly, including grammar, syntax, and slang, into Humanic and eight dozen other languages, so that by the time his words reached The Consumer's ears, it sounded as if he had spoken nothing but Humanic all his life.
"We've gotta strong signal comin' in from about thirty light-years away, cap'n. Looks like a military ship, dun' she?" The Consumer reached out with his mind and read every bit of sensor data there was to be found throughout the entire ship in regards to the signal."
"Yes, I'd say it does. The signal's quite strong, too. It's as if they're trying to tell us exactly where they are and that they're who we're looking for." The beastly crewman grinned.
"So should we go teach 'em a lessin, sir?"
"Did you not just hear me, imbecile? It's obviously a trap. If the ship's damaged, they'd be shooting out a distress call at a more concealed frequency, and if it's in working order, they'd have little reason to introduce themselves to half the galaxy cluster, unless they were baiting a slaughterhouse with cow feed. Which they are."
"'Cow feed', sir?"
"It's a reference to an ancient animal. Long extinct. The point is, we're not going to fall for it, but we're not going to pass up a perfectly good kill. Send a message to the nearest fleet and tell them to spare a Carnage to send in at maximum warp, full cloak. Have it to uncloak and kill everything within a parsec of it, then wait for the trap to spring."
"Aye, cap'n." Uttered the beast, obviously disappointed that he'd be missing all the killing.
Six hundred light-years away, a Carnage-Class ship jumped into maximum warp, heading straight for the beacon and unaware of the trap that was to be sprung.

[Multiversal Venn-Copard]

Universe R0-[unintelligible]-8064
Continuum G
intergalactic space

"Alright, we have a confirmed jump signal. Drop the displacement generators and get us right in front of the bait!"

The six ships jettisoned a set of tiny red machines, each one rapidly aligning into a polyhedral position from which they let the fleet shoot off on an interception course, to make it to the bait-corvette before the Ravagery did.

Star System T25/4990.171

The carriers arrived first, forming a triangular position around the corvette. Aligning towards the incoming Ravagery battleship, they each released roughly twenty percent of their drones in elaborate hexagonal patterns to shield them from incoming fire (if any managed to reach them). The assault cruisers swiftly followed, taking up positions just behind ("just" meaning "a few thousand kilometers", given the size of interplanetary space) and arming their Harpoon-type mass drivers.

"Jump signal will reach our position in T minus three, two, one..."

Sometime between "two" and "one", all three assault cruisers fired one Harpoon shot each, directly forward towards the projected position of the jump signal. Each near-lightspeed, building-size metal cylinder carried enough kinetic energy to blow apart a large moon, and if the calculations were correct they would impact whatever arrived from its jump at the exact moment it slowed down into normal 3-space.

If they weren't, they needed to survive for about twenty seconds and then fire again.

[Fylmyria]

Space
Petrakun noticed that the ship's detectors picked up a rather large and powerful signal, so he steered his ship in that direction, the Space Worm just inching along until it arrived at the source of the strong signal. "Ve are just a very large vurm! No need for zhem to concern zhemselves. Let's observe!" So there, a random worm-like ship sat there. Watching. Waiting. Listening. For some reason that is known to nobody, Petrakun turned to the worm that was perched on his shoulder. "Vhat do you sink, Paul?" he asked. "Vhat do you make of zhis situation? Vill ve see a harsh battle? Vill ve get to blow sings up? Vhat do you sink?" As expected, the worm did not respond. A familiar tune could be heard. Petrakun hit the comm button and Grokov's voice was heard.

"What is your location, Petrakun?"
"I vill send you mien coordinates. Zhere is a large undt poverful signal eminating from zhis source. Vow. I feel smart just saying zhat. Anyvay, I'm at zhe source, but I vill vait for you before I do anysing, ja?"
"Very good. Wait for me. We're about to depart."

Petrakun then hit the comm button again and giggled. I'm going to have so much fun! he thought to himself. Strangely enough, the worm on Petrakun's shoulder, "Paul," nodded. Or, it seemed to nod.

Fylmyria
"Let's go," barked Grokov. "We've detected a large, well, beacon of a signal. We will meet Petrakun there." With that, Grokov climbed into his machine and then the machine straightened out, taking on a humanoid appearance, save for the fact it had eight legs. The machine was approximately 150 km tall and had an array of blasters and shields on it. Drones, mechs, ships, and Grokov all flew into space to track down the signal. "Petrakun's good for almost nothing," muttered Grokov to himself. "But at least he's a man of his word ... when he's not playing with his damned worms. Let's hope he doesn't screw this up..."

Grokov saw some flashing images on his screen. He pressed a button and saw the coordinates where Petrakun was and the surrounding area. He grimaced. "Oh greeat. This is going to be fun."

[The Great Devourer of All]

Solar System 1386-DG12
Just as the ship dropped out of warp into the system, three large projectiles slammed into its shields at near lightspeed, releasing deadly amounts of kinetic energy. It quickly released several dozen volleys of quantum torpedoes at the attacking ships and commenced evasive maneuvers. Its fighters shot out of their docking bays and shot towards the enemies at full sublight speed. A signal was immediately sent to every nearby ship informing them that a hostile VCMR fleet was firing upon a Ravagery ship.

[Multiversal Venn-Copard]

Universe R0-[unintelligible]-8064
Continuum G
Star System T25/4990.171

Well, that was unusual.

In the battle of Zylia Alpha, the VCMR had easily taken down scores of Carnage-class and similar battleships. This time, it seemed three hundred and sixty exatons of TNT equivalent just wouldn't do. In the meantime, there were still those... quantum torpedoes to take care of.

Rapidly activating and deploying millions of densely-packed drones in a matter of seconds, the three carriers in front formed thick protective shells around themselves using the tiny automated spacecraft. Wave after wave of quantum torpedoes slammed into the front lines, blasting apart thousands of the brittle AI ships, but the line held for the moment.

Except when a few of the torpedoes managed to slip past a gap in the drone-wall and hit a carrier's zero-point energy receiver, ripping it apart in a violent atomic explosion.

Wasting no more time after this disaster, the three assault cruisers fabricated new projectiles and prepared to fire again after twenty seconds had passed. Targeting computers were gradually locking onto the surprisingly nimble Carnage-class ship. In the meantime the huge drone-swarms split off into groups of twenty or thirty at a time, each group encircling and taking down Ravagery fighters with precision laser-fire. They actually had the advantage of numbers this time - millions against a few thousand - so why not use it?

[The Great Devourer of All]

Battle of System 1386-DG12
As the vastly outnumbered fighters started quickly falling under constant badgering by drones, the effects of the massive impacts from earlier were being felt on board the battleship. The shields had failed, the hull had eight fractures, and half of the quantum relays delivering messages instantly between the bow and stern had been disrupted or stopped permanently, causing the evasive maneuvers to become sluggish and the engines to falter occasionally, thus making it an easier target. Plasma leaks had caused rapidly expanding high-temperature fires on eighteen decks, and had already taken dozens of lives.

Interstellar Void
Several hundred light years away from the battle, picking up the distress signal of the battleship, a small fleet of eighty battleships quickly exchanged signals discussing strategy. Fourteen were to jump within the system to aid in the battle, and the others were to jump to the outer edges of the system's debris field to monitor the battle from there. If all went well, there would be no enemies left standing.

[Multiversal Venn-Copard]

Universe R0-[unintelligible]-8064
Continuum G
Star System T25/4990.171

The fleet commander didn't seem to be very worried, even when he was informed of a cluster of incoming signatures all over the system.

"Alright. If that's what they're going to do with us, we'd better leave as soon as possible."

After a few basic commands issued to the five remaining ships, the two carriers rapidly recalled their drones after they had eliminated all enemy fighters, and then launched themselves directly forward into warp, passing the Carnage-class ship on the way and shooting off back into intergalactic space.

The assault cruisers weren't so lucky. They were still aligned to fire on the Carnage, and lacking advanced FTL drives could not safely accelerate and leave. Instead they stayed behind and continued firing every twenty seconds, hopefully to take it down before anyone else arrived.

After that, they were fairly helpless, being unable to survive attacks from incoming ships on all sides.

[The Great Devourer of All]

Battle of System 1386-DG12
With the ship virtually inoperable and its transwarp drives offline, it was unable to protect itself from the next kinetic weapon launch, which completely obliterated its stern and caused half of the bow decks to depressurize before the sluggish computer could get the force fields up to protect a few of them from the vacuum of space. The transwarp core's containment field collapse when the explosion happened, causing an even bigger explosion to strip away the top layer of graphene from most of the remaining hull, which exposed the first layer of quantum circuitry to the vacuum of space and the intense radiation from the core breach and shutting down all power systems except emergency life support on two decks and the bridge. All of the fighters had fallen to the swarms of enemy drones, and the eight remaining torpedo bays had lost their sensors and were mostly facing the wrong way to fire at the only three ships left in the system.Somewhere in the remains of the ship, an armory exploded and two gigatons of low-yield weaponry ripped through the surrounding inner decks. On the bridge, the captain had been injured by a small plasma conduit explosion and was being treated by three panicked crewmen with a medkit as the first officer assumed command.
"Ensign, what systems can we still use?" Barked the new captain, who was sweating intensely from the earlier fire and the total loss of climate controls.
"Well, sir... not many. Sublight engines and FTL capabilities were obviously lost in the most recent impact, so we're down to thrusters which won't get us anywhere fast enough to avoid destruction. Our ansibles and receiver dish have both been damaged beyond use, so let's hope that someone got our distress call before we stopped broadcasting. We only have two working quantum torpedo bays facing the ships, and one has lost half of its torpedoes somehow. All of our shield generators are down and we've lost contact with nearly all of the ship, or at least what's left of it, and we're one of only three decks with life support. Radiation leaks, plasma fires, or open hull breaches are to be found on every deck. We've got the Captain's Yacht and six escape pods in working order, sir, but I doubt they'll survive for long if a Carnage-Class ship can't."
"Dammit. Do we have any armories left untouched?"
"Umm... yes, sir, but I don't see how annihilator orbs and positron charges will help us now."
"Of course you don't. Lieutenant!"
"Y-yes sir?" A somewhat startled Xanci male responded.
"Take half the bridge crew with you and load up the yacht and the escape pods with as many weapons fro mthe armory as you can. Rig the landing gears to open on contact with the VCMR ships' hulls, and wire them to a short-cycle detonation timer for all the explosives in there. Set the stocks of the firearms to overload once any detonation sequences are started within thirty meters. Launch all the vehicles at the enemies."
"Aye, sir."
"Now hurry, before we get hit again!" He shouted as another projectile speared the ship straight through the center like a kebab, causing the better part of two decks to be obliterated.

[Multiversal Venn-Copard]

Universe R0-[unintelligible]-8064
Continuum G
Star System T25/4990.171

The captain of assault cruiser A3 was already in action, plotting the trajectories of the explosive "projectiles" - apparently two or three at each of the stranded assault cruisers. Motioning to the gunnery crew alongside him -

"Point defenses are offline, sir."

A fleeting moment of panic crossed A3's captain's face - fleeting only because moments later the impromptu missiles crashed onto each assault cruiser and crumpled their bow structures into debris, disabling or destroying all of them in huge blasts of quantum reactions.

Unknown Elliptical Galaxy
Interstellar Space

Carriers R1 and R2 (a different R1 than had fought in the battle of Zylia Alpha, naturally - VCMR ships are re-numbered for each fleet), which had escaped the battle successfully, fell back into realspace from their jump. Sure, they had arrived a few parsecs away from the intended rendezvous point, but a slight miscalculation was better than getting destroyed by Ravagery ships.

Thankfully, someone had arrived to pick them up. A VCMR Leviathan appeared alongside the cruisers after its own jump from another universe, dwarfing them by a factor of a hundred to one and surrounded by its own protection fleet of dozens of Titans, dreadnoughts, and smaller craft. Its commanding admiral gave R1 and R2 a simple order:

"Regroup with Dreadnought E10 and connect your drone-links to its existing carrier support."

Falling into formation with the fleet, R1 and R2 were renumbered to R235 and R236 as the Leviathan's control systems allocated them to their new commanding dreadnought. Once fully connected, the newly bolstered fleet (albeit not by much) shot off into warp again, to regroup near a red supergiant a few kiloparsecs away.

[The Great Devourer of All]

System 1386-DG12
The intended reinforcements dropped out of transwarp just in time to see several escape pods and the Captain's Yacht of the Carnage-Class vessel explode, destroying the VCMR ships there. A few seconds later, they witnessed hundreds of crewmen tossed into the void of interplanetary space as the last remaining force fields failed and life support shut down, sealing the remaining bridge crew in an enclosed pocket of habitation with a quickly-draining air supply and a life-consuming vacuum just inches away from every door. They were beamed onto the new ships, which scouted out the area with medium-range sensors reaching up to a thousand light years away. After confirming that there were no VCMR ships in the immediate vicinity, they jumped into transwarp and regrouped with their fleet, which then shot off in the direction of The Consumer's fleet.

Globular Cluster 16-R
Surrounded by nearly two million stars in a sphere with a radius of less than two kiloparsecs across, the swarm of tens of millions of Harvester-Class ships wasted no time feasting upon the smorgasbord that lay before them. Stellar matter was sucked out of its host star by the hundreds of zettatons, and a death cycle that would normally happen over hundreds of millions of years happened in mere hours. Eventually the entire globular cluster faded from existence, and the swarm shot off in the direction of the next one, all the while beaming the energy directly to various ships throughout the galaxy. Similar processes were happening in globular clusters in hundreds of thousands of galaxies across the observable universe, feeding billions of stellar units of energy to the Ravagery's in-universe fleets and powering them for the next bout of fighting with the VCMR.

Unknown Pocket Universe
On board a relatively tiny space station- one only a hundred kilometers across- in a black void completely devoid of stars, a giant, somewhat recognizable organ the size of a mountain sat in an enormous vat of some form of faintly glowing blue liquid. This liquid provided the only illumination in a massive, dark chamber that took up the central portion of the station. A lone worker, encased in virtual reality and operating through a robotic proxy, hovered at a small, floating table just under a complex system of pipes. On the table sat a tiny dish of black, opaque liquid, about half a decimeter across and two millimeters high. A soft hum came from the system of pipes, and a few seconds later, a tiny droplet of turquoise liquid fell into the opaque substance and slowly spread out, leaving a liquid cloud of blue and green. The worker immediately sent a telepathic signal to the workers outside of the main chamber, alerting them that the Eldritch Brain had given them another stream of data. Although the droplet was small, it, like the eighteen other droplets delivered over the past two years, held trillions of wekabytes of data, most of which was unknown to the Ravagery and known only to the most knowledgeable of Eldritch entities. Only a tiny percentage of the first droplet had been sorted through, and the information gained had allowed the Ravagery to expand its holdings exponentially.

[Multiversal Venn-Copard]

Universe R0-[unintelligible]-8064
Continuum G
VCMR Primary Staging

It was surprising how many spacecraft the VCMR had managed to sneak into this universe over the course of two months. At this point, however, most of these ships had actually formed one cohesive group - roughly twelve hundred Leviathans total, plus the hundreds of thousands or millions of support vessels they required. Such a fleet required a monumental energy intake - and indeed, the VCMR had placed numerous zero-point energy generators throughout this universe, in inconspicuous positions around old, red-dwarf-dominated elliptical galaxies. For now, they had far more power than their fabrication and maintenance systems required.

The staging system was chosen to be a very large red supergiant star - almost ten AU across - to mask the immense energy signature of millions of life support systems and mass fabricators. Its few surviving planets had been vaporized using Lance-class mass projectors, and the plasma balls were arranged to form a "minefield" around the system's outermost asteroid belt.

The VCMR had two options from here: they could wait for a large Ravagery force to assemble and then launch a surprise attack directly, or wait for the enemy to come to them - and spring the trap either way. The swarms of Harvester-class ships currently encircling numerous star clusters and galaxies seemed like viable targets, but perhaps waiting a bit longer for more strategically important spacecraft wouldn't hurt.

[The Great Devourer of All]

Unknown System
A standard probe, about a hundred meters long, dropped out of transwarp about an AU away from a red giant star. It was on a run-of-the mill scouting mission, one of millions sent out regularly by the main fleet. It glided silently through the voids of space for a few minutes in peace, its sensors picking up no planets and no energy signatures other than some vague, scattered signals near the star's atmosphere, which it quickly labeled off as electromagnetic interference. Just as it was about to jump back to transwarp, it collided with an unknown object, bringing its shields down ten percent and knocking it off course into a field of millions of orbs of plasma, each exploding on contact with it. Within minutes, its shields had fallen and its hull was violently ripped open.

[Fylmyria]

Grokov had arrived at Petrakun's location, who was sipping some tea and watching the glorious battle unfold. Somehow, the giant robot space suit and the huge random worm went completely unnoticed. While chuckling about this, neither man bothered to question it. From within the suit, Grokov pulled out a bottle of vodka and took a single, long draft, watching the explosion of the two nations' spaceships going at it, breathing an inward sigh of relief that he isn't in the middle of that. Let's see how this battle unfolds, Grokov thought. Petrakun had stopped paying attention to the battle and began to sing a song while dancing with his beloved friend that is perched on his shoulder.

[Multiversal Venn-Copard]

Universe R0-[unintelligible]-8064
Continuum G
VCMR Primary Staging

A frigate positioned near the edge of the system was the first to notice it - some sort of Ravagery scout ship had arrived and impacted the minefield, and although it was destroyed the Ravagery commanders probably would have taken note of it. The VCMR's disguise wasn't quite foiled yet, but they had to be a bit more careful from here on out. VCMR ships across the system extended tracking arrays and deployed interstellar navigation beacons to try to triangulate the direction of the scout's origin and discern whether was any significant threat. The trap had yet to be readied, but they had plenty of time to organize a careful attack - or defense, whichever ended up becoming necessary.

Additionally, a pair of frigates were selected from the fleet and sent on a fairly covert mission to identify this unknown "Fylmyrian" space vessel - perhaps they could establish some sort of reasonable, intelligent discourse.

If only.

[Fylmyria]

Unfortunately, Petrakun was still too busy singing and dancing, so he did not notice. Fortunately, the man in the giant suit certainly noticed. He kept his eyes (and sensors) very much fixated on the two VCMR frigates in case things got ... rough. Unbeknownst to anybody save for himself, there was an emergency button within the suit that would call forth an army of drones if things went south. Granted, Grokov simply wanted to drink his vodka and watch the mayhem unfold, if the fight came to him, he'd leave nobody standing if he could help it. What do these bastards want ...? he was thinking.

[Multiversal Venn-Copard]

Universe R0-[unintelligible]-8064
Continuum G
unknown location, near Fylmyrian vessel

The expeditionary commander (although two frigates can hardly be called an "expedition") seemed somewhat confused when he encountered the wormlike vessel and heard the music blaring out onto comms.

"Hmm. It's going to be a bit difficult to gauge their technological capabilities - I suppose the best option here would be to actually try to greet them normally."

Commander Antog-P3
Frigate F1, Expeditionary Group 155-9701-1661373
Venn-Copard Multiversal Republic (VCMR)

Greetings, unidentified spacecraft. Your presence in this universe has been noted - thankfully, you seem somewhat aware of the events occurring around local galaxies, and of the VCMR's battles against the Ravagery. We wish to inquire about your civilization and this spacecraft's purpose here. Any information would be greatly appreciated, provided the transfer of it is safe to our crew. You seem rather fond of music, but we would much prefer if any discourse was performed using normal speech.

Accompanying this message was a hyperradio-transmitted packet of data about the VCMR (including its basic culture, scale, and technological capacity), which had an encryption based on hyperspatial navigation equations to verify that the crew of the Space Worm were not merely pre-spaceflight pirates who had hijacked the craft.

That was a distinct possibility at the moment, actually, given how little the VCMR knew about the Fylmyrians.

[Fylmyria]

Petrakun looked at the frigates rather amusedly. "SNOOPINGAS USUAL I SEE!" he shouted out happily. Grokov marveled at the fact that nobody approached him, considering he was, quite literally, triple the size of the Worm. Petrakun giggled madly and opened the comm system. "Ja, I'm Petrakun, undt I like zhe vurmz. Zhe vurmz are awesome. You should meet Paul! He's mien best friend undt ve sing togezher all zhe time! Paul is also a kung fu mashter. Ve have lots of fun sparring against each ozher. Vhe have zhe greatest vurm-tech you vill ever see. Vurm-tech of interomniversal destruction. Zhat is a sing, yeah? I don't know anymore. Anyvay, vhat do you vant to know? Ve have lots of sings ve can share undt stuff. Do you like mien Vurm? I made it myself!"

Grokov let out a groan of sheer annoyance. "There's a reason I dislike working with this blithering idiot. Khais save me ..." He did get his hands on the blasters in case the frigates started attacking the Worm, but Grokov couldn't exactly say he'd be sad to see Petrakun go. Petrakun, to Grokov, was as annoying as a swarm of gnats and was as dumb as a shovel. Especially when he started his god-awful singing.

Petrakun seemed to be enjoying the attention, but his crew was all on guard at their battle stations, just in case things became hostile. Petrakun, clearly, didn't plan for this. He could be seen very clearly munching on a taco and petting his best friend that was mentioned before, Paul. To most people, Petrakun seems like someone that belongs in an insane asylum (even though he kind of should), but he was actually being serious about what all Paul could do. The worm stared at the frigates as if studying them.

[Aeiouia]

The Aeiouian Void

During the time that has passed since now and the earlier events of the Omniversal conflict, not much had changed for the Aeiouians. This was really saying something, considering the fact that time passes unimaginably faster in the ruins of the Aeiouian home realm compared to everywhere else.

Using this immense amount of time, the Aeiouians continued their reconstruction efforts. Which, even for an empire led by an unimaginably powerful Eldritch entity, is a time consuming process. The action of destruction always takes far less effort than the action of creation, of course.

In the Aeiouian Void, the group of gigantic beings continue sitting around, doing very little while their automated systems handle all of the rebuilding duties. In the background, the giant improbable radio plays a thankfully normal sounding (At least for the time being) tune inexplicably through the vacuum of space somehow.

Still sitting at their usual places like last time, the blue-haired entity turns to her friend, the retired Great Devourer, pointing out something on what appears to be a tablet computer of sorts. Though, further investigation would reveal that it is actually a starship, with the vessel's cloaking device acting as a "Screen" of sorts to function like a computer.

"Hey... Iris, I vas snooping, and I'm detecting vhat I think isht Petrakun's ship. I think I'm going to go say hi to him and Paul. Vant to come?"

"Ehhh... I'm kinda' busy right now. Maybe later.

The Devourer entity seems to be typing away at the giant, ancient-looking computer from earlier. As always.

"Vell, zat's fine, I guess. I'll see you later."

"Oh, hey, tell Petrakun and Grokov that I said hi for me, would ya'?"

"Ja, of course!"

The blue-haired entity seems to get up out of her non-existent "Chair", and activates some kind of strange FTL device to teleport away. She is joined by what appear to be two large Aeiouian vessels.

---

Universe R0-[unintelligible]-8064
Continuum G
unknown location, near Fylmyrian vessel

From a few million kilometers behind the wormy Fylmerian vessel, a colossal object teleports in. Despite being so far away, it still appears massive, giving a clear indication of its enormous size. The object bears the semi-humanoid appearance of the Aeiouian leader. In two of her four hands, she seems to be carrying what a lowly sophont would probably recognize as bottles of alcohol.

The abomination eventually speaks over a transmission:

"Heeeeyyy! Grokov! Petrakun! How's it goings? Isht zis vhere ze party's happening? I see you've got schome good musics going, so I'd assume so, ja.

I brought schome vodkas if you guys vant any!"

[Fylmyria]

Petrakun turned to the blue-haired starship. "Ooh! Mia! So glad you could join us! Zhese people at zhe VCMR vant to know about Fylmyria, so I'll tell zhem all about me undt Paul!" The worm perched on Petrakun's shoulder seems to wave, but this is, of course, impossible, as the worm is but a worm. "Vhat have you been up to, mien friend? Vait, did you say you have zhe vodka? I VANT SOME OF ZHAT!" He giggled madly again. "Zhat vill definitely help vhen I go to harvest more vurmz. I like vurmz. Zhey're cool. Hey! People of zhe VCMR! Do you like vurmz? If not, zhen ve can't be friends."

Grokov opened communications with the giant entity. "Ah, hello, Mia. Thank Khais you're here. Wait ... oh [radioedit]. Now we have, essentially, two Petrakuns." With this, he downed literally three quarters of a bottle of vodka in a single draft. Clearly, Grokov was trying to get drunk. He turned back to the VCMR frigates, unsure what to do about them. "I kinda want to test my Disruption tech on these guys, but they haven't been hostile toward us yet, so I'll have to save that for another time." Then, he turned back to Mia. "What brings you here?"

Petrakun could then be seen dancing to a catchy tune with Paul and a bottle of a strange Earth drink in a 2-Liter plastic bottle. The drink was a greenish-yellow and had something to do with mountains. He also had, on a table in front of him, a bag of strange, orange triangles. Further analysis may be necessary.

[Multiversal Venn-Copard]

Universe R0-[unintelligible]-8064
Continuum G
unknown location, near Fylmyrian vessel

It seemed the Fylmyrians were debating whether to start a fight, so to prevent misunderstood intentions the pair of slightly-intimidating three-hundred-meter-long VCMR frigates retracted as many weapons as they could.

However, the situation was complicated significantly by the arrival of the Aeiouian "spacecraft". The VCMR had heard of the Aeiouians before; supposedly they were involved in the First Omniversal War, long before the Multiversal Republic was established. What was most surprising was the set of radical differences between the two omniversal empires. Where Aeiouia favored defense tech, the VCMR overspecialized in weaponry. While the Aeiouians were mostly computers and trans-sapients, the Venn-Copard were unmodified. A low-population "utopia" against an expansionist regime. Energy chainsaws and spacecraft-gun-arms against orderly sheets of drones and mass-driver rain.

The differences seemed startling, but perhaps they could establish some sort of peaceful contact. All standard diplomatic protocols would be followed as normal; there were no exceptions for the unusual situation at hand. The expeditionary commander sent a second message, this time to everyone involved (both Fylmyrians and Aeiouians), accompanied with the same data packet as before.

Commander Antog-P3
Frigate F1, Expeditionary Group 155-9701-1661373
Venn-Copard Multiversal Republic (VCMR)

It appears we have not yet received a formal response. We have resent our data and hope for an expedient reply - this time from both of your civilizations. We have no hostile intentions here, and are only inquiring as to yours. Once you are ready to respond, do so in an organized and straightforward manner. The VCMR, after all, is at war with the Devourer's "Ravagery", and is not currently in a joking mood.

[Fylmyria]

Grokov sent a message to the VCMR ships as well, cursing inwardly at the entirety of the situation. He loathed having to do this, but he saw no other choice as Petrakun was, as usual, singing and even if this were not the case, Petrakun would muck everything up. Therefore, Grokov, from within his suit, sent over a small compilation of information and the following message. It is to be noted that he was quite irritated when sending this as he hates international communications.

BMU Leader Grokov
FSS-002 - Battle Suit MK-IX
Fylmyria

I do apologize for the idiocy displayed by my associate. Attempting communication with Petrakun is akin to attempting to talk to the sun: It does not work. Ever. Unless your sun is either sapient or created by a technical genius. Anyhow, Fylmyria has no intention of taking part in this fight. We enjoy sitting on the sidelines, only striking when provoked. Our policy has always been "Never start, but always finish." You strike us, we will annihilate you. You leave us alone, nothing will happen.

Included in this message are a few things about Fylmyrian tech levels, but we will not disclose any material that would give you an advantage if we come to blows. To be perfectly honest, this is a vacation for me. If you have any questions, you may ask, but do not always expect an answer.

After knocking back the remaining quarter of his vodka bottle, he impatiently waited for the VCMR to respond, half-expecting to be dragged into a battle because of Petrakun's idiocy. This has happened a great many times in the past and he was expecting this to never end. The song was beginning to get on Grokov's nerves, so he ceased communication with the Space Worm and began to play his favourite song.

---

OOC: If you have questions about Fylmyria, simply telegram me.

[Multiversal Venn-Copard]

Universe R0-[unintelligible]-8064
Continuum G
unknown location, near Fylmyrian vessel

It appeared the Fylmyrians did not want to be involved in the multiversal conflict brewing between the VCMR and the Ravagery. So much the better; the Fylmyrians seemed fairly threatening, but fighting two wars at once if they turned against the VCMR was not very appealing. Having received the information they were looking for, the two frigates respectfully turned away and fired up their FTL drives, leaving Grokov and the Space Worm on their own, as they had requested to be on the sideline anyway. Hopefully ending the communication here would be good news for the seemingly impatient Grokov.

Commander Antog-P3
Frigate F1, Expeditionary Group 155-9701-1661373
Venn-Copard Multiversal Republic (VCMR)

As you have indicated, the VCMR will be better off leaving your vessel alone for the time being. Please be cautious in the upcoming days or weeks; the war is rapidly proliferating across this universe and it might be difficult to stay here safely for much longer. As a civilization of at least class-12, you should be in an acceptable position to defend yourselves, but we feel it is necessary to warn you anyways.

We thank you for your cooperation.

VCMR Primary Staging

The pair of frigates filed back into position in the fleet, which was using the unusually quiet time to refill its drone bays and ready itself for any threat that may rise up. More reinforcements were on the way, from the occasional cruiser all the way up to the great Leviathans, but it was entirely possible that at the moment the VCMR could find themselves actually outnumbered.

If such a battle ever happened, that is - and it wouldn't be the last or greatest, given how persistent the Ravagery seemed to be.