Keisarraik: Legacy of The Swarm Wars

[Techoligia]

RDF Research Division, Reykjavik, Iceland.

“So you’re telling me that you stole TELEPORTATION TECHNOLOGY from the Fins?” Shouts Heerfuhrer Schuler.

“Jawohl sir! We can use it to teleport you and a contingent of Techolori Rangers into Cogsport Palace. There’s already a massive uprising in Narilland and Cogsport over the Battle of Rurstadt. Father has stupidly decided to remain in Cogsport Palace.” Responds a RDF informant.

“How large of a contingent are we talking? I know the Unions will have our back if TechSoc tries to respond but there’s no telling how well guarded the Palace will be.”

“Twenty including you.”

“Alright, prepare the teleporter and bring me my Pistol.”

Throne Room, Cogsport Palace.

Father Engle sat in the throne used by every king of Techoligia. He always thought he deserved that kind of power. His thoughts were interrupted by a flash of light. After the light subsided he was met with a man in a Dark Blue officers uniform, complete with greatcoat and stahlhelm. His chest bore many medals, most notably the Steel Cross of Techoligia and the Swarm Wars Veteran’s Medal.

Engle froze. He scrambled for his revolver but only found a man in a leather trenchcoat and stetson. A Ranger.

“How many TechSoc leaders did I kill before I died… Far too many to count. I’ll give you this chance to lay down your weapon and surrender Engle. I’d even be willing to not kill you and merely put you under arrest for treason by breach of the constitution.” Klaus smiles as he pulls back the slide on his vintage Sig. Sauer P320, on the side were two crowns and several Hammer and Sickle emblems. Engle’s shock turns into a look of defeat as he looks down the barrel of Schuler’s gun. He could hear the fighting outside the room slowly quieting down, the sound of gauss rifles lessening but the sound of lasers and rifles growing.

“Fine, Schuler. You win. Just let me do something first.” Engle sighs out, before reaching for his pistol and aiming it at Schuler. As he tried to pull the trigger Klaus fired and shot him in the chest. As Engle slumps over Klaus draws his knife and starts carving another hammer and sickle.

[The 1337 CR3W]

The Dictator picked up the Mk. II Fire Gauntlet from the ground. This one was much better -- according to his readings, it had drawn 3.68 million joules of energy to heat the air by 1,500 degrees Kelvin. Furthermore, that heat had been contained by a powerful magnetic field. Good thing, too, otherwise the tech would have lost his hand. The Fire Gauntlet would be fine, though, it was made of a combination of tungsten carbide, aerogel, and trace amounts of Swarmite, so it could take that kind of heat.
The Dictator remembered when he'd tried to use one of these. The power output had been an order of magnitude greater than what they expected for reasons they were still trying to understand. That had utilized so much energy that his batteries were nearly drained, and it created a ball of high-energy plasma contained in a roiling magnetic field -- effectively, he had made a star the size of a cantaloupe.
Then, the magnetism had EMP'd his arm, deadening the Gauntlet and causing the plasma to explode outwards. Were it not for the well-timed use of a different magical device -- one that generated planes of force, and was used in this context as an energy shield -- he probably would have been disintegrated. As it was, he'd lost an arm.
Good thing that spare parts weren't hard to find.

[Much, Much Later]

The EDHSS Battlestar waited beside an asteroid rich in iron that, combined with the stealth systems, hid them from both the Swarm and the Suongo.
They had been ordered to lie in wait, reporting back on enemy movements. Truth be told, the Battlestar was probably overkill for such a mission -- who's idea was it to use a massive warship carrying fighters and enough firepower to kill a small country for a scout?

They got there just in time to see an Athenian ship pick up a Suongo escape pod -- apparently, that was the only survivor. Out of the Athenians' view, a few Swarm ships were making the same play the Battlestar had come up with: hiding behind iron-rich asteroids.
The ship had received specific orders in this case to wait. The new Dictatoress had commanded them to remain hidden -- if the Athenians got themselves killed, well, wasn't there a war against them going on not too long ago?

"Alright, captain. We have made contact. We will remain here and survey the situation until we receive orders to the contrary. Sensor decks are fully staffed, but most of the crew is in their quarters, since we won't be-"
The captain scowled. "No. All hands to battle stations."
The navigational officer was confused. "...Sir?"
"I know our orders... I know them well. I have fought the Swarm side by side with the capitalists before, and I know that we cannot beat the Swarm by ourselves.
Besides that, we cannot just stand and let innocent people die because of politics. Tell me, soldat, is that what you signed up for?"
"...no, sir."
The captain broke their scowl and adopted a vampiric grin. "Then I think our course of action is clear."
Turning around, they activated the PA, addressing the entire ship.
"I know what we have been ordered to stay behind and not fight. To survey the Swarm, as they might have new abilities. But I signed up for the Star Navy to fight the Swarm. I watched them as they came to Earth. I saw as my family died - slaughtered, before my eyes.
And I will not be kept from destroying these abominations by that LITTLE BLOND TOAD!
Now, men: LAUNCH FIGHTERS!"
There was a second of silence as everyone aboard the ship steeled themselves for what they were about to do. But the response, shouted by dozens of voices, couldn't have been clearer:

"Yes, sir!"

[Finswedeway]

OOC: that raises an interesting question; could robots use magic that requires ki?

I'll just leave you with that.

IC:

Rei Unaki, concentrated on a point in front of her. A few meters ahead, there stood a training dummy used by young elites for target practice. She held out her hand, and pictured holding a ball of electricity the size of an apple. With ease, there was a sustained manifestation of energy in her had. It floated just above her palm, over the small blue light which seemed to project the energy like a hologram. But it was real. She felt her hair stand on end as it was pulled towards the ball of sparks through static electricity. Thankfully, she had cut it to a shorter length beforehand to prevent something awful happening.

Hesitating, Rei draws her right hand closer to the ball, picturing it being transferred over with ease. The ball of sparks seemed to convulse, as if ready to burst. Steady on, she continued to move her right hand to her left. The ball shook violently, still confined to her hand. It shrunk as her other hand approached, before she eventually completely put her hands to gether, like a really slow, quiet, and nervous clap. She let out an audible "huh?" She opened her hands, holding both out. In her bare, right hand, there was the same ball of electricity that she had summoned. It had an odd weight to it, almost like a baseball, though it may have just been a side effect of fatigue from using the Matkens Handske. She closed her hand into a fist, aimed at the training dummy, and made a swift throwing motion. The dummy bursts into a ball of hot plasma and steam almost instantly, she could feel the heat tear at her skin a bit like opening an oven just as your meal is done.

As fast as the ball reached the target, the dust settled and Rei could see the burning remains of the dummy scattered around the courtyard.

[Techoligia]

All transmissions from Techoligia, both T.V. and radio, are interrupted by a live speech.

The Heerführer stands at the podium in front of Cogsport Palace. His Dark Blue Greatcoat fluttering softly in the wind.

"Citizens of the Fatherland both here and abroad, those who escaped the brief but unbearable tyranny brought on by Father Engle and his secret police. You may rest easy now. Early last night a special forces group of myself and many brave Teckolanders broke into Cogsport Palace and killed the traitorous swine. I request to those who have fled to other nations to finally return home. However, until the TechSoc menace has completely been eliminated, a Temporary Government led by me and several high-ranking members of the RDF shall be overseeing Techoligia. Our first priority after the threat has been eliminated is to follow in the steps of the great Cincinnatus and hold elections for the new Bundesrats. That is all."

[Evil Dictators Happyland]

OOC: that raises an interesting question; could robots use magic that requires ki?

I'll just leave you with that.

OOC: I actually worked out how magic would work if I were to write the setting.
Grab the popcorn, this might be a while:

How I figured magic should work is that the magic-user focuses their willpower on an individual effect they want to produce, thus (if they can draw enough power) that effect comes true. Using something with specific physical structures can assist the process by making it easier to manifest This is why things such as the Fire Gauntlet/your lightning glove/those staves with those carvings in them exist, as they make it easier to channel that energy.
As for what "magic" actually is, "magic" would be the manipulation of bio-electricity in order to further manipulate other energy -- specifically, the planet's magnetic field, as it would probably be easy to convert magnetism into other forms of energy. Hell, we do that ALL THE TIME with technology. That's how power plants work. (Also, since you're screwing with electrical and magnetic fields, you're effectively generating a small EMP every time you cast a spell, which is why magic and electronics wouldn't get along under most circumstances.) But I digress.
In addition, your ability to do magic would be affected by your personality -- if you greatly understand the forces at work, you have an easier time directing energy to get something done. Those magic-users are called wizards. If you believe your powers are coming from ancestor spirits/gods/God/technology, your faith in that bolsters your willpower, making up for a lack of understanding with raw brute force, though doing so will leave you tired. It would also be affected by something called a "soul": the sum total of all your life experiences has a level of weight, and the ability to make decisions of your own free will makes magic easier (I'll figure out why that is in a bit). That's why sentient machines (the Dictator, for example, and by extension all true AIs) are capable of using magic, but non-sentient machines (most lab equipment, as the biggest example) are incapable of it.
And I also would like to explain the note in my post about "power output being an order of magnitude higher than expected". Since your ability to do magic is tied to your ability to express free will, and the Dictator is effectively a council of the ten greatest leaders we could get our hands on each expressing their willpower over every decision, each one contributes the same power level as any other novice mage, provided they choose to contribute that power. IC, they don't know that. All the Dictator knows about this is that the last time he tried to cast a spell, he blew his arm off. I just wanted to note that, while he certainly COULD be a powerful mage if he tried, he's not even going to consider using magic himself until the Godzilla Threshold is met, as well as why that is.

[Finswedeway]

OOC: that raises an interesting question; could robots use magic that requires ki?

I'll just leave you with that.

snip

we only have one glove, and it is currently implanted into Rei. It works by inserting itself into the nervous system with dozens of small needles and channeling the user's "ki" as a certain someone who shall not be named referred to it. This is why it probably can't come off unless Rei suddenly becomes extremely adept at using it; it would be like trying to take the shell off of a turtle, you could do it, but you would likely kill the turtle in the process. Considering she is very faithful in the Dao of the universe, it is likely that her ability to use the glove is solely derived from that faith. That would also explain the great amount of fatigue she feels after using it, like you said.

The glove mostly derives its power from the imagination of the user. You picture the thing happening, and you suddenly feel the strength to do it yourself. So far, she is able to reliably and consistently move with extreme speed, and summon and sustain a manifestation of lightning in her hand. She has, one or two times (like the time that assassin tried to kill her), been able to start an extremely hot flame in her hand, and amplify her strength to superhuman levels. However, it is all very tiring and not very reliable. IC, she knows she is capable of much, much more, but probably won't experiment more until she knows with certainty that she won't drop dead in the process. OOC, she isn't actually at risk of any more than getting a REALLY bad magic hangover. Also, the simple act of wearing it increases your lifespan by a good 100 years at least, but she doesn't know that yet. I imagine removing at this point it would feel like how superman feels around kryptonite.

we only learned of this because a certain former monarch made it known to Rei, and it's not who you think.

Rei then gave the order to devise a contraption which could channel the abilities so that someone who wasn't born with the natural affinity to do so could. So far, it's gone smoothly, but she doesn't know that it really doesn't work that way. It only allows people to use it if they have a certain percentage of magic capability in them, Rei is one such person, and that capability comes from her faith. The Pope could probably use the glove, but your local priest probably couldn't. Until we make another glove, which will be a while, she doesn't know this either. I've decided to list the pros and cons of both of our versions of magic based on my current knowledge.

Eastern Glove:

Pros:
Capable of anything you can imagine, within the bounds of the laws of physics
Definitely won't blow your arm off
Easy on the eyes

Cons:
It probably won't work on you
Really bad headaches
Once you put it on, it probably isn't coming off

Western Glove:

Pros:
An egalitarian: can work on anyone
No headaches, probably
Slides right off

Cons:
Only capable of a few things
Side effects may include: loss of limbs
Disturbingly pure black, strange to look at

Can't wait to see if the Techolanders or Athenians come up with something cool or original, preferably not another magic glove. Those Techo long doods were pretty cool.

[Techoligia]

"So Von Cogsport what am i looking at?" Klaus crosses his arms. In front of him was what looked like a normal 19 year-old female in a Greatcoat and helmet.

"Well it's our newest advancement in combat technology! This is RK-8, but the scientists and brass have nicknamed her Erika." Von Cogsport smiles. "There are male versions but Erika was the only one not in testing. Good morning Erika!"

"Guten tag Herr Franz!"

"You see they look like your normal soldier until they actually get into a battle situation. Erika, show Herr Schuler what you're capable of." Erika nods and turns towards a bunch of dummies. There is a small whirring as her right hand reconstructs into a small plasma cannon, the top of the left wrist pops out a few inches and a large energy blade materializes. Erika points towards a dummy and fires the cannon, burning a massive hole into it before rushing into a group of dummies, moving elegantly as she slices off their heads. When all of the dummies are ruined the weapons retract and Erika bows.

"You've outdone yourself this time, Franz."

[Techoligia]

The sound of a Techoligian Swing band flows from a nearby radio. The Heerfuhrer is back in Von Cogsport’s lab.

“I’m sure you didn’t invite me here just to listen to die Swing-Brüder, my friend.” Remarks Schuler.

“O-of course not sir! The boys in cybernetics have come up with something you need to see.”

Von Cogsport presses a large button and a formerly opaque tube turns transparent, revealing something similar to an exoskeleton core. Klaus could easily wear it under his normal uniform unlike most other suits.

“An Exoskeleton, Franz?” Klaus frowns.

“Not just any Exoskeleton, we call this one der Teslasanzug. Remember the weapons we put on Hochmanner? You know what? Go ahead and try it on. I’ll put it on for you but you’ll have to remove your coat.” Klaus nods and removes his blue coat as Franz walks towards him with the exoskeleton core. He places it on Klaus’ back. When the little device hit his back, it stuck to him with several small hooks and extended four mechanical extrusions. Two thin mechanical arms attached themselves to the back of his arms, strange gloves wrapping around his hands. The other two were legs that clung to the back of his normal legs. He felt a crackling from the gloves.

“This exoskeleton could allow you to jump to the top of a two-story house and lift almost a thousand kilos. Clench your fists.” Klaus nods and clenches his fists and feels the crackling intensify. “Now make a throwing motion.” Klaus throws a curve, watching as a large bolt of electricity flies from his hand. He clenches his other fist and throws another bolt. “Now press your fists together and then separate them.” Klaus punches his fists together and as he pulls them apart his hands are engulfed in electricity, large blades made of pure crackling electricity forming from the lower forearm. When he performs the action again they dissipate.

“Franz?”

“Yes Klaus?”
“Keep this up and we’ll be the most feared fighting force in the world. Not even the massive army of the Happyland could stop us.”

[Pax Athena]

N7i and Yohan Li was visited at the middle of the night by the head of the Division of Divinity, an obscure branch of the government, existing for god knows how long, yet not even in the public records, perhaps even erased and redacted.

Over the crackling fireplace, the tranquil, starlit night, and several cups of Earl Grey tea, they discussed recent developments.

"So, you're telling me that this ability is limited to people born with the specific genes?" N7i queried.

"Somewhat like that sir, but you can develop a less powerful version for the ordinary". The dark, bespectacled, almost mysterious man answered.

"Let's try the powerful one first. Get the army, individually test any you find promising. I'm giving you top level clearance."

"Thank you, sir."

The man left the room into the moonlight.

As the door closed Yohan immediately spoke, after quietly listening in the corner for the past 30 minutes.

"Statistically speaking, there should be quite a few thousands at least, in the army that can use this "ki" thing. What're you going to do with an army of supernatural corpsmen? And more importantly, what are those other nation superpowers going to do?"

"Those other nations were creative in thought and genius in implementation, but now that we've got the schematics, we can expand on their, shall I say, rather limited scope."

"What do you mean? I'd think controlling the laws of physics itself is a rather massive scope."

"Yes, but what if we have, say, several thousand soldiers, collectively pouring their ki into a single, monumental effort?"

"Ah."

---

"Jason, mind telling me what the hell we're doing here?" Rupert, a young recruit of only 21 said.

"No cocking idea. Not like we were given a choice."

The two men, and indeed, some 3 thousand others were led into this ivy covered wreck of an old air force base, now overgrown with trees and moss.

The man over the loudspeaker (they still use loudspeakers in 2182? Jason thought) told them to hold their hands up and some bullshit about being specially selected.

They held their hands up.

---

"Gauntlets connected! Reactors report 100% transmission efficacy!" The electrical engineer shouted over the whirring, some 2 kilometers away from the air force base in a fortified bunker, with a rather large energy fixture aimed at the lush mountain overlooking the air force base."

"It's ready! Tell them to do it now!"

The head of the Division of Divinity went to the loudspeakers, giving a set of instructions, telling the unfortunate recruits what to think. Telling to believe, completely and utterly.

---

N7i watched as the mountainside was completely blown apart from his vantage point, in a massive cloud of falling trees and dirt, he was stunned, as was the other three thousand people, in utter disbelief as to how their belief that the mountain would be destroyed actually did cause it's destruction.

"You know sir" Yohan started, impressed. "What if we could make more of these. Supersoldiers capable of manipulating the laws of physics, but specifically trained from construction."

"But Yohan, if we optimise a synth for this very purpose..." N7i said, intently watching the spectacle of the burning mountain. "Then they might not have free will, and that's a trillion Amogots wasted.

Yohan was similarly enthralled by the visuals. "Well, then, we can simply reactivate the cloning program. Get the DNA of those who are strongest in faith and indoctrinate from birth."

"I don't want to be overthrown by a popular revolution, so keep it under wraps. It'll be massively unpopular if someone leaked this."

[Evil Dictators Happyland]

In an underground base at a classified location, a few monitos lit up and started beeping.
Normally, that wasn't worth noting. Stuff like that happened all the time in labs like this. But this lab, at this time... that was special.

The scientists stared at the readings, not believing their eyes. It was minutes before they responded.
"Sir! Massive power surge from the Athenians!"
The chief scientist was skeptical, as always -- why they'd sent him to govern one of the arcane research labs, he'd never know. "I can SEE that. There's a gigantic map on the screen pointed at a landslide. Why did we pick this up, and why should we care?"
"Because that power surge is magical in nature, and of an immense scale.
You see, sir... up until five minutes ago, that was a mountain. Now, it would barely qualify as a hill."
It didn't take them long to decide on a course of action.

Messages flooded in from all the magical research labs, detecting an immense neutrino power surge. The Dictator didn't bother reading them past the third -- they all said the same thing. Massive power surge from Athena destroyed a mountain.
The Dictator pulled up a calculator and some geographic data and tried to figure out the scale of the power they were suggesting. The calculation told him that there was a power output of over 500 kilotons of TNT, or around a quarter of the power of the strongest nuclear bomb ever used in warfare. Another calculation showed him that, assuming average data, there was a total strength of over 15,000 spellcasters, even accounting for the specialized machinery they were using to augment its force. Large foci were more efficient than small ones, such as the glove -- that was why they were making Project Shiva, after all -- but that didn't change one simple fact.
This was too high.
There were only 1,500 people there, tops. These mages were ten times as powerful as they should have been.
He redid the calculations, and got the same impossible result.
How? How had they done it? Was there something he had missed? Some variable, unaccounted for?
Well, this was literally magic we were talking about. It seemed to break the laws of physics anyway for a long time, before the magnetic field manipulation (MFM, or マ₃) constant had been discovered. It was possible that there was simply something that had been missed... but what?
He thought for a moment. Perhaps the 伝₂ constant was to blame here. Perhaps it was 学₅. No matter.

He disconnected his right forearm, setting it on the table. After the last one had been severely damaged, a modular redesign had been created.
Naturally, there were some new attachments.
He picked up one of them. It was a rough ovoid shape, with electronics at one end and a crystal lens at the other. Inside were a delicate grouping of ferrocrystal structures, designed to focus magnetobiodynamic energy ("magic") into a certain shape and form.
He attached it to his elbow, and the diodes on sides lit up. A HUD window flashed on.

[INITIALIZING...]

[INITIALIZATION COMPLETE. AUTHORIZATION COMPLETE. DOWNLOADING UPDATE 1 OF 2,844...]
[ESTIMATED WAIT TIME: 14:44:01...]

The Dictator scowled. "It can update later. I wrote half those patches, I know that I don't need them for a test drive."
He pointed it at the target object -- a bust of his psychotic predecessor. He focused on destruction, and a beam of energy sprung forth from his hand.
The ray of ultraviolet energy would have been invisible to a human. The ensuing firestorm as the laser collided with the air would have been much more noticeable were it not for the fact that the testing chamber was held in a vacuum.
As it was, the beam struck the metal head. The dull gray was swiftly replaced by a bright glow.
The Dictator held the beam on his target, focusing all of his anger and rage on it. His vision turned red, and he was pretty sure it wasn't a UI improvement.
Slowly but surely, the man's features were distorted. The Dictator widened the beam, covering the man in wrath.
The Dictator's vision went white as the UV rays blotted out his ocular sensors. He shut off UV detection, and the light went away, treating him to the view of an expanding orange glow.
Satisfied, he shut off the beam. A pool of molten tungsten had collected on the floor, and the room had heated to over 300 degrees Celsius. The old Dictator had been decapitated, his omnipresent longcoat the only thing remaining, and even then, the collar had been cut off. There was even a hole in the concrete wall over four feet deep, drilled in under ten seconds.
As soon as he could get the thing to work, he radioed in. "Testing successful. It seems your suspicions were correct. Proceed with the Project after you finish calculating output."
He sent them the video.
Now, there was nothing to do but wait.

[Finswedeway]

OOC: Guess it's my turn

IC:
"Guess it's my turn," Rei muttered, reading a report from N7i.

---

Rei enters a dark room, under the Old Imperial Palace of the ruins of Olizha and right next to a degraded marble statue of Hinri Zhen, lit only by the glow of her glove. The room smells of swamp and rotten wood; though she can't see more than a few inches in front of her, she feels a presence. She calls out into the darkness, "you wanted to teach me something?" The echo of her voice is much greater than the compact feeling would imply. It's as though she had just shouted into a ravine, but she had no recollection of any caves under the Old Palace.

She keeps her guard up, slowly advancing into the darkness, feeling around for any walls and making sure every step is safe. The old wood creaks with every step. She eventually bumps into a wall. Surprised, she feels around for any button or switch that may turn on a light. The wall is remarkably smooth, like it was just added in with new wood. She feels some bumps on the wall at around head height. Rei runs her hands over the bumps, realizing it was braille. "2h y," it read. Immediately as she thinks that, the wall disappears, like it fades away, revealing a dilapidated wooden wall. Her hair sticks up on the back of her neck, there was most certainly someone behind her.

Her glove shakes violently, as if to alarm her of something, though it was a bit too late to sense the magic force behind her. She remained still, as the figure slowly approaches. The wood creaked with every slow, painstaking step it took. Rei felt slow, calm breathing down her neck, though the footsteps were a good few meters behind her. The room lights up with an orange glow, and the crackling of a flame echoes through the room. She turns around quickly and pictures a magic ward in front of her. A blue ephemeral barrier appears before her just in time, as a fireball is thrust her way. The flame dissipates against the ward, and its blue glow revealed a hooded figure, much like the assassin sent before. The bulky figure continued to approach, not at all reacting. It summons another flame in its hand and thrusts it at the barrier once more. The ward shatters into pieces with a satisfying glass breaking sound. The assassin sends another flame, much hotter, Rei noticed, as she narrowly dodges the attack. The flame disappears before it hits the wall behind her. She summons an electric ball of plasma between her hands. It grows in size, as she lifts it above her head. Rei walks forward and slams it boldly into her attacker. The once compact room seems to expand greatly, as a once gentle breeze coming in now howls through the dungeon. The plasma dissipates, revealing the figure to be crouching down with no sign of having ever summoned a ward. He stands up, his large figure seeming larger than before. Before Rei can react, he winds up a kick and launches her across the room, though she wasn't sure if it was the kick or some other magic thing. She is slammed into the wallThe figure walks over and grabs her by the collar, lifting her up with ease. He summons a light which hovers to reveal his face. The face is of an aged man, no younger than 60 in appearance. He speaks in a rough, booming voice, as though he once smoked long ago but quit.

"You've gotten better" he laughs, "but you still have much I must teach you." Rei glares back, feeling weak and limp. Her breathing is labored, heavy and exhausted. Suddenly, she feels reinvigorated. With a sudden burst of energy, she grabs his large hands, and kicks him right in the jaw. He drops her, stunned but still laughing. In a fashion comparable to Vegeta's fighting style, Rei launches a flurry of lightning attacks in rage and anger, not realizing she was hovering in the air. The barrage is unending, and when she finally tires, she drops to the ground like a rag doll.

Her vision fades from the fatigue, though it was already very dark, as she hears jovial chuckling and the smug words, "so very much to teach you."

[Evil Dictators Happyland]

Two soldiers stood in the training hall, each on circular platforms that were thirty feet away from each other and five feet in diameter. They both held wooden staves inscribed with no less than 800 symbols shown to enhance magical power.

They had been instructed in how to use telekinesis, and both had practiced extensively in how to use magical force to push objects. Further, they had been taught how to use counter-spells to stop their opponents from using their magic, and if done correctly, even gave a small power boost as energy was drawn into the counterer.

Their commands for the battle were simple: knock their opponent off the platform. First one that hits the ground loses.

They each spent a few seconds preparing themselves. Roland, the one to the west, was the first to move. He feinted with a telekinetic push, followed with a powerful slam.
Dalen, the one to the east, saw the feint for what it was and stood their ground, dodged the slam, and used a push of their own to sweep Roland off their feet, knocking them off balance.
Roland stood back up and unleashed a flurry of force pushes comparable to a non-lethal machine gun. Dalen, creative as the tests had shown, used telekinesis to harden the air in front of him, creating a weak (but more than adequate) shield.

The two both took a step back, sizing up the situation. Roland seized the initiative, creating a hammer-shaped plane of force that struck Dalen in the chest.
With a look of surprise, the normally-adept mage was catapulted off the platform, gone from view.

Exhausted, Roland fell to his knees. Victory was his.
He took a breath, peering at the opposing platform.
Odd. Dalen was nowhere to be seen.

Concerned, Roland checked around. They hadn't left, the door always beeped when someone opened it. So where were they?

His train of thought was interrupted by the sound of laughter emanating from across the room. Roland whirled around, lookin at Dalen's platform again, and there he was, hovering four feet off the ground.
Roland didn't have time to process this before he was struck by a telekinetic uppercut, sending him flying off the platform and crashing into the padded floor.

Dalen's laughter subsided into a subdued chuckle as he offered his hand to Roland. "You know," he said, "I always thought that specifying you had to hit the ground was something of an intentional design flaw. 'Cause, really, you train someone to move objects with his mind, and you bet the match on the idea that he won't think to move himself with that?"
The two of them smiled at the idea. "You know, Dal, maybe they DID think of that, and this was a test to see who thought of it just as much as anything else. Suppose I lost in that regard, though. Even though we both know that I'd destroy you in any fair fight."

The coordinator noted the results. She spoke into the log: "Results have continued the noted pattern. Send in group... 45A, is it? Yeah, it's 45A. With any luck, this'll be over by next week."
And like that, the 1,115th group filed in and prepared for combat.
The Happyland didn't start this arms race, but they weren't going to lose it.

[Finswedeway]

The ruins of Olizha were still, the silhouette of Latitude Mk I stood above it all. Rei walked through the broken streets, her face concealed by a hood. She reached the center of the old city, a statue of Hinri Zhen miraculously survived the blast which leveled the city stood proud next to Latitude. Just below it, the trapdoor to her new training facility. She opened it telekinetically with ease. Looking into the dark abyss, it seemed that the man who was tutoring her had made some changes to his abode. She summoned a barrier which lied flat on the ground, sat on it gingerly and let it hover her above the air. She rode it gingerly into the dark dungeon. After a long descent, she reached a large, familiar looking room lit by many candles along the walls. She hopped off the ward and landed softly on the ground.

“Hello”

“Hello there”

“Good afternoon”

Three identical voices greeted her. Rei looked around, on one end of the room stood the figure of her tutor and two copies of him.

“First of all,” Rei stepped forward, “Why are you three people?”

“That’s for another lesson” Said one of the clones.

“Okay, secondly,” she continued, “what would you have me call you?”

“Pardon?” Said another one of the clones.

“Your name. Do you have a name?” She repeats, not sure which one to look at.

“Ah, yes,” said the middle clone, the others disappearing into him. He walked to her, proudly puffing out his bulky chest, “I am Hinri. Hinri Zhen!” Rei’s eyes widened, after what she has seen, it wasn’t too outlandish. She immediately bowed respectfully. “Oh, no need for that, miss. I hold no titles any more, and I have no desire to. I simply teach those who come to me.” He glances at the glove, “Though it seems that wasn’t necessary, in your case.”

“Pretty neat, right?” She shows off her glove, sparking a small flame in her palm then extinguishing it. “One of your descendants, and my predecessor, taught me of the secrets of your family. I assumed you knew?”

“No, ma’am,” he says humbly, sitting down in a chair which seemed to have come out of nowhere. “I’ve been here this whole time. I know not of the outside world. There was a rather large… cannon of some sort, which fired some time ago. All of my students are around three years late to their next lesson.”

“Yeah, the city’s been destroyed for about that time.” Hinri looks to the ground.

“Oh.”

A pause.

“Well,” he says, returning to his usual jovial attitude, “there is no time for such unfortunate subjects! It is time to be educated!” The moment he says that, the room expands around him and Rei into a large court of sorts. Hinri stands up and claps his hands. “The other week, you demonstrated your abilities to me very well. Now we will begin to test the limits of these abilities, we can worry about surpassing them later.”

“Okay…” bewilderedly says Rei, overwhelmed by the ease with which Hinri can manipulate his surroundings. Hinri summons a cup of wine in his hands. He throws it into the air, where it hovers daintily.

“Now, please retrieve that for me.”

“What? It’s too far, I can’t do that!” Hinri looks at Rei’s clothing, the outfit of a Prussian general, her Iron Flash medallion dangling from her neck.

“You seem to be of a military kind. How could you achieve such a rank with that kind of attitude?”

“Fair enough.” Rei says, trying to grab it telekinetically. She sees the glass shake slightly, but it seemed to be out of her reach. Hinri sits back down, gauging her ability to learn on her own. Rei remembers her ward upon which she flew. She summons it, but Hinri snaps and it shatters into pieces.

“Come on, now,” he calls out, “no cheating!”

“Damn you,” she muttered. “Okay then, some other way.” She thought of her previous encounter with Hinri, recalling her final moments of consciousness in which she hovered from the ground. She closed her eyes and pictured projecting her energy from under her. She opened her eyes, and she was a few feet off the ground. “Hey, I did it!” She exclaimed excitedly, before losing focus and falling back to the ground once more.

“Try again,” Hinri says, hiding his surprise, “not everyone gets it right the first time.”

-

Rei reached out, trying not to lose focus. She firmly grasped the glass of wine, almost dropping it. She laughed with glee, floating many feet above the ground. Soon after, she noticed she was falling, having lost her focus. She fell to the ground with a hard “THUMP” the glass not long after shattering into bits. Hinri breaks out in laughter and applause.

“Very good!” He says, holding another glass of wine, “That concludes the lesson, come back later for another.”

“That’s it?” Rei asks, rubbing her forehead. Hinri holds out his hands, and her bruises fade away.

“It wouldn’t be any fun if I just taught you everything at once,” he says defensively, “Besides, you must first comprehend and meditate on your new knowledge before continuing. You will be a much better fighter if you practice one move a million times than if you practice a million moves once.” Rei groaned in frustration, but understood. “Now,” he says, his hand in a fist, “get out of here”

Before Rei could react, Hinri had cast some odd spell on her and her vision became dark. “Are you going to do this every time?” She tried to say, before falling to the ground, unconscious.

[Pax Athena]

The HMSS Vanguard, nearly invisible in the interstellar sunlight, masking it's trail with, ironically enough, swarm stealth technology snuck up upon the Swarm gathering around Jupiter. After destroying a detachment composed of an Athenian battlecruiser and a Happylandian Carrier/Battleship (strangely quickly, considering both of these ships were sufficiently powerful to level nations) in the outer reaches, the Swarm's grand fleet strangely stopped at Jupiter, for whatever reason.

No matter. The captain thought. For they were about to witness the fruition of the culmination of extensive magical training, combined with the most precise and refined amplifier ever installed on a ship. The indented cigar shaped ship quietly increased it's orbit, aligning with the Swarm gathering at a range of 500 km with constant, identical velocities.

The thousand mages on the ship, trained day and night for such a purpose, focused with mighty and intense concentration, their minds becoming one, unifying into a single grand purpose, for they had been selected because the Swarm had costed them, for example, by killing their families. Intense hatred should provide for a calculated 5 Megatons of sheer power. The captain watched in anticipation.

"No effect, sir." The commsman said.

"What?" The captain replied, dumbstruck.

"We have detected nothing, sir." The commsman repeated. "Nil. The Swarm ships are not reacting. No explosions or anything of the sort."

"...you mean to tell me..." The captain said, confused. "That the collective power of one thousand mages had no effect on these ships?"

"Seems so sir." The helmsman suddenly looked alarmed. "Sir! The Swarm have detected us! It must've been the magical energy we were releasing, because they are on a beeline towards was!"

"Emergency retreat!" The captain shouted as the ship swiveled to rear, activating it's 28 engines. "Call for the Happylandian detachment at Saturn for backup. Inform the Happylandians reinforcements! The swarm are apparently immune to magic."

Finally, the captain called for the mages again. "Tell them to scatter that asteroid into shrapnel, break it into pieces!"

While magic did not seem to work on the Swarm, on the asteroids it did, as the interplanetary rock was broken apart into millions of lethal fragments.

"Soldiers! To arms! Fire positronic lasers!"

If they weren't going to make it out alive, the captain will make sure that they won't go without a fight.

[Finswedeway]

Oh yeah, the swarm. I forgot about that.

IC:

"We've got word from the Athenians!" called out one of Rei's Admirals. Rei set down her cup of tea, rising from her seat. The admiral rushed into her office holding piece of paper in his hand. "Read this," he said, shoving it onto her cluttered desk. She picked the paper up, read it and set it down gently. She was silent for a moment.

The admiral braced himself, waiting for it.

Suddenly, she exploded and the room shook slightly, "WHAT?!"

[Techoligia]

The Admiral of the Grand Void fleet sat in the new TSC Klaus Schuler. Fitted with new EMP torpedo arrays, hundreds more lasers, and new point defense systems, the new 3 kilometer long battleship hovered near its Spaceport of call. As he sipped his coffee he noticed a Pax Athenian ship on the sensors, seemingly fighting something near the Asteroid belt. He quickly opened comms with ground command and notified them. Time will tell what the response will be.

[Finswedeway]

"Back so soon?" The booming yet gruff voice of Hinri rang through the air as Rei stood before his statue. The voice had an odd echo to it, as though it were in her head. "You should be meditating on what you have been taught."

"This is an emergency," Rei said modestly, "I must speak with you." Hinri sighed, as a strange purple light began to glow from the statue. A black portal had opened up before her. She had also noticed that the trap door was gone.

"Come in, then." He said. Following orders, Rei reluctantly stepped through the portal and immediately emerged from the other side in Hinri's training room, lit by candles and lightly furnished. The portal closed behind her silently. "Now, lass, let's hear it."

"I have a problem," she says bluntly, "and you can help me fix it."

"I have no time for such petty nonsense," Hinri scoffs, his wrinkled brow furrowing.

"You don't understand, our lives are at stake." Hinri raises an eyebrow, but says nothing. Rei continues, "There is a... I don't know how to describe it. A great evil, an insurmountable force coming our way. Before, they were brutes, savages, but they have advanced greatly. Their only goal is to destroy us all, and I am worried we can't stop them."

"Are they the Mongols?" Hinri asks, not sure what she's talking about.

"Well, that's not too far off. But these are worse. We call them The Swarm, and they come from the stars above." She continues, trying to use terms he would understand. "You are immensely powerful, and I am confident you can help us stop them."

"Forgive my intrusion, but it must be made known to me." Hinri says, his usual archaic phrasing becoming more noticeable, "who is your liege?"

"I... I rule the people of Suosverge," Rei responds, "I serve them as they serve me."

"May I have your name?"

"Rei Unaki."

"Rei, what makes you think that you can not stop them, these beings from the stars?"

"We have... fought The Swarm two other times. One of the times, our people were almost wiped out. The other, we thought they were gone for good. If they are coming back again, they will come in greater numbers and strength. Your help will be needed." Hinri takes two steps back, holding flames in his hands.

"Very well. But, if I am to help you, you must prove that you are worthy of leading our people to victory."

---

OOC: will write more later, I'm tired.

[Evil Dictators Happyland]

OOC: Forgot about the RP.
Oddly, it's because I was too busy wondering where the RP was going to go.
*sigh* Ain't ADD marvelous?

IC:

"Ma'am! New reports from the spy fleet!"
The Dictatoress frowned. They should have reported in hours ago.
"Very well. What did they learn?"
The man speaking to her shuffled nervously. "Well, ma'am, that's just it. Their initial report came in some time ago, but we thought it best not to show it to you until future information presented itself."
He handed her a piece of paper. On it was a picture of the Dictator Mk. V giving his trademark sarcastic salute, with a piece of text reading 'BITE MY SHINY METAL ASS.'
Her hand trembled with anger as she read it.
"Apparently, ma'am, they disobeyed orders and attacked the Swarm fleet in an attempt to save the Athenians. They fought for sixteen hours straight, before running out of ammunition and reaction mass. The... The predictable result then followed."
She closed her eyes. "How many did we lose?"
"Well, we're still holding out hope that lifeboats might have made it out, but-"
"No. The Swarm wouldn't leave them alive. How many soldiers were on that ship?"
"...623, ma'am.
There's one more thing I think you should know.
Recently, the Athenians tried to use an arcane cascader based in a spaceship to attack the Swarm. Despite having power roughly equivalent to a mid-range nuclear bomb, the attack had no effect. The ship took heavy damage, but we think it survived."

There was a minute's pause as she processed what was happening.
"So, let me get this straight. A ship, calculated to be capable of destroying most of New Zealand within the span of an afternoon, disobeyed orders and was destroyed trying to save our enemies.
Well, I think there's only one thing left to do. We distract the proletariat from this... I think I have just the idea for what to do.
Then, we launch Project Shiva."
"Pardon me, but what's Project Shiva?"
"Oh, nothing much. It's the last project made by the old Dictator. I think it should prove... adequate to the task."

<Later...>

Recently, all forms of religious worship were banned in the Happyland by the Dictatoress. Interestingly, no one was particularly surprised by this -- the government has always had anti-religious beliefs, and it was at best a matter of time before something like this happened.
Those who do follow religious beliefs have a grace period of three months to renounce these beliefs or they will face weekly fines until they comply.

<Later...>

[INITIALIZING...]
[YOU ARE ACCESSING THE CONTROLS TO PROJECT SHIVA.]
[ORDERS? (Y/N)]
>y
[SYSTEM CHECK IN PROGRESS]
[CONTROL SYSTEMS... ONLINE]
[WEAPONS SYSTEMS... ONLINE]
[FOCUS SYSTEMS... ONLINE]
[AUTOREPAIR SYSTEMS... ONLINE]
[SHIELDS... ONLINE]
[THRUSTERS... ONLINE]
[ESCAPE PODS... ONLINE]
[ORDERS?]
>launch/combat/return/~588,000,000
[ORDERS ACCEPTED.]
[DESTINATION?]
>2462.2674.9862/jupiter
[DESTINATION ACCEPTED.]
[DEPARTURE ESTIMATED TO BE WITHIN TWELVE HOURS.]
[ARRIVAL ESTIMATED TO BE WITHIN TWO WEEKS.]
[RETURN ESTIMATED TO BE WITHIN FOUR WEEKS.]
[DO YOU HAVE ANY FURTHER COMMANDS? (y/n)]
>n
[ACCEPTED.]
[GOODBYE, DICTATORESS.]

<Twelve Hours Later...>

The secret Happylandian base buried underneath the lunar surface fell quiet after its hours of activity. The soldiers aboard the new warship strapped themselves in, preparing to take off.
Their augmented reality displays came to life, showing a map of the ship together with a countdown, ticking down from three hundred.
Five minutes, then they would be off.

8...
7...
6...
5...
4...
3...
2...
1...
SYSTEM CHECK COMPLETED.
FAILURE IN THE AE-35 UNIT DETECTED. DEEMED IRRELEVANT, REPAIRS INITIATED.
ALL SAFETY GUIDELINES MET.
PREPARE FOR TAKEOFF.

A low roar was heard throughout the ship as the sixteen engine banks awakened. The time dilation fields flickered to life, reducing effective timeflow to 10% of normal, effectively making the ship ten times as fast.
It was still slow -- there was only so much temporal physics could do to make three million tons of metal move faster than it was already moving.
But it would get there. It would take time, but it would get there.

[Techoligia]

The TSC Klaus Schuler and the rest of the Techoligian Void Fleet has been deployed to dispatch the Swarm threat. Making up the fleet are the Klaus Schuler itself, 2 Narilland-Class Supercarriers, 5 Cogsport-Class Battleships, 10 Askarii-Class Battlecruisers, 30 Mitte-Class Cruisers and hundreds if not tens of hundreds of fighter drones and bombers.

The Admiral of the TVF sits on the bridge of the Klaus Schuler, situated in front of the Carriers but behind the rest of the fleet. Ahead on the sensor reads the massive Swarm fleet. They were almost within laser range.

“Ready the main cannons!” Shouts the gunnery officer. “One shot, one hit. If we miss we die!”

The ships entered range. Their lasers and the Schuler’s Ion Cannon had a far longer effective range than the Swarm’s energy cannons, or whatever the eggheads called them.

“Feuer Frei!” Shouted the Gunnery officer into his microphone. The Admiral relays the order to the rest of the fleet. The massive Ion Cannon fired first at the largest ship. You could see the lights of the enemy ship fade away as the blast hit. “Full power to the engines, everyone! For the Fatherland!”

The fleet went into full power, some of the smaller ships almost ramming Swarm vessels as they ‘broadsided’ them with lasers or plasma. The battlecruisers launched their EMP torpedos and the Carriers launched their fighter and bomber drones. One hole into a ship’s crew section would destroy at least some of it, which is why Techoligian ships had a layer of empty space between the crew sections and the armor of the ship.

The Swarm, however, did not have this luxury. If a shot pierced the shields something was gone. What the Swarm did have, was far more ships coming around from behind Jupiter. Far more than the now almost-destroyed detachment the Techoligian Fleet had slaughtered. They had destroyed at least a hundred ships if not more, but for every ship they destroyed, there were four more coming to reinforce.

“Finish off the last ships in the detachment and call for everyone to pull back home.” Ordered the Admiral.

“Yes, sir!”

[Evil Dictators Happyland]

<Two Weeks Later...>

For the soldiers on the ship, the journey had taken the better part of a year. For the rest of the universe, it had been a mere fifteen days.
They were finally there.

The captain called to his soldiers. "All hands to battle stations!" Something of a joke amongst the crew. There were only about twenty people aboard the ship, and most of them were maintenance staff. The rest of the ship was operated by combat AI -- pseudo-sentient artificial intelligences programmed with knowledge of the full capabilities of Project Shiva and a single command:

DESTROY.

The cannons readied themselves. There were too many to count, but the computer architecture -- a state of the art Novem Astra line hypercomputer, capable of simulating the entire war if given adequate commands (or even, maybe, playing Sonic the Hedgehog '65 And Knuckles without lag, but everyone more or less agreed that that was impossible).

The Swarm fleet before them knew that they were coming. Project Shiva had stealth systems, but a three million ton vessel shaped like an armless squid was more or less impossible to disguise.
They arrayed themselves in standard stellar combat formation -- a hemisphere, taking advantage of the three-dimensional nature of space combat to expand the arc of fire.
It mattered not. Their fleet was impressive -- over eighty ships in total, some of them quite large -- but they were a mere paper tiger in front of a storm.

>THREATS DETECTED.
>SCANNING...
>87 TARGETS TOTAL. 12 IDENTIFIED AS TL8, ALL OTHERS RANGE FROM TL3 TO TL6.
>TARGETING...
>INITIATING COMBAT PROTOCOL 14.

The cannons roared to life, showering the enemy ships in conical laser rays, heating the ships' armor to over ten thousand degrees, starting with the strongest and working their way down. The Swarm ships were durable enough against heat that they could survive this just fine. Techoligian lasers were more powerful than that, anyway, and even those failed to destroy these things as fast as would be preferred.
But the lasers did serve their own purpose.
Overloaded with heat, the Swarm ships were forced to shut down and vent heat -- a safety precaution so that the crew wouldn't get cooked by an overconfident captain pushing their vessel too far. One by one, all the enemy vessels stopped in their tracks, only carried out of their formation by inertia. Every one of them intact -- maybe some circuitry blown, but nothing too major.

Only stopping to zap the occasional ship that started to move again, Project Shiva moved in, using its robotic arms to grab hold of the Swarm vessels and load them into a cargo bay. Once there, they were besieged by a small army of robotic marines, killing the few alien crew left while leaving the ship nearly undamaged.
Once they were done, there lay eighty-six alien ships in the cargo bays. One had self-destructed before it could be captured -- a heroic move under any other circumstances, but an annoying one at worst in these.
Once there, they were deep-scanned and analyzed for any new systems. Several were noted. Among them was an array of strange symbols carved into the armor plating. The arcanotech algorithm was stumped as to what they did, but the resident mage theorized that they functioned as a sort of magical Faraday cage. They were too melted to be well replicated, but the designs were copied and sent back to high command for further analysis.
The rest of the technology was mostly undamaged, but there was nothing new there. Interestingly, the computer systems, which had previously never been recovered intact, were fully intact in seven of the enemy ships.
What secrets do you hold...?

[Pax Athena]

A wild, grey haired bespectacled man, looking rather ragged slammed into the door of N7i's office, demanding to be let in, looking panicked and frantic. He was, of course, one of the strategic analysts of Lunar Command, but one would not glean that knowledge from this apparently mad scientist.

The man entered the room after some banging, being let into the warm yellow sunlight reflecting off the limestone walls, where several ancient paintings were seemingly glaring rather judgementally at this rude man who barged into the room.

"Take a deep breath," N7i started, "and have a cup of tea, Ernest."

"No time," Ernest panted. "Massive trap. Strategic weakness."

N7i was suddenly alerted. "What do you mean?" Where he stood up straight, calling for Yohan using his internal transmitter.

Ernest took the time to catch his breath. "I've analysed the fleet movements. The Techoligian Void Fleet, the Happylandian Shiva, the Suongo Grand Fleet. There's a reason it's deliberately stopped at Jupiter. This particular year, Jupiter is farthest away from Earth, while Venus happens to be at it's closest."

N7i raised his eyebrows. "And this is relevant because...?"

"Because all the fleets are focused at Jupiter, at least 15 days away from Mother Terra! Even the sensor array's focused at Jupiter. We are leaving a massive gap open on our back, which happens to be at Venus, about 2 days away!"

N7i was confounded. "It's not like they can invade from Venus. If they make any movement, then our concentrated lasers can detect it, and the Void fleet there can alert us."

"That's where you are wrong, sir." Ernest said. "We analysed the sensor readings from the wreckage at Uranus. Before he died, the captain of the Happylandian Battleship recorded sensor readings of the Swarm portal. We've determined that it exploits gravity well as... well, to use layman's term, an anchor. You see, while we do not know much about wormhole portals, we do know it is strongly dependent on gravitic fields as focusing points and to guide the pathing of the portal. Therefore, we've deduced from the sensor readings that the way their portal works is that anything large enough, say with a Hill sphere of a large moon, could be sufficiently... "heavy" to use as anchor."

"That means... they can travel anywhere in the solar system."

"Exactly."

N7i was stunned, and Yohan entered the sunlit room just after the dramatic pronouncement. "Did I miss anything?" Yohan queried.

"Yohan, fetch me Rei Unaki and Admiral Karl as well. We have a problem."

"Sir... I've also come to tell you some bad news. We, and by extension, the Happylandians, the Suongo, and the Techoligians have lost all contact with our respective fleets near Jupiter. Telescope sighting tells us that they are safe and sound, but 3 hours ago, we've lost contact. We are trying to use morse code, but that is limited by both length of message and the speed of light, and we suspect that didn't work: there seems to be some sort of gravitational light bending pseudo gravitational field directly between us and Jupiter, possibly swarm made. Our telepaths are looking to establish magical contact with the mages on the ship."

N7i was reputed to never swear, but now, this reputation proved to be an exaggeration. "

...Shit."

---

Ganymede, Jupiter

The captain of the HMSS Royal Sovereign fumed as his technicians reported that neither the Techoligians nor the Happylanders had any contact either. He was fairly sure that it wasn't either of them who jammed transmission, since this was of an alien jamming format, literally. The Comouter Scientists couldn't even make heads or tail of it. For instance, the program was written in trinary instead of binary, which put off efforts to fix the problem.

Either way, the computer systems escaped unscathed, and local communications with the rest of the fleet: some 500 light corvettes, making up for the very low firepower by their very high numbers, 23 heavy cruisers, and 15 carriers, each carrying some 80 fighter-bombers. The fleet was split into four divisions, each to attack the swarm fleet apat a different bearing, though heading at an identical point in space: supposedly where the swarm were.

A transmission from the Admiral filled the loudspeakers.

"Men, women, comrades! There is limited bandwidth so I'll say what I have to. I'll skip the patriotic chanting, for I know that all of us is driven by a common hate for the Swarm invaders who razed our homes and murdered our families in cold blood. Remember that, and let that guide you, for the alternative to extinction is to fight! Fight until your last breath! Until your death! Fight! If not for your country then for all of humanity! For we are the last barrier from these cold hearted bastards and certain extinction! So tell me comrades, will we cower away, waiting until the Earth is dead? Nay! I say we go, for all of mankind, for humanity! MEN! Battlestations!

The men and women steeled themselves, for they may die, but if so, in a glorious blaze of plasma.

"YES, SIR"

---

The HMSS Royal Sovereign led the vanguard of the Northern fleet, attacking the Swarm from the "north", for of course, there is no direction in space. Every direction is "down", and so they concentrated weapons aim "downwards".

The 4 carriers deployed their fighter complement, providing covering fire onto the advancing fleet of over 125 corvettes, and some 6 heavy cruisers providing the heavy fire.

Yet while they were in alleged swarm territory, the sensors detected... nothing.

"What?! Increase sensor strength!" The captain roared.

"Still no effect, sir" the Sensors Officer replied. "Increasing to 1.07 Gigawatts. No effect."

They continued muddling through swarm territory, still detecting nothing, mysteriously enough.

"But there is no way for them to suddenly move away! There are several hundred sensors focused on Jupiter!" The captain said, consulting the other captains in the energency staff meeting.

"It's gotten worse, we've lost contact with the other battlegroups. This smells of a trap." The captain of the HMSS Gravitas said, her face paler than ever.

"My comms officer has brought up something conspicuous." The aged captain of the HMSS Familias said. "We should've detected swarm ships by now. There is no way they can cloak in this sort of highly ionised environment: it would reveal them as quickly as a bright fire in the night. This also applies to our ships. According to the AI, we should've had encountered the Battlegroup East 13 minutes ago in all sensors and Battlegroup West 6 minutes ago, again in any sensor."

The pale captain of the Gravitas said grimly. "Perhaps the swarm's destroyed them."

"No, that's impossible, we would've detected a battle."

Suddenly, in all of the ships of Battlegroup North, emergency alarms began popping up.

COLLISION ALERT_COLLISION ALERT_COLLISION ALERT the alarm blared at 80 decibels: the maximum possible alert.

Evidently, one of the comms officers, looking through the periscopes seemed to have seen something, as in visually and not through arcane sensors (as post battle report indicates, this heroic officer was motivated to by a mage who seemed to have believed something was odd).

The first officer immediately took command. "ETA TO COLLISION!" he shouted.

"29 seconds, sir!"

The helm immediately shouted, "IT'S TOO LATE, SIR! WE'RE TOO CLOSE TOGETHER!"

The first officer shouted into the HMSS Royal Sovereign, and in addition all other in comms range's loudspeakers.

"ALL HANDS, BRACE FOR IMPACT!"

The Athenian Battlegroup South collided with the Battlegroup North at orbital velocities (having not detected either group, and essentially groping around in the dark while heading for the exact same spot: where the swarm was supposed to be. It was probably believed that they would encounter the Swarm before they encountered each other), which was thankfully slowed to a mere 129m/s by the heroic efforts of both group's substitute First Officers (the captains were all busy at the staff meeting).

The first casualty was at the vanguard, where the HMSS Martin Luther collided into the HMSS Royal Sovereign at 330 meters per second (since they didn't have as much time to slow down, for they were in the vanguard). Unfortunately, while the Martin Luther was pointed stright forward, the Royal Sovereign was in Broadside position, meaning that the Martin Luther slammed through the Royal Sovereign like a fast bullet, splitting the venerable ship, the Royal Sovereign which had been in service for over 59 years, continually retrofitted, in half and heavily damaging the structural integrity of the Martin Luther.

The centre of the ship happened to be the location of conference room of the captains, meaning that the entire command corps of the Cruiser and Carrier Corps were instantly killed in a burst of leaked plasma. 100 more were either incinerated by the plasma leakage or thrown into vacuum without a spacesuit. 350 more suffered severe injuries or death as the inertial dampener was immediately destroyed on impact, subjecting them to extreme G-forces.

Thankfully, the other First Officers saw fit to disperse the formation, and their helmsmen had much more time to adjust trajectory, minimising collisions. Either way, in an environment full of about 270 ships, collisions were still bound to happen, and a further 13 ships were destroyed that way.

Next came the unaware East and West Battlegroups.

---

By the time the Happylandians had recieved the distress calls, the dark side of Jupiter had turned into a small wreckage, with a few dozen corvettes and a quarter of the Cruisers corps wiped out. More disastrous was the deaths of the entire captain regiment of the East, North, and South battlegroups having been in the vanguard and therefore susceptible to collision.

Grimly too, the Happylandians, with the advanced sensors of Project Shiva also confirmed: there were no swarm in Jupiter. How they had escaped was a matter of mystery, and communications were still blocked.

In future days, this would undoubtedly be recorded in the annals as the largest military disaster since the invasion of Finswedeway.

But what was at question here was whether future days would exist for humanity.

---
HMSS Selene, Aphrodite Station, Venus
Happening at the same day as the battle of Ganymede

PFC Juncker hit the comms box frustratedly as communications had failed these past few days. The telepaths were trying to communicate but they only received panicked, incoherent shouting from the gathering of telepaths at Jupiter. And it couldn't come at a worse time, for they needed reaction mass for the reorbit burn as their orbit was decaying fast.

But then, a black void appeared out of the planet itself, darker than vantablack, absorbing light and emitting none in return. Juncker looked out of the windows in confused terror.

"Battlestations! Swarm ambush!" The Captain declared, as the corridors were being filled with red lights.

The alarms blared at 80 decibels, deafening many of the crew in the corridors.

Juncker was stunned. The Swarm. The thing that had killed his parents and driven him to join the navy. He unmistakably recognised the distinctive swarm ships.

The HMSS Selene, however, had the unfortunate privilege of orbiting right above the portal, and within 30 seconds, the lasers of several thousand swarm ships at the vanguard were focused on the HMSS Selene, leaving nothing but superheated plasma as evidence the Selene ever existed.

On earth, while infrared, visual, or any other sensor could not detect anything, mages all across Pax Athena, and possibly the other nations too, felt a collective sense of dread, and what they did not know for certain.

And the vast majority of Earth's fleet was at Jupiter. What was left defending Earth was few and meager, which probably did not soothe the mages' fears.

[Finswedeway]

A bulky, bald man, a similar frame to Victor Hermansson, sat at Rei's desk, standing as a regent of sorts while she is "studying." The man, a former decorated war hero, was careful not to mess with Rei's extremely unorganized mess of binders and folders strewn about the office. While reluctant to serve as regent, he accepted Rei's wishes as she had placed utmost trust in her military advisor, Puyi, to do it.

Puyi sulked in Rei's chair, told explicitly to keep the Suongo fleets at home at around a moon orbit should the Swarm get through the others - he wanted to send them all into the action, to show off the might of the Suongo Naval Legions. "What Puyi lacked in tactical expertise, he more than made up for in confidence," he once overheard the others of the advisor council say behind closed doors. It was then that he burst through said doors and slapped whoever said that, inadvertently proving his point.

News of a pair of escaped Elites were finally making headlines in Finswedeway. It seems that government transparency had some down sides. Puyi sat still, not giving orders, not ordering troops, not... killing anything. Frustrated, he stared at a live map of the scene around Jupiter. There were a few brave souls willing to be cartographers during the emergency, and they were the only signs of the Suongo contributing.

---
meanwhile, back at the plot
---

Rei was slammed to the ground, Hinri's brute strength too much to counter. She willed herself to get up once more and continue the fight, though she was certain a few ribs had been broken.

"I like your resolve!" He said, shrinking down to his normal size, which was still quite large, "you are a worthy leader, and I accept your position as my liege." Hinri kneels to the beaten and bloodied Rei, closing her wounds and mending her bones with the same odd spell used last time. Rei wipes away the blood from her lip.

"So," she says, letting him stand, "you're willing to help?"

"Quite so, but there is much I would still like to teach you."

"Not right now, considering our lives are at stake."

"Aye."

There was a pause.

"So..." Rei began, "have you ever seen Jupiter?"

[Evil Dictators Happyland]

The Happylandian Star Admirals read the reports about the Swarm fleets' strategy -- about how they were waiting at Venus for the human warships to take the bait and leave for Jupiter. Indeed, while the initial strategy had been to send Shiva out alone, for it was specifically designed for such a thing, most of the rest of the fleet had been sent out some time ago. They weren't there yet, and had all been ordered to turn around, but for some reason no method of communication worked. Radio, laser pulse Morse code, neutrino emitter, none had yielded any results. Even the experimental faster-than-light communication systems had failed, though truth be told, it was unknown if that was due to enemy interference or device failure.

Defending Earth was a skeleton crew: while the strength of the other militaries was unknown, there were sixty Happylandian warships of significant enough size to matter, all of them smaller than we would like, and most of them outdated, in need of repairs, undermanned, or all three. Efforts were being made to remedy this, by taking sailors from weaker vessels and assigning them to stronger ones, but at the end of the day, nothing could change that basic calculation. It was also fairly unlikely that the other nations had large enough fleets to stop the Swarm any more effectively than the Happylandians could.
The future was clear. The Swarm could not be stopped from landing.
The only thing left to do was make them pay once they arrived.

<In the orbit of Jupiter's moon, Europa>

"So, how goes the progress on cracking the Swarm systems?", asked Lars-52 to Roy the resident cryptographer.
The reply was the same as it had been every time he had been asked before. "Almost done."
Lars was unimpressed. "You've said that, by my count, 92 times. When'll you be done?"
Roy was equally unimpressed. "I've said it ninety two times because you've been asking me that every two minutes for the last three hours. I'll be done when I'm done."
"You've been sitting there waiting for your cryptography script to decode it for you. Why not do... something else, anything else, than stare at a screen."
The aforementioned screen flashed. Text reading "POSSIBLE MATCH DETECTED" scrolled across it.
Intrigued by this, Roy scrolled through the new documents -- a bunch of text files with some images.
He opened up the first one, labeled Cflyhae.txt, or, in human terms, Crusade.txt.
The first few lines were your standard military propaganda, nothing special there.
But the next few...
"Call the magical expert. They need to know this."

Excerpt from the contents of the decrypted Swarm document [translated]:

We have undertaken this holy crusade against the Solarians^[1], not because we hate them, but because of what they represent. While they are primitive now, still bound by their limitations, they seem to harbor vast potential -- potential they are only beginning to realize.
This potential comes from their aptitude for Klarana^[2], which seems to be beyond even our own. This heresy^[3] cannot be allowed to continue existing, as while they are no threat to the Holy Word^[4], they may become one in short order.
This is something that we knew when we made first contact with them all those centuries^[5] ago, and we attacked with zeal. But zeal is not enough to combat this evil, it seems, for our attempts to purge them from the once-pure multiverse failed.
Then, we struck again. We tried to destroy them, and we nearly succeeded. But we underestimated them, for even without their Klarana fully realized, they were somehow able to defeat our righteous warriors.
This time, we do not toy with our enemy. We do not show mercy. We give no quarter to these sinners, for they will give us none. We fight to kill, so that we may cure the multiverse of this sickness before it spreads beyond our control.
Knowing this, we have delgated control of the First Galaxy^[6] to our finest commander, and given him one thousand ships to use to annihilate these heathens.
With the power of Klar'ath'nala^[7], we shall destroy them, and give them the suffering and pain that they would inflict on the rest of the multiverse if they had their way.
<26 pages of irrelevant text not shown, as the rest followed the same theme.>
Footnotes:
[1]: "Solarians" is the best translation I can come up with for this. It's not a word I've seen before, but it seems to refer specifically to humans native to the Sol star system. Or, in other words, us.
[2]: This word doesn't really have a translation in either Happylandian, English, or Neo-Latin, and those are the only three languages I know. In this context, it appears to mean "magic", but it also can be used to refer to science and technology.
[3]: The word they used there translates most literally to "uncleanliness", and was previously believed to be a synonym for "dirty", but "heresy" fits better in this context. Updating the dictionary to include a second definition as soon as I can.
[4]: This seems to be what the Swarm refers to itself as. Apparently, they're very heavily motivated by religion.
[5]: Due to the fact that their first contact wasn't even one century ago, I theorize that the length of the year on the Swarm home planet is much shorter than the year on Earth.
[6]: The word they used there most literally translates to "galaxy". In this context, it seems to be referring to their fleet, but I'm not certain, so I'm using the literal one. I doubt that they are actually turning control of a galaxy over to someone -- for that matter, I doubt that they have control of an entire galaxy -- but I'm playing it cautious.
[7]: This is the phonetic pronunciation of a Swarm proper name. I think that Klar'ath'nala is their god (or whatever equivalent the things have) from the context, but I'm not completely sure. More research is needed.

[Finswedeway]

Rei walks into the Tower of Representatives, her trip with Hinri filled with "What is that?"'s and "What are those"'s. The two guards standing at the door salute her, and glare at the large old man.

"Oy," they stop him, "you's got a reason for enterin'?" The taller one asks.

"He's with me boys," Rei says, beckoning Hinri to her. The guards murmur, noting his strange, fish-out-of-water behavior.

"What were those sticks they held at their sides?" Henri whispers. Rei glances over, seeing the rifles they hold upwards.

"Hand cannons." She says, tired of all of the questions.

“That sounds incredible! I must see one fire!” They climb the tower, reaching the top floor where Rei’s office and personal quarters are. They walk through the office doors to see Puyi standing by the window, watching the city.

“Thanks for watching the place for me,” Rei says, plopping her things down on the desk. Hinri walks through the door behind her.

“Consuless, permission to speak?” Puyi asks, as Hinri looks, intrigued, at a lamp.

“Granted.”

“Who’s this, and why do I feel like I’ve seen him before?”

“He can speak for himself, I would think,” Rei responds, noticing how Hinri’s large frame barely fits in the compact and modest Consul’s office. Hinri looks up and smiles.

“Salutations,” he says cheerily, looking back at the lamp, “I’m Hinri.”

“Good morning, Hinri,” he responds. He looks at Rei, “Why is he here?” He whispers.

Rei responds out loud, “He will help us with our… infestation.” The lamp turns on and, out of shock, Hinri throws a fire ball at it.

“Oh.” Puyi says calmly, “Did you make another Matkens Handske?”

“No, but that’s why he can help us. He could probably destroy the moon if he really wanted to.”

“I sure would hope not.” Puyi says. Hinri looks at Rei.

“Can we get on with the saving of Jord*?” He says

“It would be too dangerous to send him to space, no?” Puyi says, “I mean, no matter how powerful he is, The Swarm could easily just destroy whatever ship he was on.”

“A good point. Suongo are better at defense, anyway. We will stay here should they get past the Happylanders and Athenians, which they will.” Puyi looks glum, like he’s missing out on the action. “It’s okay, Puyi, there will be plenty of Swarm to kill in due time.” The former General of Valter nods, still looking down.


*Jord is Old Awglikhan for Earth. It’s also the Swedish word for Earth. This word has fallen out of use in favor of the Latin-based Terra for reasons you probably don't care about.

[Evil Dictators Happyland]

With the Swarm attack on Earth imminent, the Happylandian military has activated Defense Plan XIII, using laser ablation techniques to blast a large percentage of its nuclear arsenal into Earth orbit, and from there using logistical spacecraft to attach them to a few of our more durable satellites. Once they come within range, we will launch an estimated 450 inter-continental ballistic missiles, refitted with mimimal stealth systems and a fly-by-wire guidance system. We doubt that it will stop, or even significantly slow, the attack, but if we can destroy even one of their capital ships, they are resources well spent.

In other news, aboveground cities are being evacuated to the countryside and other underground cities in preparation for attack, while the citizens of orbital colonies are being ferried to safe locations as fast as possible.
In addition, new systems are being put in place to defend cities from the Swarm anti-matter bombs that killed so many in the last wars. They function by using a connected network of hypersonic light gas guns to accelerate steel cones to speeds exceeding Mach 12, disrupting the projectile and breaking the delicate magnetic fields required to keep the payload stable, causing the bomb to detonate miles in the air instead of in the heart of the city. Time will tell if they will be accurate enough to work, but even if they aren't particularly accurate, they make up for it by having, in the words of the lead developer, "enough dakka".